The Corridors of Time

1

The guard said, “You got a visitor,” and turned the key.

“What? Who?” Malcolm Lockridge rose from his bunk. He had been lying there for hours, trying to read a textbook—keep up with his course work—but mostly with his gaze held to a crack in the ceiling and his mind awash in bitterness. If nothing else, the noises and stinks from the other cells distracted him too much.

“I dunno.” The guard clicked his tongue. “She’s a dish, though.” His tone was more awed than otherwise.

Puzzled, Lockridge crossed the floor. The guard stepped back a little. One could read his mind: Careful, there, this guy’s a killer. Not that Lockridge appeared vicious. He was of medium height, with crew-cut sandy hair, blue eyes, blunt snub-nosed features that reflected no more than his twenty-six years. But he was wider in chest and shoulders, thicker in arms and legs, than most men, and he moved like a cat.

“Don’t be scared, son,” he sneered.

The guard reddened. “Watch yourself, buster.”

Oh, hell, Lockridge thought. Why take my feelings out on him? He’s been decent enough.—Well, who else is there to hit back at?

Anger died away as he walked down the corridor. In the grindstone sameness of the past two weeks, any break was treasured. Even a talk with his lawyer was an event, though one to be paid for afterward with a sleepless night, raging at the man’s bland unwillingness to fight his case. So he gnawed the question of who this might be today. A woman—his mother had flown hack to Kentucky. A dish—one girl friend had come to see him, and she was kind of pretty, but that had been a morbid “How could you?” scene and he didn’t expect her to return. Some female reporter? No, by now the local papers had all interviewed him.

He came out into the visiting room. A window opened on the city, traffic noises, a park across the street, new-leafed trees and heartbreakingly blue sky full of swift little clouds, a breath of Midwestern springtime that made him doubly aware of the stench he had left. A couple of guards kept watch on those who sat at the long tables and whispered to each other.

“Over there,” said Lockridge’s escort.

He turned and saw her. She stood by the assigned chair. The heart jumped in him. My God!

She was as tall as himself. A dress, simple, subtle, and expensive, showed a figure that might have belonged to a swimming champion, or to Diana the Huntress. Her head was carried high, black hair falling to the shoulders and shimmering with a stray sunbeam. The face—he couldn’t quite tell what part of the world had shaped it: arched brows over long and tilted green eyes, broad cheekbones, straight nose with slightly flaring nostrils, imperious mouth and chin, tawny complexion. For a moment, though the physical resemblance was slight, he recalled certain images from ancient Crete, Our Lady of the Labrys, and then he had time only to think of what was before him. Half frightened, he approached her.

“Mr. Lockridge,” she said, not as a question, He couldn’t place her accent either; perhaps just a too perfect enunciation. The voice was low-pitched and resonant.

“Y-yes,” he faltered. “Uh—”

“I am Storm Darroway. Shall we sit down?” She did so herself, as if accepting a throne, and opened her purse. “Would you like a cigarette?”

“Thanks,” he said automatically. She flared a Tiffany lighter for him but did not smoke herself. Having something to do with his hands steadied his nerves a little. He took his chair and met her gaze across the blank surface that divided them. In some corner of turmoil he wondered what anyone of her appearance was doing with an Anglo-Saxon name. Well, maybe her folks had been unpronounceable immigrants and changed. Yet she had none of the . . . the humbleness, the desire to please, which that suggested.

“I’m afraid I haven’t had the, uh, pleasure of meetin’ you before,” he mumbled. Glancing at her left hand: “—Uh, Miss Darroway.”

“No, of course not.” She fell silent, watching him, her countenance gone expressionless. He began to fidget. Stop that! he told himself, sat straight, looked back and waited.

She smiled with closed lips. “Very good,” she murmured. Crisply: “I saw an item about you in a Chicago paper which interested me. So I came to learn more for myself. You seem to be the victim of circumstances.”

Lockridge shrugged. “I don’t want to give you a sob story,” he said, “but yes, that’s right. Are you a reporter?”

“No. I am only concerned with seeing justice done. Does that surprise you?” she asked on a sardonic note.

He considered. “I reckon so. There’re people like Erle Stanley Gardner, but your kind of lady—”

“Has better ways to spend her time than crusading.” She grinned. “True. I need some help myself. Perhaps you are the one who can give it.”

Lockridge’s world was tilting around him. “Can’t you hire somebody, Ma’m—Miss?”

“Some qualities cannot be bought, they must be given, and I have not the means to search deeply.” Warmth entered her tone. “Tell me about your situation.”

“Why, you saw the papers.”

“In your own words. Please.”

“Well—gosh—there isn’t much. I was headin’ back to my apartment from the library, one night a couple weeks ago. That’s in a kind of run-down district. A bunch of teenagers jumped me. I reckon they figured to beat me up for kicks and for what little money I had. I fought back. One of ’em hit the sidewalk and cracked his head. The rest made off quick, I called the police, and the next thing I knew, I was charged with second degree murder.”

“Can you not claim self-defence?”

“Sure. I do. It doesn’t do me a lot of good. No witnesses. I can’t identify any of those punks; the street was dark. And there’s been a lot of trouble lately between their sort and the college. I was caught up in one small riot before, when some of the high school crowd tried to bust into a picnic. Now they say this fellow and me must’ve had a grudge fight. Me, with combat trainin’, pickin’ on a chee-ild.” Rage welled up in him, tasting of vomit. “Child, hell! He was bigger and hairier than I am. And there were a good dozen of ’em. But we got an ambitious D.A.”

She studied him. He was reminded of his father, long ago on the farm in Kentucky’s hills, watching the ways of a young bull he had acquired. After a pause, she asked, “Are you remorseful?”

“No,” he said. “That’s countin’ against me too. I’m no good at actin’. Oh, I sure didn’t set out to kill anybody. I pulled my punches right along. Pure accident that the punk fell the way he did. I’m sorry it happened. But my conscience feels clear. There I was, mindin’ my own business, and—suppose I hadn’t known how to handle myself. I’d’ve ended in the hospital, or dead. Everybody would’ve said, ‘How awful! We must build still another youth recreation centre.’ ”

Lockridge’s shoulders slumped. He crushed out his cigarette and stared at his hands. “I was foolish enough to say that to the press,” he continued dully. “Along with a few other remarks. They don’t seem to like Southerners much around here, these days. My lawyer says the local liberals are also makin’ me out a racist. Shucks, I hardly ever saw a coloured man where I came from; and you can’t get to be an anthropologist and keep superstitions about race; and those hoodlums were white anyhow. But none of that seems to make any difference to people’s feelin’s.”

His anger turned on himself. “I’m sorry, Miss,” he said. “I didn’t mean to whine.”

She reached toward him, but checked herself. He looked up and saw that the strange, beautiful face had taken on a pride that came near to arrogance. Yet she spoke low, almost tenderly: “You have a free heart. I was hoping for that.”

At once she became all impersonal business. “What are your prospects at trial?”

“Not so good. The court appointed me a lawyer who says I ought to plead guilty to manslaughter and get off with a lesser sentence. I can’t see that. It’s not right.”

“I gather you have no money for a protracted contest.”

Huh? he thought. A woman like her, talkin’ like a stage professor? “No,” he said. “I been livin’ on a graduate fellowship. My mother swears she’ll mortgage her place to raise a stake, she bein’ widowed and none of my brothers rich. I hate for her to do that. Course, I’ll pay the debt off if I win. But if I don’t—”

“I think you may,” she said. “Am I correct in believing that William Ellsworth in Chicago is one of the nation’s best criminal lawyers?”

“What? Why—why—He’s hardly ever lost a case, they say.”

Stupefied, Lockridge gaped. He began to tremble.

Storm Darroway stroked her chin. “A good staff of private investigators could track down the members of this boy-gang,” she said thoughtfully. “Their whereabouts that night could be established in court, and skilled cross-examination break their lies. We could also find character witnesses for you. Your life has been blameless, has it not?”

“Well—” Lockridge clamped teeth together. He achieved a sort of smile. “Reasonably so. But look, this’d cost a fortune!”

“I have a fortune.” She brushed the question aside. Leaning forward, the luminous eyes searching out every detail about him: “Tell me of yourself. I shall need information. Where did you get this combat training you mentioned?”

“Marines. And I was stationed on Okinawa, got interested in karate and attended a dojo.” In his hammering daze he scarcely noticed how she drew his life from him: the boyhood of work, forests, hunting and fishing; restlessness that ended in his enlistment at seventeen; the enlightening shock of other lands, other peoples, a world more wide than he had imagined; the birth of a wish to learn. “I read quite a lot in the service. Afterward, back in the States, I went to college on my savin’s, decided to go in for anthropology. They have a good department in the university here, so I am—I was buckin’ for my master’s. Ph.D. later on. Could be a good life. I like primitive people. They’re nothin’ to get romantic about, they’ve got troubles as bad as ours or worse, but there’s somethin’ there that we’ve lost.”

“You have travelled, then?”

“Some field trips, to places like Yucatan. We were goin’ back this summer. I reckon that’s washed up for me, though. Even if I got off the hook in time, I’m probably not very welcome around here any more. Well, I’ll find another place.”

“Indeed you might.”

Storm Darroway glanced around, lynx careful. The guards, less bored than usual, were watching her, but they were out of earshot if she talked softly.

“Listen, Malcolm Lockridge,” she said. “Look at me.”

With pleasure, he thought. His spine tingled.

“I am going to engage Ellsworth to defend you,” she said. “He will be instructed not to consider expense. If you are convicted, he will appeal. But I do not think that will be necessary.”

Lockridge could only whisper, “Why?”

She tossed her head. The long locks flew back and he saw a tiny, transparent button in her left ear. Hearing aid? Somehow the thought that she was also troubled and imperfect warmed him. The walls between him and the world came down and he sat in spring sunlight.

“Let us say it is wrong to cage a lion,” she answered. There was no coquetry about her; the words rang.

Her mask clamped down. She sat utterly relaxed and went on, cool of tone: “Besides, I require assistance. The task is dangerous. You seem much better fitted than some slogg I might hire off the street. The payment will not be niggard’s.”

“Miss,” he stammered, “I don’t want any pay for—for anything at all.”

“You will need travel funds, at least,” she told him. “Immediately after the trial, Ellsworth will give you an envelope with a check and instructions. Meanwhile, you are not to speak a word about me. If asked who is financing your defence, say a wealthy distant relative. Is that clear?”

Only later, trying to make sense of the whole fantastic matter, did he wonder if she was some kind of criminal, and refuse to believe that she could be. In this moment, he knew a command when he heard one, and nodded dumbly.

She rose. He stumbled to his feet. “I will not return here,” she said. Her hand clasped his, a swift firm gesture. “We will meet again when you are free, in Denmark. Now good-bye and good heart to you.”

He stared after her until she was gone, and then down to the hand she had taken.