"Charles L. Harness-Probable Cause" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

was dripping with sweat. He pushed the bronze casting aside, rubbed at his eyes with a couple of paper
towels, then pulled the film out of the camera. He studied the positive print briefly, but with approval. He
rubbed the negative carefully with a hypo-stick and placed it between the carrier plates of the enlarger.
Why, of all the transcendent possibilities, did he think Helen would want this simple thing of hands?
Why not the gangling young man, brooding at the grave of Ann Rutledge? Or the poignant farewell from
the rear of the train just before it pulled out of Springfield? No, none of these. For Helen Nord, it had to
be the hands.
For a bachelor in his fifties, thought Edmonds, I am a fool. And if Helen only knew what I have been
doing here, she would certainly agree. I'm worse than Tom Sawyer, walking the picket fence to show off
in front of his young lady friend.
He smiled wryly as he turned off the ceiling light once more and reached for the 8x11 bromide paper.
***


The secretary in the outer office looked up from her typewriter and smiled. "Good morning, Madam
Nord. The Justice is expecting you. Please go right in."
"Thank you." Mrs. Nord returned the smile and walked through into the inner office.
Benjamin Edmonds stood up gravely and motioned her to the chair by the great oak desk.
Helen Strachey Nord of Virginia, once known only as the widow of John Nord and the mother of
three sons (all now launched in professional careers) was a handsome woman in her late forties. The
tragic death of John Nord in the first Mars landings had brought her initially to the public eye, but her own
remarkable abilities had kept her there. After working several years at NASA and taking her law degree
at night, she had been appointed to the US-Soviet Arbitration Commission to settle the Lunar Disputes of
the seventies. War had been averted. She was the obvious choice for the next appointment of a United
States delegate to the UN And finally, when old Justice Fauquier died, President Cromway submitted her
name to the Senate as the first female Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The ensuing senatorial
debates and hearings made the long forgotten Cardozo and Black appointments seem exercises in
benevolence. But for Cromway's assassination, she would never have made it. As a courtesy to the late
President, enough votes were collected. Just barely.
How strange, thought Edmonds, that this woman, who has known passion, and who has nourished
three fine sons, can yet bring such intricate insights into bankruptcy, space law, admiralty... the whole
gamut. He said: "Glad you could drop by, Helen. I have something for you." He opened the attach├й case,
took the picture out, and handed it to her. "It's only an eight by eleven, but if you like it I can make you a
bigger blowup for framing."
The woman walked over to the window and studied the picture.
Edmonds asked: "Do you know what it is?"
"Yes-- that is, I know what it would be, if it were possible. The hand of Charles Leale holding the
hand of the dying Lincoln in the dawn hours of April fifteenth, eighteen sixty-five." She looked back at
him, pondering. "But it can't be, because I also know that no photographs were taken. Not on that
terrible night. But no matter. It is superb." She continued, sorting it out in her own mind. "It was the
crowning, exquisite irony of the Civil War. You know the story, of course. Dr. Leale was a young army
surgeon. He had come to Ford's Theater that night just to see Lincoln. It was the great ambition of his
young life to shake the hand of the President, but he scarcely dared hope for this. And so he was the first
doctor in the presidential box after Booth leaped down to the stage. Leale had the President moved
across the street, and endured the last hours with him. And, it being his army experience that a dying man
will sometimes regain consciousness in the moments just before the end, and wanting Lincoln to know he
was among friends, he came around to his right side, and took him by the hand, with the tip of the
forefinger on the fading pulse, just as you see here." She looked back at Edmonds thoughtfully. "It is
certainly pertinent, considering the case we'll have at conference today."
His eyes searched her face uneasily. "Poor timing, wasn't it? I'm truly sorry. But you'll have to learn not