Chương 195: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE: WHAT CALLA SENT

Calla wrote to Holloway on the ninth of March. He was in the northeast on the inheritance case and would not be back before May. The letter was four lines. You told me you attend. I have thought about that for six months and I am not writing to say I have decided anything. Vance offered me your second chair in the northeast and I said no and I have said no about it out loud in my mother's house four times since, which she counted and then told me about, which is the sort of thing she does.

I am asking one question and I would like a short answer. When you came back after the four years — the woman in Ordell, the boy — did you feel ready. C. The reply came on the twenty-eighth, by merchant road, and was one line. No. — H. She took it to Vance the same morning. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Vance read it and put it down.

"Is that all he sent?"

"That's all he sent."

"It took him nineteen days to send one word."

"He was in a proceeding," Calla said.

"And he thought about it."

"You know that how?"

"Because if he hadn't thought about it he'd have sent three pages." Vance sat back.

"You want the northeastern chair."

"It's gone. Ferrick has it."

"Ferrick has it because you didn't take it in September," Vance said.

"There are two more coming this year that I know of and probably four that I don't." Calla stood at the window with the one-word letter in her hand.

"I'm going to be bad at the first one," she said.

"You were not bad at Vellenmoor."

"Vellenmoor was twenty seconds of procedure in front of a man who'd already worked it out." Calla turned round.

"The northeast is a man who probably did it. Holloway thinks he probably did it. He told me on the road that in eighteen years the ones he lost sleep over were never the innocent ones."

"And?"

"And I don't know how you stand up for someone who did it." Vance did not answer for a moment.

"Neither do I," she said.

"I've never had to. Commercial practice, for twenty-six years, and then a charter." She paused.

"You're going to be better at this than I am within four years and I don't have anything to give you for the part you're asking about."

"That's not reassuring."

"It isn't meant to be. I'm two hundred miles out of my depth and I'd rather say so than invent something." Calla folded the letter.

"Put me down for the next one," she said.

"You're sure."

"No."

"Good," Vance said, and reached for a pen.

"The ones who are sure I don't send."