His attorney asked him the question he had been waiting for: "Tell us, in your own words, what happened."
Chandler opened his mouth, and paused. Curiously, he had forgotten what he wanted to say. He had rehearsed this moment again and again; but all that came out was: "I didn't do it. I mean, I did the acts, but I was possessed. That's all. Others have done worse, under the same circumstances, and been let off. Just as Fisher was acquitted for murdering the Leamards, as Draper got off after what he did to the Cline boy. As Jack Souther over there was let off after he murdered my own wife. They should be. They couldn't help themselves. Whatever this thing is that takes control, I know it can't be fought. My God, you can't even try to fight it!"
He was not getting through. The faces had not changed. The forewoman of the jury was now searching systematically through her pocketbook, taking each item out and examining it, putting it back and taking out another. But between times she looked at him and at least her expression wasn't hostile. He said, addressing her: "That's all there is to it. It wasn't me running my body. It was someone else. I swear it before all of you, and before God."
"The prosecutor did not bother to question him. Chandler went back to his seat and sat down and watched the next twenty minutes go by in the wink of an eye, rapid, rapid; they were in a hurry to shoot him. He could hardly believe that Judge Ellithorp could speak so fast; the jurymen rose and filed out at a gallop, zip, whisk, and they were back again. Too fast! he cried silently, time had gone into high gear; but he knew that it was only his imagination. The twenty minutes had been a full twelve hundred seconds. And then time, as if to make amends, came to a stop, abrupt, brakes on. The judge asked the jury for their verdict and it was an eternity before the forewoman arose.
She was beginning to look rather disheveled. Beaming at Chandler surely the woman was rather odd, it couldn't be just his imagination she fumbled in her pocketbook for the slip of paper with the verdict. But she wore an expression of suppressed laughter.
"I knew I had it," she cried triumphantly and waved the slip above her head. "Now, let's see." She held it before her eyes and squinted. "Oh, yes. Judge, we the jury, and so forth and so on"
She paused to wink at Judge Ellithorp. An uncertain worried murmur welled up in the auditorium. "All that junk, Judge," she explained, "anyway, we unanimously but unanimously, love! find this son of a bitch innocent."
"Why," she 'giggled, "we think he ought to get a medal, you know? I tell you what you do, love, you go right over and give him a big wet kiss and say you're sorry." She stood drunkenly swaying, laughing at the courtroom.
The murmuring became something more like a mass scream.
"Stop her, stop her!" bawled the judge, dropping his glasses. "Bailiff! Sergeant Grantz!"
"Oh, cool it," cried the woman in the floppy hat. "Hi, there! That you, love?" A man in the front row leaped to his feet and waved to her. The scream became a shout, a single word: Possessed!
"I tell you what," shrieked the woman, "let's all sing. Everybody! 'For he's a fairly good fellow, for he's a fairly good fellow' Come on now, loves! All together, for His Honor"
The bailiff, half a dozen policemen, the judge himself were scrambling toward her, but they were fighting a tide of terrified people, flowing away. Possessed she clearly was. And she was not alone. The man in the front row sang raucously along with her; then he flopped like a rag doll, and someone behind him leaped to his feet and carried along with the song without missing a beat, then another, another ... it was like some distant sorcerer at a selector switch, turning first one on, then another. The noise was bedlam. As the police closed in on her the woman blew them kisses. They fell away, as from leprosy, then buried themselves grimly back, like a lynch mob.
She was giggling as they fell on her.
From under their scrambling bodies her voice gasped, "Oh, now, not so rough! Say! Got a cigarette? I've been wanting"
The voice choked and spluttered; and then it screamed.
It was a sound of pure hysteria. The police separated themselves and helped her up, still screaming, eyes weeping with terror. "Oh!" she gasped. "Oh! I couldn't stop!"
Chandler stood up and took one step toward the door. So much confusion. Such utter disorganization. There was a chance.
He stopped and turned. They would catch him before he got outside the door. He made a decision, caught his lawyer by the arm, jerked at it until he got the man's attention. All of a sudden he felt alive again. There was hope! Tiny, insubstantial, but"
"Listen," he said rapidly. "You, damn it! Listen to me. "The jury acquitted me, right?"
The lawyer was startled. "Don't be ridiculous. It's a clear case of"
"Be a lawyer, man! You live on technicalities, don't you? Make this one work for me!"
The attorney gave him a queer, thoughtful look, hesitated, shrugged and got to his feet. He had to shout to be heard. "Your Honor! I take it my client is free to go."
He made almost as much of a stir as the sobbing woman, but he outshouted the storm. "The jury's verdict is on record. Granted there was an apparent case of possession. Nevertheless"
Judge Ellithorp yelled back: "No nonsense, you! Listen to me, young man"
The lawyer snapped, "Permission to approach the bench."
"Granted."
Chandler sat unable to move, watching the brief, stormy conference. It was painful to be coming back to life. It was agony to hope. At least, he thought detachedly, his lawyer was fighting for him; the prosecutor's face was a thunder-cloud.
The lawyer came back, with the expression of a man who has won a victory he did not expect, and did not want. "Your last chance. Chandler. Change your plea to guilty."
"But"
"Don't push your luck, boy! The judge has agreed to accept a plea. They'll throw you out of town, of course. But you'll be alive."
Chandler hesitated. "Make up your mind! The best I can do otherwise is a mistrial, and that means you'll get convicted by another jury next week."
Chandler said, testing his luck: "You're sure they'll keep their end of the bargain?"
The lawyer shook his head, his expression that of a man who smells something unpleasant. "Your Honor! I ask you to discharge the jury. My client wishes to change his plea."
In the school's chemistry lab, an hour later, Chandler discovered that the lawyer had left out one little detail.
Outside there was a sound of motors idling, the police car that would dump him at the town's limits; inside was a thin, hollow hiss. It was the sound of a Bunsen burner, and in its blue flame a crudely shaped iron changed slowly from cherry to orange to glowing straw. It had the shape of a letter - "H."
"H" for "hoaxer." The mark they were about to put on his forehead would be with him wherever he went and as long as he lived, which would probably not be long. "H" for "hoaxer," so that a glance would show that he had been convicted of the worst offense of all.
No one spoke to him as Larry Grantz took the iron out of the fire, but three husky policemen held his arms while he screamed.
THE PAIN was still burning when Chandler awoke the next day. He wished he had a bandage, but he didn't, and that was that.
He was on a freight car, had hopped it on the run at the yards, daring to sneak back into town long enough for that. He could not hope to hitchhike, with that mark on him. Anyway, hitchhiking was an invitation to trouble.
The railroads were safe, far safer than either cars or air transport, notoriously a lightning rod attracting possession. Chandler was surprised when the train came crashing to a stop, each freight car smashing against the couplings of the one ahead, the engine jolting forward and stopping again.
Then there was silence. It endured.