I looked up Oliver Matson in the Ashland phone book and called him. His secretary put me through immediately, without questioning me, almost as though she had been expecting the call. Mr. Matson was most cordial and sympathetic when I told him about Duff’s problems.

“Boys will be boys,” he said chuckling. “I remember when I was a sprout I caused my folks lots of worrisome times.” His cracker-­barrel way of talking was irritating, but I supposed it might go over big in the local courts. “I don’t think you need fret too much, Mrs. Caine. Judge Sinclair, who’s sitting in Juvenile Court now, is an old friend of mine and he’s generally guided by a boy’s appearance and his family situation. Long as your boy ain’t a long-­haired hippie, and long as he’s repentant, I think things will go all right for him.”

How did he know what Duff was like? Of course Mrs. Reddy could have told him. All in all, I was sure I had done the right thing, although I wasn’t happy to be dealing with a friend of Mrs. Reddy’s. Also, I suppose I was thinking that no judge in the world could treat my son too badly and therefore the choice of lawyer wasn’t going to make a great deal of difference.

I made sure Duff looked his best the morning of his court appearance. I pressed his most conservative suit—a gray flannel that was really too small for him, but I felt might help to make him look more boyish. I made him wear a white shirt and a dark tie of Jack’s, and finally I put a towel around him and trimmed his hair a bit. When I was finished, I was satisfied he looked incapable of assaulting policemen.

Then we drove to Ashland, arriving a good forty-­five minutes before the scheduled ten o’clock appearance. I had arranged to meet Mr. Matson outside the courtroom at a quarter to ten, but I hoped he would be early. He hadn’t asked me any questions at all on the telephone and I was worried about what kind of a defense he was planning to offer.

Promptly at a quarter to ten he came down the corridor, a sprightly little old man with a string tie and a great shock of white hair, much longer than Duff’s. I recognized him immediately. He had been in the congregation at Mrs. Reddy’s the night Jack died.

He pretended not to recognize me. He squeezed my hand warmly and then Duff’s. In answer to my offer to tell him something about Duff he said, “Don’t need to know any more about him. I got all the facts in the case from the records, and I’m sure Duff’s a good, responsible boy. Nothing to worry about here.”