The Other Side of Midnight

Demiris nodded slowly, as though the movement cost him an effort.

"I wanted to kill you," he said wearily, and it was an old man's voice. "I had everything worked out."

"Why didn't you?"

He replied quietly, "Because you killed me first. I've never needed anyone before. I suppose I've never really been in pain before."

"Costa--"

"No. Let me finish. I'm not a forgiving man. If I could do without you, believe me I would. But I can't. I can't go through any more. I want you back, Noelle."

She fought to show nothing of what she was feeling inside. "That's really not up to me anymore, is it?"

"If I could have you freed, would you come back to me? To stay?"

To stay. A thousand images flashed through Noelle's mind. She would never see Larry again, never touch him, hold him. Noelle had no choice, but even if she had, life was sweeter. And as long as she was alive, there was always a chance. She looked up at Demiris.

"Yes, Costa."

Demiris stared at her, his face filling with emotion. When he spoke, his voice was husky. "Thank you," he said. "We're going to forget the past. It's gone and nothing will change it." His voice brightened. "It's the future I'm interested in. I'm going to engage an attorney for you."

"Who?"

"Napoleon Chotas."

And that was the moment that Noelle really knew she had won the chess match. Check. Checkmate.

Now Napoleon Chotas sat at the long wooden lawyer's table thinking about the battle that was about to take place. Chotas would have much preferred that the trial be held in Ioannina rather than in Athens, but that was impossible, since by Greek law a trial could not take place in the district where the crime had been committed. Chotas had not the slightest doubt about the guilt of Noelle Page, but that was unimportant to him, for like all criminal lawyers he felt that the guilt or innocence of a client was immaterial. Everyone was entitled to a fair trial.

The trial that was about to begin, however, was something different. For the first time in his professional life Napoleon Chotas had allowed himself to become emotionally involved with a client: He was in love with Noelle Page. He had gone to see her at Constantin Demiris' request and though Chotas had been familiar with the public

image of Noelle Page, he had been totally unprepared for the reality. She had received him as though he were a guest paying a social call. Noelle had showed neither nervousness nor fear, and at first Chotas had attributed it to her lack of understanding of the desperateness of her situation. The opposite had proved to be true. Noelle was the most intelligent and fascinating woman he had ever encountered and certainly the most beautiful. Chotas, though his appearance belied it, was a connoisseur of women, and he recognized the special qualities that Noelle possessed. It was a joy for Chotas merely to sit and talk with her. They discussed law and art and crime and history, and she was a constant amazement to him. He could fully appreciate Noelle's liaison with a man like Constantin Demiris. but her involvement with Larry Douglas puzzled him. He felt that she was far above Douglas, and yet Chotas supposed that there was some unexplainable chemistry that made people fall in love with the most unlikely partners. Brilliant scientists married empty-headed blondes, great writers married stupid actresses, intelligent statesmen married trollops.

Chotas remembered the meeting with Demiris. They had known each other socially over the years, but Chotas' law firm had never done any work for him. Demiris had asked Chotas to his home at Varkiza. Demiris had plunged into the conversation without preamble. "As you may know," he had said, "I have a deep interest in this trial. Miss Page is the only woman in my life I have ever truly loved." The two men had talked for six hours, discussing every aspect of the case, every possible strategy. It was decided that No-elle's plea would be Not Guilty. When Chotas rose to leave, a deal had been agreed upon. For undertaking Noelle's defense Napoleon Chotas would be given double his usual fee, and his firm would become the major legal counsel to Constantin Demiris' far-flung empire, a plum worth untold millions.

"I don't care how you do it," Demiris had concluded, fiercely. "Just see to it that nothing goes wrong."

Chotas had accepted the bargain. And then, ironically, he had fallen in love with Noelle Page. Chotas had remained a bachelor, though he kept a string of mistresses, and now when he had found the one woman he wanted to marry, she was out of his reach. He looked at Noelle now, sitting in the defendant's box, beautiful and serene. She wore a simple black wool suit with a plain, high-necked white blouse, and she looked like a Princess from a fairy tale.

Noelle turned and saw Chotas staring at her and gave him a warm smile. He smiled back, but his mind was already turning to the difficult task that lay ahead of him. The clerk was calling the Court to order.

The spectators rose as two judges in business suits entered and took their seats on the bench. The third judge, the President of the Court, followed and took the center seat. He intoned, "I synethriassis archetai."

The trial had begun.

Peter Demonides, Special Prosecutor for the State, nervously rose to make his opening address to the jury. Demonides was a skilled and able prosecutor, but he had been up against Napoleon Chotas before--many times, in fact--and the results were invariably the same. The old bastard was unbeatable. Almost all trial lawyers browbeat hostile witnesses, but Chotas coddled them. He nurtured them and loved them and before he was through, they were contradicting themselves all over the place, trying to be helpful to him. He had a knack of turning hard evidence into speculation and speculation into fantasy. Chotas had the most brilliant legal mind Demonides had ever encountered and the greatest knowledge of jurisprudence, but that was not his strength. His strength was his knowledge of people. A reporter had once asked Chotas how he had learned so much about human nature.

"I don't know a damned thing about human nature," Chotas had answered. "I only know about people," and the remark had been widely quoted.

In addition to everything else this was the kind of trial that was tailor-made for Chotas to take before a jury, filled as it was with glamour, passion and murder. Of one thing Demonides was certain: Napoleon Chotas would let nothing stop him from winning this case. But neither would Demonides. He knew that he had a strong evidential case against the defendants, and while Chotas might be able to spellbind the jury into overlooking the evidence, he would not be able to sway the three judges on the bench. So it was with a feeling of determination mixed with apprehension that the Special Prosecutor for the State began his opening address.

In skillful, broad strokes Demonides outlined the State's case against the two defendants. By law the foreman of the ten-man jury was an attorney, so Demonides directed his legal points to him and his general points to the rest of the jury.

"Before this trial has ended," Demonides said, "the State will prove that these two people conspired together to cold-bloodedly murder Catherine Douglas because she stood in the way of their plans. Her only crime was in loving her husband, and for this she was killed. The two defendants have been placed at the scene of the murder. They are the only ones who had the motive and the opportunity. We shall prove beyond a shadow of a doubt..."

Demonides kept his address short and to the point, and it was the turn of the Attorney for the Defense.

The spectators in the courtroom watched Napoleon Chotas as he clumsily gathered his papers together and prepared to make his opening speech. Slowly he approached the jury box, his manner hesitant and difficult as though awed by his surroundings.