The Judge Is Reversed (20 page)

“Is he good?” Pam asked, diverted. “Because it's never seemed to me—”

“He sells,” Jerry said. “Ours not to reason why. And it isn't as if you needed me. I have complete confidence in your judgment.”

“Buck passer,” Pam said, fondly.

“Anyway,” Jerry said, “when they're little ones, what's there to go by? The way they look and—well, the way they look. It's later that you find out who they are. And who they are is partly who you are, anyway.”

“Sometimes,” Pam said, “you're not as clear as you might be.”

“Association,” Jerry said, and finished his coffee. “But you know what I meant.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “All right. It's left to me, then. I may decide no, and get me to a cattery. And, of course, the cat store may really be closed for good.”

“Ummm-m,” Jerry said, muffled by the closet into which he spoke while reaching for a topcoat.

“Don't try to drink Simpson into a contract,” Pam said.

“Ummm-m,” Jerry said, and kissed the top of her head, which was the most convenient, in passing. And went. That had been at only a few minutes after nine.

Pam had another cup of coffee and another cigarette and what remained of
The New York Times
. What remained was the second section. A three-column cut of two lion cubs, wrestling at the Bronx zoo, dominated the split page—a very gay and amusing picture, Pam thought. They must remember to go to the Bronx zoo some day. The day, probably, otherwise devoted to the Statue of Liberty.

On the same page, below the fold, the passing of Floyd Ackerman, the well-known crusader against vivisection, was noted briefly—noted as a suicide by hanging. The police had, obviously, suggested no alternative. There was no connection made between the deaths of John Blanchard—Blanchard's death still commanded a corner of page one—and Floyd Ackerman. The
Times
had slipped there, Pam thought, and that was unusual for the
Times
. Presumably, the city desk did not read the letter column.

Pam went inside the second section. Danzig had a piece about Blanchard—a piece reviewing his services to amateur tennis, which were clearly many. Amateur tennis had suffered a loss.

Pam did not doubt it. She slipped from the sports pages deeper into the
Times
. The
Times
's man Stanley—no, Stanley was somebody else's man. The
Times
's man Shanley had looked at Maxwell Anderson's
Winterset
on TV and found it “stilted language in drab surroundings.” Well! A very young man, Mr. Shanley must needs be; a young man with a tin ear. Pam sternly reminded herself that it takes all kinds, and cleared the breakfast table. She rinsed what needed rinsing and stowed in the dishwasher. (Pamela North likes to have things neat for Martha, who arrives at noon or thereabouts—arrives to make things neat. Jerry has spent no little time on this, and spent it fruitlessly. “Martha's so nice,” Pam says, “and I don't want her to think we're sloppy.”)

Dressed—in the new fall suit, the need for which had been somewhat indirectly brought to her mind—Pam looked through her purse for the card of
the breeders' nook
. She did not, of course, find it—not in the first purse or in the second. She turned to the Manhattan telephone directory, and found the number she wanted and dialed the number. The ringing signal was prolonged; finally the telephone was answered. “Breeders' nook,” the voice said, and Pam reset the words in italic type. Pam said, “Miss Somers? This is Pamela North.”

“Oh,” Madeline Somers said. “Yes?”

She did not, Pam faintly felt, sound this morning like a very up-and-coming saleswoman. But Pam, having been married long to Jerry, makes allowances for morning moods. Pam, herself, feels fine of mornings.

“I'm so glad you haven't closed,” Pam said. “When my husband and I stopped by yesterday there was a sign—”

“Oh,” Miss Somers said. “That. I had to go out to deliver a cat. Nothing would do but I take it that very afternoon. You know how people are.”

“Well—” Pam said.

“And I've nobody to leave,” Miss Somers said. “The young man I had got another offer and—for the little time I'll keep the shop going—”

“Not
Winkle!
” Pam said and to this Madeline Somers quite simply, if understandably, said “Huh?” Pam explained—explained that, for some reason, she thought of the little Siamese queen as “Winkle.”

“I don't know why,” Pam said, to avoid going again into that.

“Heavens no,” Miss Somers said. “An all-white Manx. A much more expensive cat. Otherwise—You and Mr. North have decided you want her?”

“I'm not really sure,” Pam said. “But—probably. Anyway, I'd like to look at her again and—” Pam almost said, “Talk to her,” which was more or less what she meant. It is important to talk to cats, and especially to Siamese cats. But Madeline Somers, in spite of her trade, might be one of those who do not know this. “Examine her a little more carefully,” Pam said, keeping it simple, as she always tries to do.

“Of course,” Madeline Somers said. “You want to be sure. You'll both come around, then?”

Only she, Pam explained, and did not go into the matter of Mr. Simpson. They had talked it over, and her husband was perfectly willing for her to decide for both of them. “Although,” Pam said, “we're both very fond of them.” Miss Somers might—although for some reason Pam a little doubted it—want to be sure that her cats found congenial homes.

“I would like to know today,” Miss Somers said. “If it's at all possible. There's someone else who's quite interested, I think.”

“This morning,” Pam promised.

There were, then, certain small delays—Dorian Weigand telephoned to suggest a dropping by for cocktails, and they found several other things to talk about; Pam remembered she had forgotten to make an appointment at Antoine's and this, which should have been quickly accomplished, took rather a long time, owing to switchboard difficulties. (Pam was connected with the fur department and after that with junior misses. Saks' switchboard was having a bad day.) So it was ten thirty and a few minutes more when Pam closed the apartment door behind her and walked the few steps down the corridor which took her to the elevator. She was waiting for the elevator to rise to the occasion when she heard the telephone ringing in her apartment.

Pam cannot ignore telephones. One never knows. She hurried back the few steps and fished in her bag for her key container, while beyond the door the bell harshly, repetitiously, summoned. Pam fished with growing anxiety. It would be at the bottom; it would be under everything. It would—She found it. She opened the door. And the telephone rang its last.

Pam knew it had; she had been almost certain that it would, being familiar with the habits of telephones. She took the receiver up and listened. It buzzed at her—buzzed its triumph. “Fooled you again,” the buzz said. Pam put the receiver back in its cradle—put it back jarringly. Serve it right to be jarred.

Ten thirty-seven it was then, as Pam stepped into the elevator and pushed the proper button. She hoped Miss Somers would really put a “hold” on Winkle.

At eleven thirty, Captain William Weigand shuffled papers, initialing where required, taking from “In” basket and depositing in “Out” basket. Some of the papers had to do with the Blanchard case; most did not. There is seldom one murder at a time on the west side of Manhattan—since Blanchard had died, a young woman had been knifed to death (probably by her estranged husband), Big Nose Brancenti (so distinguished from his cousin, Little Nose Brancenti) had been filled with bullets at the wheel of his parked Cadillac. The gangsters were coming back.

“Here we are,” Mullins said, coming into the office, and holding papers out. He gave the papers—three sheets, two and a half of them used by the typist; the first two initialed “G.L.” at the bottom, the last signed “Graham Latham”—signed very legibly, very neatly.

Bill read Latham's formal statement. It did not vary from Latham's oral answers; boiled them down, kept them in sequence. Concise and clear—that was Graham Latham. There was no confession of murder. Bill had not really expected one—one either false or true, in either case to exonerate a girl. So, Latham was not that scared—if for a few seconds that scared, had simmered down. Bill nodded, and Mullins left. Almost at once he returned with Latham, who walked stiffly; who, when directed, sat carefully; whose eyes were shrewd, speculative, in a tanned face.

“Very clear,” Bill said. “They told you it might, if needed, be used in evidence?”

Latham merely nodded.

“You read it over,” Bill said. “Found nothing you wanted to change in any way?”

“Nothing,” Latham said. “Nothing I can think of.” He paused. “Now,” he said.

Which was, Bill Weigand thought, a way of saying that circumstances might alter purposes. But all he said was, “Right, Mr. Latham.”

“So?”

“We won't take any more of your time,” Bill said. Then he paused; smiled faintly. “Now,” he said. “You won't get lost, I'm sure.”

“Couldn't if I wanted to, eh?”

Bill shrugged slightly.

“And,” he said, “you'll let us know what you hear from your daughter?”

“Well—”

“I'm getting in touch with the Los Angeles police,” Weigand said, his tone noncommittal.

“Listen—”

“No,” Bill said. “Not suggesting any action. Now. You'll let us know what you hear?”

“Probably,” Latham said, and stood up slowly, painfully.

“Long hot baths help sometimes,” Bill said, and stood up too.

“I've heard,” Latham said, with scepticism—scepticism which, on the basis of Bill Weigand's own experience, was fully justified. Latham went, slowly, carefully, a man trying to glide.

“You thought he might sing?” Mullins said. “To protect the girl?”

Bill shook his head.

“Not yet, anyway,” he said. “And—I rather doubt he'll need to, Mullins. And whose canary have you been eating?”

“O.K.,” Mullins said. “Could be this man says he's a doctor. Cat doctor?”

“Gebhardt,” Weigand said. “You mean—he isn't?”

“Oh,” Mullins said, “sure he is. Got a place on Park Avenue, like he says. Must be money in sick cats.”

Bill waited. Mullins held out to him a memo form—a memo from the Traffic Department.

A summons for illegal parking had been placed under the windshield wiper of a pale yellow Cadillac, standing within inches of a fire hydrant. License checked out as belonging to Dr. Oscar Gebhardt, residing in Chappaqua, with offices at—Park Avenue.

Place of violation—the block between Fifth Avenue and University Place on East Tenth Street. Time of violation—4:10
P.M.
the previous day.

“Five minutes' walk from where Ackerman got it,” Mullins said. “Three, if he hurried.” He looked at Bill Weigand with hope in his blue eyes. “Man could walk pretty fast to grab on to two hundred grand,” Mullins suggested, holding out another silver platter.

The platter, Bill thought, was by no means empty. Its contents were, actually, more substantial than a hunch—a hunch resting, admittedly, on a foundation of thin air.

“Right,” Bill said. “Ask him about it, sergeant. Ask him if he hurried. Or, send Nate, if you like.”

“The pleasure,” Sergeant Mullins said, as he stood up, “the pleasure will be mine, loot.”

The telephone rang and Bill picked it up, at the same time motioning Mullins to be on his way. “L.A.'s on,” Bill was told and said, “Right,” and then, “Morning, captain. Didn't take you long.”

“Happened it came to me,” a police captain three thousand miles away told Bill. “Happened I'd handled it. About this girl—”

16

Pam went down the two steps from sidewalk level and tinkled her way into
the breeders' nook
. The first room—the display room—was empty, as it had been before. “With you in a minute,” Madeline Somers called, evidently from the next room, and there was the scratchy sound of paper being torn. Pam, from long experience, immediately identified Miss Somers's activity. Miss Somers was changing cats' toilet pans, shredding fresh newspaper to replace the old. “It's Mrs. North,” Pam called back. “No hurry.” She sat. She heard more paper torn. A cat shop, she thought, must run to a good deal of newspaper.

There was then the sound of something being opened—of course, a cage. There was the sound of something being closed. Miss Somers came through the curtains, wearing the same beige-colored suit, clutching a small Siamese, who spoke, as before. Miss Somers said, “Good morning. Isn't it a lovely day? Here's the little doll.”

She started to put the little doll on the display pedestal.

“Let me have her,” Pam said.

“Well,” Miss Somers said, and hesitated. “She's shedding, you know.” She looked at Pam's fall suit—a darkish suit, not colored to match Siamese. Pam held out her hands. She said, “Aren't they always?” and accepted the little cat, who turned and looked up at her. Not really pointed. And beautifully colored eyes. “Nice baby,” Pam said. “Pretty baby.” She put the cat on her lap, and began to run knowing fingers over the small, but wiry and muscular, little body. No flabbiness—sometimes even young cats—

The young cat—possibly the future Winkle—began to purr, mistaking palpation for caress. “Pretty baby,” Pam said, and scratched the cat behind the right ear. Miss Somers looked on.

“Wasn't it,” Pam said, “dreadful about poor Mr. Ackerman?”

She said it to say something—said it because she felt that Miss Somers was expecting her to say something, and she was not yet quite ready to say yes, they would take the little cat. Also, of course, Ackerman had been an acquaintance—an associate, really—of Miss Somers. It seemed only proper to note his passing.