The Judge Is Reversed (4 page)

It was, admittedly, unfortunate that the calls came on crucial points, at moments when Mears had been close to running out the first set. But this did not justify the young man's open display of anger, culminating in what looked uncomfortably like a smash directed intentionally at the linesman in question, nor the subsequent collapse of his game. Mr. Laney did not wish to detract from the excellent play of Ted Wilson, but—

Pam had burrowed back into the
Times
. Jerry finished the account of the semi-finals at Forest Hills, but finished it to himself. They sat in their apartment, a typical American couple, knee deep in Sunday newspapers. Jerry put the sports section aside and regarded his wife. He could guess about where she was.

“How's Reston this morning?” he asked her.

“Wonderful,” Pam said. “It's one of the translations of public statements ones. Sssh.” Jerry sshed. “Simply marv—Jerry!” Pam said. “Here he is again!”

Jerry ran a hand through his hair.

“Reston?” he said, without much hope. “James Reston?” He did not know that the use of Mr. Reston's given name would bridge this utter gap in relevance. It was worth the try.

“Reston?” Pam repeated. “I just finished Reston. Why would I say he was here again? Why again, I mean?”

“I don't know,” Jerry said, keeping it as simple as he could.

“Blanchard,” Pam said. “In letters to the editor. The ones they save for Sunday because—listen!”

Jerry listened.

“‘The writer of the following letter, a prominent New York attorney, is widely known as an authority on cats and has written about them extensively,'” Pam read. “At the bottom it's signed ‘John Blanchard.' And—”

“Read it,” Jerry said. “He certainly does seem to—crop up.”

“‘Many readers of the
Times,'
” Pam read, “‘must have been shocked, as I was shocked, by its acceptance of the recently published advertisement of the organization calling itself “The Committee Against Cruelty.” Even in its advertising columns, it seems to me and must seem to many, a newspaper of the stature of the
Times
owes a responsibility to society as a whole, and is required to consider the public interest.

“‘No one questions the right of Floyd Ackerman, who lists himself as chairman of this “Committee,” and others associated with him to hold whatever views they wish on vivisection, and to seek to promulgate them. But what they are doing in this advertisement is, in effect, crying “Fire!” in a crowded theater. It is there, as one of our most distinguished jurists long ago pointed out, that the right of free speech ends.

“‘I refer, of course, to the advertisement's disparaging references to the value of the vaccine which has already done so much to curb infantile paralysis, and this at a time when health authorities are bending every effort to bring about universal inoculation. And this because the development of the vaccine has cost the lives of many monkeys! It is difficult to believe that sentimentality has ever been carried to more dangerous lengths, and that the
Times
has abetted an attitude so essentially immoral.

“‘I cannot, I think, be accused of indifference to animal sufferings. Rather notoriously, I am addicted to cats, and have written a good deal about them. I am a member of several organizations which seek more humane treatment of all our animal friends. But I cannot understand anyone who sets the life of a monkey—yes, or even the life of a cat—above that of a child. I am rather glad I can't.'”

Pam stopped, looked up and awaited comment.

“A little heavy-handed,” Jerry said, speaking as an editor. “But rather a nice sting in the tail, I think. Ackerman'll be boiling, if I know Ackerman.”

“All right,” Pam said, after blinking twice, “do you know Ackerman?”

“Oddly enough,” Jerry said. “He brought us a book a while back. ‘Criminals in White Coats,' he wanted to call it. Very upset when we said we guessed not. If you're through with the sports section, I'd like to see what Danzig—”

“In due time,” Pam said. “Ackerman first.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Pam said, “all at once everything's full of Mr. Blanchard. I'm beginning to have feelings.”

“Not that!” Jerry said. “But, all right. About Ackerman—”

Ackerman had come, in person, to the offices of North Books, Inc., several months before—some time, as Jerry recalled it, in late June. He had come bearing manuscript, a thing which happens even to the best of publishers. He had been—it was to be assumed he still was—a pale and intense man in his middle forties; a very thin man; a man who wore large glasses and, when excited, trembled. He was already excited when, after subterfuge had been exhausted, he was admitted to Jerry's office. He put the manuscript on Jerry's desk and stood on the other side of the desk, shaking with fervor.

“We get all kinds,” Jerry told Pam, with resignation. “Ackerman was a bit—excessive. So damned excessive he's a splinter group more or less by himself.”

He had, for one thing, suggested that he, then and there, read the book aloud to Gerald North. Jerry had pleaded the pressure of other duties. Ackerman had, then, offered to read sections. He had begun to untie the manuscript—it was loose-paged, and bound with string—and, it seemed to Jerry, his eyes had begun to glitter behind the large glasses.

“Fanatics are one kind,” Jerry told Pam. “He is. Vivisection is a sin against the life force, among other things. Research men who perform operations on animals are sadists. They only pretend to seek knowledge; that their goal is the relief of human suffering is a hoax. It's all a conspiracy.”

“Goodness,” Pam said. “On the other hand, I didn't care for the two-headed dog business. Because—what's the use of people having two heads? And if not—”

Jerry waited politely. Pam did not continue, having made her point.

“Anyway,” Jerry said, “that's it—that was it in about four hundred typed pages, complete with examples, all of them horrid. Including, as the advertisement did suggest, as I recall it, that most of the discoveries which have resulted from animal experimentation are hoaxes too. There were some pictures—I don't know how he laid hands on them. Very unpleasant pictures.”

“None,” Pam North said, “of children in iron lungs? Or wheel chairs?”

That was it, Jerry said. Sentimentality was a vicious thing, Jerry said. Grant Ackerman was honest—

“Don't,” Pam said. “You sound like Mr. Garroway, asking people if Russians are honest. The people usually look so blank, the poor things—so ‘so-whatish?' You didn't accept the book?”

“Good God no,” Jerry said. “Can I have Danzig now?”

“Did this Mr. Ackerman take that calmly?”

Ackerman had not. The book had been sent back by messenger, with a note of regret. Mr. Ackerman, shaking more than ever, had arrived by return mail. “Quicker.” He had demanded to see Jerry; he had said, loudly, that either the book had not been read or that “they” were paying to have it suppressed. Jerry could hear him in the reception room, shouting. Jerry had closed his office door.

The last words he had heard, through the closed door, were “I'll see about this!”

“It sounds,” Pam said, “as if he ought to be locked up somewhere. But—he's got enough money to get this advertisement printed. And apparently there are others who feel as strongly. Enough for a committee, anyway.” She paused. “I thought,” she said, “that that kind of thing had sort of—died out.”

“Old fanaticisms never die,” Jerry said. “Can I have Danzig now?”

“Mr. Blanchard has made another enemy,” Pam said, and shuffled papers, seeking the sports section of the
Times
. “He's enemy-prone, isn't he?” She handed Jerry the sports section. “Hmmm,” Jerry said. “I'll do the crossword, then,” Pam said.

Even that did not distract Gerald North, in whom, each September, the tennis sap rises irresistibly, submerging even his distaste for crossword puzzles.

The next two hours were the uneventful hours of a typical American couple knee deep in Sunday newspapers. It is true that Pam, confronted by a nine-letter word meaning “making white” wrote in the word “blanchard,” a little absently, but what are erasers for? It is true that Jerry, reading a review of a novel which had been submitted to and rejected by North Books, Inc., and learning that the reviewer considered it the best work of fiction since
Of Human Bondage
, snorted dangerously. But such things are to be expected in all lives.

4

Sergeant Aloysius Mullins, of Homicide, Manhattan West, was in a somewhat disgruntled mood. Several things irked, one of them being that this looked like turning into a big one—the kind the inspector would ride herd on—and for the moment Mullins was the herd which would be ridden. For the moment and, probably, for some time to come. The captain wouldn't make it for more than an hour at best, since he had to drive down from the country. For another thing, it was Sunday. For still another, everybody around outranked him, and his tongue was sore from saying “sir.”

“So you just walked in,” Mullins said, to a man with little hair on his head, and bristling gray eyebrows making up for this lack. The man wore a tweed jacket in which red predominated, slacks which were somewhat greenish, and a blue sports shirt without a necktie. “Just walked in and found him dead.”

“Dying,” the man said. He had told Sergeant Mullins he was Dr. Oscar Gebhardt, which Mullins regarded as a likely story. He had said that death occurred within a few minutes of the time of his arrival.

“And,” Mullins said, “you say you came to give what you call rejuvenation shots to a—a
cat
.”

It was really the cat part of it which preyed on Mullins's mind. The rest could be endured; would have to be endured. Even saying “sir” to some young squirt from the precinct. But cats were too much. For Sergeant Mullins, cats are always too much. And it sometimes seems to him that he is dogged by cats.

“How many times?” Dr. Oscar Gebhardt said, and his manner bristled like his eyebrows.

“Mister,” Mullins said, “as often as I want you to.”

Which was not like Mullins on an ordinary day, and an ordinary case—a case without cats in it. Mullins normally treats the public with the courtesy stipulated in the Manual of Procedure. This is true even when the public wears sports shirts—in the city and on Sunday.

“I,” Gebhardt said, “have calls to make. Already I've been held up for—” He looked at his watch. “For almost three hours,” he said. “I have an appointment in White Plains at twelve.” He looked at his watch again. “Which was an hour ago,” he said.

Mullins said that that was too bad, and spoke in a tone without conviction. He said he was afraid the cat in White Plains would have to wait. Or horse or whatever.

Gebhardt sighed deeply. He said he had already explained that he specialized in cats. “Haven't touched a horse in years,” he added. “I resent your attitude.”

That, also, was too bad. “Once more, from the beginning,” Mullins said. “You say it was about ten?”

They were in one of the smaller rooms of an apartment the like of which Mullins had supposed to have vanished from Manhattan, even from the old apartment houses on Riverside Drive. (The smaller room was approximately eighteen feet by twenty, which made it cozy. There were ten rooms in the apartment, all but two of them larger. Why, long ago, the thing hadn't been split up into—)

“Suppose, sergeant, you listen this time,” Dr. Gebhardt said. He pointed the index finger of his right hand at Mullins for emphasis. The index finger had a plastic bandage on it. So did the ring finger. There was a somewhat larger bandage on Dr. Gebhardt's left wrist. “You want me to prove all over again who I am? Oscar Gebhardt, doctor of veterinary surgery. Graduate of Cornell. My office on Park Avenue is at—”

“We'll see,” Mullins said. “All you've got to show is a driver's license. You say there are hundreds of people who can identify you—prove you didn't maybe lift the license from somebody. You say that on a Sunday in September most of them would, naturally, be out of town. You say—”

“Sergeant,” Gebhardt said, and his voice bristled now. “I listen, even if you don't. I listen to what I say. Don't stand there telling me what I say. Suppose—” He broke off. “All right,” he said. “I'm wasting my own time now. It was a few minutes after—”

It had been almost exactly ten o'clock on this Sunday morning when Oscar Gebhardt, D.V.S., had parked his pale yellow Cadillac at the nearest point he could find to the apartment house on Riverside Drive—a building which was now a reminder of the Drive's one-time grandeur. He had walked a block, carrying a small black bag, to the building, which had an enormous lobby. He had walked across the lobby briskly, his heels clicking on marble, to a ridiculously small elevator. On Sunday mornings the elevator was passenger-operated. It was also inclined to stick between floors.

It was a few minutes after ten when the elevator, having hesitated between third and fourth but decided against sticking, stopped at the sixth floor. Dr. Gebhardt was already late by then. He had expected to arrive not later than nine—had, in fact, promised to arrive not later than nine. He had been delayed by an unexpectedly difficult parturition on the part of a Siamese queen. (Inadequate pelvic girdle; should never have been bred; if people had half the sense of cats. To which the answer, somewhat plaintively voiced, had been, “But you should have heard her, doctor.”)

He rang the doorbell quickly, three times. This was a habit of which, with no success, he was trying to break himself. He knew that any cat he had treated before went under the nearest object on hearing, for a second time, the remembered warning of three quick rings. Which meant that he, and assorted cat owners, spent considerable time under nearest objects, usually beds.