The Judge Is Reversed Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.”
    â€œGoodness,” 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.
    â€œAnyway,” 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.”
    â€œNone,” 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—
    â€œDon’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?”
    â€œGood God no,” Jerry said. “Can I have Danzig now?”
    â€œDid 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!”
    â€œIt 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.”
    â€œOld fanaticisms never die,” Jerry said. “Can I have Danzig now?”
    â€œMr. 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,