The Judge Is Reversed

by Frances Lockridge

  “Decides that the foot-fault calls were part of a scheme to keep him from getting a good contract, and so from marrying the girl, so that Blanchard can marry her instead. So, naturally, he kills Blanchard.”

  “Most natural,” Jerry said. “Shall I order another rut?”

  Pam thought not. She thought spaghetti, in a small dose, to be followed by scallopini. Mario, reflected in the mirror, held up two fingers and raised eyebrows. Jerry shook his head and Mario’s mobile features reflected shocked surprise. But he came and Jerry ordered.

  “Only,” Pam said, “I wonder if she is, really? Because you’ll have to admit it’s a long way from anywhere.”

  Jerry blinked rapidly. He said he guessed he was a little slow on the uptake, but—?

  “Rich,” Pam said. “The apartment. Do you want me to spell it out?”

  “Please,” Jerry said. “I’m sorry, but please.”

  “The Blanchard apartment,” Pam said, and spoke slowly, to a backward child. “The Blanchard apartment is what is called to hell and gone. From any place a girl like Hilda would want to go.” She paused. “Except possibly Columbia University,” she said. “We’ll leave that out. All right?”

  “Entirely. Leave it out.”

  “She’d come in town,” Pam said, “to shop. Or go to the theater. She wouldn’t get above—oh, say Fifty-seventh. But she does go way up on Riverside Drive to spend the night. Why not a hotel? The Pierre? The St. Regis? Come to that, the Waldorf? Or the Barclay? The Barclay’s nice.”

  “Very,” Jerry said. But now there was, in his voice, a note of consideration.

  “Precisely,” Pam said. “The kind of hotel she’d want to stay at would cost money. If daddy’s got it in piles, it’s one thing. If he hasn’t, it’s another. Riverside Drive. Free night’s lodging, except for taxi fares. And there are buses.”

  “You’ve heard,” Jerry said. “But—it is a point, Pam. Meanwhile, back on the farm—”

  “The corn’s as high as,” Pam said. “Go on.”

  “The farm in Southampton,” Jerry said. “Genteel poverty in a mansion. Beautiful daughter into the breach. Marry an older, but rich, man and restore the family fortunes. Lips a little stiff, of course. Particularly the upper. Smile a little forced. Indicating broken heart. Duty before love. I must put you out of my life forever. It is the only way.”

  “The things you must read,” Pam North said.

  “In line of duty,” Jerry said. “And, don’t think I don’t, my dear. Oh, change a word here and there. Stream the consciousness a little. All the same—”

  “He’s holding hands, now,” Pam said. “The left, I think.”

  “Eaves-peeper,” Jerry said. And looked into the mirror. “The right, I think,” he said.

  “Mirror image,” Pam said. “The left. And she’s nodding her head.” She paused for a moment and said, “Oh,” in a disappointed voice. “They’re going,” Pam said. “And we haven’t even started to eat.”

  Robert Sandys was a tall, thin man with heavy iron-gray hair; he was apparently in his early sixties. He wore a suit of so dark a gray that it was almost black; he wore a white shirt with a starched collar and a black knitted tie. He and his wife, he told Captain William Weigand, had been driving in the country. His wife, who was rather short and rather plump, who had one of the friendliest pink faces Bill Weigand could remember having seen, wore a black silk dress, with white at the throat. The white, Bill guessed, made it a costume suitable for a drive into the country.

  Her pink face crinkled when she heard; she cried and dabbed her eyes with a tiny white handkerchief and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I just can’t help it. He was so—” She cried harder, then, and said, “Excuse me, sir. Please excuse me,” and went from the apartment foyer down the corridor to her quarters.

  Sandys had a long face. When he heard, his face seemed to grow older.

  “We have been with Mr. Blanchard for a very long time,” he said. “You must forgive my wife, captain. She was attached to Mr. Blanchard.”

  There was a kind of rustiness in the man’s low voice; it was as if something had rusted in his throat.

  They had had the weekend off, been given the weekend off. Mr. Blanchard had, very generously, allowed them the use of one of the cars. They had left Saturday morning and driven up into New Hampshire and through the mountains, and stayed overnight in Burlington, Vermont. They had returned at a little after six, although Mr. Blanchard had said that Monday would be quite soon enough. They had not wanted to inconvenience him, in the event he might have changed his plans.

  “If we had been here,” Robert Sandys said, and his voice was, momentarily, more than rusty.

  He could not conceive that Mr. Blanchard could have had any enemies. Surely, he thought, the assailant must have been somebody who had broken in—broken in to steal. If he had been there—He and Mr. Blanchard together—

  Bill suggested that Mr. Sandys sit down. “Thank you, sir,” Mr. Sandys said, and continued to stand—to stand stiffly, as if at attention.

  There was nothing, Bill told him, to indicate forcible entry. It seemed probable that Mr. Blanchard had let his murderer in. Or, of course, that the murderer had had a key. As to keys?

  Each of the Sandyses had a key to the apartment. Mr. Blanchard of course had one.

  “And Miss Latham?”

  “Miss Hilda had her own key, captain. She has been notified?”

  She knew. Which brought up a point—who else should be notified? Relatives?

  “Mr. Blanchard had no living relatives,” Sandys said. “To my knowledge, at least.”

  He had had the “usual” number of friends. He had entertained friends at dinner, sometimes once a week, sometimes less often. Most frequently, he had three men in to dinner, and afterward played bridge. He was a member of several clubs, including a bridge club. He was; Sandys understood, a bridge player of tournament caliber.

  Women friends?

  The wives of his male friends, certainly. Others? “I am afraid I am not informed as to that, captain.” Miss Latham, obviously?

  “Miss Hilda,” Sandys said, “is the daughter of one of his oldest friends. Mr. Graham Latham.”

  He said this, Bill thought, with a kind of finality. Which was interesting. Or, which might be. He might, Bill thought, get further with Mrs. Sandys. But not at the moment.

  It would be necessary to go through any papers Mr. Blanchard might have in the apartment. Or at his office?

  “Mr. Blanchard did not maintain an office, captain. He was not in active practice as a lawyer.”

  Then—there were certain locked drawers. A safe. It would be necessary for the police to examine the contents of these. It would be preferable if somebody with the authority could authorize the unlocking of drawers, of safe. If necessary, of course, they could be opened without authority. If necessary, forced open.

  “I can show you the keys, captain,” Sandys said. “And, if that would be proper, open the safe. Mr. Blanchard—entrusted me with the combination.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Bill said, and was faintly surprised at the formality of his own phrasing, “I think it would be entirely proper, Mr. Sandys.”

  The safe was precisely where one would have expected it to be—in the library, behind a picture. It was the first place the police had looked; it would have been the first place anybody would have looked. Sandys opened the safe. It had not, apparently, been rifled. At any rate, it still contained a considerable amount of cash. And, what appeared to be a will. And a key to a safe-deposit box.

  In lieu of anyone else, Bill Weigand gave a receipt to Robert Sandys. He said, “You’d better go and see to that wife of yours, Mr. Sandys.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Sandys said. “We will both be available if we can be of any service.”

  He went.

  “This fellow Ackerman is getting pretty hot under the collar,” Sergeant Mullins said, coming in from the room in which Mr. Ackerman was stored. “Says this is a hell of a
note.”

  “Did he, really, sergeant?”

  “O.K.,” Mullins said. “High-handed procedure. I was just keeping it simple.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Get him, sergeant.”

  Mullins got Floyd Ackerman. He was a very thin man in a suit almost as dark as that of Sandys; he was white-faced. His head was oddly shaped and, obscurely, reminded Bill of something. Of course—of a mansard roof. He wore large and heavily rimmed eyeglasses, with very thick lenses. His eyes were strangely magnified behind the lenses. Mr. Ackerman held out one white hand and pointed it at Bill Weigand, and the hand shook.

  “This is outrageous,” he said. He had a high-pitched voice. “Most high-handed.”

  Bill was sorry. He regretted that Mr. Ackerman had had to wait. There were many things to be done.

  “One hour and twelve minutes,” Ackerman said, shrilly, and shook with rage. It was odd, Bill thought, that he remained so pale. “Do you think my time has no value? That I have nothing better to do? Illegal detention. I shall carry this to—” He paused, and blinked behind the thick lenses. “The highest quarters,” he said. “It will be—” He paused again. “A test case.” He shook the extended hand at Bill Weigand.

  “Right,” Bill said. “By all means, if you like. Meanwhile—you came here to see Mr. Blanchard? Not knowing he was dead?”

  “Certainly,” Ackerman said, in his high voice. “Obviously, I should think—”

  “Why? The detective who let you in seemed to feel that you were—indignant. Said, ‘Where’s this man Blanchard?’ in what seemed to him a rather excited way.”

  “What do I care what it seemed like to a—a flat-foot?” He used the outmoded term of opprobrium as if new-minted, then and there, by himself.

  “Right,” Bill said. “What do you care? Were you—call it indignant? Want to have something out with Mr. Blanchard?”

  “Certainly,” Ackerman said. “I—scat! Scat, I say!”

  Bill was startled; realized almost at once that Ackerman’s already starey eyes were fixed on something beyond him; apparently at something on the floor. Bill turned.

  A black cat, rather oddly shaped, had come out from under something. Perhaps Ackerman’s voice had disturbed a quiet nap. The cat stretched. The cat, even when not stretching, had an amazingly high rear end. He also had no tail whatever. With stretching finished, he sat and looked with rather detached interest at the two men who had disturbed his rest.

  “Get it out of here!” Ackerman said, and his voice went higher still. “Scat, you!”

  It did not appear that the Manx cat had had the meaning of the word “scat” explained to him. He looked up at Ackerman and closed his eyes, a little wearily.

  And Floyd Ackerman moved forward and kicked at the cat.

  He did not, of course, kick the cat. The Manx took care of that. The Manx also hissed, briefly and with contempt.

  “I’d leave him alone,” Bill Weigand said, and spoke sharply.

  “I’ll do—” Ackerman began, and Bill Weigand said, “You’ll not kick cats around,” and went to the door and opened it. The Manx walked through the door with such dignity as the built-in gait of a Manx cat permits. Outside he turned and hissed again, and then he went.

  “If I want to kick cats—” Ackerman began, but Bill said, “Skip it. You did want to have something out with Mr. Blanchard? Came here this afternoon—evening—with that in mind?”

  “To tell him,” Ackerman said, “to retract or be sued. To let him understand that I would not take such—aspersions—lying down. To make it clear that—”

  “Wait,” Bill said and, a little unexpectedly, Ackerman waited. “You’re talking about Mr. Blanchard’s letter? In this morning’s Times?”

  “Certainly. Flagrantly libelous. A flat accusation that I am—immoral. Also, I’ll sue the Times for printing it. Not for myself. Certainly not for myself. For The Cause.” The capitalization was Ackerman’s, by intonation.

  Jerry had told Bill Weigand that Ackerman was a fanatic. “A little hipped,” Jerry had said. It occurred to Bill that Jerry had understated.

  “I’ve read the letter,” Bill said. “As I recall it, Mr. Blanehard found an attitude immoral. Not you. Or your committee.”

  “Crying fire in a crowded theater,” Ackerman said, and shook. His eyes seemed abnormally large behind the glasses. His pale hair lay flat on what Bill still found it hard not to think of as his mansard roof. Bill would have expected it to bristle. “These sadistic torturers of helpless creatures!”

  From a man who had just tried, however ineptly, to kick a cat, the indignation Ackerman displayed seemed to come oddly. Bill Weigand avoids side issues, however tempting, when possible. He could not quite avoid this one.

  “You tried to kick the cat,” Bill said, mildly.

  “What,” Ackerman said, “has that got to do with it? It’s a matter of principle. It is not necessary to like cats.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Of course not.”

  It occurred to him that it was perhaps more necessary, from where Ackerman stood, to dislike people. Especially, of course, scientists. “Skip it,” Bill told himself.

  “I take it,” Bill said, “that you had just read Mr. Blanchard’s letter? Before you came here to—demand a retraction? An apology?”

  “Certainly not,” Ackerman said. “I never sleep later than six.” He spoke with pride. “Never,” he said, clinching it home.

  The hiatus was obvious. Bill stepped across it.

  “So,” he said, “you read the letter this morning. Early, apparently. And—waited all day before coming to take it up with Mr. Blanchard?”

  He put scepticism into the question. Not that there was any reason Ackerman shouldn’t have waited—no reason but Ackerman himself, a man atremble with zeal; a man, Bill thought, not likely to come slowly to a boil, but to boil at once.

  “When I first—” Ackerman said, and bit it off. The magnifying lenses hid whatever expression might then have come into Ackerman’s light blue eyes.

  “Right,” Bill said. “When you first came here—what, Mr. Ackerman?”

  “Nobody answered the bell,” Ackerman said. “All right—I did try earlier. About—oh, half past nine.”

  “At,” Bill said, “somewhere around the time he was killed.”

  He didn’t ask. He said. Then he asked.

  “How did you know that, Mr. Ackerman? If you didn’t know he was dead?”

  Floyd Ackerman said he didn’t know what Weigand meant.

  “Come now,” Weigand said. “You’re obviously an intelligent man, Mr. Ackerman. Admitting you’d been here earlier was a slip of the tongue. So, you had been trying to keep that secret. If you didn’t know you were here about the time he was killed, why keep it secret?”

  “You’re trying to trick me. I might have—”

  “No. Why?”

  “I didn’t know the time,” Ackerman said. “When I came here I had no idea anything had happened to him. It was merely that I saw no reason to—to—”

  “Put ideas in our heads?”

  He could call it that. Ideas which would serve no purpose; would merely obscure the truth. His tone capitalized “The Truth.” He had a very capitalizing style, Bill decided.

  “You rang the bell,” Bill said. “At about nine thirty. Nobody answered. You didn’t see anybody. Hear anything from inside the apartment. You went away and came back—hours later. That’s what you say?”

  “Certainly. There was a meeting this afternoon. Of the committee. To consider an answer to—to this libelous attack on Our Work. It was agreed that I should seek a retraction. I thought it best to—confront Blanchard. In Person.”

  “Which you had already tried to do. Without consulting the committee.”

  “I,” Ackerman said simply, “am the chairman. Also, if you must know, I raise the money.”

  Bill had felt under no compulsion to know that. He did not in the least mind knowing it.

  Ackerman had heard nothing inside
the apartment, except the ringing, distant, of the doorbell. He had seen no one.

  “When you went into the lobby downstairs,” Weigand said. “This morning, I mean. You knew which elevator to take?”

  “No. I took the first one I saw. Are there others?”

  “One. You had a fifty-fifty chance. Mr. Ackerman, was the elevator waiting? At the lobby floor?”

  And then, Bill thought, Ackerman hesitated. It was as if, once more, he had a fifty-fifty chance. Then he said, “No. It came down when I pushed the button.”

  “Empty?”

  Ackerman did not hesitate this time. He spoke, Bill thought, almost too quickly when he said, “Of course it was empty. I’ve already said—”

  “I know,” Bill Weigand said. “Right. I won’t take up any more of your time just now.”

  Ackerman, Bill thought, looked a little surprised.

  “Give your address to one of the men outside,” Bill said. “We may want to talk to you again.”

  Ackerman was still shaking when he went out. He had lied about the elevator, Bill thought. Protecting someone else? It occurred to Bill that Ackerman might well try to protect anyone who had killed John Blanchard. Particularly, of course, a white-faced man named Floyd Ackerman.

  8

  The Norths walked back from Mario’s. On the way, they mooted a point—should they tell Bill Weigand that Doug Mears and Hilda Latham had had dinner together, had seemed more friendly than they had appeared to be earlier, had seemed to have important things to talk about? (Or, he to talk about, she to listen to.) Because, Pam said, it would be a case of peep and tell, but on the other hand.

  She, Jerry said as they turned into their block, put it very neatly.

  “If they were only talking about themselves,” Pam said, clarifying, “no, of course. But if he was explaining that it was perfectly all right for him to have killed Blanchard—what’s he doing down here?”

  She pointed, not at a man. She pointed at a pale yellow Cadillac, parked at the curb. It was parked within inches of a fire hydrant. Its license plate bore, along with a number, the letters DVS.

  “Attending a cat,” Jerry said.