Murder Is Suggested (27 page)

“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.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1961 Frances and Richard Lockridge

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3143-1

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THE MR. AND MRS. NORTH MYSTERIES

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