The Judge Is Reversed by Frances Lockridge Read Free Book Online Page B

Pam?”
    â€œComing out,” Pam said, and came out from behind the sofa, and brushed herself. “I do think, sergeant—” she began, but did not finish. She went to one side of the chair and got down on her knees beside it. “Nice kitty,” Pam said. “You ornery little beast.” She said the last in dulcet tones.
    Amantha said nothing whatever.
    Mullins looked around somewhat wildly. Then he got down on his knees in front of the chair, which was large and low. Jerry knelt opposite his wife; Bill Weigand went behind the chair and also knelt. Gebhardt remained near the door, holding the syringe like a baton.
    â€œYou look like a prayer meeting,” Gebhardt said, with some pleasure. “Or a crap game.”
    â€œPush,” Bill said, over the chair, to Mullins. Mullins pushed.
    â€œWOW—OW!” Amantha said, and the moving chair exposed her. She tried to back under.
    â€œGrab her!” Gebhardt shouted and started forward. And Mullins grabbed the little café-au-lait cat, with brown ears and face and legs, and long brown tail. He held her dangling.
    â€œDesk,” Gebhardt said. “Hold her down.”
    Mullins looked around somewhat wildly, Amantha dangling. He held the cat out toward Pam.
    â€œDesk!” Gebhardt said. “How many times—”
    Mullins put the little cat down on the desk top.
    â€œPush her down hard,” Gebhardt said. “Front end. Good and hard. They’re tougher than they look.”
    â€œGood God,” Mullins said, but he pressed down on the little cat’s shoulders. She glared up at him from wide blue eyes.
    â€œDon’t let go until I say,” Gebhardt said, and was around the cat. He rubbed her flank with a dab of cotton which he had carried with the syringe. He pushed the needle in, and the little cat was a spring of rage under Mullins’s big hands. She twisted. She screamed. Gebhardt pressed the plunger. Amantha was a tortured cat. She mentioned it.
    â€œLet her go!” Gebhardt said, loudly. “Quick, man!”
    Mullins yanked his hands up.
    Amantha was a released spring. She paused only long enough—and it did not seem she really paused at all—to rake Mullins’s right thumb with a needle tooth. She then went back under the sofa.
    â€œGood,” Gebhardt said. “Not much trouble after all. Get you, sergeant?”
    Mullins shook blood from his hand. Not much blood, to be sure. But blood. He glared at Gebhardt.
    â€œHave to move fast,” Gebhardt said. “Even when they’re getting along, as she is, they’re pretty quick. Fortunately, she’s a sweet-tempered little thing. Aren’t you, Amantha?”
    The cat answered from under the sofa. She said, “mrr—ough,” but with no special violence.
    â€œKnows it’s over for the day,” Gebhardt said. “Well, got to be getting along. I’d put a little iodine on that, sergeant.” He did not, it occurred to Pam, speak in tones of much sympathy. “Never got a really bad infection myself, but now and then—As I said, you’ve got to be firm with them. Firm and fast.”
    He nodded, confirming his own statement. He went out of the room again.
    Mullins prepared to speak.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, sergeant,” Pam North said, “you didn’t need us, you know. All you had to do was to look at Gebby’s hands. Bandages. Anybody could tell he’s a cat vet.” She looked at Mullins and shook her head. “A matter of deduction,” Pam said. “Obvious, my dear sergeant.”
    For a moment the glare remained in the eyes of Sergeant Aloysius Mullins. They waited. The glare faded and Mullins slowly, widely, began to grin. Mullins’s face is large, but the grin fitted it.
    â€œO.K.,” Mullins said. “O.K. the bunch of you.”

5
    They waited in their apartment for Captain William Weigand, Sergeant Aloysius Mullins. They had been