The Judge Is Reversed by Frances Lockridge

surprise—Doug Mears had driven into town, and up to the apartment in Riverside Drive. He had rung the doorbell and—
    â€œThings sort of blew up in my face.”
    He guessed that, when he had first come into the apartment, this apartment, he had blown up himself. O.K., he’d said he did sometimes. O.K., he was sorry.
    He said this to everybody. He looked at Hilda Latham. This time, briefly, she looked at him. Her expression didn’t, to the watching Pamela North, reveal anything. My intuition must be slipping, Pam thought.
    So?
    Where had he been at, say, around nine that morning?
    He flared briefly at that. What the hell—? O.K. He had been at the inn at Forest Hills. He’d either been just getting up, or eating breakfast, having just got up. Alone? So far as he remembered, he hadn’t seen anybody he knew. So?
    That was about all, for the moment, Bill told him, told Hilda Latham. Mears stood up; the girl did not.
    â€œCome on, Hildy,” Mears said. “Unless you’ve moved in here?”
    She hesitated.
    â€œFor God’s sake,” Mears said, with impatience. “For God’s sake, come on! ”
    She stood up, then. She said, “I—”
    The telephone rang. Jerry looked at it with reproach. “One of you,” he said, and Mullins answered. But it was Bill Weigand who spoke to Nathan Shapiro, on Riverside Drive, and a long, long way from Brooklyn. Bill said, “Yes, Nate?”
    â€œAnother one’s showed up,” Nathan Shapiro said, deep depression in his voice. “Guy named Ackerman. Starey-eyed sort of man. Teddy opened the door and he said, ‘Where’s this man Blanchard?’ sort of as if he’d come to shoot him. So do you want we should send him down too or—”
    â€œNo,” Bill said. “I’ll come up, Nate. Put Mr. Ackerman in storage for now.”
    He hung up. He told Hilda Latham and the tall tennis player that he hoped they wouldn’t get lost, not go too far away. They both, a little unexpectedly but most politely, thanked Mr. and Mrs. North for the drinks, and for a moment it appeared that Hilda might go further, might thank them for such a nice party. “Come on ,” Mears said, and they went on.
    â€œDid you say Ackerman?” Jerry said, and then explained Ackerman. Bill said, “Well—well.”
    â€œWill Kleenex be all right?” Pam asked, and Bill said it would do, and they wrapped in tissue, carefully, the cocktail glass Hilda Latham had used, the highball glass from which Mears had drunk.
    â€œSo nice you could drop in,” Pamela North said, as William Weigand and Sergeant Mullins dropped out, taking wrapped glasses with them.

7
    The Norths went out to dinner. They went to Mario’s, which is nearest of the places they find permissible and which has other advantages, not the least of them that it is open on Sunday evening. “Mr. and Mrs. North,” Mario said, when they had gone down three steps from the sidewalk into the big, dimly lit room with red tablecloths. “Very cold, very dry, with lemon peel.”
    â€œSometimes,” Pam said, as they followed Mario to a corner table, “I feel as if I ought to be worried by that sort of greeting. Are we getting in a rut, do you think?”
    â€œDo we want to run the risk of olives?” Jerry said, and spoke rhetorically. Whereupon, as rhetorically, Pamela North shivered.
    They had a corner table; presently they had the cold and dry ones, with lemon peel. Sipping, looking, Pam said, “Do you see what I see?”
    â€œObviously,” Jerry said, “not. Since you’re looking one way and I the other.”
    â€œLook in the mirror,” Pam said, with forbearance, and Jerry looked into the mirror behind his wife. He said, “I suppose so. What, in particular?” But then, before Pam answered, bothered to answer, he said, “Oh.”
    â€œOf course,” Pam said,