I gave him Dr. Dickson's home address, and he glanced around the room.
"I wish I had met you people under slightly happier circumstances, but let me say that it'll be my pleasure to represent you. By God, exogenesis!" His eyes held the same stunned, incredulous expression that Perry Dickson's had. "Wait till the Catholic Church gets hold of this one."
"In a sense, it has," Dr. Dickson said from the doorway. He had a new handkerchief, which he used as vigorously on his face as he had the other. "When I returned… well, from where I went" - he smiled at Jasper as the lawyer quickly gestured to him not to be specific-"Father Ryan had called. I haven't seen the poor man so distressed since the day we both arrived to preach a burial service over the same grave. It was a grisly joke, because the man had been an atheist of the most vehement sort… a fact we both knew. His relatives - tsk, tsk, terrible people; no wonder he was an atheist. I digress, a fault I cannot correct even when I'm not sermonizing…
"Father Ryan, yes. He had heard of the incredible charges being made against the Kelloggs, and he wished to know if there was any way in which he could help…"
"Father Ryan?" Peter asked, surprised and, I could see, rather gratified.
"Oh, yes. Father Ryan has the highest regard for you, Peter. His exact words were. 'There is nothing Byronic about that young man in his poems or his personality.' So! There! He is quite willing to testify to your moral fiber if his presence would be of any help. Indeed, he insists on it."
"Does he know about the exogenetic twins?" asked Peter with wry humor.
"Well, as to that, I'm afraid to… Peter, I just couldn't tell him yet." It was the first time I'd known Perry Dickson to be at a loss for words. "Just think, Peter, this renders a major, an essential, Catholic mystery a mere surgical technique. But you know, it has occurred to me that such a possibility merely enlarges the mystery rather than explodes it." The handkerchief was flourished to provide the appropriate gestures. "For was not our Lord Jesus remarkable because of the person He was, not just because of His holy origin? And surely, does not such a miraculous method of arousing our instincts for good give evidence to even the most confirmed unbeliever that there is an agency, a being - God, who does care and who directs our petty ways?"
"Oh, my oh my, and this is only Tuesday. At all events, the babies are safely bestowed"-and his face was painfully earnest - "where, I assure you, they will have the most loving and competent care, and," he went on more briskly, mopping his forehead, "complete anonymity." He sighed. "Poor Father Ryan. But I did do right in spiriting the children away, didn't I?"
"Morally, yes," Jasper said. "Legally, no. If you hadn't, I should have tried to snatch them myself." He looked at us. "I realized what was up when I saw the nurse in the Red Cross wagon. And you know how I prefer to operate, Chuck: strictly on the up-and-up."
"I sometimes suspect that the up-and-up has a little bit of down in it in the middle," remarked the minister. "Now what's to be done?"
Jasper explained about the necessity for blood tests.
"Oh, I don't see that that will matter," Perry said. "However, for the legal minds, one must produce documents. But it won't, in the final analysis, matter if the blood types are similar."
"Why on earth not?" demanded Jasper, surprised.
"You doctors and lawyers consider legal and scientific proof the only essentials, but I fear you forget the power of human conceit. All those weighty clinical and notarized statements look most imposing on the record, and show that the lawyer has been worthy of his hire. Indeed, this sort of event needs all the documentation possible. But have no fears." He rose to his feet, gesturing. "All is resolved for the righteous. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. It's unchristian of me, I know, but such justice, such divine justice… No, I digress again. Mr. Johnson, if you'll just come with me, we can settle the matter of blood types from the children, and then I shall have to be about other of my Father's business. Old Mrs. Rothman, you know…"
He had bustled Jasper out of the house like a dinghy pushing a sleek yacht.
"I wonder how Father Ryan will take the news," said Peter as he stroked Wizard's head. Jasper was as good as his word about obtaining an emergency hearing with the Juvenile Court. He did remark that they had no opposition from the prosecution. He had commented again on the influence of our enemy's friends because the State of New York was the complainant, not an individual.
"Of course, the sovereign State of New York is the guardian of all children within its borders, but it's a neat piece of legal eagling."
It was good to know that our ordeal had limits, because the atmosphere in town was, to use the so apt teenage phrase, "hairy."
"Sure takes a moral crisis to tell the sheep from the goats," Esther remarked as she scratched off another patient from my books. "Just as well; McCluskey, Derwent, Patterson, and Foster were all due the same day."
"Whom does it leave me with?"
"Oddly enough, Patterson. You wouldn't think such a quiet little thing would buck the tide."
"You've never heard her in the PTA meetings, have you? A strong libber. God bless her."
Perry Dickson insisted we grace his church Sunday - that was his phrase. The ushers greeted us effusively, but some of their smiles were strained. Perry preached one of his most inspired, and shortest, sermons on prejudgment, prejudice, and persecution. That his words were taken to heart was noticeable by the numbers of our acquaintances who came up to speak to the Kelloggs, Esther, and me. I heard that Father Ryan took the same chapter and verse for his sermon. I promised that I would get to know that good man better in the very near future. If, after the exogenetic bit, he was still willing to speak to me.
The "slander" had fractionated people into those who were willing to believe incest, those who thought Peter and Cecily were adopting Pat's indiscretions, and those who were for or against unwed mothers, for or against abortion, for or against women's right to have complete say in what they chose to do with their own bodies.
"By God," Chuck said, for he insisted on coming up every Friday night, though it meant a mad streak down the Throughway on Monday mornings for his first appointments, "you've wiped drugs, moon shots, the Middle East, not to mention elections, right out of conversations. And most of my colleagues tell me exogenesis is impossible."
We all greeted the day of the hearing with more relief than anxiety; such is the power of the easy conscience.
Since this was a hearing involving minors, it had to be held in camera. 'I would have preferred a public coverage so that when we were exonerated, as many people as possible would know. Because of the number of principals involved, we were assigned to one of the large chambers. Unusual for such hearings, there were police officers, a bailiff, and a court secretary, Louise Baxter was conspicuous by her absence, which was as welcome to us as it was puzzling. Nor had all Jasper's probings elicited the name of the original complainant.
Judge Robert Forsyth was presiding, and he entered the chamber scowling - not a good sign, but he hated anything that smacked of the sensational, particularly when it involved children. He was, however, extremely perceptive and commonsensical.
"Oyez, oyez," rang the bailiff's cry as we got to our feet at Judge Forsyth's entrance. The rest of the initial proceedings were spewed out in a bored mumble. I noticed, cringing a bit, that when he cited the charge of "incestuous fornication and adultery," his enunciation promptly clarified and his delivery was strong. "Yes, yes," said Judge Forsyth, waving him aside. "How do you plead?" he demanded of Pat and Peter.