Still, it came to his mind again, Judd’s going to school that first time when they had lived on Michigan Avenue, and the only decent school nearby was Miss Spencer’s where they had only girls.

The unending arguments! Mother Dear, can’t you see the boy is miserable, everybody teases him, a sissy with all those girls. Finally he had taken Judd out and sent him to the public school. But that had lasted only a few months. Until that day when the stupid nurse had been late to fetch him, and Judd had come running home himself with the bloody nose.

No, no, even so, a bloody nose, every boy has to go through it, he had argued, but his wife and her sister had talked him down. The boy was weak and frail even for his age. So Mother Dear insisted it was better to send him back to Miss Spencer’s – at least the girls didn’t beat him up and call him sheenie.

Judah Steiner had been sitting in the dark in the large leather chair where he usually smoked. Now he leaned over and switched on the lamp.

He went to the back of the library and uncovered a projector he had bought especially because of Judd’s little film last summer. Taking out the film, he managed to thread it, though this was something he had usually asked Judd to do. To set up the screen, he moved almost stealthily; he did not want servants to come. Then he sat on the high-backed chair by the carved-legged library table, watching the picture.

There was the boy, crouching, alert, his eyes so bright. It was on the dunes, the high weeds, the sand. Now the camera picked out the birds, hopping on the branches of a high bush – a special lens had been used to enlarge them from that distance.

Now Judd came out, standing near the bush. He held out his hand, with some bird seed, or crumbs, whatever he used for them. A bird hopped close. It was thought these warblers were gone altogether, migrated for ever, or maybe died out, until Judd discovered them there on the dunes. The State of Michigan had sent the cameraman to make a record of the discovery. An ornithology magazine had printed an article Judd wrote. Perhaps the boy was right, perhaps he should have been a scientist…

The tears came to his eyes.

Mistily, he saw the bird hopping up onto Judd’s forearm – and Judd was smiling now, his serious, dignified smile, people said like his father’s.

Judah Steiner’s eyes were so filled with tears that he couldn’t see any more. He felt the tears roll down his face.

By then already a legendary figure, Jonathan Wilk devoted more time to lecturing, writing, philosophizing than to the law. In a courtroom, he was purely and simply a great plea-maker. None like him has since arisen. Though from a technical point of view he was an amazing cross-examiner, dogged, devious, even cunning when necessary, his spectacular qualities emerged on the simplest level of pleading for human compassion. He spoke of himself as a materialist, but I suppose what came through was the heart of a mystic, a man of great soul who sought to open the souls of other men.

He had become famous as a labour lawyer in a great railway strike. For an entire generation he had defended labour leaders accused of violence. In a frame-up, Wilk had been completely broken and nearly disbarred; he had then regained his career in an endless series of trials, defending criminals, defending underdogs, defending Negroes, defending; defending. He was a reformer, sometimes an iconoclast, an awakener, and he had lived long enough to become a legend.

His body was beginning to show weariness – rheumatic spells sometimes kept him bedridden for weeks. Wilk resided in a third-floor walk-up overlooking the university and the park. The stairs were too much, but he would not abandon the apartment, with its magnificent view.

Gerald Straus led the way up the stairs. James Straus and Max Steiner had come with him.

Mrs. Wilk herself came to the door, a compact woman, with a humorous mouth, quick eyes. They told her who they were.

Wilk had heard the bell; he was sitting up in bed. Gerald Straus said, “We’ve come to you as the only man who can save our boys.”

As he had been secluded all day, reading, the last Wilk knew of the Kessler sensation was that two rich boys had been picked up for some silly coincidence about eyeglasses.

“But anyone can get your boys out,” he said. “It’s obviously only a coincidence.”

“No, no, they’ve confessed!” Hoarsely, Gerald Straus pleaded, “You’ve got to take the case. You’re the only one who can get them off.”

Wilk sat erect. “Get them off?”

Max quickly interjected, “Save their lives. Just so they don’t hang. Let them go to jail for life, we wouldn’t even ask for less.”

“It will be a great case,” Uncle Gerald said, recalling Feldscher’s suggestion. And he added, “You can name your own fee.”

Wilk seemed not to have heard the last part. By his lifelong philosophy he was doomed to defend them, even if it killed him, and it might, it just might.

“I don’t know,” he said cautiously, sighing. “Where are they now?”

“State’s Attorney Horn has them. He’s been running them all around town; they’ve been talking their heads off.”

Wilk’s jaw moved. “By now, you won’t be able to get a writ to get them out of his clutches before Monday morning. He’s got all Sunday to keep them babbling. God knows what he’ll get them to say.”

“You certainly can’t do anything now in the middle of the night,” his wife said. “Jonathan, at least get some sleep before you decide.”

Wilk sighed again. “I don’t know if I can do you much good. You’ve got a fine man in your own family, Ferdinand Feldscher.”

“He begged us to get you,” Uncle Gerald said earnestly.

“Well, come in the morning.” Wilk looked at his wife. “I suppose the Feldschers thought about alienists. There are only a few top men in town. Arthur Ball – you’d better try to get him.”

“I’ll call him right now,” Gerald offered.

“If Horn hasn’t got him already, it’ll keep till morning.”

When they were gone, his wife said, “Jonathan, it’ll kill you. And everybody will say you’re doing it for the money.”

Wilk found the answer, the inevitable slogan, at once. “The rich have got as much right to a defence as the poor.”

Horn had got to the alienists. Dr. Ball was already in Horn’s office, early Sunday, when the boys were brought from the hotel where they had been allowed a last night of ease.

Several of us were in the room.

Dr. Ball was keen-looking, kindly, quite aged; he was a professor emeritus of the Northwestern Medical School ’s department of neurology. Instantly Judd began talking about the mental processes of birds. When birds altered their migratory routes by selecting between various sensory stimuli, wasn’t that reasoning? Just as when humans made decisions by selecting between sensory stimuli – like a man between two women. “I am a behaviourist,” Judd announced, while the professor smiled and asked whether in his view a human being had no more control over his conduct than a bird.

“I take a materialist determinist position,” Judd said, and just then another psychiatrist arrived. The new arrival, Dr. Stauffer, turned to the boys with zest.

Judd recognized his name. “Ah, you’re an advocate of the Stanford-Binet test – you’re sold on it,” he challenged. He kept on, talking about reflex actions and reaction time. He had measured reactions of a ten-thousandth of a second, Judd said.

The term “ten-thousandth” caught Horn’s ear, for he now turned to the boys asking why they had fixed on ten thousand dollars as the ransom. Judd laughed at the association and said, “See, everything has a cause.”

But surely they hadn’t needed the money, Horn said.

“Why shouldn’t we want it?” Artie said. “Ten thousand dollars is ten thousand dollars.”

“Well, if I had ten thousand in my pocket right now would you try to lift it?” Horn said.