Free The Avenger 10 - The Smiling Dogs by Kenneth Robeson

business?”
    “Not a blamed thing,” said Nan. “But I suppose he, or somebody, thinks I know something. I suppose he kept an ignoramus like me in the anteroom because I was a good front, and then suddenly decided I knew too much.”
    “But you just said he wasn’t a phony, which would indicate that he wasn’t mixed up in anything crooked,” argued Nellie.
    “I don’t know what I think,” Nan admitted.
    Nellie cast back over The Avenger’s phoned command to her. Find out anything she could about the visits of the senators to Fram.
    “Tell me about this sanity test thing Fram’s in Washington about,” she said.
    “It’s a pet subject with Dr. Fram,” replied Nan. She repeated words she had heard often in his office. “Do you know that about one and a half percent of the population in the United States is doomed to insanity? Well they are. And usually they can be spotted by examination of their lives and their family history. Now, if all young people with doubtful streaks in their heredity could be kept from marrying, gradually the insanity rate would dwindle down to nothing. There would be no children with weak minds brought into the world.”
    “You know,” said Nellie, “if enough cranks could pass enough laws designed to better the human race, in about a hundred years there wouldn’t be any human race left to better.”
    “It sounds logical to me.”
    Nellie shrugged again. “Maybe it’s logical,” she murmured. “But to me it sounds like the ‘so-what’ department. I find it very strange that Senators Wade, Hornblow, Burnside, Collendar and Cutten should call so often on Dr. Fram on such an uninteresting political issue. But they did call often, didn’t they?”
    “Yes,” said Nan. She spoke slowly, and very thoughtfully.
    Nellie Gray noted the slowness, and said, “What are you thinking?”
    “I’m thinking,” responded Nan, “that more than once I thought I saw something in the eyes of those Senators that a sanity test bill shouldn’t have brought. That was—fear.”
    “Fear?” said Nellie.
    “Yes—fear! And several times some of them, particularly Burnside and Wade, called very late at night. Much later than you’d think men would call in regard to an ordinary bit of proposed legislation.”
    “Had Fram entertained this pet idea of his for a long time?” Nellie asked.
    Nan shook her head. “I’ve worked for him for about a year. I didn’t hear him mention the thing till about six weeks ago. Then he suddenly began harping on it all the time. Finally, on a moment’s notice, he packed and went to Washington to lobby for the bill.”
    Nellie had noticed the same thing that Benson had about the Senators who often visited the psychiatrist. “These men,” she said, “are all well known for one thing: activities in soil conservation. They haven’t anything to do with the type of legislation Fram wants pushed. Why did he pick on them ?”
    “I don’t know,” said Nan.
    “Did any other representatives call on Fram?”
    “A congressman came once,” said Nan. “Congressman Coolie.”
    “Also interested primarily in dams and erosion and reforestation,” nodded Nellie. “He’s the chief leader of bills of that type in the other wing of the Capitol Building. It’s strange.”
    She tried another tack. “Tetlow Adams! He’s a power in the land. You say he came to see Fram about his son?”
    “That’s what he said,” Nan replied. “I overheard him once or twice when the doctor didn’t shut his inner door tightly. Mr. Adams has a nineteen-year-old boy who is acting strangely.”
    “Didn’t he ever bring the son in?”
    “No,” said Nan, “he didn’t. He always came and just talked about him. I thought that was queer, though I didn’t think about it very hard.”
    “He always talked to the doctor only about his son?”
    “I can’t say that,” admitted Nan. “Twice I heard a little, when, as I said, Dr. Fram didn’t shut his inner door tightly. But each