In the Best Families Read online

  In the Best Families

  Rex Stout

  Rex Stout

  In The Best Families

  Chapter One

  It was nothing out of the ordinary that Mrs Barry Rackham had made the appointment with her finger pressed to her lips. That is by no means an unusual gesture for people who find themselves in a situation where the best thing they can think of is to make arrangements to see Nero Wolfe.

  With Mrs Barry Rackham the shushing finger was only figurative, since she made the date speaking to me on the phone. It was in her voice, low and jerky, and also in the way she kept telling me how confidential it was, even after I solemnly assured her that we rarely notified the press when someone requested an appointment on business. At the end she told me once more that she would have preferred to speak to Mr Wolfe himself, and I hung up and decided it rated a discreet routine check on a prospective client, starting with Mr Mitchell at the bank and Lon Cohen at the Gazette. On the main point of interest, could she and did she pay her bills, the news was favourable: she was worth a good four million and maybe five. Calling it four, and assuming that Wolfe’s bill for services rendered would come to only half of it, that would be enough to pay my current salary-as Wolfe’s secretary, trusted assistant and official gnat-for a hundred and sixty-seven years; and in addition to that, living as I did there in

  Wolfe’s house, I also got food and shelter. So I was fixed for life if it turned out that she needed two million bucks’ worth of detective work.

  She might have at that, judging from the way she looked and acted at eleven o’clock the next morning, Friday, when the doorbell rang and I went to let her in. There was a man on the stoop with her, and after glancing quickly east and then west she brushed past him and darted inside, grabbed my sleeve, and told me in a loud whisper, “You’re not Nero Wolfe!

  Instantly she released me, seized the elbow of her companion to hurry him across the sill, and whispered at him explosively, “Come in and shut the door! You might have thought she was a duchess diving into a hock shop.

  Not that she was my idea of a duchess physically. As I attended to the door and got the man’s hat and topcoat hung on the rack, I took them in. She was a paradox-bony from the neck up and ample from the neck down. On her chin and jawbone and cheekbone the skin was stretched tight, but alongside her mouth and nose were tangles of wrinkles.

  As I helped her off with her fur coat I told her, “Look, Mrs Rackham. You came to consult Nero Wolfe, huh?

  “Yes, she whispered. She nodded and said right out loud, “Of course.

  “Then you ought to stop trembling if you can. It makes Mr Wolfe uneasy when a woman trembles, because he thinks she’s going to be hysterical, and he might not listen to you. Take a deep breath and try to stop.

  “You were trembling all the way down here in the car, the man said in a mild baritone.

  “I was not! she snapped. That settled, she turned to me. This is my cousin,

  Calvin Leeds. He didn’t want me to come here, but I brought him along anyhow.

  Where’s Mr Wolfe?

  I indicated the door to the office, went and opened it, and ushered them in.

  I have never figured out Wolfe’s grounds for deciding whether or not to get to his feet when a woman enters his office. If they’re objective they’re too complicated for me, and if they’re subjective I wouldn’t know where to start.

  This time he kept his seat behind his desk in the corner near a window, merely nodding and murmuring when I pronounced names. I thought for a second that Mrs

  Rackham was standing gazing at him in reproach for his bad manners, but then I saw it was just surprised disbelief that he could be that big and fat. I’m so used to the quantity of him that I’m apt to forget how he must impress people seeing him for the first time.

  He aimed a thumb at the red leather chair beyond the end of his desk and muttered at her, “Sit down, madam.

  She went and sat. I then did likewise, at my own desk, not far from Wolfe’s and at right angles to it. Calvin Leeds, the cousin, had sat twice, first on the couch towards the rear and then on a chair which I moved up for him. I would have guessed that both he and Mrs Rackham had first seen the light about the same time as the twentieth century, but he could have been a little older. He had a lot of weather in his face with its tough-looking hide, his hair had been brown but was now more grey, and with his medium size and weight he looked and moved as if all his inside springs were still sound and lively. He had taken

  Wolfe in, and the surroundings too, and now his eyes were on his cousin.

  Mrs Rackham spoke to Wolfe. “You couldn’t very well go around finding out things. Could you?

  “I don’t know, he said politely. “I haven’t tried for years, and I don’t intend to. Others go around for me. He gestured at me. “Mr Goodwin, of course, and others as required. You need someone to go around?

  “Yes. She paused. Her mouth worked. “I think I do. Provided it can be done safely-I mean, without anyone knowing about it. Her mouth worked some more. “I am bitterly ashamed-having at my age, for the first time in my life-having to go to a private detective with my personal affairs.

  “Then you shouldn’t have come, Leeds said mildly.

  “Then you have come too soon, Wolfe told her.

  “Too soon? Why?

  “You should have waited until it became so urgent or so intolerable that it would cause you no shame to ask for help, especially from one as expensive as me. He shook his head. “Too soon. Come back if and when you must.

  “Hear that, Sarah? Leeds asked, but not rubbing it in.

  Ignoring him, she leaned forward and blurted at Wolfe, “No, I’m here now. I have to know! I have to know about my husband!

  Wolfe’s head jerked around to me, to give me a look intended to scorch. But I met his eyes and told him emphatically, “No, sir. If it is, she fibbed. I told her we wouldn’t touch divorce or separation evidence, and she said it wasn’t.

  He left me and demanded, “Do you want your husband followed?

  “I-I don’t know. I don’t think so-

  “Do you suspect him of infidelity?

  “No! I don’t!

  Wolfe grunted, leaned back in his chair, squirmed to get comfortable, and muttered, “Tell me about it.

  Mrs Rackham’s jaw started to quiver. She looked at Leeds. His brows went up, and he shook his head, not as a negative apparently, but merely leaving it to her.

  Wolfe let out a grunt. She moved her eyes to him and said plaintively, “I’m neurotic.

  “I am not, Wolfe snapped, “a psychiatrist. I doubt if—

  She cut him off. “I’ve been neurotic as long as I can remember. I had no brother or sister and my mother died when I was three, and my father didn’t enjoy my company because I was ugly. When he died-I was twenty then-I cried all during the funeral service, not because he was dead but because I knew he wouldn’t have wanted me so close to him all that time-in the church and driving to the cemetery and there at the grave.

  Her jaw started to quiver again, but she clamped it and got control. “I’m telling you this because it’s no secret anyway, and I want you to understand why

  I must have help. I have never been sure exactly why my first husband married me, because he had money of his own and didn’t really need mine, but it wasn’t long until he hated looking at me just as my father had. So I-

  “That isn’t true, Sarah, Calvin Leeds objected. “You imagined-

  “Bosh! she quashed him. “I’m not that neurotic So I got a divorce with his consent and gratitude, I think, though he was too polite to say so, and I hurried it through because I didn’t want him to know I was pregnant. Soon after the divorce my son was born, and that made complications
, but I kept him-I kept him and he was mine until he went to war. He never showed the slightest sign of feeling about my looks the way my father and my husband had. He was never embarrassed about me. He liked being with me. Didn’t he, Calvin?

  “Of course he did, Leeds assured her, apparently meaning it.

  She nodded and looked thoughtful, looking into space and seeing something not there. She jerked herself impatiently back to Wolfe. “I admit that before he went away, to war, he got married, and he married a very beautiful girl. It is not true that I wished he had taken one who resembled me, even a little bit, but naturally I couldn’t help but see that he had gone to the other extreme. Annabel is very beautiful. It made me proud for my son to have her-it seemed to even my score with all the beautiful women I had known and seen. She thinks I hate her, but that is not true. People as neurotic as I am should not be judged by normal standards. Not that I blame Annabel, for I know perfectly well that when the news came that he had been killed in Germany her loss was greater than mine. He wasn’t mine any longer then, he was hers.

  “Excuse me, Wolfe put in politely but firmly. “You wanted to consult me about your husband. You say you’re divorced?

  “Certainly not! I-She caught herself up. “Oh. This is my second husband. I only wanted you to understand.

  Til try. Let’s have him now.

  “Barry Rackham, she said, pronouncing the name as if she held the copyright on it, or at least a lease on subsidiary rights. “He played football at Yale and then had a job in Wall Street until the war came. At the end of the war he was a major, which wasn’t very far to get in nearly four years. We were married in

  1946-three years and seven months ago. He is ten years younger than I am.

  Mrs Barry Rackham paused, her eyes fixed on Wolfe’s face as if challenging it for comment, but the challenge was declined. Wolfe merely prodded her with a murmur.

  “And?

  “I suppose, she said as if conceding a point, “there is no one in New York who does not take it for granted that he married me simply for my money. They all know more about it than I do, because I have never asked him, and he is the only one that knows for sure. I know one thing: it does not make him uncomfortable to look at me. I know that for sure because I’m very sensitive about it, I’m neurotic about it, and I would know it the first second he felt that way. Of course he knows what I look like, he knows how ugly I am, he can’t help that, but it doesn’t annoy him a particle, not even-She stopped and was blushing. Calvin Leeds coughed and shifted in his chair.

  Wolfe closed his eyes and after a moment opened them again. I didn’t look away from her because when she blushed I began to feel a little uncomfortable myself, and I wanted to see if I could keep her from knowing it.

  But she wasn’t interested in me. “Anyway, she went on as the colour began to leave, “I have kept things in my own hands. We live in my house, of course, town and country, and I pay everything, and there are the cars and so on, but I made no settlement and arranged no allowance for him. That didn’t seem to me to be the way to handle it. When he needed cash for anything he asked for it and I gave it to him freely, without asking questions. She made a little gesture, a flip of a hand. “Not always, but nearly always. The second year it was more than the first, and the third year more again, and I felt he was getting unreasonable. Three times I gave him less than he asked for, quite a lot less, and once I refused altogether-I still asked no questions, but he told me why he needed it and tried to persuade me; he was very nice about it, and I refused. I felt that I must draw the line somewhere. Do you want to know the amounts?

  “Not urgently, Wolfe muttered.

  “The last time, the time I refused, it was fifteen thousand dollars. She leaned forward. “And that was the last time. It was seven months ago, October second, and he has not asked for money since, not once! But he spends a great deal, more than formerly. For all sorts of things-just last week he gave a dinner, quite expensive, for thirty-eight men at the University Club. I have to know where he gets it. I decided that some time ago-two months ago-and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to speak to my lawyer or banker about a thing like this, or in fact, anybody, and I couldn’t do it myself, so I asked my cousin, Calvin Leeds.

  She sent him a glance. “He said he would try to find out something, but he hasn’t.

  We looked at Leeds. He upturned a palm.

  “Well, he said, half apology and half protest, “I’m no trained detective. I asked him straight, and he just laughed at me. You didn’t want anyone else to get a hint of it, that you were curious about money he wasn’t getting from you, so I was pretty limited in my asking around. I did my best, Sarah, you know I did.

  “It seems to me, Wolfe told her, “that Mr Leeds had one good idea-asking him.

  Have you tried that yourself?

  “Certainly. Long ago. He told me that an investment he had made was doing well.

  “Maybe it was. Why not?

  “Not with my husband. She was positive. “I know how he is with money. It isn’t in him to make an investment. Another thing: he is away more now. I don’t know where he is as much as I used to. I don’t mean weeks or even days, just an afternoon or evening-and several times he has had an appointment that he couldn’t break when I wanted him to-Wolfe grunted, and she was at him. “I know! You think I feel that I’ve bought him and I own him! That’s not it at all! All I really want is to be like a wife, just any wife-not beautiful and not ugly, not rich and not poor-just a wife! And hasn’t a wife a right to know the source of her husband’s income-isn’t it her duty to know? If you had a wife wouldn’t you want her to know?

  Wolfe made a face. “I can tell you, madam, what I don’t want. I don’t want this job. I think you’re gulling me. You suspect that your husband is swindling you, either emotionally or financially, and you want me to catch him at it. He turned to me. “Archie. You’ll have to change that formula. Hereafter, when a request comes for an appointment, do not say merely that we will not undertake to get divorce or separation evidence. Make it clear that we will not engage to expose a husband for a wife, or a wife for a husband, under any camouflage. May

  I ask what you are doing, Mrs Rackham?

  She had opened her brown leather handbag and taken out a chequebook and a little gold fountain-pen. Resting the chequebook on the bag, she was writing in it with the pen. Wolfe’s question got no reply until she had finished writing, torn out the cheque, returned the book and pen to the bag, and snapped the bag shut. Then she looked at him.

  “I don’t want you to expose my husband, Mr Wolfe. She was holding the cheque with her thumb and fingertip. “God knows I don’t! I just want to know. You’re not ugly and afraid and neurotic like me, you’re big and handsome and successful and not afraid of anything. When I knew I had to have help and my cousin couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t go to anyone I knew, I went about it very carefully. I found out all about you, and no one knows I did, or at least why I did. If my husband is doing something that will hurt me that will be the end; but I don’t want to expose him, I just have to know. You are the greatest detective on earth, and you’re an honest man. I just want to pay you for finding out where and how my husband is getting money, that’s all. You can’t possibly say you won’t do it. Not possibly!

  She left her chair and went to put the cheque on his desk in front of him. “It’s for ten thousand dollars, but that doesn’t mean I think that’s enough. Whatever you say. But don’t you dare say I want to expose him! My God-expose him?

  She had my sympathy up to a point, but what stuck out was her basic assumption that rich people can always get anything they want just by putting up the dough.

  That’s enough to give an honest working man, like a private detective for instance, a pain in three places. The assumption is of course sound in some cases, but what rich people are apt not to understand is that there are important exceptions.

  This, however, was not one of them, and I hoped Wolfe would see that i
t wasn’t.

  He did. He didn’t want to, but the bank account had by no means fully recovered from the awful blow of March fifteenth, only three weeks back, and he knew it.

  He came forward in his chair for a glance at the cheque, caught my eye and saw how I felt about it, heaved a sigh, and spoke.

  “Your notebook, Archie. Confound it.

  Chapter Two

  The following morning, Saturday, I was in the office typing the final report on a case which I will not identify by name because it was never allowed to get within a mile of a newspaper or a microphone. We were committed on Mrs Rackham’s job, since I had deposited her cheque Friday afternoon, but no move had been made yet, not even a phone call to any of the names she had given us, because it was Wolfe’s idea that first of all we must have a look at him. With Wolfe’s settled policy of never leaving his house on business, and with no plausible excuse for getting Barry Rackham to the office, I would have to do the looking, and that had been arranged for.

  Mrs Rackham had insisted that her husband must positively not know or even suspect that he was being investigated, and neither must anyone else, so the arrangements for the look were a little complicated. She vetoed my suggestion that I should be invited to join a small weekend gathering at her country home in Westchester, on the ground that someone would probably recognise the Archie

  Goodwin who worked for Nero Wolfe. It was Calvin Leeds who offered an amendment that was adopted. He had a little place of his own at the edge of her estate, where he raised dogs, called Hillside Kennels. A month ago one of his valuable dogs had been poisoned, and I was to go there Saturday afternoon as myself, a detective named Archie Goodwin, to investigate the poisoning. His cousin would invite him to her place, Birchvale, for dinner, and I would go along.

  It was a quiet Saturday morning in the office, with Wolfe up in the plant rooms as usual from nine to eleven, and I finished typing the report of a certain case with no interruptions except a couple of phone calls which! handled myself, and one for which I had to give Wolfe a buzz-from somebody at Mummiani’s on Fulton