In the Best Families

by Rex Stout

  “I think, Zeck said, “that you should describe the operation, since you conceived it and will manage it. But you were right to wait. He turned to

  Rackham. “You remember our last talk some time ago.

  Rackham said nothing.

  “You remember it? Zeck demanded. He made it a demand by the faintest possible sharpening of his tone.

  “I remember it, Rackham stated, not much above a whisper.

  “You know the position you took. Ordinarily that course is not permitted to any man who has been given a place in my organisation, and I made an exception of you only because the death of your wife had changed your circumstances. I thought it better to await an opportunity to take advantage of that change, and now it has come-through Roeder here. We want your help and we are prepared to insist on getting it. How do you feel about it?

  “I don’t know. Rackham licked his lips. “I’d have to know more about what you want.

  Zeck nodded. “But first your attitude. You will need to recognise the existence of mutual interests-yours and mine.

  Rackham said nothing.

  “Well? The faint sharpening.

  “Damn it, of course I recognise them!

  “Good. Go ahead, Roeder.

  Roeder had got some papers from his briefcase. One of them fluttered away from him, and I left my chair to retrieve it for him. I believe he did that on purpose. I believe he knew that now that the moment had come every nerve and muscle in me was on a hair trigger, and he was giving me an excuse to loosen them up.

  “As I understand it, he said, “we’re going to give Rackham a cut, and before I tell him about it I wish you’d take a look at this revised list of percentages.

  Yours is of course fixed, and I don’t like to reduce mine unless it’s absolutely unavoidable…

  He had a sheet of paper in his hand. With his briefcase on his lap, and loose papers, it was awkward for him to get up, so I obliged. I reached, and he handed me the paper, and I had to leave my chair to get it to Zeck. On my way I took a glance at the paper because I thought it was in character to do that, and if I ever needed my character to stay put for another four seconds I did right then.

  When I extended my hand to Zeck I released the paper an instant too soon and it started to drop. I grabbed at it and missed, and that made me take another step and bend over, which put me in exactly the right position to take him away from there before he could possibly get a toe on one of the buttons under his desk.

  Not wanting to knock his chair over, I used my left knee to push him back, chair and all, my right knee to land on his thighs and keep him there, and my hands for his throat.

  There was only one thing in my mind at that precise instant, the instant I had him away from the desk, and that was the fear that I would break his neck. Since

  I was in front of him I had to make absolutely sure, not only that he didn’t yap, but also that he was too uncomfortable to try things like jabbing his thumbs in my eyes, but God knows I didn’t want to overdo it, and bones and tendons are by no means all alike. What will be merely an inconvenience for one man will finish another one for good.

  His mouth was open wide and his shark eyes were popping. With my knee on him he couldn’t kick, and his arms were just flopping around. And Roeder was there by me, with a wadded handkerchief in one hand and a piece of cord in the other. As soon as he had the handkerchief stuffed tight in the open mouth he moved to the rear of the chair, taking Zeck’s right hand with him, and reached around for the left hand. It tried to elude him, and I increased the pressure of my fingers a little, and then he got it.

  “Hurry up, I growled, “or I’ll kill him sure as hell.

  It took him a year. It took him forever. But finally he straightened up, came around to take another look at the handkerchief and poke it in a little tighter, backed up, and muttered, “All right, Archie.

  When I took my hands away my fingers ached like the devil, but that was nerves, not muscles. I leaned over to get my ear an inch away from his nose; there was no question about his breathing.

  “His pulse is all right, Roeder said, not through his nose.

  “You’re crazy, Rackham said hoarsely. “Good God! You’re crazy!

  He was out of his chair, standing there in front of it, trembling all over.

  Roeder’s hand went to his side pocket for the Carson Snub Thirty, which he had got from the briefcase along with the piece of cord. I took it and aimed it at

  Rackham.

  “Sit down, I said, “and stay.

  He sank down into the chair. I moved to the end of the desk so as to have him in a corner of my eye while looking at Zeck. Roeder, at my left elbow, spoke rapidly but distinctly.

  “Mr Zeck, he said, “you told me on the telephone two years ago that you had great admiration for me. I hope that what has just happened here has increased it. I’m Nero Wolfe, of course. There are many things it would give me satisfaction to say to you, and perhaps I shall some day, but not now. It is true that if one of your men suddenly opened the door Mr Goodwin would kill you first, but I’m afraid you’d have company. So I’ll get on. Having by your admission matched you in intellect, it’s a question of will, and mine has not failed me, as you thought. Confound it, I wish you could speak.

  The expression of Zeck’s eyes, no longer popping, indicated that Wolfe had nothing on him there.

  “Here’s the situation, Wolfe went on. “During the two months I’ve been here in this outlandish guise I have collected enough evidence to get you charged on thirty counts under Federal law. I assure you that the evidence is sound and sufficient, and is in the hands of a man whom you cannot stop or deflect. You’ll have to take my word for it that if that evidence is produced and used you are done for, and that it will be immediately produced and used if anything untoward happens to Mr Goodwin or me. I fancy you will take my word since you admit that

  I match you in intellect, and to climax these five frightful months with such a bluff as this, if it were one, would be witless. However, if you think I’m bluffing there’s no point in going on. If you think I’m bluffing, please shake your head meaning no, you don’t believe me.

  No shake.

  “If you think I have the evidence as described, please nod your head.

  No nod.

  “I warn you, Wolfe said sharply, “that Mr Goodwin and I are both ready for anything whatever.

  Zeck nodded. Nothing violent, but a nod.

  “You assume my possession of the evidence?

  Zeck nodded again.

  “Good. Then we can bargain. While I have great respect for the Federal laws, I am under no obligation to catch violators of them. Without compunction I can leave that to others. But I am under an obligation to a certain individual which

  I feel strongly and which I must discharge. Mrs Rackham paid me a large sum to serve her interest, and the next day she was murdered. It was clearly my duty to expose her murderer-not only my duty to her but to my own self-respect-and I have failed. With an obligation of that nature I have never accepted failure and do not intend to. Mr Goodwin, working on my behalf, has been a party to that failure, and he too will not accept it.

  Zeck nodded again, or I thought he did, probably to signify approval of our high moral standards.

  “So we can bargain, Wolfe told him. “You said day before yesterday that you have evidence, or can easily get it, that will convict Rackham of the murder of his wife. Was that true?

  Zeck nodded. The shark eyes were intent on Wolfe.

  “Very well. I believe you because I know what you are capable of. I offer a trade. I’ll trade you the evidence I have collected against you for the evidence that will convict Rackham. Will you make the trade?

  Zeck nodded.

  “It will have to be more or less on my terms. I can be trusted; you cannot. You will have to deliver first. But I realise that the details of anything as vital as this is to you cannot be settled without discussion, and it must be discussed and settled now.
We are going to release your hands and take that handkerchief from your mouth, but before we do so, one more warning. You are to stay where you are until we’ve finished. If you move towards the floor signals under your desk, or try to summon your men in any other manner, you will die before anyone else does. Also, of course, there is the evidence that exists against you. You understand the situation?

  Zeck nodded.

  “Are you ready to discuss the matter?

  Zeck nodded.

  “Release him, Archie, Wolfe snapped.

  Needing two hands to untie the cord, I put the Carson Snub Thirty down on the polished top of Zeck’s desk. I would have given a year’s pay for a glance at

  Rackham, to see what the chances were, but that might have ruined it. So I put the gun there, stepped around to the rear of Zeck’s chair, knelt, and started untying the knot. My heart was pounding my ribs like a sledgehammer.

  So I didn’t see it happen; I could only hear it. I did see one thing there behind Zeck’s chair: a sudden convulsive jerk of his arms, which must have been his reaction to the sight of Rackham jumping for the gun I had left on the desk.

  More even than a sight of Rackham, to see if he was rising to it, I wanted a sight of Wolfe, to see if he was keeping his promise to duck for cover the instant Rackham started for the gun. but I couldn’t afford it. My one desperate job now was to get that cord off Zeck’s wrists in time, and while Wolfe had used the trick knot we had practised with, he had made it damn’ tight. I barely had it free and was unwinding the cord from the wrists when the sound of the shot came, followed immediately by another.

  As I got the cord off and jammed it in my pocket, Zeck’s torso slumped sideways and then forward. Flat on the floor, I slewed around, saw Zeck’s contorted face right above my eyes, pulled the handkerchief out of his mouth and stuffed it in my pocket with the cord, slid forward under the desk, and reached for one of the signal buttons.

  I didn’t know, and don’t know yet, whether the noise of the shots had got through the soundproof door or whether it was my push on the button that brought them. I didn’t hear the door open, but the next shots I heard were a fusillade that came from no Carson, so I came back out from under the desk and on up to my feet. Schwartz and his buddy were standing just inside the door, one with two guns and one with one. Rackham was stretched out on the floor, flat on his face.

  Wolfe was standing at the end of the desk, facing the door, scowling as I had never seen him scowl before.

  “The dirty bastard, I said bitterly, and I admit my voice might have trembled even if I hadn’t told it to.

  “Reach up, Schwartz said, advancing.

  Neither Wolfe nor I moved a muscle. But Wolfe spoke. “What for? He was even bitterer than me, and contemptuous. “They let him in armed, not us.

  “Watch ‘em, Harry, Schwartz said, and came forward and on around behind the desk where I was. Ignoring me, he bent over Zeck’s collapsed body, spent half a minute with it, and then straightened and turned.

  “He’s gone, he said.

  Harry, from near the door, squealed incredulously. “He’s gone?

  “He’s gone, Schwartz said.

  Harry wheeled, pushed the door open, and was gone too.

  Schwartz stared after him three seconds, not more than that, then jumped as if I had pinched him, made for the door, and on through.

  I went and took a look at Rackham, found he was even deader than Zeck, and turned to Wolfe. “Okay, that’s enough. Come on.

  “No. He was grim. “It will be safer when they’ve all skedaddled. Phone the police.

  “From here?

  “Yes.

  I went to Zeck’s desk and pulled one of the phones to me.

  “Wait. I had never heard him so grim. “First get Marko’s number. I want to speak to Fritz.

  “Now? For God’s sake, now?’

  “Yes. Now. A man has a right to have his satisfactions match his pains. I wish to use Mr Zeck’s phone to tell Fritz to go home and get dinner ready.

  I dialled the operator.

  Chapter Twenty

  Three days later, Friday afternoon, I said to Wolfe, “Anyway, it’s all over now, isn’t it?

  “No, confound it, he said peevishly. “I still have to earn that fee.

  It was six o’clock, and he had come down from the plant rooms with some more pointed remarks about the treatment the plants had got at Hewitt’s place. The remarks were completely uncalled for. Considering the two journeys they had taken, out to Long Island and then back again, the plants were in splendid shape, especially those hard to handle like the Miltonias and Phalaenopsis.

  Wolfe was merely trying to sell the idea, at least to himself, that the orchids had missed him.

  Fritz might have been a mother whose lost little boy has been brought home after wandering in the desert for days, living on cactus pulp and lizards’ tails.

  W’olfe had gained not an ounce less than ten pounds in seventy-two hours, in spite of all the activity of getting resettled, and at the rate he was going he would be back to normal long before Thanksgiving. The pleats in his face were already showing a tendency to spread out, and of course the beard was gone, and the slick had been shampooed out of his hair. I had tried to persuade him to stay in training, but he wouldn’t even bother to put up an argument. He just spent more time than ever with Fritz, arranging about meals.

  He had not got home for dinner Tuesday evening after all, in spite of the satisfaction he had got by putting in a call to Fritz on Zeck’s phone. We were now cleaned up with Westchester, but it had not been simple. The death of Arnold

  Zeck had of course started a chain reaction that went both deep and wide, and naturally there had been an earnest desire to make goats out of Wolfe and me, but they didn’t have a damn’ thing on us, and when word came from somewhere that

  Wolfe, during his association with Zeck, might have collected some facts that could be embarrassing to people who shouldn’t be embarrassed, the attitude towards us changed for the better right away.

  As for the scene that ended with the death of Zeck and Rackham, we were clean as a whistle. The papers in Roeder’s briefcase, which of course the cops took, proved nothing on anybody. By the time the cops arrived, there had been no one on the premises but Wolfe and me and the two corpses. A hot search was on, especially for Schwartz and Harry, but so far no take. No elaborate lying was required; our basic story was that Wolfe, in his disguise as Roeder, had got in with Zeck in order to solve the murder of Mrs Rackham, and the climax had come that afternoon when Zeck had put the screws on Rackham by saying that he had evidence that would convict him for killing his wife, and Rackham had pulled a gun, smuggled somehow past the sentinels, and had shot Zeck, and Schwartz and

  Harry had rushed in and drilled Rackham. It was surprising and gratifying to note how much of it was strictly true.

  So by Friday afternoon we were cleaned up with Westchester, as I thought, and therefore it was a minor shock when Wolfe said, “No, confound it, I still have to earn that fee.

  I was opening my mouth to ask him how come, when the phone rang. I got it. It was Annabel Frey. She wanted to speak to Wolfe. I told him so. He frowned and reached for his phone, and I stayed on.

  “Yes, Mrs Frey? This is Nero Wolfe.

  “I want to ask you a favour, Mr Wolfe. That is, I expect to pay for it of course, but still it’s a favour. Could you and Mr Goodwin come up here this evening? To my home, Birchvale?

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Frey, but it’s out of the question. I transact business only in my office. I never leave it.

  That was a little thick, I thought, from a guy who had just spent five months the way he had. And if she read newspapers she knew all about it-or anyhow some.

  “I’m sorry, she said, “because we must see you. Mr Archer is here, the District

  Attorney, and I’m calling at his suggestion. We have a problem-two problems, really.

  “By “we” do you mean you and Mr Archer?

&
nbsp; “No, I mean all of us-all of us who inherited property from Mrs Rackham, and all of us who were here the night she was killed. Our problem is about evidence that her husband killed her. Mr Archer says he has none, none that is conclusive-and perhaps you know what people are saying, and the newspapers. That’s what we want to consult you about-the evidence.

  “Well. A pause. “I’m trying to get a little rest after a long period of over exertion. But-very well. Who is there?

  “We all are. We met to discuss this. You’ll come? Wonderful! If you-

  “I didn’t say I’ll come. All five of you there?

  “Yes-and Mr Archer-

  “Be at my office, all of you, at nine o’clock this evening. Including Mr

  Archer.

  “But I don’t know if he will-

  “I think he will. Tell him I’ll be ready then to produce the evidence.

  “Oh, you will? Then you can tell me now-

  “Not on the phone, Mrs Frey. I’ll be expecting you at nine.

  When we had hung up I lifted the brows at him. “So that’s what you meant about earning that fee? Maybe?

  He grunted, irritated that he had to interrupt his convalescence for a job of work, sat a moment, reached for a bottle of the beer Fritz had brought, grunted again, this time with satisfaction, and poured a glass with plenty of foam.

  I got up to go to the kitchen, to tell Fritz we were having company and that refreshments might be required.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I was mildly interested when the six guests arrived-a little early, five to nine-in such minor issues as the present state of relations between Annabel Frey and the banker, Dana Hammond, and between Lina Darrow and the statesman, Oliver

  Pierce, and whether Calvin Leeds would see fit to apologise for his unjust suspicions about Wolfe and me.

  To take the last first, Leeds was all out of apologies. The spring was in his step all right, but not in his manners. First to enter the office, he plumped himself down in the red leather chair, but I figured that Archer rated it ex officioand asked him to move, which he did without grace. As for the others, there was too much atmosphere to get any clear idea. They were all on speaking terms, but the problem that brought them there was in the front of their minds, so much so that no one was interested in the array of liquids and accessories that Fritz and I had arranged on the table over by the big globe. Annabel was in the most comfortable of the yellow chairs, to Archer’s left; then, working towards me at my desk, Leeds and Lina Darrow; and Hammond and Pierce closest to me.