Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families

by Rex Stout

  He spoke, not to me but to Hebe. She came to him, a darting shadow, close to him. He leaned over to touch the shoulder of the body of Mrs. Barry Rackham and said, “Watch it, Hebe.” The dog moved alongside the body, and Leeds, with nothing to say to me, went. He didn’t leap or run, but he sure was gone. I called after him, “Phone the police before you kill anybody!” stepped to the trail, and headed for Hillside Kennels.

  With the flashlight I had no trouble finding my way. This time, as I approached, the livestock barked plenty, and, hoping the kennel doors were all closed tight, I had my gun out as I passed the runs and the buildings. Nothing attacked me but noise, and that stopped when I had entered the house and closed the door. Apparently if an enemy once got inside it was then up to the master.

  Nobby was still there on the bench, and the knife was still in him. With only a glance at him in passing, I made for the little living room, where I had previously seen a phone on a table, turned on a light, went to the phone, and got the operator and gave her a number. As I waited a look at my wristwatch showed me five minutes past midnight. I hoped Wolfe hadn’t forgotten to plug in the line to his room when he went up to bed. He hadn’t. After the ring signal had come five times I had his voice.

  “Nero Wolfe speaking.”

  “Archie. Sorry to wake you up, but I need orders. We’re minus a client. Mrs. Rackham. This is a quick guess, but it looks as if someone stabbed her with a knife and then stuck the knife in a dog. Anyhow, she’s dead. I’ve just—”

  “What is this?” It was almost a bellow. “Flummery?”

  “No, sir. I’ve just come from where she’s lying in the woods. Leeds and I found her. The dog’s dead too, here on a bench. I don’t—”

  “Archie!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is insupportable, under the circumstances.”

  “Yes, sir, all of that.”

  “Is Mr. Rackham out of it?”

  “Not as far as I know. I told you we just found her.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At Leeds’ place, alone. I’m here guarding the knife in the dog. Leeds went to Birchvale to get a doctor and the cops and maybe to kill somebody. I can’t help it. I’ve got all the time in the world. How much do you want?”

  “Anything that might help.”

  “Okay, but in case I get interrupted here’s a question first. On two counts, because I’m here working for you and because I helped find the body, they’re going to be damn curious. How much do I spill? There’s no one on this line unless the operator’s listening in.”

  A grunt and a pause. “On what I know now, everything about Mrs. Rackham’s talk with me and the purpose of your trip there. About Mrs. Rackham and Mr. Leeds and what you have seen and heard there, everything. But you will of course confine yourself strictly to that.”

  “Nothing about sausage?”

  “Absolutely nothing. The question is idiotic.”

  “Yeah, I just asked. Okay. Well, I got here and met dogs and people. Leeds’ place is on a corner of Mrs. Rackham’s property, and we walked through the woods for dinner at Birchvale. There were eight of us at dinner….”

  I’m fairly good with a billiard cue, and only Saul Panzer can beat me at tailing a man or woman in New York, but what I am best at is reporting a complicated event to Nero Wolfe. With, I figured, a probable maximum of ten minutes for it, I covered all the essentials in eight, leaving him two for questions. He had some, of course. But I think he had the picture well enough to sleep on when I saw the light of a car through the window, told him good-by, and hung up. I stepped from the living room into the little hall, opened the outside door, and was standing on the stone slab as a car with STATE POLICE painted on it came down the narrow drive and stopped. Two uniformed public servants piled out and made for me. I only hoped neither of them was my pet Westchester hate, Lieutenant Con Noonan, and had my hope granted. They were both rank-and-file.

  One of them spoke. “Your name Goodwin?”

  I conceded it. Dogs had started to bark.

  “After finding a dead body you went off and came here to rest your feet?”

  “I didn’t find the body. A dog did. As for my feet, do you mind stepping inside?”

  I held the door open, and they crossed the threshold. With a thumb I called their attention to Nobby, on the bench.

  “That’s another dog. It had just crawled here to die, there on the doorstep. It struck me that Mrs. Rackham might have been killed with that knife before it was used on the dog, and that you guys would be interested in the knife as is, before somebody took it to slice bread with, for instance. So when Leeds went to the house to phone I came here. I have no corns.”

  One of them had stepped to the bench to look down at Nobby. He asked, “Have you touched the knife?”

  “No.”

  “Was Leeds here with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he touch the knife?”

  “I don’t think so. If he did I didn’t see him.”

  The cop turned to his colleague. “We won’t move it, not now. You’d better stick here. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll be getting word. Come along, Goodwin.”

  He marched to the door and opened it and let me pass through first. Outdoors he crossed to his car, got in behind the wheel, and told me, “Hop in.”

  I stood. “Where to?”

  “Where I’m going.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said regretfully, “but I like to know where. If it’s White Plains or a barracks, I would need a different kind of invitation. Either that or physical help.”

  “Oh, you’re a lawyer.”

  “No, but I know a lawyer.”

  “Congratulations.” He leaned toward me and spoke through his nose. “Mr. Goodwin, I’m driving to Mrs. Rackham’s house, Birchvale. Would you care to join me?”

  “I’d love to, thanks so much,” I said warmly and climbed in.

  Chapter 5

  The rest of that night, more than six hours, from half-past midnight until well after sunrise, I might as well have been in bed asleep for all I got out of it. I learned only one thing, that the sun rises on April ninth at 5:39, and even that wasn’t reliable because I didn’t know whether it was a true horizon.

  Lieutenant Con Noonan was at Birchvale, among others, but his style was cramped.

  Even after the arrival of District Attorney Cleveland Archer himself, the atmosphere was not one of singleminded devotion to the service of justice. Not that they weren’t all for justice, but they had to keep it in perspective, and that’s not so easy when a prominent wealthy taxpayer like Mrs. Barry Rackham has been murdered and your brief list of suspects includes (a) her husband, now a widower, who may himself now be a prominent wealthy taxpayer, (b) an able young politician who has been elected to the state assembly, (c) the dead woman’s daughter-in-law, who may possibly be more of a prominent wealthy taxpayer than the widower, and (d) a vice-president of a billion-dollar New York bank. They’re all part of the perspective, though you wish to God they weren’t so you could concentrate on the other three suspects: (e) the dead woman’s cousin, a breeder of dogs which don’t make friends, (f) her secretary, a mere employee, and (g) a private dick from New York whose tongue has needed bobbing for some time. With a setup like that you can’t just take them all down to White Plains and tell the boys to start chipping and save the pieces.

  Except for fifteen minutes alone with Con Noonan, I spent the first two hours in the big living room where we had looked at television, having for company the members of the family, the guests, five members of the domestic staff, and two or more officers of the law. It wasn’t a bit jolly. Two of the female servants wept intermittently. Barry Rackham walked up and down, sitting occasionally and then starting up again, speaking to no one. Oliver Pierce and Lina Darrow sat on a couch conversing in undertones, spasmodically, with him doing most of the talking. Dana Hammond, the banker, was jumpy. Mostly he sat slumped, with his chin
down and his eyes closed, but now and then he would arise slowly as if something hurt and go to say something to one of the others, usually Annabel or Leeds. Leeds had been getting a blaze started in the fireplace when I was ushered in, and it continued to be his chief concern. He got the fire so hot that Annabel moved away, to the other side of the room. She was the quietest of them, but from the way she kept her jaw clamped I guessed that it wasn’t because she was the least moved.

  One by one they were escorted from the room for a private talk and brought back again. It was when my turn came, not long after I had arrived, that I found Lieutenant Noonan was around. He was in a smaller room down the hall, seated at a table, looking harassed. No doubt life was hard for him—born with the instincts of a Hitler or Stalin in a country where people are determined to do their own voting. The dick who took me in motioned me to a chair across the table.

  “You again,” Noonan said.

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. I haven’t seen you since the time I didn’t run my car over Louis Rony.”

  I didn’t expect him to wince, and he didn’t. “You’re here investigating that dog poisoning at Hillside Kennels.”

  I had no comment.

  “Weren’t you?” he snapped. “If you’re answering questions.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t know it was a question. It sounded more like a statement.”

  “You are investigating the dog poisoning?”

  “I started to. I spent an hour at it there with Leeds, before we came here to dinner.”

  “So he said. Make any progress?”

  “Nothing remarkable. For one thing, I had kibitzers, which is no help. Mrs. Frey and Mr. Hammond.”

  “Did you all come over here together?”

  “No. Leeds and I came about an hour after Mrs. Frey and Mr. Hammond left.”

  “Did you drive?”

  “Walked. He walked and I ran.”

  “You ran? Why?”

  “To keep up with him.”

  Noonan smiled. He has the meanest smile I know of except maybe Boris Karloff. “You get your comedy from the comics, don’t you, Goodwin?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me about the dinner here and afterwards. Make it as funny as you can.”

  I took ten minutes for it, as much as I had had for Wolfe, but getting interrupted with questions. I stuck to facts and gave them to him straight. When we came to the end he went back and concentrated on whether all of them had heard Mrs. Rackham say she was going for a walk with the dog, as of course they had since she had issued a blanket invitation for company. Then I was sent back to the living room, and it was Lina Darrow’s turn in the preliminaries. I wondered if she would play dumb with him as she had with me.

  It was as empty a stretch of hours as I have ever spent. I might as well have been a housebroken dog; no one seemed to think I mattered, and I was not in a position to tell them how wrong they were. At one point I made a serious effort to get into a conversation, making the rounds and offering remarks, but got nowhere. Dana Hammond merely gave me a look, without opening his trap. Oliver Pierce didn’t even look at me. Lina Darrow mumbled something and turned away. Calvin Leeds asked me what they had done with Nobby’s remains, nodded and frowned at my answer, and went to put another log on the fire. Annabel Frey asked me if I wanted more coffee, and when I said yes apparently didn’t hear me. Barry Rackham, whom I tackled at the far end of the room, was the most talkative. He wanted to know whether anyone had come from the District Attorney’s office. I said I didn’t know. He wanted to know the name of the cop in the other room who was asking questions, and I told him Lieutenant Con Noonan. That was my longest conversation, two whole questions and answers.

  I did get in one piece of detection, somewhat later, when finally District Attorney Cleveland Archer made an appearance. As he came into the room and made himself known and everybody moved to approach him, I took a look at his shoes and saw that he had undoubtedly been in the woods to inspect the spot where Mrs. Rackham’s body was found. Likewise Ben Dykes, the dean of the Westchester County dicks, who was with him. That made me feel slightly better. It would have been a shame to stick there the whole night without detecting a single damn thing.

  After a few preliminary words to individuals Archer spoke to them collectively. “This is a terrible thing, an awful thing. It is established that Mrs. Rackham was stabbed to death out there in the woods—and the dog that was with her. We have the knife that was used, as you know—it has been shown to you—one of the steak knives that are kept in a drawer here in the dining room—they were used by you at dinner last evening. We have statements from all of you, but of course I’ll have to talk further with you. I won’t try to do that now. It’s after three o’clock, and I’ll come back in the morning. I want to ask whether any of you has anything to say to me now, anything that shouldn’t wait until then.” His eyes went over them. “Anyone?”

  No sound and no movement from any quarter. They sure were a chatty bunch. They just stood and stared at him, including me. I would have liked to relieve the tension with a remark or question, but didn’t want to remind him that I was present.

  However, he didn’t need a reminder. After all the others, including the servants, had cleared out, Leeds and I were moving toward the door when Ben Dykes’ voice came. “Goodwin!”

  Leeds kept going. I turned.

  Dykes came to me. “We want to ask you something.”

  “Shoot.”

  District Attorney Archer joined us, saying, “In there with Noonan, Ben.”

  “Him and Noonan bring sparks,” Dykes objected. “Remember last year at Sperling’s?”

  “I’ll do the talking,” Archer stated, and led the way to the hall and along to the smaller room where Noonan was still seated at the table, conferring with a colleague—the one who had brought me from Hillside Kennels. The colleague moved to stand against the wall. Noonan arose, but sat down again when Archer and Dykes and I had pulled chairs up.

  Archer, slightly plumper than he had been a year ago, with his round red face saggy and careworn by the stress of an extremely bad night for him, put his forearms on the table and leaned at me.

  “Goodwin,” he said earnestly but not offensively, “I want to put something up to you.”

  “Suits me, Mr. Archer,” I assured him. “I’ve never been ignored more.”

  “We’ve been busy. Lieutenant Noonan has of course reported what you told him. Frankly, I find it hard to believe. Almost impossible to believe. It is well known that Nero Wolfe refuses dozens of jobs every month, that he confines himself to cases that interest him, and that the easiest and quickest way to interest him is to offer him a large fee. Now I—”

  “Not the only way,” I objected.

  “I didn’t say it was. I know he has standards—even scruples. Now I can’t believe that he found anything interesting in the poisoning of a dog—certainly not interesting enough for him to send you up here over a weekend. And I doubt very much if Calvin Leeds, from what I know of him, is in a position to offer Wolfe a fee that would attract him. His cousin, Mrs. Rackham, might have, but she did not have the reputation of throwing money around carelessly—rather the contrary. We’re going to ask Wolfe about this, naturally, but I thought I might save time by putting it up to you. I appeal to you to cooperate with us in solving this dastardly and cowardly murder. As you know, I have a right to insist on it; knowing you and Wolfe as I do, I prefer to appeal to you as to a responsible citizen and a man who carries a license to work in this state as a private detective. I simply do not believe that you were sent up here merely to investigate the poisoning of a dog.”

  They were all glaring at me.

  “I wasn’t,” I said mildly.

  “Ha, you weren’t!”

  “Hell, no. As you say, Mr. Wolfe wouldn’t be interested.”

  “So you lied, you punk,” Noonan gloated.

  “Wrong, as usual.” I grinned at him. “You didn’t a
sk me what I was sent here for or even hint that you would like to know. You asked if I was investigating the dog poisoning, and I told you I spent an hour at it, which I did. You asked if I had made any progress, and I told you nothing remarkable. Then you wanted to know what I had seen and heard here, and I told you, in full. It was one of the bummest and dumbest jobs of questioning I have ever run across, but you may learn in time. The first—”

  Noonan blurted, “Why, you goddam—”

  “I’ll handle it,” Archer snapped at him. Back to me: “You might have supplied it, Goodwin.”

  “Not to him,” I said firmly. “I tried supplying him once and he was displeased. Anyway, I doubt if he would have understood it.”

  “See if I can understand it.”

  “Yes, sir. Mrs. Rackham phoned Thursday afternoon and made an appointment to see Mr. Wolfe. She came yesterday morning—Friday—at eleven o’clock, and had Leeds with her. She said that it had been her custom, since marrying Rackham three years and seven months ago, to give him money for his personal use when he asked for it, but that he kept asking for bigger amounts, and she began giving him less than he asked for, and last October second he wanted fifteen grand, and she refused. Gave him zero. Since then, the past seven months, he had asked for none and got none, but in spite of that he had gone on spending plenty, and that was what was biting her. She hired Mr. Wolfe to find out where and how he was getting dough, and I was sent up here to look him over and possibly get hold of an idea. I needed an excuse for coming here, and the dog poisoning was better than average.” I fluttered a hand. “That’s all.”

  “You say Leeds was with her?” Noonan demanded.

  “That’s partly what I mean,” I told Ben Dykes, “about Noonan’s notion of how to ask questions. He must have heard me say she had Leeds along.”

  “Yeah,” Dykes said dryly. “But don’t be so damn cute. This is not exactly a picnic.” He spoke to Noonan. “Leeds didn’t make any mention of this?”

  “He did not. Of course I didn’t ask him.”