Рекс Стаут: In the Best Families

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.