Рекс Стаут: In the Best Families

We agreed, without putting it in words, that there was nothing there we wanted, and resumed our way through the woods, keeping off the trail until we reached the scientist at the far end of the forbidden section, who not only challenged us but had to be persuaded that we weren’t a pair of bloodthirsty liars. Finally he was bighearted enough to let us go on.

I was glad they had taken Nobby away, not caring much for another view of the little hall with that canine corpse on the bench. Otherwise the house was as before. Leeds had stopped at the kennels. I went up to my room and was peeling off the pants I had pulled on over my pajamas when I was startled by a sudden dazzling blaze at the window. I crossed to it and stuck my head out: it was the sun showing off, trying to scare somebody. I glanced at my wrist and saw 5:39, but as I said, maybe it wasn’t a true horizon. Not lowering the window shade, I went and stretched out on the bed and yawned as far down as it could go.

The door downstairs opened and shut, and there were steps on the stairs. Leeds appeared at my open door, stepped inside, and said, “I’ll have to be up and around in an hour, so I’ll close your door.”

I thanked him. He didn’t move.

“My cousin paid Mr. Wolfe ten thousand dollars. What will he do now?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t asked him. Why?”

“It occurred to me that he might want to spend it, or part of it, in her interest. In case the police don’t make any headway.”

“He might,” I agreed. “I’ll suggest it to him.”

He still stood, as if there was something else on his mind. There was, and he unloaded it.

“It happens in the best families,” he stated distinctly and backed out, taking the door with him.

I closed my eyes but made no effort to empty my head. If I went to sleep there was no telling when I would wake up, and I intended to phone Wolfe at eight, fifteen minutes before the scheduled hour for Fritz to get to his room with his breakfast tray. Meanwhile I would think of something brilliant to do or to suggest. The trouble with that, I discovered after some poking around, was that I had no in. Nobody would speak to me except Leeds, and he was far from loquacious.

I have a way of realizing all of a sudden, as I suppose a lot of people do, that I made a decision some time back without knowing it. It happened that morning at 6:25. Looking at my watch and seeing that that was where it had got to, I was suddenly aware that I was staying awake, not so I could phone Wolfe at eight o’clock, but so I could beat it the hell out of there as soon as I was sure Leeds was asleep; and I was now as sure as I would ever be.

I got up and shed my pajamas and dressed, not trying to set a record but wasting no time, and, with my bag in one hand and my shoes in the other, tiptoed to the hall, down the stairs, and out to the stone slab. While it wasn’t Calvin Leeds I was escaping from, I thought it desirable to get out of Westchester County before anyone knew I wasn’t upstairs asleep. Not a chance. I was seated on the stone slab tying the lace of the second shoe when a dog barked, and that was a signal for all the others. I scrambled up, grabbed the bag, ran to the car and unlocked it and climbed in, started the engine, swung around the graveled space, and passed the house on my way out just as Leeds emerged through the side door. I stepped on the brake, stuck my head through the window, yelled at him, “Got an errand to do, see you later!” and rolled on through the gate and into the highway.

At that hour Sunday morning the roads were all mine, the bright new sun was at my left out of the way, and it would have been a pleasant drive if I had been in a mood to feel pleased. Which I wasn’t. This was a totally different situation from the other two occasions when we had crossed Arnold Zeck’s path and someone had got killed. Then the corpses had been Zeck’s men, and Zeck, Wolfe, and the public interest had all been on the same side. This time Zeck’s man, Barry Rackham, was the number one suspect, and Wolfe had either to return his dead client’s ten grand, keep it without doing anything to earn it, or meet Zeck head on. Knowing Wolfe as I did, I hit eighty-five that morning rolling south on the Sawmill River Parkway.

The dash clock said 7:18 as I left the West Side Highway at Forty-sixth Street. I had to cross to Ninth Avenue to turn south. It was as empty as the country roads had been. Turning right on Thirty-fifth Street, I went on across Tenth Avenue, on nearly to Eleventh, and pulled to the curb in front of Wolfe’s old brownstone house.

Even before I killed the engine I saw something that made me goggle — a sight that had never greeted me before in the thousands of times I had braked a car to a stop there.

The front door was standing wide open.

My heart came up. I swallowed it down, jumped out, ran across the sidewalk and up the seven steps to the stoop and on in. Fritz and Theodore were there in the hall, coming to me. Their faces were enough to make a guy’s heart pop right out of his mouth.

“Airing the house?” I demanded.

“He’s gone,” Fritz said.

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know. During the night. When I saw the door was open—”

“What’s that in your hand?”

“He left them on the table in his room — for Theodore and me, and one for you—”

I snatched the pieces of paper from his trembling hand and looked at the one on top. The writing on it was Wolfe’s.

Dear Fritz:

Marko Vukcic will want your services. He should pay you at least $2000 a month.

My best regards...

I looked at the next one.

Dear Theodore:

Mr. Hewitt will take the plants and will need your help with them. He should pay you around $200 weekly.

My regards...

I looked at the third one.

AG:

Do not look for me.

My very best regards and wishes...

I went through them again, watching each word, told Fritz and Theodore, “Come and sit down,” went to the office, and sat at my desk. They moved chairs to face me.

“He’s gone,” Fritz said, trying to convince himself.

“So it seems,” I said aggressively.

“You know where he is,” Theodore told me accusingly. “It won’t be easy to move some of the plants without damage. I don’t like working on Long Island, not for two hundred dollars a week. When is he coming back?”

“Look, Theodore,” I said, “I don’t give a good goddam what you like or don’t like. Mr. Wolfe has always pampered you because you’re the best orchid nurse alive. This is as good a time as any to tell you that you remind me of sour milk. I do not know where Mr. Wolfe is nor if or when he’s coming back. To you he sent his regards. To me he sent his very best regards and wishes. Now shut up.”

I shifted to Fritz. “He thinks Marko Vukcic should pay you twice as much as he does. That’s like him, huh? You can see I’m sore as hell, his doing it like this, but I’m not surprised. To show you how well I know him, this is what happened: not long after I phoned him last night he simply wrote these notes to us and walked out of the house, leaving the door open — you said you found it open — to show anyone who might be curious that there was no longer anyone or anything of any importance inside. You got up at your usual time, six-thirty, saw the open door, went up to his room, found his bed empty and the notes on the table. After going up to the plant rooms to call Theodore, you returned to his room, looked around, and discovered that he had taken nothing with him. Then you and Theodore stared at each other until I arrived. Have you anything to add to that?”

“I don’t want to work on Long Island,” Theodore stated.