Рекс Стаут: In the Best Families

“It is gratifying, though,” Wolfe murmured.

“Yes, but it isn’t gratifying to have some of the people who say they are your friends looking at you as they do.” Annabel was earnest about it. “Then the second problem is this. The law will not allow a man who commits a murder to profit by it. If Barry Rackham killed his wife he can’t inherit property from her, no matter what her will said. But it has to be legally proven that he killed her, and unless that is done her will stands, and what she left to him will go to his heirs.”

She made a gesture. “It isn’t that we want it — the rest of us. It can go to the state or to charity — we don’t care. But we think it’s wrong and a shame for it to go to his people, whoever will inherit from him. It’s not only immoral, it’s illegal. It can’t be stopped by convicting him of murder, because he’s dead and can’t be tried. My lawyer and Mr. Archer both say we can bring action and get it before a court, but then we’ll have to have evidence that he killed her, and Mr. Archer says he hasn’t been able to get it from you, and he hasn’t got it. But surely you can get it, or anyhow you can try. You see, that would solve both problems, to have a court rule that his heirs can’t inherit because he murdered her.”

“You have stated it admirably,” Archer declared.

“We don’t want any of it,” Lina blurted.

“My interest,” Pierce put in, “ls only to have the truth fully and universally known and acknowledged.”

“That,” Wolfe said, “will take more than me. I am by no means up to that. And not only my capacities, but the circumstances themselves, restrict me to a much more modest ambition. I can get you one of the things you want, removal of all suspicion from the innocent, but the other, having Mrs. Rackham’s bequest to her husband set aside, is beyond me.”

They all frowned at him, in their various fashions. Hammond, the banker, protested, “That doesn’t seem to make sense. What accomplishes one accomplishes the other. If you prove that Rackham killed his wife—”

“But I can’t prove that.” Wolfe shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it can’t be done. It is true that Rackham deserved to die, and as a murderer. He killed a woman here in New York three years ago, a woman named Delia Montrose — one of Mr. Cramer’s unsolved cases; Rackham ran his car over her. That was how Zeck originally got a noose on Rackham, by threatening to expose him for the murder he did commit. As you know, Mr. Archer, I penetrated some distance — not very far, but far enough — into Zeck’s confidence, and I learned a good deal about his methods. I doubt if he ever had conclusive evidence that Rackham had killed Delia Montrose, but Rackham, conscious of his guilt, hadn’t the spine to demand a showdown. Murderers seldom have. Then Rackham got a spine, suddenly and fortuitously, by becoming a millionaire; he thought then he could fight it; he defied Zeck, who, taking his time, retorted by threatening to expose Rackham for the murder of his wife. The threat was dangerous and effective even without authentic evidence to support it; there could of course be no authentic evidence that Rackham killed his wife, because he didn’t.”

They all froze, still wearing the frowns. Knowing Wolfe as I did, I had suspected that was coming, so I was taking them all in to get the impact, but there wasn’t much to choose. After the first shock they all began to make noises, then words came, and then, as the full beauty of it hit them, the words petered out.

All but Archer’s. “You have signed a statement,” he told Wolfe, “to the effect that Zeck told Rackham he could produce evidence that would convict him of murder, and that Rackham thereupon shot Zeck. Now you say, in contradiction—”

“There is no contradiction,” Wolfe declared. “The fact of Rackham’s innocence would have been no defense against evidence manufactured by Zeck, and Rackham knew it. Innocent as he was — of this murder, that is — he knew what Zeck was capable of.”

“You have said that you think Rackham killed his wife, but that you have no proof.”

“I have not,” Wolfe snapped. “Read your transcripts.”

“I shall. And you now say that you think Rackham did not kill his wife?”

“Not that I think he didn’t. I know he didn’t, because I know who did.” Wolfe flipped a hand. “I’ve known that from the beginning. That night in April, when Mr. Goodwin phoned me that Mrs. Rackham had been murdered, I knew who had murdered her. But I also knew that the interests of Arnold Zeck were involved and I dared not move openly. So I — but you know all about that.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie. Precautions may not be required, but you might as well take them.”

I opened a desk drawer and got out the Grisson .38. My favorite Colt, taken from me in Zeck’s garage antechamber, was gone forever. After a glance at the cylinder I dropped the Grisson in my side pocket and as I did so lifted my head to the audience. As if they had all been on one circuit, the six pairs of eyes left me and went to Wolfe.

“I don’t like this,” Archer said in a tight voice. “I am here officially, and I don’t like it. I want to speak to you privately.”

Wolfe shook his head. “It’s much better this way, Mr. Archer, believe me. We’re not in your county, and you’re free to leave if it gets too much for you, but—”

“I don’t want to leave. I want a talk with you. If you knew, that night, who had killed Mrs. Rackham, I intend to—”

“It is,” Wolfe said cuttingly, “of no importance what you intend. You have had five months to implement your intentions, and where are you? I admit that up to three days ago I had one big advantage over you, but not since then — not since I told you of the package I got with a cylinder of tear gas in it, and of the phone call from Mr. Zeck. That brought you even with me. It was after noon on a Friday that Mrs. Rackham left here after hiring me. It was the next morning, Saturday, that I received that package and the phone call from Zeck. How had he learned about it? Apparently he even knew the amount of the check she had given me. How? From whom?”

I was not really itching to shoot anybody. So I got up and unobtrusively moved around back of them, to the rear of the chair that was occupied by Calvin Leeds. Wolfe was proceeding.

“It was not inconceivable that Mrs. Rackham had told someone else about it, her daughter-in-law or her secretary, or even her husband, but it was most unlikely, in view of her insistence on secrecy. She said she had confided in no one except her cousin, Calvin Leeds.” Wolfe’s head jerked right and he snapped, “That’s correct, Mr. Leeds?”

Being back of Leeds, I couldn’t see his face, but there was no difficulty about hearing him, since he spoke much too loud.

“Certainly,” he said. “Up to then — before she came to see you — certainly.”

“Good,” Wolfe said approvingly. “You’re already drawing up your lines of defense. You’ll need them.”

“What you’re doing,” Leeds said, still too loud, “if I understand you — you’re intimating that I told Zeck about my cousin’s coming here and hiring you. You’re intimating that in front of witnesses.”

“That’s right,” Wolfe agreed. “But it’s not vital to me; I mention it chiefly to explain why I suspected you of duplicity, and of being involved in some way with Arnold Zeck even before Mr. Goodwin left here that day to go up there. It draws attention to you, no doubt of that; but it is not primary evidence that you murdered your cousin. The proof that it was you who killed her was given to me on the phone that night by Mr. Goodwin.”

There were stirrings and little noises. Leeds ignored them.