Rex Stout - Triple Jeopardy

Mrs. Benjamin Rackell, her lips tighter than ever, was in the red leather chair at the end of Wolfe's desk.

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Wolfe's gaze swept the arc. "I won't thank you for coming," he rumbled at them, "because it would be impertinent. You are here at the request of Mr. and Mrs. Rackell. Whether you came to oblige them or because you thought it unwise not to is immaterial."

Also, it seemed to me, it was close to immaterial whether they were there or not. Apparently, since he had sent me to Foley Square and Homicide to clear, Wolfe was proceeding on the Rackell theory that Arthur had got it because a Commie or Commies had discovered that he was an FBI plant. But that theory had not been published, and Wolfe couldn't blurt it out. You don't disclose the identity of FBI undercover men, even dead ones, if you make your living as a private detective and want to keep your license. And if by any chance Arthur had fed his aunt one with a worm in it, if he had actually had no more connection with the FBI than me with the DAR--no, that was one to steer clear of.

So not only could Wolfe not come to the point, he couldn't even let out a hint of what the point was. How could he talk at all?

He talked. "I don't know," he said, "whether the police have made it clear to you how you stand. They don't like it that I'm taking a hand in this. The entrance to my house has been under surveillance since this morning, when they learned that Mr. and Mrs. Rackell had consulted me. One or more of you were probably followed here this evening. But Mr. Rackell may properly hire me, I may properly work for him, and you may properly give me information if you feel like it."

"We don't know whether we do or not." Leddegard shifted in his chair, stretching his lanky legs. "At least I don't. I came as a courtesy to people in bereavement."

"It is appreciated," Wolfe assured him. "Now for how you stand. I talked with Mr. and Mrs. Rackell yesterday, and with Mrs. Rackell again this afternoon. It is characteristic of the newspapers to focus attention on you five people; it's obvious and dramatic, and, after all, you were there when Arthur

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Rackell swallowed poison and died. But beyond the obvious, why you? Have the police been candid?"

"That's a damn silly question," Heath declared. He had a flat but aggressive baritone. "The police are never candid."

"I knew a candid cop once," Fifi Goheen said helpfully.

"It seems to me," Carol Berk told Wolfe, "that you're being dramatic too, getting us down here. It would have taken a sleight-of-hand artist to get the pillbox from his pocket and switch a capsule and put it back, without being seen. And while the box was on the table it was right under our eyes."

Wolfe grunted. "You were all staring at it? For twelve minutes straight?"

"She didn't say we were staring at it," Leddegard blurted offensively.

"Pfui." Wolfe was disgusted. "A lummox could have managed it. Reaching for something�a roll, a cocktail glassdropping the hand onto the box, checking glances while withdrawing the hand, changing capsules beneath the table, returning the box with another casual unnoticeable gesture. I would undertake it myself with thin inducement, and I'm not Houdini."

"Tell me something," Leddegard demanded. "I may be thick, but why did it have to be done at the restaurant? Why not before?"

Wolfe nodded. "That's not excluded, certainly. You five people were not the only ones intimate enough with Arthur Rackell to know about his pink vitamin capsules and that he took three a day, one before each meal. Nor did you have a monopoly of opportunity. However�" His glance went left. "Mrs. Rackell, will you repeat what you told me this afternoon? About Saturday evening?"

She had been keeping her eyes at Wolfe but now moved her head to take the others in. Judging from her expression as she went down the line, apparently she was convinced not that one of them was a Commie and a murderer, but that they all were�excluding her husband, of course.

She returned to Wolfe. "My husband and Arthur had spent the afternoon getting an important shipment released, 16

1 got home a little before six. They went to their rooms to a shower and change. While Arthur was in the shower cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Kremp, went to his room to 'things out for him, shirt and socks and underwear--she's that; she's been doing it for years. The articles he had from his pockets were on the bureau, and she looked in pillbox and saw it was empty, and she got three capsules the bottle in a drawer--it held a hundred and was half -and put them in the box. She did that too, every day. is a competent woman, but she's extremely sentimental." "And she had no reason," Wolfe inquired, "for wishing 11 nephew dead?" "Certainly not!"

"She has of course told the police?" "Of course."

"Was there anyone in the apartment other than you four r�*-you, your husband, your nephew, and Mrs. Kremp?"

"No. No one. The maid was away. My husband and I were jjlgping to the country for the weekend."

"After Mrs. Kremp put the capsules in the box, and before jffyour nephew came from the shower to dress--did you enter your nephew's room during that period?" '< "No. I didn't enter it at all." v "Did you, Mr. Rackell?" > "I did not." He sounded as mournful as he looked.

Wolfe's eyes went left to right, from Carol Berk at one end to Leddegard at the other. "Then we have Arthur Rackell bathed and dressed, the pillbox in his pocket. The police are not confiding in me, but I read newspapers. Leaving the apartment, he went down in the elevator and out to the sidewalk, and the doorman got a taxi for him. He was alone in the taxi, and it took him straight to the restaurant. The capsules left in the bottle have been examined and had not been tampered with. There we are. Are you prepared to impeach Mrs. Kremp, or Mr. or Mrs. Rackell? Can you support the assumption that one of them murdered Arthur Rackell?"

"It's not inconceivable," Delia Devlin murmured.

"No," Wolfe conceded. "Nor is it inconceivable that he

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chose that moment and method to kill himself, nor even that a capsule of poison got into the bottle by accident. But I exclude them as too improbable for consideration, and so will everyone else, including the police. The inquiring mind is rarely blessed with a certainty; it must make shift with assumptions; and I am assuming, on the evidence, that when Arthur arrived at the restaurant the capsules in the box in his pocket were innocent. I invite you to challenge it. If you can't the substitution was made at the restaurant, and you see how you stand. The police are after you, and so am I. One of you? Or all of you? I intend to find out."

"You're scaring me stiff," Fifi Goheen said. "I'm frail and I may collapse." She stood up. "Come on, Leddy, I'll buy you a drink."

Leddegard reached for her elbow and gave it a little shake. "Hold it, Fee," he told her gruffly. "This guy has been known to do flips. Let's see. Sit down."

"Blah. You are scared. You've got a reputation." She jerked her arm loose and took two quick steps to the edge of Wolfe's desk. Her voice rose a little. "I don't like the atmosphere here. You're too fat to look at. Orchids, for God's sake!" Her hand darted to the bowl of Miltonias, and with a flip of the wrist she sent it skidding along the slick surface and off to the floor.

There was some commotion. Mrs. Rackell jerked her feet back, away from the tumbling bowl. Carol Berk said something. Leddegard left his chair and started for Fifi, but she whirled away to Henry Jameson Heath, pressed her palms to his cheeks, and bent to him. She implored him, "Hank, I love you! Do you love me? Take me somewhere and buy me a drink."

Delia Devlin sprang up, hauled off, and smacked Fifi on the side of the head. It was not merely a tap, and Fifi, off balance, nearly toppled. Heath came upright and was between them. Delia stood, glaring and panting. They held the tableau long enough for a take, then Fifi broke it up by addressing Delia past Heath's shoulder.