Rex Stout - In the Best Families

He still sat gazing at the corner of the blotter. I shut my trap and sat and gazed at him. It was a good five minutes before he spoke.

“Archie, he said, looking at me.

“Yes, sir.

“How many cases have we handled since last July?

“All kinds? Everything? Oh, forty.

“I would have thought more. Very well, say forty. We crossed this man's path inadvertently two years ago, and again last year. He and I both deal with crime, and his net is spread wide, so that may be taken as a reasonable expectation for the future: once a year, or, in one out of every forty cases that come to us, we will run into him. This episode will be repeated. He aimed a thumb at the phone. “That thing will ring, and that confounded voice will presume to dictate to us. If we obey the dictate we will be maintaining this office and our means of livelihood only by his sufferance. If we defy it we shall be constantly in a state of trepidant vigilance, and one or both of us will probably get killed.

Well?

I shook my head. “It couldn't be made plainer. I don't care much for either one.

“Neither do I.

“If you got killed I'd be out of a job, and if I got killed you might as well retire. I glanced at my wrist-watch. “The hell of it is we haven't got a week to decide. It's twelve-twenty, and I'm expected at the Hillside Kennels at three o'clock, and I have to eat lunch and shave and change my clothes. That is, if I go. If I go?

“Precisely. Wolfe sighed. “That's the point. Two years ago, in the Orchard case, I took to myself the responsibility of ignoring this man's threat. Last year, in the Kane case, I did the same. This time I don't want to and I won't.

Basic policy is my affair, I know that, but I am not going to tell you that in order to earn your pay you must go up there today and look at Mr Rackham. If you prefer, you may phone and postpone it, and we'll consider the matter at greater length.

I had my brows raised at him. “I'll be damned. Put it on me, huh?

“Yes. My nerve is gone. If public servants and other respected citizens take orders from this man, why shouldn't I?

“You damn' faker, I said indulgently. “You know perfectly well that I would rather eat soap than have you think I would knuckle under to that son of a bitch, and I know that you would rather put horse-radish on oysters than have me think you would. I might if you didn't know about it, and you might if I didn't know about it, but as it is we're stuck.

Wolfe sighed again, deeper. “I take it that you're going? “I am. But under one condition, that the trepidant vigilance begins as of now. That you call Fritz in, and Theodore down from the plant rooms, and tell them what we're up against, and the chain bolts are to be kept constantly on both doors, and you keep away from windows, and nothing and no one is to be allowed to enter when I'm not here. “Good heavens, he objected sourly, “that's no way to live.

“You can't tell till you try it. In ten years you may like it fine. I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone to get Theodore.

Wolfe sat scowling at me.

Chapter Three

When, swinging the car off Taconic State Parkway to hit Route 100, my dash clock said only 2.40,1 decided to make a little detour. It would be only a couple of miles out of my way. So at Pines Bridge I turned right, instead of left across the bridge. It wouldn't serve my purpose to make for the entrance to the estate where EASTCREST was carved on the great stone pillar, since all I would see there was a driveway curving up through the woods, and I turned off a mile short of that to climb a bumpy road up a hill. At the top the road went straight for a stretch between meadows, and I eased the car off on to the grass, stopped, and took the binoculars and aimed them at the summit of the next hill, somewhat higher than the one I was on, where the roof and upper walls of a stone mansion showed above the trees. Now, in early April, with no leaves yet, and with the binoculars, I could see most of the mansion and even something of the surrounding grounds, and a couple of men moving about.

That was Eastcrest, the legal residence of the illegal Arnold Zeck-but of course there are many ways of being illegal. One is to drive through a red light.

Another is to break laws by proxy only, for money only, get your cut so it can't be traced, and never try to buy a man too cheap. That was what Zeck had been doing for more than twenty years-and there was Eastcrest.

All I was after was to take a look, just case it from a hilltop. I had never seen Zeck, and as far as I knew Wolfe hadn't either. Now that we were headed at him for the third time, and this time it might be for keeps, I thought I should at least see Ws roof and count his chimneys. That was all. He had been too damn' remote and mysterious. Now I knew he had four chimneys, and that the one on the south wing had two loose bricks.

I turned the car around and headed down the hill, and if you care to believe it,

I kept glancing in the mirror to see if something showed up behind. That was how far gone I was on Zeck. It was not healthy for my self-respect, it was bad for my nerves, and I was good and tired of it.

Mrs Rackham's place, Birchvale, was only five miles from there, the other side of Mount Kisco, but I made a wrong turn and didn't arrive until a quarter past three. The entrance to her estate was adequate but not imposing. I went on by, and before I knew it there was a neat little sign on the left:

HILLSIDE KENNELS

Doberman Pinschers

The gate-opening was narrow and so was the drive, and I kept going on past the house to a bare rectangle in the rear, not very well gravelled, and manoeuvred into a corner close to a wooden building. As I climbed out a voice came from somewhere, and then a ferocious wild beast leaped from behind a bush and started for me like a streak of lightning. I froze except for my right arm, which sent my hand to my shoulder holster automatically.

A female voice sounded sharp in command. “Back! The beast, ten paces from me, whirled on a dime, trotted swiftly to the woman who had appeared at the edge of the rectangle, whirled again and stood facing me, concentrating with all its might on looking beautiful and dangerous. I could have plugged.it with pleasure.

I do not like dogs that assume you're guilty until you prove you're innocent. I like democratic dogs.

A man had appeared beside the woman. They advanced. She spoke. “Mr Goodwin? Mr

Leeds had to go on an errand, but he'll be back soon. I'm Annabel Frey. She came to me and offered a hand, and I took it.

This was my first check on an item of information furnished us by Mrs Rackham, and I gave her an A for accuracy. She had said that her daughter-in-law was very beautiful. Some might have been inclined to argue it, for instance those who don't like eyes so far apart or those who prefer pink skin to dark, but I'm not so finicky about details. The man stepped up, and she pronounced his name,

Hammond, and we shook. He was a stocky middle-aged specimen in a bright blue shirt, a tan jacket, and grey slacks-a hell of a combination. I was wearing a mixed tweeds made by Fradic, with an off-white shirt and a maroon tie.

Til sit in my car, I told them, “to wait for Mr Leeds. With the livestock around loose like that.