Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families by Rex Stout Page B

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 ConNoonan. 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