In the Best Families

“Release him, Archie, Wolfe snapped.

Needing two hands to untie the cord, I put the Carson Snub Thirty down on the polished top of Zeck's desk. I would have given a year's pay for a glance at

Rackham, to see what the chances were, but that might have ruined it. So I put the gun there, stepped around to the rear of Zeck's chair, knelt, and started untying the knot. My heart was pounding my ribs like a sledgehammer.

So I didn't see it happen; I could only hear it. I did see one thing there behind Zeck's chair: a sudden convulsive jerk of his arms, which must have been his reaction to the sight of Rackham jumping for the gun I had left on the desk.

More even than a sight of Rackham, to see if he was rising to it, I wanted a sight of Wolfe, to see if he was keeping his promise to duck for cover the instant Rackham started for the gun. but I couldn't afford it. My one desperate job now was to get that cord off Zeck's wrists in time, and while Wolfe had used the trick knot we had practised with, he had made it damn' tight. I barely had it free and was unwinding the cord from the wrists when the sound of the shot came, followed immediately by another.

As I got the cord off and jammed it in my pocket, Zeck's torso slumped sideways and then forward. Flat on the floor, I slewed around, saw Zeck's contorted face right above my eyes, pulled the handkerchief out of his mouth and stuffed it in my pocket with the cord, slid forward under the desk, and reached for one of the signal buttons.

I didn't know, and don't know yet, whether the noise of the shots had got through the soundproof door or whether it was my push on the button that brought them. I didn't hear the door open, but the next shots I heard were a fusillade that came from no Carson, so I came back out from under the desk and on up to my feet. Schwartz and his buddy were standing just inside the door, one with two guns and one with one. Rackham was stretched out on the floor, flat on his face.

Wolfe was standing at the end of the desk, facing the door, scowling as I had never seen him scowl before.

“The dirty bastard, I said bitterly, and I admit my voice might have trembled even if I hadn't told it to.

“Reach up, Schwartz said, advancing.

Neither Wolfe nor I moved a muscle. But Wolfe spoke. “What for? He was even bitterer than me, and contemptuous. “They let him in armed, not us.