In the Best Families

To take the last first, Leeds was all out of apologies. The spring was in his step all right, but not in his manners. First to enter the office, he plumped himself down in the red leather chair, but I figured that Archer rated it ex officioand asked him to move, which he did without grace. As for the others, there was too much atmosphere to get any clear idea. They were all on speaking terms, but the problem that brought them there was in the front of their minds, so much so that no one was interested in the array of liquids and accessories that Fritz and I had arranged on the table over by the big globe. Annabel was in the most comfortable of the yellow chairs, to Archer's left; then, working towards me at my desk, Leeds and Lina Darrow; and Hammond and Pierce closest to me.

Wolfe's eyes swept the arc.

This, he said, “is a little awkward for me. I have met none of you before except Mr Leeds. I must be sure I have you straight. His eyes went along the line again. “I think I have. Now if you'll tell me what you want-you, Mrs Frey, it was you who phoned me.

Annabel looked at the D.A. “Shouldn't you, Mr Archer?

He shook his head. “No, you tell him.

She concentrated, at Wolfe. “Well, as I said, there are two problems. One is that it seems to be supposed that Barry Rackham killed his wife, but it hasn't been proved, and now that he is dead how can it be proved so that everyone will know it and the rest of us will be entirely free of any suspicion? Mr Archer says there is no official suspicion of us, but that isn't enough/

“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 proved that he killed her, and unless that is done her will stands, and what she left to him will go to his heirs.