In the Best Families

You stabbed the dog, of course, burying the blade in its belly, but did you leave the knife there intentionally, to prevent a gush of blood on you, or did the animal convulsively leap from you at the feel of the prick, jerking the knife from your grasp? However that may be, all you could do was make for home, losing no time, for you must show yourself to Mr Goodwin as soon as possible. So you did that. You said good night and went to bed. I don't think you slept; you may even have heard the dog's whimpering outside the door, after it had dragged itself there; but maybe not, since it was beneath Mr Goodwin's window, not yours. You pretended sleep, of course, when he came for you.

Leeds was keeping his head up, but I could see his hands gripping his legs just above the knees.

“You used that dog, Wolfe went on, his voice as icy as Arnold Zeck's had ever been, “even after it died. You were remorseless to your dead friend. To impress

Mr Goodwin, you were overcome with emotion at the thought that, though you had given the dog to your cousin two years ago, it had come to your doorstep to die.

It had not come to your doorstep to die, Mr Leeds, and you knew it; it had come there to try to get at you. It wanted to sink its teeth in you just once. I say you knew it, because when you squatted beside the dog and put your hand on it, it snarled. It would not have snarled if it had felt your hand as the soothing and sympathetic touch of a trusted friend in its last agony; indeed not; it snarled because it knew you, at the end, to be unworthy of its love and trust, and it scorned and hated you. That snarl alone is enough to convict you. Do you remember that snarl, Mr Leeds? Will you ever forget it? Your old friend Nobby, his last words for you-

Leeds' head went forward, dropping, and his hands came up to cover his face.

He made no sound, and no one else did either. The silence darted around us and into us, coming out from Leeds. Then Lina Darrow took in a breath with a sighing, sobbing sound, and Annabel got up and went to her.

“Take him, Mr Archer, Wolfe said grimly. “I'm through with him, and it's about time.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I'm sitting at a window overlooking a fiord, typing this on a new portable I bought for the trip. In here it's pleasant. It's late in the season for outdoors in Norway, but if you run hard to keep your blood going you can stand it. I got a letter yesterday which read as follows:

Dear Archie: