In the Best Families

As I helped her off with her fur coat I told her, “Look, Mrs Rackham. You came to consult Nero Wolfe, huh?

“Yes, she whispered. She nodded and said right out loud, “Of course.

“Then you ought to stop trembling if you can. It makes Mr Wolfe uneasy when a woman trembles, because he thinks she's going to be hysterical, and he might not listen to you. Take a deep breath and try to stop.

“You were trembling all the way down here in the car, the man said in a mild baritone.

“I was not! she snapped. That settled, she turned to me. This is my cousin,

Calvin Leeds. He didn't want me to come here, but I brought him along anyhow.

Where's Mr Wolfe?

I indicated the door to the office, went and opened it, and ushered them in.

I have never figured out Wolfe's grounds for deciding whether or not to get to his feet when a woman enters his office. If they're objective they're too complicated for me, and if they're subjective I wouldn't know where to start.

This time he kept his seat behind his desk in the corner near a window, merely nodding and murmuring when I pronounced names. I thought for a second that Mrs

Rackham was standing gazing at him in reproach for his bad manners, but then I saw it was just surprised disbelief that he could be that big and fat. I'm so used to the quantity of him that I'm apt to forget how he must impress people seeing him for the first time.

He aimed a thumb at the red leather chair beyond the end of his desk and muttered at her, “Sit down, madam.

She went and sat. I then did likewise, at my own desk, not far from Wolfe's and at right angles to it. Calvin Leeds, the cousin, had sat twice, first on the couch towards the rear and then on a chair which I moved up for him. I would have guessed that both he and Mrs Rackham had first seen the light about the same time as the twentieth century, but he could have been a little older. He had a lot of weather in his face with its tough-looking hide, his hair had been brown but was now more grey, and with his medium size and weight he looked and moved as if all his inside springs were still sound and lively. He had taken

Wolfe in, and the surroundings too, and now his eyes were on his cousin.

Mrs Rackham spoke to Wolfe. “You couldn't very well go around finding out things. Could you?

“I don't know, he said politely. “I haven't tried for years, and I don't intend to. Others go around for me. He gestured at me. “Mr Goodwin, of course, and others as required. You need someone to go around?