In the Best Families

“Bosh! she quashed him. “I'm not that neurotic So I got a divorce with his consent and gratitude, I think, though he was too polite to say so, and I hurried it through because I didn't want him to know I was pregnant. Soon after the divorce my son was born, and that made complications, but I kept him-I kept him and he was mine until he went to war. He never showed the slightest sign of feeling about my looks the way my father and my husband had. He was never embarrassed about me. He liked being with me. Didn't he, Calvin?

“Of course he did, Leeds assured her, apparently meaning it.

She nodded and looked thoughtful, looking into space and seeing something not there. She jerked herself impatiently back to Wolfe. “I admit that before he went away, to war, he got married, and he married a very beautiful girl. It is not true that I wished he had taken one who resembled me, even a little bit, but naturally I couldn't help but see that he had gone to the other extreme. Annabel is very beautiful. It made me proud for my son to have her-it seemed to even my score with all the beautiful women I had known and seen. She thinks I hate her, but that is not true. People as neurotic as I am should not be judged by normal standards. Not that I blame Annabel, for I know perfectly well that when the news came that he had been killed in Germany her loss was greater than mine. He wasn't mine any longer then, he was hers.

“Excuse me, Wolfe put in politely but firmly. “You wanted to consult me about your husband. You say you're divorced?

“Certainly not! I- She caught herself up. “Oh. This is my second husband. I only wanted you to understand.

Til try. Let's have him now.

“Barry Rackham, she said, pronouncing the name as if she held the copyright on it, or at least a lease on subsidiary rights. “He played football at Yale and then had a job in Wall Street until the war came. At the end of the war he was a major, which wasn't very far to get in nearly four years. We were married in

1946-three years and seven months ago. He is ten years younger than I am.

Mrs Barry Rackham paused, her eyes fixed on Wolfe's face as if challenging it for comment, but the challenge was declined. Wolfe merely prodded her with a murmur.

“And?