In the Best Families

“I'll bet it does. Cramer moved the cigar-getting shorter now, although he never lit one-to the other side of his mouth. “All I'm doing is showing you that

I'm not just hoping for a bite, and I don't want to string it out. It was a good guess that Wolfe had jostled up against Arnold Zeck in both the Orchard case and the Rony case, and now what happens? Not long after Mrs Rackham calls on him and hires him to check on her husband's income, someone sends him a cylinder of tear gas-not a bomb to blow out his guts, which it could have been, just tear gas, so of course it was for a warning. And that night Mrs Rackham gets murdered. You tell him about it on the phone, and when you get home he's gone.

Cramer took the cigar from his mouth and pointed it at me. Til tell you what I believe, Archie. I believe that if Wolfe had stayed and helped, the murderer of

Mrs Rackham would be locked up by now, I believe that he had reason to think that if he did that, helped to catch the murderer, he would have to spend the rest of his life trying to keep Arnold Zeck from getting him. I believe that he decided that the only way out was for him to get Zeck. How's that?

“No comment, I said politely. “If you're right you're right, and if you're wrong I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings.

“Much obliged. But he did get a warning from Zeck-the tear gas.

“No comment.

“I wouldn't expect any. Now here's what I came for. I want you to give Wolfe a personal message from me, not as a police officer but as a friend. This is between you and me-and him. Zeck is out of his reach. He is out of anybody's reach. It's a goddam crime for an officer of the law to have to say a thing like that, even privately, but it's true. Here's a murder case, and thank God it's not mine. I'm not pointing at Ben Dykes or the D.A. up there, I'm not pointing at any person or persons, but if the set-up is that Barry Rackham is tied in with one or more of Zeck's operations, and if Rackham killed his wife, I say he will never burn. I don't say at what point Zeck will get his hand in, or who or what he will use, but Rackham will never burn.

Cramer hurled his cigar at my wastebasket and missed it a foot. Since it wasn't lit I ignored it. “Hooray for justice, I cheered.

He snarled, but apparently not at me. “I want you to tell Wolfe that. Zeck is out of his reach. He can't get him.