Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

Cramer nodded without enthusiasm. “That don’t require much perceiving. We’ve got to go back over everybody, but that’s the way it looks now. And Lily Rowan’s father was one of my best friends. He got me on the force, and he got me out of a couple of tight holes in the old days when he was on the inside at the Hall. I knew Lily before she could walk. I’m not the man to do any cleaning job on her, and I don’t want to turn her over to any of these wolves. I want you to handle her up at your place. And I want to be there in the front room where she can’t see me.”

Wolfe frowned. “I know her myself. I have given her orchids. She has been pestering me lately. It will not be pleasant.” He shot me a glance that was supposed to wither me. Then he regarded Cramer with an expression of repugnance, and heaved a sigh. “Very well. Provided Archie goes with us, and stays. This idiotic farce-”

A dick I didn’t know entered the room, advanced at a nod from Cramer and reported: “Mrs. Chack is here and wants to talk. Miss Leeds is with her. Give her to Lieutenant Rowcliff?”

“No,” Cramer said, after a glance at the clock, “bring them in here.”

Chapter 10

Those two females had been something out of the ordinary when I saw them separately on my first trip to Barnum Street, but marching in that office together they were really something. As far as size and weight went, Miss Leeds could easily have tucked Mrs. Chack under her arm and carried her off, but the expression in Mrs. Chack’s black eyes made it seem likely that such things as size and weight would be minor considerations, and age too, if anybody tried to start anything. She had to take two steps to Miss Leeds’ one, but she was in front. They were both dressed to sit in a buggy and watch a parade of soldiers returning from the Spanish-American war. When Purley had got them into chairs, Cramer asked, “You ladies have something to say?”

“I have,” Mrs. Chack snapped. “I want to know when you are going to get Roy Douglas. I want to see him face to face. He killed my granddaughter.”

“You are crazy,” Miss Leeds declared huskily but firmly. “You have been crazy for fifty years. I have permitted you to live in my house-”

“I will not tolerate-”

They were both talking at once.

“Ladies!” Cramer boomed. They both stopped talking as if he had turned a valve. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you had better wait outside, Miss Leeds, until I hear what Mrs. Chack has to say-”

“No,” Miss Leeds said immovably. “I intend to hear it.”