Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families Read Online Free PDF Page A

I don’t want to and I won’t. Basic policy is my affair, I know that, but I am not going to tell you that in order to earn your pay you must go up there today and look at Mr. Rackham. If you prefer, you may phone and postpone it, and we’ll consider the matter at greater length.”
    I had my brows raised at him. “I’ll be damned. Put it on me, huh?”
    “Yes. My nerve is gone. If public servants and other respected citizens take orders from this man, why shouldn’t I?”
    “You damn faker,” I said indulgently. “You know perfectly well that I would rather eat soap than have you think I would knuckle under to that son of a bitch, and I know that you would rather put horseradish on oysters than have me think you would. I might if you didn’t know about it, and you might if I didn’t know about it, but as it is we’re stuck.”
    Wolfe sighed again, deeper. “I take it that you’re going?”
    “I am. But under one condition, that the trepidant vigilance begins as of now. That you call Fritz in, and Theodore down from the plant rooms, and tell them what we’re up against, and the chain bolts are to be kept constantly on both doors, and you keep away from windows, and nothing and no one is to be allowed to enter when I’m not here.”
    “Good heavens,” he objected sourly, “that’s no way to live.”
    “You can’t tell till you try it. In ten years you may like it fine.” I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone to get Theodore.
    Wolfe sat scowling at me.

Chapter 3
    W hen, swinging the car off the Taconic State Parkway to hit Route 100, my dash clock said only 2:40, I decided to make a little detour. It would be only a couple of miles out of my way. So at Pines Bridge I turned right, instead of left across the bridge. It wouldn’t serve my purpose to make for the entrance to the estate where EASTCREST was carved on the great stone pillar, since all I would see there was a driveway curving up through the woods, and I turned off a mile short of that to climb a bumpy road up a hill. At the top the road went straight for a stretch between meadows, and I eased the car off onto the grass, stopped, and took the binoculars and aimed them at the summit of the next hill, somewhat higher than the one I was on, where the roof and upper walls of a stone mansion showed above the trees. Now, in early April, with no leaves yet, and with binoculars, I could see most of the mansion and even something of the surrounding grounds, and a couple of men moving about.
    That was Eastcrest, the legal residence of the illegal Arnold Zeck—but of course there are many ways of being illegal. One is to drive through a redlight. Another is to break laws by proxy only, for money only, get your cut so it can’t be traced, and never try to buy a man too cheap. That was what Zeck had been doing for more than twenty years—and there was Eastcrest.
    All I was after was to take a look, just case it from a hilltop. I had never seen Zeck, and as far as I knew Wolfe hadn’t either. Now that we were headed at him for the third time, and this time it might be for keeps, I thought I should at least see his roof and count his chimneys. That was all. He had been too damn remote and mysterious. Now I knew he had four chimneys, and that the one on the south wing had two loose bricks.
    I turned the car around and headed down the hill, and, if you care to believe it, I kept glancing in the mirror to see if something showed up behind. That was how far gone I was on Zeck. It was not healthy for my self-respect, it was bad for my nerves, and I was good and tired of it.
    Mrs. Rackham’s place, Birchvale, was only five miles from there, the other side of Mount Kisco, but I made a wrong turn and didn’t arrive until a quarter past three. The entrance to her estate was adequate but not imposing. I went on by, and before I knew it there was a neat little sign on the left:
    HILLSIDE KENNELS
Doberman Pinschers
    The gate opening was narrow and so was the