Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families by Rex Stout Read Free Book Online

up to ask if I was comfortable. I told him I soon would be, and he said good night and went down the short hall to his room.
    I opened a window, turned out the light, and got into bed; but in three minutes I saw it wasn’t working. My practice is to empty my head simultaneously with dropping it on the pillow. If something sticks and doesn’t want to come out I’ll give it up to three minutes but no more. Then I act. This time, ofcourse, it was Barry Rackham that stuck. I had to decide that he knew what I was there for or that he didn’t, or, as an alternative, decide definitely that I wouldn’t try to decide until tomorrow. I got out of bed and went and sat on a chair.
    It may have taken five minutes, or it could have been fifteen; I don’t know. Anyhow it didn’t accomplish anything except getting Rackham unstuck from my head for the night, for the best I could do was decide for postponement. If he had his guard up, so far I had not got past it. With that settled, I got under the covers again, took ten seconds to get into position on a strange mattress, and was off this time….
    Nearly, but not quite. A shutter or something began to squeak. Calling it a shutter jerked me back part way, because there were no shutters on the windows, so it couldn’t be that. I was now enough awake to argue. The sound continued, at brief intervals. It not only wasn’t a shutter, it wasn’t a squeak. Then it was a baby whining; but it wasn’t, because it came from the open window, and there were no babies out there. To hell with it. I turned over, putting my back to the window, but the sound still came, and I had been wrong. It was more of a whimper than a whine. Oh, nuts.
    I rolled out of bed, switched on a light, went down the hall to Leeds’ door, knocked on it, and opened it.
    “Well?” he asked, full voice.
    “Have you got a dog that whimpers at night?”
    “Whimpers? No.”
    “Then shall I go see what it is? I hear it through my window.”
    “It’s probably—turn on the light, will you?”
    I found the wall switch and flipped it. His pajamaswere green with thin white stripes. Giving me a look which implied that here was one more reason for disapproving of my being there, he padded past me into the hall and on into my room, me following. He stood a moment to listen, crossed and stuck his head out the window, pulled it in again, and this time went by me with no look at all and moving fast. I followed him downstairs and to the side door, where he pushed a light switch with one hand while he opened the door with the other, and stepped across the sill.
    “By God,” he said. “All right, Nobby, all right.”
    He squatted.
    I take back none of my remarks about Doberman pinschers, but I admit that that was no time to expand on them, nor did I feel like it. The dog lay on its side on the slab of stone with its legs twitching, trying to lift its head enough to look at Leeds; and from its side that was up, toward the belly and midway between the front and hind legs, protruded the chased silver handle of a knife. The hair around was matted with blood.
    The dog had stopped whimpering. Now suddenly it bared its teeth and snarled, but weakly.
    “All right, Nobby,” Leeds said. He had his palm against the side, forward, over the heart.
    “He’s about gone,” he said.
    I discovered that I was shivering, decided to stop, and did.
    “Pull the knife out of him?” I suggested. “Maybe—”
    “No. That would finish him. I think he’s finished anyhow.”
    He was. The dog died as Leeds squatted there and I stood not permitting myself to shiver in thecold night breeze. I could see the slender muscular legs stretch tight and then go loose, and after another minute Leeds took his hand away and stood up.
    “Will you please hold the door open?” he asked. “It’s off plumb and swings shut.”
    I obliged, holding it wide and standing aside to let him through. With the dog’s body in his arms, he crossed to a wooden bench at one