In the Best Families

“Do you know what you look like?

He made a face. With the pleats and whiskers, he didn't really have to make one, but of course it was an old habit which had probably been suppressed for months.

“Yes, he said, “I do. I look like a sixteenth-century prince of Savoy named

Philibert. He flipped a hand impatiently. “This can wait, surely, until we're home again?

“I should think so, I conceded. “What's the difference, another year or two? It won't be as much fun, though, because now I'll know what I'm waiting for. What I really enjoyed was the suspense. Were you dead or alive or what? A perfect picnic.

He grunted. “I expected this, of course. It is you, and since I decided long ago to put up with you, I even welcome it. But you, also long ago, decided to put up with me. Are we going to shake hands or not?

I got up and went half-way. He got up and came halfway. As we shook, our eyes met, and I deliberately focused on his eyes, because otherwise I would have been shaking with a stranger, and one hell of a specimen to boot. We returned to our chairs.

As I sat down I told him courteously, “You'll have to excuse me if I shut my eyes or look away from time to time. It'll take a while to get adjusted.

Chapter Thirteen

“No other course, Wolfe said, “was possible. I had accepted money from Mrs

Rackham and she had been murdered. I was committed in her interest, and therefore against Arnold Zeck, and I was no match for him. I had to ambush him.

With me gone, how should you act? You should act as if I had disappeared and you knew nothing. Under what circumstances would you do that most convincingly? You are capable of dissimulation, but why try you so severely? Why not merely-

“Skip it, I told him. “Save it for later. Where do we stand now, and what chance have we got? Any at all?

“I think so, yes. If the purpose were merely to expose one or more of Zeck's operations, it could be done like that. He snapped his fingers. “But since he must himself be destroyed-all I can say is that I have reached the point where you can help. I have talked with him three times.

“Exactly who and what are you?

“I come from Los Angeles. When I left here, on April ninth, I went to southern

Texas, on the Gulf, and spent there the most painful month of my life-except one, long ago. At its end I was not recognisable. He shuddered. “I then went to