Agatha Christie by Four Wolf Books

Author:Four Wolf Books [Books, Four Wolf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-31T21:34:33+00:00

Page 114

Annabel looked at the DA. "Shouldn't you, Mr. Archer?"

He shook his head. "No, you tell him."

She concentrated, at Wolfe. "Well, as I said, there are two problems. One is that it seems to be supposed that Barry Rackham killed his wife, but it hasn't been proven, and now that he is dead how can it be proven so that everyone will know it and the rest of us will be entirely tree of any sus-IN THE BEST FAMILIES 299

pidon? Mr. Archer says there is no official suspicion of us, but that isn't enough."

"It is gratifying, though," Wolfe murmured.

"Yes, but it isn't gratifying to have some of the people who say they are your friends looking at you as they do." Annabel was earnest about it. "Then the second problem is this. The law will not allow a man who commits a murder to profit by it. If Barry Rackham killed his wife he can't inherit property from her, no matter what her will said. But it has to be legally proven that he killed her, and unless that is done her will stands, and what she left to him will go to his heirs."

She made a gesture. "It isn't that we want it--the rest of us. It can go to the state or to charity--we don't care. But we think it's wrong and a shame for it to go to his people, whoever will inherit from him. It's not only immoral, it's illegal. It can't be stopped by convicting him of murder, because he's dead and can't be tried. My lawyer and Mr. Archer both say we can bring action and get it before a court, but then we'll have to have evidence that he killed her, and Mr. Archer says he hasn't been able to get it from you, and he hasn't got it. But surely you can get it, or anyhow you can tty.

You see, that would solve both problems, to have a court rule that his heirs can't inherit because he murdered her."

"You have stated it admirably," Archer declared.

"We don't want any of it," Lina blurted.

"My interest," Pierce put in, "is only to have the truth fully and universally known and acknowledged."

"That," Wolte said, "will take more than me. I am by no means up to that And not only my capacities, but the circumstances themselves, restrict me to a much more modest ambition. I can get you one of the things you want, removal of all suspicion from the innocent, but the other, having Mrs. Rackham's bequest to her husband set aside, is beyond me."

They all frowned at him, in their various fashions. Hammond, Ae banker, protested, "That doesn't seem to make sense. What accomplishes one accomplishes the other. If you prove that Rackham killed his wife--"

"But I can't prove that." Wolfe shook his head. "I'm sorry, but it can't be done. It is true that Rackham deserved to die, and as a murderer. He killed a woman here in New York three years ago, a woman named Delia Mont"we-one of Mr.

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