minutes, and she never mentioned the card after the
first half a minute, when she merely said it was crazy
and asked me where I got it. She told me I was hand-
some twice, she smiled at me six times, she said she had
never heard of Bertha Aaron, and she asked if you
would work for her. She may phone for an appointment.
Do you want it verbatim now?"
"Later will do. The men are there?"
"Yes. I spoke with Saul when I left. That's wasted.
She's not a fool, anything but. Of course it was a blow to
learn that that meeting in the lunchroom is known, but
she won't panic. Also of course, she doesn't know how
we got onto it. She may not have suspected that there
was any connection between that meeting and the mur-
der of Bertha Aaron. It's even possible she doesn't
suspect it now, though that's doubtful. If and when she
does she will also suspect that the man she was with in
the lunchroom killed Bertha Aaron, and that will be
hard to live with, but even then she won't panic. She is
a very tough article and she is still after thirty million
bucks. Looking at her as she smiled at me and told me I
was handsome, which may have been her honest opin-
ion in spite of my flat nose, you would never have
guessed that I had just sent her a card announcing that
her pet secret had been spilled. She's a gem. If I had
thirty million I'd be glad to buy her a lunch. What's
biting Gregory Jett?"
"I don't know. We shall see." He pushed the door
open and passed through and I followed.
As Wolfe detoured around the red leather chair Jett
spoke. "I said my business was urgent. You're rather
cheeky, aren't you?"
"Moderately so." Wolfe got his mass adjusted in his
The Homicide Trinity 39
seat and swiveled to face him. "If there is pressure, sir,
it is on you, not on me. Am I concerned?"
"You are involved." The deep-set dreamy eyes came
to me. "Is your name Goodwin? Archie Goodwin?"
I said yes.
"Last night you gave a statement to the police about
your conversation with Bertha Aaron, and you gave a
copy of it to Lamont Otis, the senior member of my
firm."
"Did I?" I was polite. "I only work here. I only do
what Mr. Wolfe tells me to. Ask him."
"I'm not asking, I'm telling." He returned to Wolfe. "I
want to know what is in that statement. Mr. Otis is an
old man and his heart is weak. He was under shock
when he came here, from the tragic news of the death of
his secretary, who was murdered here in your office, in
circumstances which as far as I know them were cer-
tainly no credit to you or Goodwin. It must have been
obvious that he was under shock, and it was certainly
obvious that he is an old man. To show him that state-
ment was irresponsible and reprehensible. As his asso-
ciate, his partner, I want to know what is in it."
Wolfe had leaned back and lowered his chin. "Well.
When cheek meets cheek. You are manifestly indomi-
table and I must buckle my breastplate. I choose to
deny that there is any such statement. Then?"
"Poppycock. I know there is."
"Your evidence?" Wolfe wiggled a finger. "Mr. Jett.
This is fatuous. Someone has told you the statement
exists or you would be an idiot to come and bark at me.
Who told you, and when?"
"Someone who—in whom I have the utmost confi-
dence."
"Mr. Otis himself?"
"No."
"Her name?"
Jett set his teeth on his lower lip. After chewing on it
a little he shifted to the upper lip. He had nice white
teeth.
"You must be under shock too," Wolfe said, "to sup-
40 Rex Stout
pose you could come with that demand without disclos-
ing the source of your information. Is her name Ann
Paige?"
"I will tell you that only in confidence."
"Then I don't want it. I will take it as private infor-
mation entrusted to my discretion, but not in confi-
dence. I am still denying that such a statement exists."
"Damn you!" Jett hit the arm of his chair. "She was
here with him! She saw Goodwin hand it to him! She
saw him read it!"
Wolfe nodded. "That's better. When did Miss Paige
tell you about it? This morning?"
"No. Last night. She phoned me."
"At what hour?"
"Around midnight. A little after."
"Had she left here with Mr. Otis?"
"You know damn well she hadn't. She had climbed
out a window."
"And phoned you at once." Wolfe straightened up. "If
you are to trust my discretion you must give it ground.
I may then tell you what the statement contains, or I
may not. I reject the reason you have given, or implied,
for your concern—solicitude for Mr. Otis. Your expla-
nation must account not only for your concern but also
for Miss Paige's flight through a window. You—"
"It wasn't a flight! Goodwin had locked the door!"
"He would have opened it on request. You said your
business is urgent. How and to whom? You are trying
my patience. With your trained legal mind, you know it
is futile to feed me inanities."
Jett looked at me. I set my jaw and firmed my lips to
show him that I didn't care for inanities either. He went
back to Wolfe.
"Very well," he said. "I'll trust your discretion, since
there is no alternative. When Otis told Miss Paige she
had to leave, she suspected that Miss Aaron had told
Goodwin something about me. She thought—"
"Why about you? There had been no hint of it."
"Because he said to her, 'I couldn't trust you on this.'
She thought he knew that she couldn't be trusted in a
The Homicide Trinity 41
matter that concerned me. That is true—I hope it is
true. Miss Paige and I are engaged to marry. It has not
been announced, but our mutual interest is probably no
secret to our associates, since we have made no effort to
conceal it. Added to that was the fact that she knew
that Miss Aaron might have had knowledge, or at least
suspicion, of a certain—uh—episode in which I had
been involved. An episode of which Mr. Otis would have
violently disapproved. You said my explanation must
account both for my concern and for Miss Paige's leav-
ing through a window. It does."
"What was the episode?"
Jett shook his head. "I wouldn't tell you that even in
confidence."
"What was its nature?"
"It was a personal matter."
"Did it bear on the interests of your firm or your
partners?"
"No. It was strictly personal."
"Did it touch your professional reputation or integ-
rity?"
"It did not."
"Was a woman involved?"
"Yes."
"Her name?"
Jett shook his head. "I'm not a cad, Mr. Wolfe."
"Was it Mrs. Mort
on Sorell?"
Jett's mouth opened, and for three breaths his jaw
muscles weren't functioning. Then he spoke. "So that
was it. Miss Paige was right. I want—I demand to see
that statement."
"Not yet, sir. Later, perhaps—or not. Do you main-
tain that the episode involving Mrs. Sorell had no rela-
tion to your firm's interests or your professional
integrity?"
"I do. It was purely personal, and it was brief."
"When did it occur?"
"About a year ago."
"When did you last see her?"
42 Rex Stout
"About a month ago, at a party. I didn't speak with
her."
"When were you last with her tete-a-tete?"
"I haven't been since—not for nearly a year."
"But you are still seriously perturbed at the chance
that Mr. Otis has learned of the episode?"
"Certainly. Mr. Sorell is our client, and his wife is our
opponent in a very important matter. Mr. Otis might
suspect that the episode is—was not merely an episode.
He has not told me of the statement you showed him,
and I can't approach him about it because he has or-
dered Miss Paige not to mention it to anyone, and she
didn't tell him she had already told me. I want to see it.
I have a right to see it!"
"Don't start barking again." Wolfe rested his elbows
on the chair arms and put his fingers together. "I'll tell
you this: there is nothing in the statement, either ex-
plicit or allusive, about the episode you have described.
That should relieve your mind. Beyond that—"
The doorbell rang.
Chapter 5
I was wrong about them. As soon as I got a look at
them through the one-way panel I guessed who
they were, but I had the labels mixed. My guess
was that the big broad-shouldered one in a dark blue
chesterfield tailored to give him a waist, and a homburg
to match, was Edey, fifty-five, and the compact little
guy in a brown ulster with a belt was Heydecker,
forty-seven, but when I opened the door and the ches-
terfield said they wanted to see Nero Wolfe, and I
asked for names, he said, "This gentleman is Frank
Edey and I am Miles Heydecker. We are—"
"I know who you are. Step in."
The Homicide Trinity 43
Since age has priority I helped Edey off with his
ulster, putting it on a hanger, and let Heydecker man-
age his chesterfield, and then took them to the front
room and invited them to sit. If I opened the connecting
door to the office Jett's voice could be heard and there
was no point in his trusting Wolfe's discretion if he
couldn't trust mine, so I went around through the hall,
crossed to my desk, wrote "Edey and Heydecker" on
my memo pad, tore the sheet off, and handed it to
Wolfe. He glanced at it and looked at Jett.
"We're at an impasse. You refuse to answer further
questions unless I tell you the contents of the state-
ment, and I won't do that. Mr. Edey and Mr. Heydecker
are here. Will you stay or go?"
"Edey?" Jett stood up. "Heydecker? Here?"
"Yes, sir. Uninvited and unexpected. You may leave
unseen if you wish."
Evidently he didn't wish anything except to see the
statement. He didn't want to go and he didn't want to
stay. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to
decide, Wolfe decided for him by giving me a nod, and I
went and opened the connecting door and told the new-
comers to come in. Then I stepped aside and looked on,
at their surprise at seeing Jett, their manners as they
introduced themselves to Wolfe, the way they handled
their eyes. I had never completely squelched the idea
that when you are in a room with three men and you
know that one of them committed a murder, especially
when he committed it in that room only eighteen hours
ago, it will show if you watch close enough. I knew from
experience that the idea wasn't worth a damn, that if
you did see something that seemed to point you were
probably wrong, but I still had it and still have it. I was
so busy with it that I didn't go to my desk and sit until
Jett was back in the red leather chair and the newcom-
ers were on two of the yellow ones, facing Wolfe, and
Heydecker, the big broad-shouldered man, was speak-
ing.
His eyes were at Jett. "We came," he said, "for infor-
mation, and I suppose you did too, Greg. Unless you got
more at the DA's office than we did."
44 Rex Stout
"I got damn little," Jett said. "I didn't even see
Howie, my old schoolmate. They didn't answer ques-
tions, they asked them. A lot of them I didn't answer
and they shouldn't have been asked—about our affairs
and our clients. Naturally I answered the relevant
ones, the routine stuff about my relations with Bertha
Aaron and my whereabouts and movements yesterday
afternoon. Not only mine, but others'. Particularly if
anyone had spoken at length with Bertha, and if anyone
had left the office with her or soon after her. Obviously
they think she was killed by someone connected with
the firm, but they don't say why—at least not to me."
"Nor me," Edey said. He was the compact under-
sized one and his thin tenor fitted him fine.
"Nor me," Heydecker said. "What has Wolfe told
you?"
"Not much. I haven't been here long." Jett looked at
Wolfe.
Wolfe obliged. He cleared his throat. "I presume that
you gentlemen have come with the same purpose as Mr.
Jett. He asks for any information that will give light,
with emphasis on the reason for Miss Aaron's coming to
see me. He assumes—"
Heydecker cut in. "That's it. What was she here for?"
"If you please. He assumes from the circumstances
that she was killed because she was here, to prevent a
revelation she meant to make, and that is plausible. But
surely the police and the District Attorney haven't
withheld all of the details from you. Haven't they told
you that she didn't see me?"
"No," Edey said. "They haven't told me."
"Nor me," Heydecker said.
"Then I tell you. She came without appointment. Mr.
Goodwin admitted her. She asked to see me on a confi-
dential matter. I was engaged elsewhere, upstairs, and
Mr. Goodwin came to tell me she was here. We had a
matter under consideration and discussed it at some
length, and when we came down her dead body was
here." He pointed at Heydecker's feet. "There. So she
The Homicide Trinity 45
couldn't tell me what she came for, since I never saw
her alive."
"Then I don't get it," Edey declared. The brilliant
idea man was using his brain. "If she didn't tell you, you
couldn't tell the police or the District Attorney. But if
they don't know what she came to see you about, why
do they think she was killed by someone in our office?
It's
conceivable that they got that information from
someone else, but so soon? They started in on me at
seven o'clock this morning. And I conclude from their
questions that they don't merely think it, they think
they know it."
"They do, unquestionably," Heydecker agreed. "Mr.
Goodwin. You admitted her. She was alone?" That was
the brilliant trial lawyer.
"Yes." Since we weren't before the bench I omitted
the "sir."
"You saw no one else around? On the sidewalk?"
"No. Of course it was dark. It was twenty minutes
past five. On January fifth the sun set at 4:46." By gum,
he wasn't going to trap me.
"You conducted her to this room?"
"Yes."
"Leaving the outer door open perhaps?"
"No."
"Are you certain of that?"
"Yes. If I have one habit that's totally automatic, it's
closing that door and making sure it's locked."
"Automatic habits are dangerous things, Mr. Good-
win. Sometimes they fail you. When you brought her to
this room did you sit?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Where I am now."
"Where did she sit?"
Homicide Trinity Page 6
