Mr. Hazen, either collectively—please don't interrupt.
Either collectively or separately. He had other victims,
but you four alone were paying him around a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars a year, ostensibly for profes-
sional services, but that was merely a subterfuge. I
don't know whether the police know that or not, prob-
ably not, but I do. If there was any doubt it was re-
moved when Mr. Goodwin found you in that house
surreptitiously, looking for something, and you offered
him a large sum of money. So much—"
"I didn't," Mrs. Oliver blurted. "Mr. Perdis did."
110 Rex Stout
"Pfui. You were there. Did you object? So much for
that. I am acting for my client, Mrs. Hazen. She is being
held under suspicion of killing her husband, and has
given me certain information. This is one item: one day
about a year ago her husband showed her a box, a metal
box, he had in his bedroom. To show it to her he re-
moved the bottom drawer of a chest and pried up the
board the drawer slid on, and the box was underneath
the board. He told her that if he died she should get the
box, have it opened by a locksmith, and burn the con-
tents without looking at them. It was to get that box
that Mr. Goodwin went there this evening, with Mrs.
Hazen's key and authority. After you left the room he
removed the drawer and lifted the board, and got it. It's
there on his desk."
That was like him. I hadn't told him that I had sent
them from the room before I got it, and that they hadn't
seen it; he took it for granted. I appreciate his compli-
ments, but some day he may overestimate me. I had no
idea where or what he was headed for, but I thought a
little gesture wouldn't hurt, so I got the box with my
left hand, the gun being in my right, and displayed it.
Four pairs of eyes were on it, glued to it. Anne Talbot
mumbled something. Perdis started up, thought better
of it, and sank back. Jules Khoury muttered, "So it was
there." I had the gun, but there were four of them, so I
got up, detoured around them to the safe, opened the
safe door, put the box in, closed the door, and spun the
knob. As I returned to my chair Wolfe was speaking.
"I have a proposal to make, but first a question or
two. My objective, of course, is to demonstrate that
Mrs. Hazen did not kill her husband. Yesterday
evening you dined at her table. After dinner she went
to her room, and soon after that Mr. Weed left. I'm not
going to ask about the sequence and the times of your
departures, or where you went and what you did; the
police have got all that from you, and if the matter can
be resolved by such details they are extremely compe-
tent at that sort of thing, and they are ahead of me, with
an army. But I want to know about your conversation
The Homicide Trinity 111
with Mr. Hazen after his wife and Mr. Weed left. What
was said?"
"Nothing," Khoury declared.
"Nonsense. Mr. Hazen had told his wife he was going
to discuss something with you. What?"
"Nothing of any importance. He opened champagne.
We discussed the stock market. He asked Mrs. Talbot
what plays she had seen. He got Perdis talking about
ships."
"He talked about poisons," Perdis said.
"He talked about his wife's father," Mrs. Oliver said.
"He said his wife's father was a great inventor, a ge-
nius."
Wolfe scowled at them. "This is egregious. If he
discussed some aspect of his peculiar relations with
you, naturally you didn't tell the police about it. But I
know of those relations and the police don't. I intend to
know what was said."
"You don't understand, Mr. Wolfe." It was Anne
Talbot. She was leaning forward, appealing to him.
"You didn't know him. He was a monster. He was a
demon. He didn't want to discuss anything, he just
wanted to have us there together, and we had to go. It
was his special kind of torture. He wanted each of us to
know about the others and to know that the others
knew about us. He liked to see us trying to act as if it
were just a ... just a dinner party. You didn't know
him."
"He was a devil," Perdis said.
Wolfe surveyed them. "Did he reveal to any of you
the nature of his hold on the others, last evening or any
other time? Or hint at it?"
Anne Talbot and Khoury shook their heads. Mrs.
Oliver said, "No, oh, no." Perdis said, "I think he hinted.
For instance, poison. I thought he hinted."
"But no particulars?"
"No."
"I must concede that he was not an estimable man.
Very well, he is dead, and here we are. As I said, I have
a proposal. It is highly likely, all but certain, that he
112 Rex Stout
kept in that box whatever support he had for his de-
mands on you. The box is in my safe. I don't desire or
intend to inspect its contents. But Mrs. Hazen is my
client and I am committed to protect both her person
and her property. She is not bound to follow her hus-
band's instructions to bum the contents of the box, and
it would be quixotic to destroy anything so valuable. I
will surrender it to you, you four, for one million dol-
lars."
They gawked at him.
"That's a large sum, but it is not exorbitant. In an-
other seven years, if Mr. Hazen had lived, you would
have paid him more than that, and that wouldn't have
ended it. This will; this will be final. If I left it to you to
apportion the burden you would probably haggle, and
time is short, so I shall expect one quarter of the million
from each of you, either in currency or certified checks,
within twenty-four hours. There is no question of ex-
tortion by Mrs. Hazen or me; we haven't seen the
contents of the box; I only say, as her agent, you may
have them at that price if you want them."
"You haven't opened the box," Perdis said.
"No, I haven't."
"What if it's empty?"
"You get nothing and you pay nothing." Wolfe looked
up at the clock. "The box will be opened here tomorrow
at midnight, with all of you present, or earlier if and
when you meet the terms. If it is empty, so much for
that. If it isn't, there will of course be a difficulty. None
of you will want the others to inspect the items that
pertain to him. I don't want to look at any of them. I
suggest that Mr. Goodwin, who is thoroughly discreet,
may remove the items singly, examine each one only
enough to determine whom it applies to, and hand it
over. If you have a better procedure to suggest, do so."
Mrs. Oliver was licking her lips and swallowing, by
turns. Perdis was hunched over, his lips tight, his heavy
broad shoulders rising and falling with his breathing.
Khoury had his chin up, his narrowed eyes aimed at
&n
bsp; Wolfe past the tip of his long thin nose. Anne Talbot's
The Homicide Trinity 113
eyes were closed, and a muscle at the side of her pretty
neck was twitching.
"I realize," Wolfe said, "that it may not be easy to
produce so large a sum in so short a time, but it is not
impossible, and I dare not give you longer. While it is
true that the box and its contents are the property of
Mrs. Hazen, the police would no doubt regard it as
evidential in their investigation of a murder, and I can't
undertake to withhold my knowledge of it longer than
twenty-four hours." He pushed his chair back and rose.
"I shall await your pleasure."
But if he was through they weren't. Mrs. Oliver
wanted the box opened then and there, and a display of
its contents by me. Khoury said that there was a ques-
tion of extortion, that they were being told to fork over
a million dollars in twenty-four hours or else. Perdis
demanded that they be given the time and opportunity
to talk with Mrs. Hazen, but of course she was in the
coop. Anne Talbot was the only one who had nothing to
say; she was on her feet, gripping the back of the chair,
the muscle in her neck still twitching. Thinking it might
help if I went and brought their coats, I did so, and it
took Anne Talbot three tries to find the armhole.
When they were out, and the door shut, and I re-
turned to the office, Wolfe was out from behind his
desk. "A notion," I said. "Mrs. Hazen may be out on bail
by the middle of the morning and accessible to them,
and you're up in the plant rooms until eleven o'clock,
not to be disturbed. Even if she's locked up, those
people have lawyers and connections, Perdis especially.
He may play poker with the DA. I could phone Parker
to see her in the morning and tell her that no matter
what she hears you're not loony, you're just a genius,
and you know where you're headed for even when
nobody else does, including me."
"Not necessary." He went to the door and turned.
"Make sure that the safe's locked. I'm tired. Good
night."
He knows darned well that I always make sure the
safe's locked, but of course it doesn't often have some-
114 Rex Stout
thing in it that's supposed to be worth a million bucks.
Up in my room on the third floor, as I undressed I made
assorted tries at deciding what was next on his pro-
gram, and didn't like any of them.
As it turned out the next thing on the program wasn't
decided either by me or by him, but by Inspector
Cramer. In the morning Wolfe came down from the
plant rooms at eleven o'clock as usual, and also as usual
I had the mail opened and the dusting done and fresh
water in the vase on his desk. He went first to the front
of the desk to put a spray of orchids in the vase, Odon-
toglossum pyramus, then circled around to his chair. As
he sat the doorbell rang. I went to the office door for a
look and told him it was Cramer. He slapped a palm on
the desk, glared at me, and said nothing, and I went to
the front and opened up. I didn't like the look on Cram-
er's face as he entered and let me take his coat and hat.
He almost grinned at me, and he didn't stride to the
office, he just walked. He sat in the red leather chair,
crossed his legs comfortably, and told Wolfe, "I haven't
got much time. I want to hear it from you, what Mrs.
Hazen came to you for yesterday, just the substance,
and then Goodwin will come downtown and get it down
in a statement, all of it. With his wonderful memory."
Wolfe was glowering at him. "Mr. Cramer. It
shouldn't be—"
"Save it. She's booked for murder. We have the gun.
Hazen got his car from the garage Monday night. It has
been found parked on Twenty-first Street. There was a
gun in the dashboard compartment, and it fired the
bullet that killed him. We have traced it. It was bought
by Hazen six years ago and he had a permit for it. He
kept it in a drawer in his bedroom, and the maid saw it
there yesterday morning when she went up to see why
he hadn't come down for breakfast. Don't ask me why
Mrs. Hazen took it from there afterwards and went to
where she had parked the car on Twenty-first Street
and put it in the car. I don't know, but maybe you do. So
let's hear you."
Chapter 7
I squeezed my eyes shut because if I had kept them
open they would have popped, and I didn't want to
give Cramer that satisfaction. But I am supposed
to help Wolfe when he needs it, and right then he sure
could use a few seconds to arrange his mind, so I opened
my eyes and asked Cramer, just curious, "What kind of
a gun?"
He ignored it. He was having too good a time looking
at Wolfe to bother with me. Wolfe was paying me
another compliment. I was responsible for our assump-
tion that Mrs. Hazen was innocent, but he didn't glance
at me. He lowered his chin, scratched the tip of his nose,
regarded Cramer for ten seconds, and then turned to
me.
"Archie. It may be desirable to have a record of what
Mr. Cramer just said. Type it. Verbatim. Double-
spaced, one carbon."
As I got at the typewriter Cramer said, "I don't
object. Naturally you've got to stall while you try to
figure a way to climb down without breaking your
neck."
No comment from Wolfe. I put in paper and hit the
keys. Since I had had years of practice reporting long
and involved conversations that had had time to fade,
that one was no trick at all. As I rolled the paper out
Wolfe said, "Initial the original," and I did so, and
handed it to him. He read it through, in no hurry, took
his pen and initialed it, handed it back to me, and turned
to Cramer.
"I'm not stalling," he said. "If what you just told me is
true, your demand for information is warranted. If it
116 Rex Stout
isn't true you're gulling me into disclosing a confidential
communication from a client, and I want a record—"
"Then she's your client?"
"She is now. She wasn't when you were here yester-
day, but she hired me later through Mr. Parker. I want
a record of your words, and I have it. I also want more
facts, to make sure that those you have given me are
not qualified by others. That's a reasonable precaution,
I think. What time did Mr. Hazen take his car from the
garage Monday evening?"
"A little after eleven o'clock."
"That was after the dinner guests left?"
"Yes. They left at a quarter to eleven."
"Was anyone with him at the garage?"
"No."
"Was anyone else with him anywhere, out of the car
or in it, after a quarter to eleven?"
"No."
"Is it assumed that he was shot in that alley where
the body was found?"
"N
o. He was shot in the car."
"Have you any additional facts implicating Mrs. Ha-
zen, of any kind? Not conjectures, facts. For example,
was she seen in or near the car, driving it, or when it
was parked on Twenty-first Street during the night, or
when—as you have it—she went there yesterday to put
the gun in the dashboard compartment?"
"No. No more facts. I expect to get some from you."
"You will. Naturally, when you learned that Mrs.
Hazen had been to see me you focused on her, but
surely not exclusively. Have you inquired into the
movements of the dinner guests after they left?"
"Yes."
"Have any of them been conclusively eliminated?"
"No. Not conclusively."
Wolfe closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them.
"That seems to cover it." He took a breath. "Of course I
don't like this. And you're not squeezing it out of me,
though you think you are. I would tell you nothing and
take the consequences if it weren't that I need some
The Homicide Trinity 117
information that I can get only from you. I have to know
where the gun came from that Mrs. Hazen left with me
yesterday. If you'll agree—"
"She left a gun with you?"
"Yes. I'll tell you about it, and give it to you, if you
will give me its history at the earliest possible moment.
I want your word."
"You won't get it. Mrs. Hazen is charged with mur-
der. If she left a gun with you it's evidence in a murder
investigation."
Wolfe shook his head. "No. It's evidence in my inves-
Homicide Trinity Page 15
