Homicide Trinity

by Homicide Trinity (lit)

  "So do I, Miss Annis. You would have enjoyed it."

  "Call me Hattie."

  "With pleasure." I returned the papers to the drawer

  and sat. "Did you have a hard night?"

  "Not too hard. There was a couch and I got some

  The Homicide Trinity 197

  naps, but the woman that stayed with me wouldn't turn

  the lights out, and every two hours they came back and

  started in again. Cops are too mean to live, and they're

  too dumb. They might have known I wouldn't speak to

  a cop."

  "Didn't you speak at all?"

  "No. Didn't I say I wouldn't?"

  "Not a word?"

  "No. The worst part was I was hungry. They brought

  some stuff twice last night and again this morning, but

  of course I wouldn't touch it. I don't know what kind of

  drug they had in it, something to make me talk."

  "You haven't eaten at all?"

  "Of course not."

  Wolfe grunted. "That's ridiculous. We have a spare

  room that is comfortable. Mr. Goodwin will take you to

  it, and my chef will take you a tray. After your fast you

  should eat with caution. Have you a preference?"

  She cocked her head. "You bet I have, Falstaff. Let

  the lady enjoy herself. I know about your chef. How

  about some lamb kidneys bourguignonne?"

  Wolfe doesn't flabbergast easy, but that did it. He

  stared. "That would take time, mad—Miss Annis. At

  least two hours."

  "I don't mind, I'll take a nap. Is there a bathroom?"

  "Certainly."

  "Then I can wash the smell of the cops off. But the

  other thing I want to know, what about the reward? We

  want that reward."

  "That's problematical. I'll keep it in mind. We have a

  more urgent matter to deal with. After you are

  refreshed—"

  "What matter?"

  "The job you hired me for. Investigation of the mur-

  der committed in your house."

  "I hired you to make the cops eat dirt, and you

  already have. The one named Cramer, is he a big one

  with a big red face and little blue eyes like a pig?"

  "Pigs' eyes are not blue. Otherwise the description

  fits."

  198 Rex Stout

  "Then you've already made him eat dirt. I wish I had

  been here. He was the first one in my room when they

  busted the door. That's part of your job, to make them

  pay for that door. The murder, that's their job. I'm

  surprised it was Tammy Baxter because I thought a

  counterfeiter would have more clothes, but of course

  when somebody came for the package and it wasn't

  there he thought she had taken it and he killed her, but

  she should have known I had it because I told her

  yesterday morning—"

  The phone rang and I swiveled and got it. A female

  said that Mr. Mandel wanted to speak to me, and after a

  wait he came on.

  "Goodwin? Mandel of the District Attorney's office. I

  want to see you. How soon can you be here?"

  "Twenty minutes. If necessary."

  "It's necessary. It's ten minutes past twelve. I'll ex-

  pect you at twelve-thirty. Right?"

  I told him yes, traffic permitting, hung up, and arose.

  "The DA's office," I announced. "I'm surprised it didn't

  come sooner. You don't need me anyway, you under-

  stand each other so well."

  I left them.

  Chapter 8

  They kept me at 155 Leonard Street five and a half

  hours. All I got out of it was two corned beef

  sandwiches, a piece of blueberry pie, and two

  glasses of milk, on the house, eaten at the desk of

  assistant DA Mandel. What they got out of it was

  doubtful. In addition to Mandel, I had conversations

  with another assistant DA named Lindstrom, two de-

  tectives attached to the DA's office, and District Attor-

  ney Macklin himself.

  Over the years I have been suspected of a lot of

  The Homicide Trinity 199

  things by various authorities, from corrupting a cop by

  buying him a drink to complicity in a murder, and that

  day they added a new one to the list. None of them came

  right out with it, but what was really biting them was

  their suspicion that I was in collusion with the United

  States government. Of course they covered other as-

  pects of the case, all of them and thoroughly, but what

  they concentrated on was the package of phony lettuce.

  That was all the DA himself asked me about, and he put

  it to me point-blank: did I know the money was coun-

  terfeit? I told him point-blank no, and felt better; it's

  always a relief to get a lie off your chest. He said of

  course I was lying, that I would have been a nitwit not

  to suspect it. I said it didn't matter now anyway, since

  the Secret Service had it, and he blew his top. I admit

  it's hard to believe that he actually thought I had dis-

  posed of evidence in a murder case by arranging for

  Leach to beat Cramer to it, but I suppose a DA has as

  much right to be a damfool as the people who voted for

  him.

  It was a quarter past six when I left the building and

  flagged a taxi. By the time it turned into 35th Street I

  had decided that I wouldn't wait until after dinner to go

  for Wolfe. He was too darned lazy to live. Since, thanks

  to me, Hattie had told him that he had already made

  Cramer eat dirt, he would consider that no matter what

  happened or didn't happen he could send her a bill for a

  modest hunk of the forty-two thousand, say five grand,

  and why should he strain his brain? She was out on bail

  as a material witness and in no real danger. We had got

  rid of the contraband. There was no great hurry. Nuts,

  I decided. He had to be poked. As I mounted the stoop

  and put my key in the door I was choosing my opening

  remark from three I had hatched.

  But I didn't get to use it. The rack in the hall was so

  crowded with coats that I had to squeeze mine between

  two that I recognized—Inspector Cramer's and Saul

  Panzer's. Cramer's voice was raised in the office, and it

  was hoarse, as it always was when he was in a huff. As

  I reached the office door he was saying, ". . . not just

  Rex Stout

  to hear you spout! If you've got something let's have

  it!"

  Wolfe, seated behind his desk with his fingers laced

  at the summit of his middle mound, had sent his eyes to

  me. "Ah," he said. "Satisfactory. I was concerned."

  Sure he was. The bigger the audience the better

  when he is staging a scene. Before I headed for my desk

  I glanced around: Cramer in the red leather chair,

  Sergeant Stebbins at his right, Paul Hannah and Noel

  Ferns on chairs facing Wolfe's desk, Raymond Dell and

  Albert Leach, the T-man, behind them, and Martha

  Kirk and Hattie Annis on the couch to the left of my

  desk. Saul Panzer was over by the big globe. As I

  circled around Leach and Dell, Wolfe was speaking.

  "You know quite well I have something, Mr. Cramer,

  or you wouldn't h
ave come. As I told you on the phone,

  I had a stroke of luck, but I had invited it; and I knew

  where to send the invitation. True, I sent it to three

  addresses—an East Side tenement, a shop on First

  Avenue, and a building on Bowie Street which housed

  the theater—but my expectation was centered on the

  last. When my expectation was realized I was faced

  with the question whether to notify you or to notify Mr.

  Leach; and preferring not to choose, I asked you both to

  come and to bring Miss Kirk, Mr. Dell, Mr. Ferris, and

  Mr. Hannah. Miss Annis, my client, was here. I thought

  the first three had a right to be present; as for Mr.

  Hannah, since he is both a counterfeiter and a mur-

  derer, you and Mr. Leach will have to decide—"

  "That's a lie," Hannah said, and was rising, but

  Leach, behind him, grabbed his arm. Hannah jerked,

  but Leach held on. "Who the hell are you?" Hannah

  demanded, and with his free hand Leach got his leather

  fold from his pocket and flipped it open, and by then

  Stebbins was there.

  "Are you arresting him?" Stebbins said.

  "No, are you?" Leach asked.

  "Nobody's arresting me," Hannah said. "Turn loose

  of me."

  "Sit down, Hannah," Cramer growled. He looked at

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  Wolfe. He had seen Wolfe perform before, and Leach

  hadn't. Not only had he heard Wolfe say that Hannah

  was a counterfeiter and a murderer, but also he saw the

  expression on Wolfe's face, and he certainly knew that

  face. He left his chair, put his hand on Hannah's shoul-

  der, and said, "You're under arrest as a material wit-

  ness in the murder of Tamiris Baxter. All right,

  Sergeant," and returned to his chair. Stebbins stood at

  Hannah's left and Leach stood at his right.

  "That's prudent, Mr. Cramer," Wolfe said, "since I

  have no conclusive evidence. Up to three hours ago I

  had merely a surmise. Talking with these people last

  evening, I got nothing but faint intimations. Miss Kirk?

  Unlikely. She attended a ballet school regularly, she

  exercised an hour every morning, and she received a

  monthly remittance from her father, all of which could

  be checked. Mr. Dell? Also unlikely. He had paid no

  room rent for three years. Mr. Ferris? Possibly, but

  with a reservation. His statement that two of the agen-

  cies he called at yesterday would corroborate him made

  it improbable that he had followed Miss Annis here

  yesterday morning."

  "So what?" Cramer rasped.

  "So my attention centered on Mr. Hannah. He had

  lived there only four months. He had paid for his room

  every week. He had almost certainly lied when he said

  Miss Baxter had told him that a man had twice followed

  her to the door. Miss Baxter was an agent of the Secret

  Service of the Treasury Department, and she—"

  "Who said so?" Leach demanded.

  "No one. Mr. Goodwin inferred it. You have carried

  discretion to an extreme, Mr. Leach, in concealing the

  interest of your organization in the occupants of that

  house, but you will soon agree that it is no longer

  needed. So I did not believe that Miss Baxter had told

  Mr. Hannah that. Finally, Mr. Hannah's account of his

  movements yesterday left him completely free up to

  noon. He could have followed Miss Annis here and,

  when she left without entering, back to her house. He

  could have stolen a parked car and, when she left her

  Rex Stout

  house a second time, tried to run it over her; but, since

  he failed, that is of little consequence."

  "There's damn little consequence in anything you've

  said," Cramer growled.

  Wolfe nodded. "I'm only explaining why my atten-

  tion centered on Mr. Hannah. I could indulge in

  speculation—for instance, why did he kill Miss Baxter

  there and then? Had she seen him try to kill Miss Annis

  with the car, and confronted him when he returned to

  the house? But you can speculate as well as I, and it will

  be your job, not mine, to screw a confession out of him."

  "I've got nothing to confess," Hannah said. "You're

  going to regret this. You're going to regret it good."

  "I think not, Mr. Hannah." Wolfe's eyes went to

  Leach, standing, and then to Cramer, sitting. "So when

  I sent three men to those addresses, with the invita-

  tions to luck, I sent Saul Panzer to the Mushroom. Mr.

  Panzer leaves less to luck than any man I know. He

  phoned four times to report progress. The third time,

  around three o'clock, he asked for reinforcements and I

  sent them. The fourth time, less than two hours ago, I

  told him to come and I phoned you gentlemen. Saul, will

  you describe the situation?"

  Since Saul was over by the big globe, all but Wolfe

  and Stebbins and me had to twist their necks. "Just the

  situation?" Saul asked.

  "Lead up to it briefly."

  "Yes, sir. The first two hours I covered the neighbor-

  hood, but got no lead, so I went inside the building. I

  didn't tell the superintendent what I was after, just

  that I wanted to look around for something, and the

  way he reacted and the way he accepted forty dollars

  for his trouble, I decided he was honest. He showed me

  around the theater and the basement and the second

  floor. The third floor is occupied by a job-printing shop

  with two presses and the other equipment you would

  expect. He told the two men there what I had sug-

  gested, that I was an insurance underwriters' inspector

  looking for violations. From the way the men looked I

  decided I was hot, and I told the superintendent I

  The Homicide Trinity 203

  would have to give the shop a good look and it would

  take a while, and he left. When I started looking behind

  things on shelves they jumped me and I had to get

  rough and pull my gun. I didn't shoot, but I had to knock

  one of them out. There was a phone on a table, and I

  rang you and asked you to send Fred and Orrie to help

  me search the place. You said they would be calling in

  soon, and you would—"

  "That's far enough," Wolfe said. "And now?"

  "They're still there. In behind stacks of paper on one

  of the shelves there are eight stacks of new twenty-

  dollar bills. In a compartment in the back of a cupboard

  are four engraver's plates that were probably used to

  make the bills. The two men are on the floor with their

  hands and feet tied. I don't know their names. There's

  only one chair in the room and Fred Durkin is sitting on

  it, or he was when I left, and Orrie Gather was sitting on

  a pile of paper. One of the men has a lump on the side of

  his head where I hit him with my gun, but he's not hurt

  much. I gave the superintendent another twenty dol-

  lars. That's the situation."

  Paul Hannah had started to rise, but hands on his

  shoulders had stopped him—Stebbins on the left and

 
Leach on the right.

  "You might add one detail," Wolfe told Saul. "The

  name one of them mentioned."

  "Yes, sir. That was after Fred and Orrie came and we

  had them tied and we found the plates. One of them said

  to the other one, 'I told you Paul would squeal. The

  goddamn murderous bastard. I told you we ought to

  clear out.' Do you want to hear the rest of it?"

  "That will do for now. You will of course report in full

  to Mr. Cramer and Mr. Leach." Wolfe's head moved.

  "As you see, gentlemen, I was faced with a dilemma,

  since he was both a counterfeiter and a murderer. Pre-

  ferring not to choose, I asked you both to come, and I

  leave the question of priority to you. Since Mr. Cramer

  has him under arrest—"

  The movement that interrupted him was by Paul

  Hannah, but it wasn't much of a movement. Apparently

  Rex Stout

  his idea was to lunge at Wolfe, but Stebbins and Leach

  had him pinned. They glared at each other and Hannah

  glared at Wolfe, and Hattie Annis's voice came from the

  couch.

  "You see, Falstaff? Didn't I tell you?"

  She had told him absolutely nothing.

  Chapter 9

  One day three weeks later Wolfe and I were in the

  office disagreeing about something when the

  doorbell rang. It was Hattie. I escorted her in,

  and she sat in the red leather chair, opened her hand-

  bag, and took out a little package wrapped in brown