"No telling. If so it's been cleaned. It's fully loaded
and the cartridges all look alike."
"Did she shoot him?"
That was routine; he merely wanted my opinion as a
qualified expert on women. His over-all estimate of me
and my relations with females is full of contradictions,
but that doesn't bother him. "For a quick guess," I said,
"no. To make it final I would need facts."
"So would I. Did you shoot your husband, Mrs.
Hazen?"
She shook her head.
"I prefer to hear it if you can speak. Did you shoot
him?"
"No." She had to push it out.
"Since my promise was to you, you may of course
release me from it. Do you wish me to phone the po-
lice?"
"Not now." The blood was beginning to creep back
into her skin. "You don't have to now. You won't ever
have to. He's dead, and I didn't kill him." She rose to her
feet, not very steady, but not staggering. "That's all
over now."
"Sit down." It was a command. "It's not so simple.
When the police ask you where you were this morning
from eleven o'clock on what will you say? Confound it,
80 Rex Stout
quit propping yourself on my desk and sit down! That's
better. What will you say?"
"Why . . ." She was on the edge of the chair. "Will
they ask me that?"
"Certainly. Unless they already have the murderer
and the evidence beyond all question, and that's too
much to hope for. You will have to account for every
minute since you last saw your husband. Did you come
here in a cab?"
"Yes."
"Then you'll say so. You'll have to. And when they
ask why you came to see me what will you say?"
She shook her head. She looked at me and back at
him. "Oh," she said. "You'll have to tell me what to say."
He nodded. "I expected that." His head turned.
"Archie. What grounds have you for your guess?"
I was back in my chair. "Partly personal," I told him,
"and partly professional. Personal, my general impres-
sion of her, and specifically her smile when I let her in.
Professional, two points. First, if she shot him last night
after making an appointment with you and then came
here with that jabber, she is either completely loony or
the trickiest specimen I have ever laid eyes on, and I'll
buy neither one. Second, and this is really it, her face
when she realized he was dead. She might fake a faint
or the staggers or even some fancy hysterics, but no
woman alive could make her blood go like that. I said I
would need facts to make it final, but I should have said
I would need facts, and good ones, to make me guess
again."
Wolfe grunted and turned to her with a scowl.
"Granting that Mr. Goodwin's grounds are valid, what
then? When the police leam that the widow of a man
murdered last night came to see me this morning they
will harass me beyond tolerance. I owe you nothing.
You are not my client. You have paid me a hundred
dollars for half an hour of my time, now stretched to
more than an hour, and released me from my promise,
so that incident is closed. You asked me to tell you what
to say when they ask you what you came here for, but
The Homicide Trinity 81
they will also ask me. What if you fail to follow my
advice and my account differs from yours? Why should
I take that risk? I can see no alternative— What are
you doing now?"
She had opened her bag and was taking out the
check-fold and pen. "I'm going to write a check," she
said. "Then I'll be your client. What shall I ... how
much?"
He nodded. "I expected that too. It won't do. I am not
a blackmailer. I take pay for services, not for forbear-
ance, and you may not need my services. If you do, we'll
see. Will you answer some questions?"
"Of course. But I've taken more than my half an hour,
and I owe you—"
"No. If you didn't shoot your husband we have both
been snared by circumstance. First, instead of a ques-
tion, a statement: you can't take the gun. The gun stays
here. Now. When and where did—"
"But I'm going to put it back where I got it!"
"No. I accept Mr. Goodwin's guess as a hypothesis,
but I can't let you take the gun. When and where did
you last see your husband?"
"Last night. At home. We had people for dinner."
"Details. How many people? Their names."
"They were clients of Barry's, important clients—all
but one. Mrs. Victor Oliver. Anne Talbot, Mrs. Henry
Lewis Talbot. Jules Khoury. Ambrose Perdis. Ted—
Theodore Weed—he's not a client, he works for Barry.
Seven, counting Barry and me."
"When did the guests leave?"
"I don't know exactly. Barry had told me he was
going to discuss something with them, and I wouldn't
be needed, and after the coffee I left. That's when I last
saw him, there with them. I went upstairs to my bed-
room."
"Did you hear him when he went up to bed?"
"No. There's a spare bedroom between his room and
mine. And I was played out. I told you, I had the first
good night's sleep I have had for a month."
"You didn't see him this morning?"
82 Rex Stout
"No. He wasn't there. He rises early. The maid
who—oh. Oh!"
"What?"
"Nothing—nothing that matters to you. I am not
liking myself, Mr. Wolfe. I said he rises early, but now I
can say he rose early, and I wanted to sing it. I did! No
one is good enough to have a right to be glad that
someone has died. The Lord knows I'm not. What if I
never loved him? What if I married him because—"
Wolfe cut her off. "If you please. You'll have plenty of
time for that. About the maid?"
She swallowed with her lips pressed tight. "I'm
sorry. The maid who sleeps in and gets breakfast said
he hadn't come down, and she had gone up and the door
of his room was open and his bed hadn't been slept in.
He had done that before, not very often, once or twice a
month."
"Without telling you where he was going or, after-
wards, where he had been?"
"Yes."
"Do you know or can you guess where he went last
night, or with whom, or to whom?"
"No. I have no idea."
"I am still assuming that you didn't kill him, but how
vulnerable are you? Were you continually in your
house—it is a house, not an apartment?"
"Yes."
"Were you in it continually from the time you went to
your bedroom last night until you left this morning?"
"Yes."
"Would the maid have heard you if you had gone out
during the night? Sneaked out, and later in again?"
"I don't think so. Her room is in the basement."
Wolfe nodded. "You are vulnerable. What time did
you leave this morning?"
"At five minutes past eleven. I wanted to be sure to
get here on time."
"When did you take the gun from the drawer in your
husband's room?"
The Homicide Trinity 83
"Just before I left. I didn't decide to bring it until the
last minute."
"How many people know that you despised your
husband?"
She gazed at him, not blinking, no reply.
"'Despise' is your word, Mrs. Hazen. It is not ade-
quate. No one kills a man, or wants to, merely because
she despises him. But I'm not going into that; it could
take all day. How many people know that you despised
him?"
"I don't think anyone does." It was barely audible,
and I have good ears. "I have never told anyone, not
even my best friend. She may have suspected, I sup-
pose she did."
"Pfui." Wolfe flipped a hand. "Your maid knows, for
one, if she's not a dolt. She is of course being questioned
at this moment. Was your husband wealthy?"
"I don't know. He had a large income, he must have,
he was free with money. He owned the house."
"Any children?"
"No."
"You will inherit?"
Her eyes flashed. "Mr. Wolfe, this is ridiculous! I
don't want anything from him!"
"I am merely examining your position. You will in-
herit?"
"Yes. He told me I would."
"Didn't he know you despised him?"
"He was incapable of believing that anyone could
despise him. I suppose he was a psychopath. I looked up
psychopathy in the dictionary."
"No doubt that was a help." He looked up at the wall
clock. "I presume you will now go home. Since you must
tell the police that you were here you might as well say
that you learned of your husband's death from my
radio; it will save you the bother of feigning surprise
and shock." He eyed her. "I said you would be in a
pickle, and you are. When I asked what you wanted of
me, I shall say that you consulted me in confidence and
I will reveal nothing of your conversation. It will be a
84 Rex Stout
little ticklish, but until and unless you are arrested on a
charge of murder the pressure will not be intolerable.
So you may tell them as much about your visit here, or
as little, as you please."
She opened her bag. "I'm going to write a check. You
must take it. You must!"
"No. You may not be in jeopardy. They may get the
murderer today or tomorrow. If they do I may send you
a bill for the extra hour; it will depend on my mood. If
they don't, and you wish to engage my services, and Mr.
Goodwin's guess has not been discredited, we'll see."
He pushed his chair back and stood up.
She rose to her feet, steady this time, and I went and
held her coat for her.
Chapter 3
When I returned to the office after letting her
out, Wolfe had straightened up in his chair to
lean forward, and, with his head cocked, was
sniffing the air. For a second I thought he was pretend-
ing that our ex-client had polluted the atmosphere with
perfume, but then I realized that he was merely trying
to catch an odor from the kitchen, where Fritz was
baking scallops in shells—or probably, since I could
catch the odor without sniffing, he was deciding
whether Fritz had used only shallots in the sauce or had
added an onion. By the time I got to my chair he had
settled it; anyway, he turned to me.
"I do not intend," he stated, "to serve the conve-
nience of a murderer. What about her face? I was at one
side."
"One will get you fifty," I said. "You heard her stut-
ter that I was m-m-making it up. Then when I said no,
he had been shot dead and it hit her as a fact, she went
The Homicide Trinity 85
white, all white, in three seconds. Maybe she can wiggle
her ears, but she can't do that. No one can."
"Very well. Call Mr. Cohen and get details."
"Anything in particular?"
"Whatever he has, but I want to know if the weapon
has been found, or a bullet."
"He would appreciate a major scoop, such as that the
widow of the deceased visited the office of Nero Wolfe
this morning. Why not, since she's going to report it?"
"Very well."
I got at the phone and dialed the number of the
Gazette, and soon had Lon Cohen. When I tossed him
the bone about Mrs. Hazen coming to see Wolfe, natu-
rally he wanted the whole skeleton, not to mention
meat, but I told him that would be all for now and how
about some reciprocity? He obliged, and gave me the
crop, and I thanked him and hung up and turned to
Wolfe.
"The body was found by a truck driver at ten-
eighteen a.m. It was stiff, so he must have been dead at
least five hours and probably more. He was fully
dressed, including an overcoat, and his hat was there on
the ground. The usual items in his pockets, including a
couple of dollars in change, except that there were no
keys, and no wallet and no watch. Of course they could
have been taken by someone who found him earlier and
forgot to mention it. His name was on letters in his
pocket, so the wallet wasn't taken to delay identifica-
tion. Shot once, in the back, and a rib stopped the bullet
and they have it. A thirty-two. Weapon not found. If the
police have any leads or notions they're saving them,
but of course it was found less than three hours ago." I
glanced at my wrist. "Two hours and forty-nine min-
utes. Lon says he would have paid me five grand if I had
kept Mrs. Hazen here until he could send a man to take
her picture and ask her who shot her husband, and I
told him I'll bear that in mind next time."
"They have the bullet?"
"Right."
"When will a policeman come?"
86 Rex Stout
"It will probably be Cramer in person. You know how
he'll react when he leams she was here. Say two hours,
possibly sooner."
"Will she report what she told me?"
"No."
A comer of his mouth twitched. "That's why I put up
with you; you could have answered with fifty words and
you did it with one."
"I've often wondered. Now tell me why I put up with
you."
"That's beyond conjecture. I want a bullet that has
been fired from that gun, and we shouldn't wait until
after lunch. You have twenty minutes. If your guess
about Mrs. Hazen is correct, that gun is not evidence,
unless the murderer stole into that house afterwards,
went to Mr. Hazen's room and returned the gun to the
drawer, and slipped out again. If it is evidence you'll be
tampering with it. Shall I do it?"
"No. You might shoot a toe off." I got the gun from
the drawer, removed one of the cartridges, unlocked
and opened the drawer where we keep the Marleys for
which we have permits,
and got a .32 cartridge from the
box. I put that cartridge in the Drexel where I had
made room for it, turned the cylinder so it would be in
firing position, went to the hall and downstairs to the
storage room in the basement, switched the light on,
and crossed to where a discarded mattress was doubled
up on a table. I had used it for this operation before. I
cocked the revolver, held it three inches from the mat-
tress, and pulled the trigger.
You would suppose that all .32 cartridges would send
a bullet the same distance into a mattress, the same
mattress, but they don't. It took me a quarter of an hour
to find it, and by the time I got back upstairs Wolfe was
at table in the dining room, which is across the hall from
the office. Before I joined him I removed the shell,
returned the Drexel's own cartridge to its place, and
put the gun in the safe and the bullet in an envelope in
my desk drawer.
The Homicide Trinity 87
* * *
We were back in the office, Wolfe dictating and me
taking, when company came. I had been right on both
counts: it was Inspector Cramer in person, and it was
Homicide Trinity Page 11