by Rex Stout
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. Preferring 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 handbag, and took out a little package wrapped in brown paper. Wolfe made a face. I thought, Good Lord, she’s found another one. But she reached into the bag again and came out with an envelope that I recognized.
“This check you sent me,” she said. “You say in your letter it’s for my share of the reward, a hundred dollars. So you kept your share?”
“Yes,” Wolfe lied.
“Did you get yours, Buster?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Then that’s all right. But what about this bill? Five thousand dollars fee for services and $621.65 for expenses. What did I tell you that day, Buster? Didn’t I say I could pay forty-two thousand dollars?”
“You did.”
“Then here it is.” She tossed the package onto Wolfe’s desk. “A man at the bank helped me pick those bonds and he says there’s none better. These are transferred to you. This is the first time I ever let any of them go, and I hope it’s the last, but it was worth it. That was a day, the best day I’ve had since my father died. I didn’t like it when I saw in the paper that he had
The Homicide Trinity 205
confessed, but that wasn’t your fault. I’ve got no use for anybody that confesses anything to the cops. That Paul Hannah was no good. He even told them how he stole the car and tried to kill me with it because he thought I had the package and knew who put it in my parlor, and he saw Tammy across the street and knew she saw him, and when he went back to the house she was at the phone dialing a number and he got the knife from the kitchen, and when he got near her and she stood up he stabbed her, and then he carried her in the parlor and left her there with her skirt up to her waist. He was no good. I’ll have to be more careful about people that want a room.”
Wolfe was frowning. “I can’t accept those bonds, mad-Miss Annis. Not all of them. I prefer to evaluate my services myself. I did so and sent you a bill.”
She nodded. “I tore it up. The day I told Buster that, that settled it. I hired you and I said what I could pay. Now you say you won’t accept it. That’s no way to do.”
Wolfe looked at me. I grinned. He pushed his chair back and arose. “I have a matter to attend to,” he said. “I’ll leave you with Mr. Goodwin. You understand each other.” He marched out.
It took me half an hour to talk her around, and she told me twice not to call her Hattie.
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