instruction. His name is Nathaniel Parker. Archie, get
Mr. Parker. I’ll talk from here.”
Chapter 4
I pushed the button down, released it, dialed Park-
er’s home number, got him, buzzed the kitchen, and
Wolfe got on. He gave Parker the necessary facts,
and not much more—nothing of what Mrs. Hazen had
told us that morning, nothing about the gun. He did say
that I had formed the conclusion that she had not shot
her husband, and that he had accepted it. Parker was to
arrange for bail if she was bailable, if they held her on
the big charge he was to get what he could at the DA’s
office. I waited to hang up until Wolfe was at the office
door. He went to his desk, sat, leveled his eyes at
Theodore Weed, and spoke.
“Now sir. That was timely. It was Mrs. Hazen on the
phone. I have sent—”
“Where is she?”
“At the District Attorney’s office. She thinks she is
going to be held. I have sent a lawyer to her, and I have
agreed to act in her behalf. You were assuming that I
declined her offer of a check because I thought she was
guilty of murder or at least was implicated, but you
were wrong. She is now my client.” He wiggled a finger
at the bills on the desk. “Your money. Take it.”
Weed’s jaw was hanging, his lips parted. He found
words. “But you—I don’t see why you—”
“You’re not obliged to see and I’m not obliged to
explain. Why do you think Mrs. Hazen killed her hus-
band? Was it merely surmise?”
“I don’t—I don’t think she killed him. She didn’t!”
“If I had taken your money what were you going to
ask me to do?”
94 Rex Stout
“I don’t know exactly. I was going … to consult
you. I wanted to know what you did with the gun. Have
the police got it?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I am acting for her now, Mr.
Weed. You are the enemy—one of them. What if you
killed Mr. Hazen, or know who did, and would like to see
it imputed to her, and suspecting, for whatever reason,
that she left a gun with me this morning, you want to
find out? What if you are indeed the enemy?”
Weed sat and stared at him. His jaw started to work
again and he stopped it. “Look here,” he said. “I want to
know something. I know your reputation, I know about
you. Is that straight, Mrs. Hazen phoned you just now
and you’re working for her?”
“It is.”
“All right, then this is straight too.” He stuck an arm
out. “You can cut off this arm if it will help her any. And
the other one. If that’s corny, okay, that’s where I
stand.”
Wolfe regarded him with narrowed eyes. So did I. He
looked as if he meant it, but even if he did, that didn’t
make him our pal. If he would give an arm to help her,
and if he had known how she felt about her husband, he
might have taken steps to get rid of him for her, which
wouldn’t cost him even a finger if he was lucky.
Wolfe made a tent with his fingers, the tips together,
his elbows on the chair arms. “Indeed,” he said. “I have
no use for your arm, but some information might be
helpful. When did you last see Mr. Hazen?”
“I want to know where that gun is. I know she left it
here, she told me so.”
“When did she tell you?”
“This afternoon. I was there when she came home.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Not much—there wasn’t time. We were inter-
rupted. I knew Hazen had a gun in a drawer in his room,
and I had looked to see if it was there and it wasn’t, and
I asked her if she knew where it was. Have the police
got it?”
“No. I’ll indulge you further, Mr. Weed. The bullet
The Homicide Trinity 95
that killed Mr. Hazen wasn’t fired by that gun. If you
already knew that it’s no news for you; if you didn’t, it
should relieve—”
“How do you know it wasn’t?”
“Enough for you that I do. Now you indulge me.
When did you last see Mr. Hazen?”
“This morning. At the morgue. I went there to iden-
tify him, by request. Alive, I saw him last at his house,
last night.”
“At what hour?”
“Around half past nine. Five or ten minutes either
way. The police wanted it more exact, but that’s as close
as I can come.”
“The circumstances?”
“There were people there for dinner. Do you want
their names?”
“Yes.”
“They were clients of Hazen’s. Mrs. Victor Oliver, a
widow. Mrs. Henry Lewis Talbot, the wife of the
banker. Ambrose Perdis, the shipping tycoon. Jules
Khoury, the inventor. And Mr. and Mrs. Hazen and me.
Seven. After dinner Hazen told Lucy—his wife—that
we were going to discuss a business matter and she left.
I left soon after that, and that was the last I saw him
alive, there with them.”
“How did you spend the next six hours?”
“I walked to the Overseas Press Club—it’s a short
walk—and was there until around midnight, and then I
went home and went to bed. And stayed in bed.”
“You were associated with Mr. Hazen in his busi-
ness?”
“I was in his employ.”
“In what capacity?”
“Mostly I write stuff. Handouts, plugs, the usual
junk. Also I was supposed to use my contacts. I was a
newspaperman when Hazen hired me a little more than
a year ago.”
“If they were going to discuss a business matter why
did you leave?”
“I wasn’t needed. Or wanted.”
“Then why were you there at all?”
96 Rex Stout
Weed put his hands on the chair arms, levered his
fanny up, settled farther back, and took a breath. He
rubbed his chair arms with his palms. “You don’t think
Lucy killed him,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t be working
for her. But even if she didn’t she’s in one hell of a jam.
If you’re half as good as you’re supposed to be … I
don’t know. Maybe I ought to give you a different
answer than the one I gave the District Attorney when
he asked why I was there. The right answer. Even if it
makes you think I killed him. I didn’t.”
“If you did, Mr. Weed, you’re doomed in any case, no
matter what answers you give.”
“Okay, then here’s why I was there. Exclusive for
you. Hazen liked to have me in the same room with his
wife because he knew how I felt about her. God only
knows how he knew, I certainly tried not to show it and
I thought I did pretty well, and I’m sure she doesn’t
know, but he did. He was a remarkable man. He had a
sixth sense about people, and maybe a seventh and an
eighth, but he also had blind spots. He actually didn’t
know how his wife felt about him, or if he did he was
even more remarkable than I thought.”
“Did you know?”
“Of course.”
“She told you?”
“My God, no. I doubt if she even told her best friend.
Don’t think that the way I feel about her made me
imagine it. I saw her when he touched her, how she
tried to cover up. So that’s why I was invited to dinner
last night. I don’t think he expected or hoped to see me
squirm, he didn’t have to, he knew how I felt. Of course
he was a sadist, but he was a damned subtle one. I was
onto him, in a way, after I had been with him a couple of
months, but I didn’t leave because I … I had met
her.”
“And your feeling for her was returned?”
“Certainly not. I was just a guy that worked for her
husband.”
“Rather a forlorn situation for you.”
“Yeah. That’s the right word, forlorn. I told you
The Homicide Trinity 97
because you asked why I was there, and I’ve got a little
idea how you work, and you’re working for her. An-
other thing you might want to know, I think there was
something screwy about his business. I know the
public-relations game is mostly just a high-grade
racket, but even so. Take the four people who
were there last night. Why did Mrs. Victor Oliver, the
sixty-year-old widow of a millionaire broker, pay him
two thousand dollars a month? She needs public rela-
tions like I need a hole in the head. The same for Mrs.
Talbot—twenty-five hundred a month. Maybe her hus-
band, the banker, could use a P.R. expert, granted that
there is one, but why her? Jules Khoury’s amounts
vary, sometimes a couple of thousand, sometimes more.
Possibly an inventor likes to stand in well with