said, that’s automatic. Also he flipped the cylinder open
for a glance.
“It was fired yesterday,” Wolfe said, “by Mr. Good-
win, to get a bullet. The bullet I gave you.”
Cramer nodded. “Yeah. There’s nothing on God’s
earth you wouldn’t do. It could have been . . . What
the hell, it wasn’t. Okay, let’s hear you.”
Wolfe unloaded. He didn’t enjoy it and neither did I,
118 Rex Stout
spilling it, but we had to know about the gun and it
might have taken us days. He skipped the details, in-
cluding no quotes, but gave it straight, both parts,
before the news came over the radio and after. He
didn’t include my reasons for deciding that she hadn’t
shot her husband, but I didn’t mind; it might have got
Cramer confused and that would have been a pity. He
was a little confused anyhow; toward the end he was
frowning, pulling at his lip now and then, a wary look in
his eyes. When Wolfe finished he sat looking at it before
he spoke.
“What have you left out?” he demanded.
Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing material. You said
you wanted the substance; you have it. How long will it
take to trace the gun?”
“I don’t get it. After she came to you with that fairy
tale, and the news came about her husband, and you
learned that we were holding her, you took her for a
client? I don’t get it. I have never known you to take a
murderer for a client. Whether it’s just your goddamn
luck, or what, I don’t know, but you haven’t. Why did
you take her?”
A corner of Wolfe’s mouth turned up. “I asked Mr.
Goodwin’s opinion and he said she was innocent. His
judgment of women under thirty is infallible. How long
will it take to trace the gun?”
“Nuts.” Cramer stood up. “Maybe an hour, maybe a
week. I’m taking Goodwin. They’ll take his statement
at the District Attorney’s office, a complete report of
the conversation. I’ll have a man here at two o’clock to
take yours. If I took you down you’d only—”
“I shall sign no statement. I am not obliged to. If you
send a man he won’t be admitted. If you have questions,
ask them.”
Cramer’s round red face got redder. But that was as
far as it went; his memory of what had happened on the
three occasions he had taken Wolfe downtown was
presumably what stopped him. He stuck the gun in his
pocket and turned to me. “Come on, Goodwin. We’ll
see.”
The Homicide Trinity 119
As I arose the phone rang and I reached to get it. It
was Nathaniel Parker. He was upset. “Archie? Nat
Parker. Mrs. Hazen is being held on a charge of homi-
cide, of course without bail. I want to see Wolfe before I
see her. I have to know what she told him yesterday. I’ll
be there in twenty minutes.”
“Fine,” I said. “He’s in a perfect mood for it. Come
ahead.” I hung up, told Wolfe, “Parker will be here in
twenty minutes,” and went to the hall for my coat and
hat, with Cramer at my heels.
Chapter 8
During the next nine hours I had various oppor-
tunities to try to sort it out. En route in a police
car to the DA’s office, later from there to Homi-
cide West on 20th Street, and several waiting periods
while assorted officers of the law, including the DA
himself at one point, decided what to do next.
It was complicated enough even before an assistant
DA kindly permitted me to use a phone, around three
o’clock, and I called Wolfe. Of course the game was
button, button, who had the gun when and where?
Either gun. If Lucy Hazen had lied, how much? Had the
gun that the maid had seen in the drawer Tuesday
morning been the one that had shot Hazen or the one
she had brought to Wolfe? If the former, Lucy was a liar
and also either was a murderer or could name him. If
the latter, who had put it in the drawer and when? And
why? It wasn’t that there were no possible answers;
there were too many. And too many of them made it too
likely that Lucy had made a monkey of me and there-
fore were not acceptable.
The first hour or so I was entertained by an assistant
DA named Mandel, who was not a stranger to me, and a
120 Rex Stout
Homicide Bureau lieutenant, and it was obvious that
the gun puzzle was as tough for them as it was for me,
though they didn’t say so. Then, while we were having
sandwiches and coffee, no recess called, at Mandel’s
desk, a phone call came for him, and he took the lieuten-
ant to another room, and when they returned their
attitude was quite different. Apparently they were no
longer interested in guns; they concentrated on what
Lucy had said to Wolfe and me, her exact words; and
finally, a little before three o’clock, Mandel called a
stenographer in and told me to start dictating my state-
ment. Of course the room was wired for sound, and they
would have fun later comparing my dictated statement
with what I had told them. It was then that I insisted on
making a phone call and was escorted to a booth.
I got Wolfe. “Me. In a booth at the DA’s office, and it
may be tapped. They should be finished with me by the
end of the week. They were curious about guns, and
then a phone call came and they weren’t. I thought you
might like to know.”
“I already know.” He didn’t sound depressed. “Mr.
Cramer phoned shortly after one. The gun we gave him
had been traced without difficulty. It was purchased by
Mrs. Hazen’s father, Titus Postel, in 1953, and he com-
mitted suicide with it five years ago, in 1955.”
“And she had it?”
“Not established. I have told Mr. Parker to ask her
when he sees her this afternoon. Meanwhile I have got
Saul and given him an errand.”
I would have liked to ask him what errand, but that
wasn’t advisable since we might have company on the
line. Saul Panzer, the first and best man on our list
when we need help, charges more than any other free-
lance operative in New York, and is worth five times as
much. I told Wolfe I might or might not be home for
dinner.
Dictating my statement to the stenographer, I had to
keep jerking my mind back to it. The gun puzzle was
okay now for the cops, since they had tagged Lucy; now
The Homicide Trinity 121
they didn’t have to buy it that she had been nutty
enough to take the gun home after she shot him and put
it in the drawer, and the next day get it and take it back
to the car. It was much neater. She had got the gun from
the drawer Monday, put the one she had, that had been
her father’s, in its place, and left it in the car after she
shot him. And Tuesday she had got the gun from the
drawer and brought it to Wolfe as a prop for her fairy
tale, evidently not knowing that guns have numbers
that can be traced. What better could you ask for?
But for me, unless I was ready to give Lucy up as a
bad job, it was what worse could I ask for. Before, there
had been too many answers; now there weren’t any. I
had to file it while I dictated my statement, in which I
was supposed to include everything Lucy had said to us
in Wolfe’s office, and while I went over it after it was
typed, and it wasn’t easy. Then I was taken to the office
of the DA himself, and he and Mandel pecked at me for
an hour; and when they finished, around 6:30, and I
supposed that was all for the day, I was informed that
Cramer wanted me at Homicide West. If I had balked
they would have booked me as a material witness and
Parker couldn’t come to the rescue until morning, so I
took it.
In one respect it was an improvement. The dick at
Homicide West whom Cramer sent for sandwiches hap-
pened to be civilized enough to think that even a dog
has a right to eat what he likes, and I got what I asked
for, corned beef on rye and milk. Except for that, it was
just more of the same, for more than two hours with
Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins. I didn’t even
have the satisfaction of getting a chance to break my
record with Lieutenant Rowcliff. I once got him stut-
tering in two minutes and twenty seconds, and I have a