there, and I should have come with her. We all feel
responsible for her. Her house is an awful dump, but
anybody in show business, or even trying to be, can
have a room for five dollars a week, and it doesn’t have
to be every week. So we feel responsible. I certainly
hope—” She stood up, letting it hang. “If she comes will
you phone me?”
“Sure.” She gave me the number and I jotted it down,
and then went to hold her coat. My feelings were mixed.
It would have been a pleasure to relieve her mind, but
of what? What if her real worry was about the Hope
diamond, which she had had under her mattress, and
she knew or suspected that Hattie Annis had snitched
it? I would have liked to put her in the front room,
supplied with magazines, to wait until her landlady
arrived, but you can’t afford to be sentimental when the
fate of a million-dollar diamond is at stake, so I let her
go. Another consideration was that it would be enough
of a job to sell Wolfe on seeing Hattie Annis without
also accounting for the presence of another female in
the front room. He can stand having one woman under
his roof temporarily if he has to, but not two at once.
At eleven o’clock on the nose the sound of the eleva-
tor came, and its usual clang as it jolted to a stop at the
bottom, and he entered, told me good morning, went to
his desk, got his seventh of a ton deposited in the
oversized custom-built chair, fingered through the
mail, glanced at his desk calendar, and spoke.
“No check from Brigham?”
“Yes, sir, it came.” I swiveled to face him. “Without
comment. I took it to the bank. Also my weakness has
cropped up again, but with a new slant.”
He grunted. “Which weakness?”
“Women. One came, a stranger, and I told her to
come back at eleven-fifteen. The trouble is, she’s a type
that never appealed to me before. I hope to goodness
my taste hasn’t shifted. I want your opinion.”
“Pfui. Flummery.”
“No, sir. It’s a real problem. Wait till you see her.”
“I’m not going to see her.”
“Then I’m stuck. She has a strange fascination. No-
body believes in witches casting spells any more. I
certainly don’t, but I don’t know. As for what she wants
to see you about, that’s simple. She has got something
that she thinks is good for a reward, and she’s coming to
you instead of the police because she hates cops. I don’t
know what it is or where she got it. That part’s easy,
you can deal with that in two minutes, but what about
me? Have I got a screw loose?”
“Yes.” He picked up the top item from the little pile
of mail, an airmail letter from an orchid hunter in Ven-
ezuela, and started to read it. I swung my chair around
and started sharpening pencils that didn’t need it. The
noise of the sharpener gets on his nerves. I was on the
fourth pencil when his voice came.
“Stop that,” he growled. “A witch?”
“She must be.”
“I’ll give her two minutes.”
You can appreciate what I had accomplished only if
you know how allergic he is to strangers, especially
women, and how much he hates to work, especially
when a respectable check has just been deposited. Be-
sides that satisfaction I had something to look forward
to, seeing his expression when I escorted Hattie Annis
in. I thought I might as well go and retrieve the pack-
age from under the couch and put it in my desk drawer,
but vetoed it. It could stay put till she came. Wolfe
finished the letter from the orchid hunter and started
on a circular from a manufacturer of an automatic hu-
midifier.
Eleven-seventeen and the bell didn’t ring. At 11:20
Wolfe looked up to say that he had some letters to give
me but didn’t like to be interrupted, and I said neither
did I. At 11:25 he got up and went to the kitchen,
probably to sample the chestnut soup, in which he and
Fritz had decided to include tarragon for the first time.
At 11:30 I went to the front room and got the package.
Nuts to her, if she couldn’t be punctual for an appoint-
148 Rex Stout
ment. She would get her package back, at the door, and
that would be all. I was straightening up after fishing it
from under the couch when the bell rang, and had it in
my hand when I went to the hall.
It was her all right, but through the one-way glass
panel I noticed a couple of changes as I stepped to the
door: there was a button on her coat where one had
been been missing, and her face needed washing even
more than it had before. Her whole right cheek was a
dark smudge. Touched by the button, I decided to hear
her excuse for being late, if any, but as I opened the
door she collapsed. No moan, no sound at all, she just
crumpled. I jumped and grabbed her, so she didn’t go
clear down, but she was out, dead weight. I tightened
my right arm around her to free my left to toss the
package into the hall and then gathered her up, crossed
the sill, and kicked the door shut.
As I was turning to the front room Wolfe’s voice
came. “What the devil is that?”
“A woman,” I said, and kept going. On her feet I
would have guessed her at not more than a hundred and
fifteen pounds, but loose and sagging she was a good
deal heavier. I put her on the couch, on her back,
straightened her legs, and took a look. She was breath-
ing shallow, but no gasping. I slipped a hand under her
middle and lifted, and stuffed a couple of cushions be-
neath her hips. As I took her wrist and put a finger on
her pulse Wolfe’s voice came at my back.
“Get Doctor Vollmer.”
I turned my head. He had meant it for Fritz, who had
appeared at the door. “Hold it,” I said. “I think she just
fainted.”
“Nonsense,” Wolfe snapped. “Women do not faint.”
I had heard that one before. His basis for it was not
medical but personal; he is convinced that unless she
has a really good excuse, like being slugged with a club,
any woman who passes out is merely putting on an
act—a subhead under his fundamental principle that
every woman is always putting on an act. Ignoring it, I
checked her pulse, which was weak and slow but not too
The Homicide Trinity 149
bad, asked Fritz to bring my overcoat and open a win-
dow, and went to the lavatory for the smelling salts. I
was waving the bottle under her nose and Fritz was
spreading the coat over her when her eyes opened. She
blinked at me and started to lift her head, and I put my
hand on her brow.
“I know you,” she said, barely audible. “I must have
made it.”
“Only to the door,” I told her. “You flopped on the
stoop and I carried you in. Lie still. Shut your eyes and
catch up on your breathing.”
“Brandy?” Fritz asked me.
“I don’t like brandy,” she said.
“Tea?”
“I don’t like tea. Where’s my bag?”
“Coffee,” I told Fritz. “She must like something.” He
went. Wolfe had disappeared. “Sniff this,” I told her,
handing her the bottle, and went to the hall. The pack-
age was over by the rack, and her handbag was on the
floor near the wall. I didn’t know how it got there, and I
still don’t, but since I reject Wolfe’s fundamental prin-
ciple I assume that a fainting woman can hang onto
something. Returning to the patient, I was just in time
to keep her from rolling off the couch. She was trying to
pull the cushions out from under her middle. When I
put a hand on her shoulder she protested, “Pillows are
for heads, Buster. Can’t you tell my head from my
fanny? Give me the bag.”
I handed it to her and she turned onto her side,
propping on her elbow, to open it. Apparently her con-
cern was for a particular item, for after a brief glance
inside she was closing it, but I said, “Here, put this in,”
and offered the package.
She didn’t take it. “So I’m still alive,” she said. “I’m
froze stiff, but I’m alive. Don’t Nero Wolfe believe in
heat?”
“It’s seventy in here,” I told her. “When you faint
your blood does something. Here’s your package.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
150 Rex Stout
“I knew you wouldn’t. I’m still dizzy.” Her head went
back down. “You’re such a detective, maybe you can tell
me what he was going to do if he killed me. He would