have had to stop the car and get out to get the bag.
Wouldn’t he?”
“I should think so. If it was the bag he wanted.”
“Of course it was.” She took a deep breath, and
another. “He thought the package was in it. Anyhow, it
was your fault I was there, what you said about the
button. I’ve been intending to sew that button on for a
month, and when you said to have one put on and
charge it to you, that was too much. I hadn’t done
anything about my clothes on account of a man for
twenty years, and here was a man offering to buy me a
button. So I went home and sewed it on.”
She stopped to breathe. I stuck the package in my
pocket. “Where is home?” I asked.
“Forty-seventh Street. Between Eighth and Ninth.
So that’s why I was there, but you keep your head,
Buster. Don’t offer to buy me some hair dye. When I
left I was going to take a Ninth Avenue bus to come
back here, and walking along Forty-seventh Street the
car came on the sidewalk behind me and hit me here.”
She touched her right hip. “Bumping up over the curb
must have spoiled his aim. It didn’t hit me hard enough
to knock me down, so I must have stumbled when I
jumped. Anyhow I fell, and I must have rolled over
more than once because I was walking near the curb
and I came against a building. Is that Nero Wolfe?”
The door to the office had opened and Wolfe was
there, scowling at us. I told her yes, and told him. “Miss
Hattie Annis. She’s telling me why she was late for her
appointment. She went to her house on Forty-seventh
Street, and coming back a car climbed the curb and hit
her. I know there’s no chair here big enough for you, but
she ought to stay flat a little longer.”
“I am capable of standing for two minutes,” he said
stiffly.
“You don’t look it,” Hattie said. “You would do fine
for Falstaff.”
The Homicide Trinity 151
“Finish it,” I told her. “And the car went on?”
“It must have. When I got up it was gone. A man and
a woman helped me up, and another man stopped, but
nothing was broke and I could walk. So I walked. I
didn’t want to try climbing on a bus. I kept in close to
the buildings, and I stopped to rest about every block,
and the last two blocks I didn’t think I would make it,
but I did. How did you know I was there if I fainted?”
“You rang the bell. I caught you before you hit bot-
tom.”
“And you carried me in and I missed it. Carried by a
man and didn’t know it. What’s life up to?”
Wolfe came in a step. “Madam. I told Mr. Goodwin I
would give you two minutes.”
She had lifted her head and I had put a cushion under
it. “I appreciate it,” she said. “A wonderful day. Buster
carries me in and Falstaff gives me two minutes—and
here’s another one with coffee!”
Fritz coming with the coffee eased the situation. To
Wolfe anyone having food or drink in his house is a
guest, and guests have to be humored, within reason.
He couldn’t tell me to bounce her while I was bringing a
stand for the tray and Fritz was filling her cup. So he
stood and scowled. When she had taken a sip he spoke.
“Mr. Goodwin said you have something that you
think is good for a reward. What is it?”
She had sat up and taken off the woolen gloves. She
took another sip. “That’s good coffee,” she said. “First
I’ll tell you how I got it. I own that house on Forty-
seventh Street. I was born in it.” Another sip. “Do you
happen to know that all stage people are crazy?”
Wolfe grunted. “They have no monopoly.”
“Maybe not, but theirs is a special kind. I’m not
saying I like them, but they give me a feeling. My father
owned a theater. My house is only an eight-minute walk
from Times Square, and I only need one room and a
kitchen, so they can live there whether they can pay or
not. Five of them are living there now—three men and
two girls—and they use the kitchen. They’re supposed
to make their beds and keep their rooms decent, and
152 Rex Stout
some of them do. I never go in their rooms. My room is
the second floor front—”
“If you please.” Wolfe was curt. “To the point.”
“I’ll get there, Falstaff. Let the lady talk.” She took a
sip. “Good coffee. The ground floor front is the parlor.
Nobody goes in there much since my mother died years
ago, but once a week I go in and look around, and when
I went in yesterday afternoon a mouse ran out from
under the piano and went in back of the bookshelves.
Do you believe a mouse could run up a woman’s leg?”
“No.” Wolfe was emphatic.
“Neither do I. I got my umbrella from the hall and
poked behind the shelves, but he didn’t come out.
There’s no back to the shelves, so if I took the books out
I’d have him. The bottom shelf has a History of the
Thirteen Colonies in ten volumes and a set ofMacaulay
with the backs coming off. I took them all out, but the
mouse wasn’t there. He must have moved while I was
getting the umbrella. But in back of the books was a
little package I had never seen before, and I opened it,
and that’s what I’ve got. If I took it to the cops, good-by.
We can split the reward three ways, you and me and
Buster here.”
“What’s in it?”
Her head turned. “Open it, Buster.”
I took it from my pocket, sat on a chair, untied the
string, and unwrapped the paper. It was a stack of new
twenty-dollar bills. I flipped through it at a comer and
then at another comer. All twenties.
“Imagine handing that to the cops,” Hattie said. “Of
course he knew I had it and he tried to kill me.”
Wolfe grunted. “How much, Archie?”
“About two inches thick. Two hundred and fifty to
the inch. Ten thousand dollars, more or less.”
“Madam. You say he tried to kill you. Who?”
“I don’t know which one.” She put her cup down and
picked up the pot to pour. “It could be one of the girls,
but I’d rather not. If he hadn’t tried to kill me I would
just as soon—”
The Homicide Trinity 153
The doorbell rang. After putting the lettuce and pa-
per and string on the chair, I went to the hall and took a
look. It was a medium-sized round-shouldered stranger
in a dark gray overcoat and a snap brim nearly down to
his ears. Before opening the door I shut the one to the
front room.
“Yes, sir?”
He took a leather fold from a pocket, flipped it open,
and offered it. I took it, Treasury Department of the
United States. Secret Service Division. Albert Leach.
In the picture he had no hat on, but it was probably him.
I handed it back.
“My name is Albert Leach,” he said.
“Check,” I said.
“I’d like to speak with Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Goodwin.”
“Mr. Wolfe isn’t available. I’m Goodwin.”
“May I come in?”
It was a little ticklish. Of course I had smelled a rat
the second I saw his credentials. The walls and doors on
that floor were all soundproofed, but with Wolfe and
Hattie in there together there was no telling, and I
didn’t want him inside. But it had started to snow and
the stoop had no roof, and I certainly wanted to know
what was on his mind.
I have him room and he stepped in. “I’m sorry,” I
said, “but Mr. Wolfe is busy and I’m helping him with
something, so if you’ll tell me—”
“Certainly.” He had removed his hat. His hair was
going, but it would be a couple of years before he could
be called bald. “I want to ask about a woman named
Baxter. Tamiris Baxter or Tammy Baxter. Is she
here?”
“No. Around twenty-five? Five feet four, light brown
hair, hazel eyes, hundred and twenty pounds, fur coat
and fuzzy turban?”
He nodded. “That fits her.”
“She was here this morning. She came at twenty
minutes past ten, uninvited and unexpected, and left at
ten-thirty.”
“Has she been back?”
154 Rex Stout
“No.”
“Has she phoned?”
“No.”
“Another woman named Annis, Hattie Annis. Has
she been here?”
I cocked my head. “You know, Mr. Leach, I don’t
mind being polite, but what the hell. Mr. Wolfe is a
licensed private detective and so am I, and we don’t
answer miscellaneous questions just to pass the time.