It was a little odd, the four suspects coming uninvited
to empty the bag and being told to go almost before
they got started. Noel Ferris, his lip twisted, got up and
The Homicide Trinity 189
headed for the hall. Martha Kirk, getting no satisfaction
from Wolfe, appealed to me: didn’t I realize that Hattie
had been arrested for a murder she didn’t commit? Paul
Hannah sat and listened to us, chewing his lip, then got
up and touched her arm and said they might as well go.
Raymond Dell stood, lowered his chin, gazed at Wolfe
half a minute, registering indignation, wheeled, and
marched out. (Exit Dell, center.) I followed Martha and
Hannah to the hall, but she preferred to put on her
galoshes herself. When I opened the door for them a
few snowflakes danced in.
Back in the office, Wolfe was sitting again, leaning
back with his eyes closed. I asked if he wanted beer, got
a nod, and went to the kitchen and brought a bottle and
glass, and a glass of milk for me. He opened his eyes,
took in a bushel of air through his nose and let it out
through his mouth, straightened up, picked up the bot-
tle, and poured.
He spoke. “Saul and Fred and Orrie. At eight in the
morning in my room.”
My brows went up. Saul Panzer is the best operative
south of the North Pole. His rate is ten dollars an hour
and he is worth twenty. Fred Durkin’s rate is seven
dollars and he is worth seven-fifty. Orrie Gather’s rate
is also seven dollars and he is worth six-fifty.
“Oh.” I took a sip of milk. “Then you did get an
inkling?”
“I got a conclusion: that it would be futile to go on
pecking at them. Mr. Leach has been on their flanks for
three weeks, and now Mr. Cramer’s army has them
under siege. My only chance of priority is to surprise
him from the rear.”
The foam was down to the rim of his glass, and he
lifted it and drank, a healthy gulp. “It’s a forlorn chance,
certainly, but it’s worth trying for want of a better. I am
not familiar with the procedures of counterfeiters, but
it seems unlikely that an underling would be entrusted
with five hundred twenty-dollar bills. Ten thousand
dollars. We know he had that large supply; and that
permits the conjecture that his connection may be not
190 Rex Stout
with a mere go-between, but with the source. If so, the
quickest way to settle it would be to locate the source.”
“Yeah. It’s barely possible that Leach has had that
idea.”
“No doubt. I assume that when Miss Baxter took a
room in that house her primary mission was to search
the premises for counterfeiting equipment. Obviously
she found none. I also assume that, as you suggested, it
was known that one of the inhabitants of that house had
passed counterfeit money, but it was not known which
one, and they were all under surveillance—by Miss
Baxter in the house and by others outside. And if I were
a Secret Service agent assigned to keep an eye on
Raymond Dell I would suppose that any meeting he had
with a supplier of contraband would be clandestine.
That is how my mind would work. The first day I
followed him to an East Side tenement I would of
course make inquiries, with due caution, but when he
went there five days a week and I learned from Miss
Baxter what he did there, my attention would be di-
verted. But I am not a Secret Service agent. My atten-
tion is drawn to that tenement house, and specifically to
Max Eder, a painter. An artist. I shall send Orrie
Gather there tomorrow morning to reconnoiter. Fred
Durkin will go to the shop on First Avenue—by the
way, I want its address. Harry’s Zoo.” He made a face.
“Saul Panzer will go to the Mushroom Theater. As I
said, it’s a forlorn chance, but what better can we do
with tomorrow? Unless you have a suggestion?”
“I have,” I said emphatically. “I respectfully suggest
that you start thinking up something for day after
tomorrow.”
He grunted. He picked up his glass, took a gulp of
beer, swallowed it, licked his lips, and put the glass
down. “‘Forlorn’ was too strong a word,” he said. “I
have an expectation that is not wholly unreasonable.
Twelve hours of the time of those three men plus ex-
penses comes to more than three hundred dollars. I
don’t hazard that amount, even of a client’s money, on a
pig in a poke.”
The Homicide Trinity 191
“Then you did get an inkling.”
“Certainly.”
“Fine. I hope it’s not counterfeit.” I swiveled and got
the phone and dialed Saul Panzer’s number.
Chapter 7
I was there at the beginning of the briefing session in
Wolfe’s bedroom at eight o’clock Tuesday morning,
but when the phone interrupted us a second time
Wolfe told me to go down to the office and take it there.
The first time it was a Times reporter wanting to speak
with Wolfe, and when I told him Wolfe was busy and
would I do, he said no and hung up. The second call,
which I took in the office, was from Lon Cohen of the
Gazette, who preferred me to Wolfe any day. He
wanted to know when he could send a photographer to
take a picture of the dirt Wolfe was going to feed the
cops. Evidently one of the two who had carried Hattie
out knew a newspaperman. Lon had other questions,
naturally, but I told him the answers would have to
wait until I found out what they were.
I was considering whether to rejoin the briefing ses-
sion when the phone rang again. It was Nathaniel
Parker. He was sorry he hadn’t been able to spring our
client, but it had taken him three hours to find out
where she was, and he hadn’t got to see her until
midnight. He expected to have her out by noon.
At nine o’clock the trio came down. One of the rea-
sons they are better than most is that none of them
looks it. Saul Panzer, under-sized and wiry, with a big
nose, could be a hackie. Fred Durkin, broad and burly
and bald, could be a piano mover. Orrie Gather, tall and
trim and dressy, could be an automobile salesman. They
stepped into the office, and Saul said they had been told
192 Rex Stout
to take three hundred dollars apiece in used bills. I said
as I went to open the safe that even with inflation and
even with janitors promoted to building superinten-
dents, fifty bucks was the top price for one, and they
would please return the change. Orrie said that if they
had to buy clerks and elevator men and neighbors there
wouldn’t be any change. Saul said they would each give
me a ring every couple of hours or so.
When they had gone I went on with the morning
chores—opening the mail, dusting the desks, filing the
cards of propagation and performance records which
Theodore puts on my desk every evening. That was
just for my hands and eyes; my mind was busy with
something else. Of all the things I do to earn my pay,
from sharpening pencils to jumping a visitor before he
can get his gun up, the most important is riding Wolfe,
and he knows it. Sometimes it’s next to impossible to
tell whether he’s working or only pretending to. That
was the question that morning. If he was only stalling, if
he had sent for Saul and Fred and Orrie just to keep
from starting his brain going, the thing for me to do was
to go up to the plant rooms and go to work on him. It
was the same old problem, and the trouble was that
that time I would have nothing to say when he nar-
rowed his eyes at me, as he would, and inquired coldly,
“What would you suggest?”
That was what my mind was on, and was still on when
the doorbell rang a little after ten o’clock and I went to
the hall for a look. It was Albert Leach, with his snap-
brim hat down even closer to his ears than yesterday. I
went and opened the door.
“Good morning,” he said, and slipped his hand inside
his overcoat.
I supposed he was producing his credentials. “Don’t
bother,” I said, “I recognize you.”
But it wasn’t credentials. His name came out with a
folded paper. Extending it, he said, “Order of the Fed-
eral District Court.”
I took it, unfolded it, and read. I read it through. “You
know,” I said, “this is a new experience. I can’t remem-
The Homicide Trinity 193
ber that we have ever been served with an order from a
Federal court. Mr. Wolfe will be glad to add it to his