“Fifteen or twenty minutes after I left the office.”
Heydecker suddenly moved and was on his feet. “This
is ridiculous,” he declared. “You may be on the square,
Wolfe, I don’t know. If you are, God help us.” He
turned. “I’m going to see Otis. You coming, Frank?”
He was. The brilliant idea man, judging from his
expression, had none at all. He pulled his feet back,
moved his head slowly from side to side to tell hope
good-by, and arose. They didn’t ask the eleven-percent
partner to join them, and apparently he wasn’t going to,
but as I was reaching for Edey’s ulster on the hall rack
here came Jett, and when I opened the door he was the
first one out. I stood on the stoop, getting a breath of
air, and watched them heading for Ninth Avenue three
abreast, a solid front of mutual trust and understand-
ing, in a pig’s eye.
In the office, Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes
closed. As I reached my desk the phone rang. It was
Saul Panzer, to report that there had been no sign of
Mrs. Sorell. I told him to hold the wire and relayed it to
The Homicide Trinity 53
Wolfe, and asked if he wanted to put them on the alibis
we had just collected. “Pfui,” he said, and I told Saul to
carry on.
I swiveled. “I was afraid,” I said, “that you might be
desperate enough to try it, checking their alibis. It’s
very interesting, the different ways there are of crack-
ing a case. It depends on who you are. If you’re just a
top-flight detective, me for instance, all you can do is
detect. You’d rather go after an alibi than eat. When
you ask a man where he was at eleven minutes past
eight you put it in your notebook, and you wear out a
pair of shoes looking for somebody who says he was
somewhere else. But if you’re a genius you don’t give a
damn about alibis. You ask him where he was only to
keep the conversation going while you wait for some-
thing to click. You don’t even listen—”
“Nonsense,” he growled. “They have no alibis.”
I nodded. “You didn’t listen.”
“I did listen. Their alibis are worthless. One with his
fiancee, one watching a chess tournament, one at home
with young children in bed asleep. Bah. I asked on the
chance that one of them, possibly two, might be elimi-
nated, but no. There are still three.”
“Then genius is all that’s left. Unless you have an idea
for another card I could take to Mrs. Sorell. I wouldn’t
mind. I like the way she says very.”
“No doubt. Could you do anything with her?”
“I could try. She might possibly make another
decision—for instance, to sign a statement. Or if she has
decided to hire you I could bring her, and you could
have a go at her yourself. She has marvelous eye-
lashes.”
He grunted. “It may come to that. We’ll see after
lunch. It may be that after they have talked with Mr.
Otis—yes, Fritz?”
“Lunch is ready, sir.”
Chapter 7
I never got to check an alibi, but it was a close shave.
Who made it close was Inspector Cramer.
Since Wolfe refuses to work either his brain or
his tongue on business at table, and a murder case is
business even when he has no client and no fee is in
prospect, no progress was made during lunch, but when
we returned to the office he buckled down and tried to
think of something for me to do. The trouble was that
the problem was too damn simple. We knew that one of
three men had committed murder, and how and when.
Okay, which one? Eeny meeny murder mo. Even the
why was plain enough; Mrs. Sorell had hooked him with
an offer, either of a big slice of the thirty million she was
after or of more personal favors. Any approach you
could think of was already cluttered with cops, except
Mrs. Sorrell, and even if I got to her again I had nothing
to use for a pry. What it called for was a good stiff dose
of genius, and apparently Wolfe’s was taking the day
off. Sitting there in the office after lunch I may have got
a little too personal with him or he wouldn’t have bel-
lowed at me to go ahead and check their alibis. “Glad
to,” I said, and went to the hall for my hat and coat, and
saw visitors on the stoop, not strangers. I opened the
door just as Cramer pushed the bell button, and in-
quired, “Have you an appointment?”
“I have in my pocket,” he said, “a warrant for your
arrest as a material witness. Also one for Wolfe. I
warned you.”
There were two ways of looking at it. One was that he
didn’t mean to shoot unless he had to. If he had really
wanted to haul us in he would have sent a couple of
dicks after us instead of coming himself with Sergeant
The Homicide Trinity 55
Purley Stebbins. The other was that here was a good
opportunity to teach Wolfe a lesson. A couple of the
right kind of impolite remarks would have made
Cramer sore enough to go ahead and serve the war-
rants, and spending several hours in custody, and pos-
sibly all night, would probably cure Wolfe of leaving
neckties on his desk. But I would have had to go along,
which wouldn’t have been fair, so I wheeled and
marched to the office, relying on Purley to shut the
door, and told Wolfe: “Cramer and Stebbins with war-
rants. An inspector to take you and a sergeant to take
me, which is an honor.” He glared at me and then
transferred it to them as they entered.
Cramer said, “I warned you last night,” draped his
coat on the arm of the red leather chair, and sat.
Wolfe snorted. “Tommyrot.”
Cramer took papers from his pocket. “I’ll serve these
only if I have to. If I do I know what will happen, you’ll
refuse to talk and so will Goodwin, and you’ll be out on
bail as soon as Parker can swing it. But it will be on your
record and that won’t close it. Held as a material wit-
ness is one thing, and charged with interfering with the
operation of justice is another. In the interest of justice
we were withholding the contents of the statements
you and Goodwin gave us, and you knew it, and you
revealed them. To men suspected of murder. Frank
Edey has admitted it. He phoned an assistant district
attorney.”
The brilliant idea man again.
“He’s a jackass,” Wolfe declared.
“Yeah. Since you told them in confidence.”
“I did not. I asked for no pledges and got none. But I
made it plain that if I put my finger on the murderer
before you do I’ll protect that law firm from injury as
far as possible. If Mr. Edey is innocent it was to his
interest not to have me interrupted by you. If he’s
guilty, all the worse.”
“Who’s your client? Otis?”
“I have no client. I am going to avenge an affront to
my dignity and self-esteem. Your threat to charge me
Rex Stout
with interference with the operation of justice is puer-
ile. I am not meddling in a matter that does not concern
me. I cannot escape the ignominy of having my necktie
presented in a courtroom as an exhibit of the prosecu-
tion; I may even have to suffer the indignity of being
called to the stand to identify it; but I want the satisfac-
tion of exposing the culprit who used it. In telling
Mr. Otis and his partners what Miss Aaron said to Mr.
Goodwin, in revealing the nature of the menace to their
firm, I served my legitimate personal interest and I
violated no law.”
“You knew damn well we were withholding it!”
Wolfe’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch. “I am
not bound to respect your tactics, either by statute or
by custom. You and I are not lawyers; ask the District
Attorney if a charge would hold.” He upturned a palm.
“Mr. Cramer. This is pointless. You have a warrant for
my arrest as a material witness?”
“Yes. And one for Goodwin.”
“But you don’t serve them, for the reason you have
given, so they are only cudgels for you to brandish. To
what end? What do you want?”
A low growl escaped Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who
had stayed on his feet behind Cramer’s chair. There is
one thing that would give Purley more pleasure than to
take Wolfe or me in, and that would be to take both of
us. Wolfe cuffed to him and me cuffed to Wolfe would be
perfect. The growl was for disappointment and I gave