When the doorbell rang at 11:30 on the dot and I went
to let her in, she gave me a smile and said, “Thank you
for getting him to see me.” Handshakes can be faked
and usually are, but smiles can’t. It isn’t often that a
man gets a natural, friendly, straightforward smile
from a young woman who has never seen him before,
with no come-on, no catch, and no dare, and the least he
can do is return it if he has that kind in stock. As I took
her to the office and helped her off with her coat, which
was mink, I was thinking that you never know, even the
good-looking wife of a well-known public relations op-
erator like Barry Hazen could have her feelings on
straight. I was pleased to meet her.
So I was disappointed when she put on an act. It is
not natural for a woman to open a conversation with a
stranger by taking a revolver from her bag and saying
that’s the gun she isn’t going to shoot her husband with.
I must have been wrong about the smile, and since I
don’t like to be wrong I was no longer pleased to meet
her. I raised my brows and tightened my lips.
Wolfe, in his oversized chair behind his desk, darted a
glance at the gun, returned his eyes to her, and
grunted. “I am not impressed,” he said, “by histrion-
ics.”
“Oh,” she said, “I’m not trying to impress you, I’m
only telling you. That’s what I came for, just to tell you.
I thought it would be more—more definite, I guess—if
I brought the gun and showed it to you.”
“Very well, you have done so.” Wolfe was frowning.
“I understand that you intend to ask me for no service
or advice; you wish only to tell me something in confi-
The Homicide Trinity 73
dence. I should remind you that I am not a lawyer or a
priest; a communication from you to me will not be
privileged. If you tell me about a crime I can’t engage
not to disclose it. I mean a serious crime, not some petty
offense such as carrying a deadly weapon for which you
have no permit.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, carrying a weapon.” She
dismissed it with a little gesture. “That’s all right.
There hasn’t been any crime and there isn’t going to be,
that’s just the point. That’s what I came to tell you, that
I’m not going to shoot my husband.”
Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at her. He is convinced
that all women are dotty or devious, or both, and here
was more evidence to support it. “Just that?” he de-
manded. “You wanted half an hour.”
She nodded. She set her teeth on her lip, nice white
teeth, and in a moment released it. “Because I thought
it would be better if I told you something
about . . . why. If you will regard it as confidential.”
“With the reservation I have made.”
“Of course. You know who my husband is? Barry
Hazen, Public Relations?”
“Mr. Goodwin has informed me.”
“We were married two years ago. I was the secretary
of a client of his, Jules Khoury, the inventor. My father,
Titus Postel, was also an inventor, and he was associ-
ated with Mr. Khoury until his death five years ago.
That’s where I met Barry, at Mr. Khoury’s office. I
thought I really was in love with him. I have tried and
tried to decide what was the real reason why I married
him, I mean the real one, whether it was only because I
wanted to have—”
She stopped and put her teeth on her lip. She shook
her head, with energy, as if to chase a fly. “There you
are,” she said. “I mean there I am. You don’t need to
know all that. I’m blubbering, fishing for pity. You don’t
even need to know why I want to kill him.”
Wolfe muttered, “It’s your half-hour, madam.”
“I don’t hate him.” She shook her head again. “I think
I despise him—I know I do—and he won’t let me get a
74 Rex Stout
divorce. I tried to leave him, I did leave him, but he
made such a— There I go again! I don’t need to tell you
all that!”
“As you please.”
“It’s not as I please, Mr. Wolfe, it’s as I must!”
“As you must, then.”
“This is what I must tell you. He has a gun in a
drawer in his bedroom. That’s it there on your desk. We
have separate bedrooms. You know how there can be
something in your mind but you don’t know it’s there
until all of a sudden there it is?”
“Certainly. The subconscious is not a grave; it’s a
cistern.”
“But we don’t know what’s in it. I didn’t. One day a
month ago, it was the day after Christmas, I went to his
bedroom and took the gun from the drawer and looked
to see if it was loaded, and it was, and all of a sudden I
was thinking how easy it would be to shoot him while he
was in bed asleep. I said to myself, ‘You idiot, you
absolute idiot/ and put the gun back, and I didn’t go
near that drawer again. But the thought came back, it
kept coming, mostly when I was trying to go to sleep,
and it got worse. It got worse this way, it wasn’t just
going in when he was asleep and getting the gun and
shooting him, it was planning how to do it so I wouldn’t
get caught. I knew it was idiotic, but I couldn’t stop. I
could not! And one night, just two nights ago, Sunday
night, I got out of bed trembling all over and went to the
shower and turned on the cold water and stood under it.
I had found a plan that would work. I don’t have to tell
you what the plan was.”
“As you please. As you must.”
“It doesn’t matter. I went back to bed, but I didn’t
sleep. I wasn’t afraid I might do something in my sleep,
I was afraid of what my mind might do. I had found out
that I couldn’t manage my mind. So yesterday after-
noon I decided I would fix it so my mind would have to
quit. I would tell someone all about it and then the plan
wouldn’t work, and no plan would work so I wouldn’t
get caught. Telling a friend wouldn’t do, not a real
The Homicide Trinity 75
friend, because that would leave a loophole. Of course I
couldn’t tell the police. I have no pastor because I don’t
go to church. Then I thought of you, and I phoned for an
appointment, and here I am. That’s all, except this: I
want you to promise that if my husband is shot and
killed you will tell the police about my coming here and
what I said.”
Wolfe grunted.
She unlocked her fingers, straightened her shoul-
ders, and took a long deep breath—in with her mouth
closed and out with it open. “There!” she said. “That’s
it.”
Wolfe was regarding her. “I engaged only to listen,”
he said, “but I must offer a comment. Your stratagem
should be effective as a self-deterrent, but what if
someone else shoots him? And I report this conversa-
tion to the police. You’ll be in a pickle.”
“Not if I didn’t do it.”
“Pfui. Of course you will, unless the culprit is soon
exposed.”
“If I didn’t do it I wouldn’t care.” She extended a
hand, palm up. “Mr. Wolfe. After I decided to tell you
and made the appointment, I had the first good night’s
sleep I have had for a month. No one is going to shoot
him. I want you to promise, so I can’t.”
“I advise you not to insist on a promise.”
“I must! I must know!”
“Very well.” His shoulders went up a quarter of an
inch and down again.
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
She opened her bag, a large tan leather one, and took
out a checkfold and a pen. “I would rather make it a
check than cash,” she said, “so it will be on record. Is a
check all right?”
“Certainly.”
“I mentioned a hundred dollars to Mr. Goodwin. Will
that be enough?”
He said yes, and she wrote, resting the check on the
side of the bag. To save her the trouble of getting up to
76 Rex Stout
hand it over I went and took it, but when she had closed
the bag she arose anyway, and was turning to get her
coat from the back of the chair when Wolfe spoke.
“Ten minutes of your half-hour is left, Mrs. Hazen, if
you have any use for it.”
“No, thank you. I just realized that wasn’t exactly the
truth, what I told Mr. Goodwin, that I only wanted