and the back of a woman’s head over the back of the
chair, silvery hair under a black pancake hat.
I might have stayed put until the voices came again,
and now I could get words, but a staircase is not a good
tactical position, the light was on them, not me, and at
the top I would be nearly out of range through the
opening. I moved. As I put my weight on the next to last
step the tapping stopped and the baritone came.
“There’s no sense in this.” I made the landing and
across to the wall. The soprano came. “There certainly
isn’t, Mr. Khoury.” I started along the wall toward the
door. Another female voice came, pitched lower. “I
don’t think it’s here. It could be in Lucy’s room, that
would be like him.” Then another man’s voice, a deeper
one. “All right, we’ll try it,” and the door swung wide
and the man was there, on the move.
I’m not proud of the next two seconds. I was alerted
and he wasn’t, and I think I am fairly fast. My excuse is
that I was in the middle of a careful step, putting my toe
down, but anyway he was at me before I was set, and he
damn near toppled me. When you’re thrown off balance
by impact you only make it worse if you try to get
purchase on your way down, so I let myself go, brought
102 Rex Stout
my knees up to my chin as I hit the floor, rolled to get
my feet at his middle, and let him have it. He was plenty
heavy, but it tore him loose and sent him bouncing off
the wall. As I sprang to my feet another man was
through the door and coming. I sidestepped and
ducked, jerking my right back, and hooked him in the
kidney. He doubled up and hugged himself, and I kept
going to the corner, whirled, had the Marley in my
hand, and showed it.
“Come right ahead,” I said, “if you want your skull
cracked.”
The first man, the heavy one, was propped against
the wall, panting. The smaller one was trying to
straighten up. There was a woman in the doorway, the
one who had been in the chair, and another one behind
her.
“Also,” I said, “this thing is loaded, so don’t try
reaching for a cigarette. Inside, everybody, and take it
easy. I would prefer to get you in the shoulder or leg,
but I’m not a very good shot.”
The heavy man said, “Who are you?”
“Billy the Kid. Come on, into the room, and no gym-
nastics. Go to the far side and face the wall.”
They moved. As they approached the door the
women backed off, and they entered and I followed.
The woman with silvery hair started to chatter at me,
but I wiggled the gun and told her to go to the wall.
When they were there I went over the men from be-
hind, felt no weapons, told them to stay put, and side-
stepped to the bed. There were coats and hats on it, and
the women’s bags. I had the men tagged; the husky one
was Ambrose Perdis, the shipping magnate, whose pic-
ture I had seen here and there, and I had heard the
other one called Khoury; but I needed introductions to
the women. As I opened one of the bags and dumped its
contents on the bed Perdis turned around and I spoke.
“Hold it. I’m giving you a break. Shall I come and slap
you with the gun? Turn around.”
He turned. A leather case from the bag was stuffed
with credentials—driver’s license, credit cards, others.
The Homicide Trinity 103
Some of them said Anne Talbot and others Mrs. Henry
Lewis Talbot. That was the young woman, whose at-
tractions, both from the front and the rear, were so
obvious that they had caught my eye even though my
eyes were busy. There was a leather keyfold and I
snapped it open to inspect the keys, and compared one
of them with the key to the house which I had in my
pocket. It didn’t match. I returned the items to the bag
one by one and picked up the other bag and dumped it.
The woman with silvery hair was Mrs. Victor Oliver.
There was no key in her bag like the one I had, and
nothing of interest. I examined the pockets of the coats,
all four of them, and found no key.
As I stepped around the end of the bed I allowed
myself a grin at a detail I had observed; they all had
gloves on—not rubber ones secured for the occasion,
just gloves. “Now that I know your names,” I said, “it’s
only fair that you should know mine. Archie Goodwin. I
work for a man you may have heard of, Nero Wolfe, the
private detective. He has been hired by Mrs. Barry
Hazen, and I have her key to the house and her written
authority to enter. I need to know which one of you has
a key and I’m going to find out. You may turn around,
but stay where you are. You will take off your clothes
and pile them on the floor, including your shoes and
socks or stockings, but I think not your underwear. I’ll
see.”
They were facing me at four paces. Anne Talbot said,
“I won’t. It’s outrageous.” She was extremely easy to
look at.
“Pooh,” I said. “Pretend you’re at the beach or a pool.
Do you want me to peel you? Don’t think I wouldn’t.”
“We have no key,” Mrs. Oliver said. She was easy to
look away from, with her flabby jowl and little yellow
eyes set deep. “The maid let us in. She has gone out, but
when she comes back you can ask her.”
“She’ll deny it,” Jules Khoury said. He was the bari-
tone, a wiry swarthy specimen with no hips.
“Look,” I said, “you’re four to one. If you make me do
it the hard way it will be rough. I’ll give you two
104 Rex Stout
minutes to get your clothes off.” I raised my wrist to see
my watch without dropping my eyes. “Start with the
gloves. I want them too.”
“Is this necessary?” Perdis demanded. “Is it so im-
portant how we got in?”
“Yes. There were no keys in Hazen’s pockets.
Twenty seconds gone.”
I am enough of a gentleman to turn my back or at
least avert my eyes when a lady is undressing, but one
of those ladies might possibly have had a gun on her leg,
so I forgot my manners. It took the men twice as long as
the women. I decided to let Anne Talbot keep her bra
and panties; she would have had no reason to bury the
key as deep as that. Mrs. Oliver’s girdle was so tight she
couldn’t have slipped a key inside even if she had tried.
Khoury had jockeys, no undershirt. Perdis had a baby
blue silk altogether, to the knees. I had them turn
around, and then used a foot to rake Perdis’ pile across
the rug, out of range of a kick.
It took longer than it should on account of the gun in
my hand, and of course I not only looked for the key but
for any other item that might be helpful. No soap.
Khoury had a keyfold and Perdis a key ring, but no
soap. It wasn’t much of a letdown because I had ex-
pected it when they all shed and turned their backs. If
one of them had had Hazen’s key he would either have
tried to ditch it or produced it and tried to explain it.
Now that I was certain none of them had a cannon or a
bomb I could relax a little. I told them to dress, went to
the stand at the head of the bed, lifted the receiver from
the phone, and was dialing a number when Perdis’ voice
came.
“Wait a minute! One minute!” He had a touch of
accent. “I have something to say. You are calling the
police?”
“No.” I cradled the receiver. “Say it fast and short.”
He was handicapped for man-to-man talk, with his
shirt on but his pants in his hands. “You are not a
policeman,” he said.
“No. I told you who I am.”
The Homicide Trinity 105
“He’s Archie Goodwin,” Anne Talbot said. “I’ve seen
him at the Flamingo.”
“You are a private detective,” Perdis said.
“Right.”
“Then you do things for money. We will pay you fifty
thousand dollars if you will leave this house and forget
that you have been here. Half of it in cash tomorrow
morning and the other half later. We will give you a
satisfactory guarantee, perhaps something in writing.”
“How much later?”
“That’s hard to say. It is delicate. We would need to