other place which he preferred. If I could offer—”
“She has them,” Mrs. Oliver said harshly. “Lucy
Hazen. I suppose you don’t know it or you wouldn’t
have had us come ready to pay. She took them after she
killed him and now we’ll have her. She’ll be in prison but
we’ll have her the rest of our lives.”
“I don’t believe it,” Anne Talbot said. She hadn’t
spoken since the box had been opened. “Lucy wouldn’t
do that. But this is even worse than it was. . . . Now
we don’t know . . . and I tried so hard. . . .”
“I don’t believe the box was empty,” Khoury told
Wolfe. “I think you’re lying.”
“I don’t,” Perdis said. “Why would he? There’s six
hundred and five thousand dollars here ready for him.”
His eyes went to Wolfe. “But this Cramer—that’s In-
spector Cramer? You said he has to know about what
you call our peculiar relations with Hazen. Why does
he?”
The doorbell rang. I was on post and could have let
Fritz take it, but they were all in their chairs, so I
opened the door to the hall and stepped through. I
expected to see Cramer alone, since there hadn’t been
time for him to get Lucy from the jug, but she was there
with him on the stoop, and at her elbow was Sergeant
Purley Stebbins. He must have had her brought to 20th
Street when Wolfe made his first phone call. And as I
dropped the gun in my pocket and moved, the door to
the front room opened and Theodore Weed darted out
and to the front door. He couldn’t possibly have heard
through the soundproofed wall and door, so either he
had been looking out a window or his feeling for her
included some kind of a personal electronic receiver.
Seeing no reason to spoil his fun, I let him open the
door. Cramer shot him a glance as he entered. Lucy
crossed the threshold, saw him, and stopped. She
The Homicide Trinity 131
stared, and he stared back. He lifted a hand and let it
drop. Stebbins, back of her, growled, “On in, Mrs. Ha-
zen.” She looked at me, and back at Weed, and I said,
“Everything’s under control, Mrs. Hazen,” and Weed
backed up a step. I thought, and still think, that he had
intended to warn her that Wolfe and I were a pair of
Judases, but the mere sight of her paralyzed him. He
stood and stared while Cramer and Stebbins got their
coats off and I took hers and put it on a hanger. When
we headed for the office he followed us, and there was
no point in herding him back to the front room. Either
Wolfe had the cards or he hadn’t.
Three steps in, Cramer stopped to send his eyes
around. I didn’t envy him any. The four people there
weren’t a bunch of bums, anything but; they had posi-
tion and connections and lawyers if necessary, and
much wampum. And here he was, in the office of a
private detective, with a woman charged with murder.
Of course he had a good reason: he suspected he might
have stubbed his toe. I hadn’t been present when Wolfe
had made his previous phone call, but presumably he
had said that he expected soon to be ready to offer a
substitute for Mrs. Hazen, and Cramer knew Wolfe
only too well.
But naturally he didn’t care to give that reason to
that audience. He faced them. “I’m here because Wolfe
told me that you four people would be here and I
wanted to know what he had to say to you. I brought
Mrs. Hazen because from something Wolfe said I got
the idea that it would be in the interest of justice for her
to be here. I want to make it plain that as an officer of
the law I don’t rely on any private detective to do my
job for me, and what’s more no private detective is
going to interfere.”
He went to the red leather chair and sat. Stebbins
took Lucy to the extra chair, next to Perdis, and stood
behind her. That way they had their murderer sur-
rounded, with Cramer in front of her only three paces
off. Weed went to a chair over by the big globe. As I
circled around to get to my desk Wolfe spoke.
132 Rex Stout
“Mr. Stebbins. Mrs. Hazen is your prisoner, and of
course it’s your duty to guard her. But I doubt if she
intends any outbreak. If you wish to stand by the mur-
derer of Mr. Hazen I suggest that you move to Mr.
Khoury.”
Silence. Not a sound. For the record, for how people
react, four of them—Cramer, Lucy, Mrs. Oliver, and
Anne Talbot—kept their eyes at Wolfe. Perdis and
Sergeant Stebbins moved theirs to Khoury. Weed, over
by the globe, got up, took a step, and stopped. Khoury’s
head tilted back, slowly, until his eyes were forced on
Wolfe past the tip of his long thin nose. “That’s my
name,” he said. “I’m the only Khoury here.”
“You are indeed.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Mr. Cramer.
As I said, I am prepared to offer a substitute for your
consideration, but that’s all. Not only have I no conclu-
sive evidence, I have none at all. I have only some
suggestive facts. First, Mr. Hazen was a blackmailer.
He extorted large sums, not only from these four peo-
ple, but also from others, using his public-relations
business as a cover. He had in his possession—”
“You can’t prove that,” Mrs. Oliver blurted.
“But I can,” he told her. “Item, you have in your bag
a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For
what? Account for it. I advise you, madam, to hold your
tongue. I would prefer to tell Mr. Cramer only what I
must to support my suggestion, and I’ll go beyond that
only if you force me to. You shouldn’t have challenged
me. Now that you have, were the amounts that you paid
Mr. Hazen, ostensibly for professional services, actu-
ally paid under coercion?”
She looked down at the bag in her lap, looked up
again, and said, “Yes.”
“Then don’t interrupt me.” Wolfe returned to
Cramer. “Mr. Hazen had in his possession various ob-
jects, I don’t know what, to substantiate his demands.
Last evening I told these four people that I had secured
these objects and that I would surrender them for one
million dollars, giving them twenty-four hours to meet
my terms. They are here. Three of them—”
The Homicide Trinity 133
“The objects are here?” Cramer demanded.
“No. I don’t know where they are. I have never seen
them. The people are here. This will go better if you
keep your questions until I’m through. Three of them—
Mrs. Oliver, Mrs. Talbot, and Mr. Perdis—came pre-
pared to pay, and that was what I was after. I was
acting on the premise, certainly worth a test, that one of
Hazen’s victims had killed him, and to kill him might
have been futile unless he got the object or objects that
had made it possible for Hazen to bleed him. For a
moment I abandon fact for surmise. Mr. Khoury did get
the object or objects. By some ruse, probably with the
promise of a large sum of money as a lure, he induced
Hazen to get his car from the garage Monday night and
drive somewhere, and to have with him the object or
objects. That surmise is not haphazard. The others
came here this evening prepared to pay, but not Mr.
Khoury. He knew I had nothing to support my threat.
Even when I told him that the objects pertaining to him
would be given to the police in ninety minutes he was
unmoved.”
“Get back to facts,” Cramer growled. His head
turned. “Mr. Khoury, do you want to comment?”
“No.” From Khoury’s smile you might have thought
he was enjoying it. “This is fascinating. I thought I had
decided not to bring my share of the million because I
didn’t believe he had anything that threatened any-
body.”
Wolfe, ignoring him, stayed at Cramer. “For a fact I
submit the conversation at the gathering Monday
evening after Mrs. Hazen and Mr. Weed had left. Of
course you and your staff have it in detail, but you
didn’t know that Hazen was a blackmailer and that he
not only bled his prey, he was pleased to torment them.
In that conversation he introduced topics that obvi-
ously referred to the pinch he had them in—for in-
stance, poison. I don’t know which of those present that
touched, and am not concerned. But one of his topics
pointed clearly at Mr. Khoury. He remarked that his
wife’s father had been a great inventor, a genius; and
134 Rex Stout
his wife’s father, Titus Postel, had been associated with