The Homicide Trinity 17
“I’d have to look in the dictionary. What is it ex-
actly?”
“Vehement ill will. Intense malignity.”
“No.”
“I have it now, and it is in the way. I can’t think
clearly. I intend to expose that wretch before the police
do. I want Saul and Orrie and Fred here at eight o’clock
in the morning. I have no idea what their errands will
be, but I shall know by morning. After you reach them
sleep if you can.”
“I don’t have to sleep if there’s something better to
do.”
“Not tonight. This confounded rancor is a pimple on
the brain. My mental processes haven’t been so mud-
dled in many years. I wouldn’t have thought—”
The doorbell was ringing. Now that the army of
occupation was gone, that was to be expected, since
Cramer had allowed no reporters or photographers to
enter the house. I had considered disconnecting the bell
for the night, and now, as I descended the stairs, I
decided that I would. Fritz, at the door to the kitchen,
looked relieved when he saw me. He had switched on
the stoop light.
If it was a reporter he was a veteran, and he had
brought a helper along, or maybe a girl friend just for
company. I was in no hurry getting to the door, sizing
them up through the one-way panel. He was a six-
footer in a well-cut and well-fitted dark gray overcoat, a
light gray woolen scarf, and a gray homburg, with a
long bony face with deep lines. She could have been his
pretty little granddaughter, but her fur coat fastened
clear up and her matching fur cloche covered every-
thing but the little oval of her face. I removed the chain
bolt and swung the door open and said, “Yes, sir?”
He said, “I am Lament Otis. This is Mr. Nero Wolfe’s
house?”
“Right.”
“I would like to see him. About my secretary, Miss
Bertha Aaron. About information I have received from
the police. This is Miss Ann Paige, my associate, a
18 Rex Stout
member of the bar. My coming at this hour is justified,
I think, by the circumstances. I think Mr. Wolfe will
agree.”
“I do too,” I agreed. “But if you don’t mind—” I
crossed the sill to the stoop and sang out, “Who are you
over there? Gillian? Murphy? Come here a minute!”
A figure emerged from the shadows across the
street. As he crossed the pavement I peered, and as
he reached the curb on our side I spoke. “Oh, Wylie.
Come on up.”
He stood at the foot of the seven steps. “For what?”
he demanded.
“May I ask,” Lament Otis asked, “what this is for?”
“You may. An inspector named Cramer is in danger
of losing an eye and that would be a shame. I’ll appre-
ciate it if you’ll answer a simple question: were you
asked to come here by either Mr. Wolfe or me?”
“Certainly not.”
“Was your coming entirely your own idea?”
“Yes. But I don’t—”
“Excuse me. You heard him, Wylie? Include it in
your report. It will save wear and tear on Cramer’s
nerves. Much obliged for—”
“Who is he?” the dick demanded.
I ignored it. Backing up, I invited them in, and when
I shut the door I put the bolt on. Otis let me take his hat
and coat, but Ann Paige kept hers. The house was
cooling off for the night. In the office, sitting, she unfas-
tened the coat but kept it over her shoulders. I went
to the thermostat on the wall and pushed it up to 70, and
then went to my desk and buzzed Wolfe’s room on the
house phone. I should have gone up to get him, since he
might balk at seeing company until he had dealt with
the pimple on his brain, but I had had enough for one
day of leaving visitors alone in the office, and one of
these had a bum pump.
Wolfe’s growl came, “Yes?”
“Mr. Lament Otis is here. With an associate, Miss
Ann Paige, also a member of the bar. He thinks you will
The Homicide Trinity 19
agree that his coming at this hour is justified by the
circumstances.”
Silence. Nothing for some five seconds, then the click
of his hanging up. You feel foolish holding a dead re-
ceiver to your ear, so I cradled it but didn’t swivel to
face the company. It was even money whether he was
coming or not, and I put my eyes on my wrist watch. If
he didn’t come in five minutes I would go up after him.
I turned and told Otis, “You won’t mind a short wait.”
He nodded. “It was in this room?”
“Yes. She was there.” I pointed to a spot a few inches
in front of Ann Paige’s feet. Otis was in the red leather
chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk. “There was a rug but
they took it to the laboratory. Of course they—I’m
sorry, Miss Paige. I shouldn’t have pointed.” She had
pushed her chair back and shut her eyes.
She swallowed, and opened the eyes. They looked
black in that light but could have been dark violet.
“You’re Archie Goodwin,” she said.
“Right.”
“You were—you found her.”
“Right.”
“Had she been . . . Was there any . . .”
“She had been hit on the back of her head with a
paperweight, a chunk of jade, and then strangled with a
necktie that happened to be here on a desk. There was
no sign of a struggle. The blow knocked her out, and
probably she—”
My voice had kept me from hearing Wolfe’s steps on
the stairs. He entered, stopped to tilt his head an eighth
of an inch to Ann Paige, again to Otis, went to his chair
behind his desk, sat, and aimed his eyes at Otis.
“You are Mr. Lament Otis?”
“I am.”
“I owe you an apology. A weak word; there should be
a better one. A valued and trusted employee of yours
has died by violence under my roof. She was valued and
trusted?”
“Yes.”
20 Rex Stout
“I deeply regret it. If you came to reproach me,
proceed.”
“I didn’t come to reproach you.” The lines of Otis’s
face were furrows in the better light. “I came to find out
what happened. The police and the District Attorney’s
office have told me how she was killed, but not why she
was here. I think they know but are reserving it. I think
I have a right to know. Bertha Aaron had been in my
confidence for years, and I believe I was in hers, and I
knew nothing of any trouble she might be in that would
lead her to come to you. Why was she here?”
Wolfe, rubbing his nose with a fingertip, regarded
him. “How old are you, Mr. Otis?”
Ann Paige made a noise. The veteran lawyer, who
had probably objected to ten thousand questions as
irrelevant, said merely, “I’m seventy-five. Why?”
“I do not intend to have another death in my office to
apologize for, this time induced by me. Miss Aaron told
Mr. Goodwin that the reason she did not go to you with
her problem was that she feared the effect on you. Her
words, Archie?”
I supplied them.” ‘He has a bad heart and it might kill
him.'”
Otis snorted. “Bosh! My heart has given me a little
trouble and I’ve had to slow down, but it would take
more than a problem to kill me. I’ve been dealing with
problems all my life, some pretty tough ones.”
“She exaggerated it,” Ann Paige said. “I mean Miss
Aaron. I mean she was so devoted to Mr. Otis that she
had an exaggerated idea about his heart condition.”
“Why did you come here with him?” Wolfe de-
manded.
“Not because of his heart. Because I was at his apart-
ment, working with him on a brief, when the news came
about Bertha, and when he decided to see you he asked
me to come with him. I do shorthand.”
“You heard Mr. Goodwin quote Miss Aaron. If I tell
Mr. Otis what she was afraid to tell him, what her
problem was, will you take responsibility for the effect
on him?”
The Homicide Trinity 21
Otis exploded. “Damn it, I take the responsibility!
It’s my heart!”
“I doubt,” Ann Paige said, “if the effect of telling him
would be as bad as the effect of wot telling him. I take no
responsibility, but you have me as a witness that he
insisted.”
“I not only insist,” Otis said. “I assert my right to the
information, since it must have concerned me.”
“Very well,” Wolfe said. “Miss Aaron arrived here at
twenty minutes past five this afternoon—now yester-
day afternoon—uninvited and unexpected. She spoke
for some twenty minutes with Mr. Goodwin and he
went upstairs to confer with me. He was away half an