Homicide Trinity Read online

  Introduction

  When asked for my thoughts on Rex Stout on

  the welcome occasion of Bantam's reissue of

  his work, I wondered what I could possibly

  add to the existing hagiography. As my mind began to

  drift toward the world ofWoIfe, a world I've visited for

  more than thirty years, I found myself listing the as-

  pects of Stout's work and person that I envy, not as a

  reader any longer, but as a laborer in the same field (or

  at least the same section).

  To begin with a minor example, I envy the New York

  City of the Wolfe novels. Not the imperiled and pitiable

  cauldron of today, but the mecca of reason and refine-

  ment that Stout portrayed so invitingly. That this oasis

  was occupied in part by men of diabolical design and by

  Runyonesque rapscallions seemed to add rather than

  detract from its sheen. That city, so titanic compared to

  the hinterland I inhabited when I first encountered it,

  may never have existed outside Stout's novels—I am in

  no position to say whether it did or didn't—but it was

  and is a place I would have liked to inhabit.

  As for the author himself, I believe I am correct in

  saying that Nero Wolfe first appeared when his creator

  VI

  Introduction

  was nearly fifty years old. As I approach that decade of

  my own life, with major upheavals in the recent past

  and more likely to come, I envy the vigor and confi-

  dence Stout demonstrated in launching such an exper-

  iment at that age, particularly one so unlikely and

  problematic as writing mystery novels. It is essential to

  survival at any age to believe most things are possible.

  As with other laudable traits—the devotion of copious

  time and energy to major issues of the day, for

  example—Rex Stout was an exemplar. I frequently

  wonder what would happen if suddenly I had no pub-

  lisher; Stout's career is a template of encouragement,

  albeit in reverse.

  As the months of labor on my current novel accumu-

  late to inevitably total twelve by the time I yield my

  sovereignty, no matter how ardently I have tried to

  make gestation briefer, I am reminded that Stout's

  productivity would shame even a modem Moto. He

  wrote one of the Wolfe novels in three weeks; the

  average over the entire oeuvre was not much longer.

  Envy again, times two to the third power.

  So much for the man (space is limited); now for the

  fiction.

  Others have envied Nero Wolfe his passions—the

  orchids and the cuisine. As my own detective's tastes

  reflect, I am in large part immune to the charms of

  nature and the subtleties of gastronomy. (John Mar-

  shall Tanner frequently dines on Campbell's soup and

  Oreo cookies and can label virtually nothing in his en-

  vironment that isn't man-made). What I coveted was

  Wolfe's vocabulary. Did I resort to the dictionary in

  midnovel? Many times, though not as often as I should

  have. Do I insert words in my protagonist's mouth that

  would issue more appropriately from Wolfe's? Indeed.

  A multiple offender.

  Wolfe never leaves the brownstone. (Well, hardly

  ever; his sojourn to Montenegro is an outing of special

  interest these days, given geopolitical developments.

  Were he still with us, I'm certain he would go again.)

  Although my home is not nearly the biosphere that

  Introduction

  Vll

  Wolfe created for himself (or rather that Stout created

  for Wolfe), I leave it infrequently as well. The solitude

  that Wolfe demanded is handmaiden to the writing

  profession, of course, and is a major reason I wanted to

  become a writer and why I still pursue the art. Initially,

  writing let me escape the cacophony of litigation. In a

  more defining sense, it has provided a means to avoid,

  in large part, the whir of commercial society and the

  values it suggests.

  A word about Archie. Then as now I lacked the

  chutzpah to identify with Wolfe, so Archie was my alter

  ego. What I coveted was his savoir faire—always a step

  ahead, always with the coup de grace for the repartee,

  always managing the unmanageable: Archie was who I

  aspired to be. But at best I performed such feats only

  after the fact, in daydreams and psychodramas and

  hours of rueful reverie. Which suggests another reason

  I became a writer, I suppose: the sense that my un-

  timely talents were more suited to the world of fiction,

  where I, or at least my hero, could deliver on demand.

  Luckily, demand for Mr. Tanner's savoir faire, such as

  it is, comes only once a year.

  (Addendum: Although Archie was my favorite, he

  did not suggest the form my own detective would later

  take. That distinction belongs to Saul Panzer, who for

  me remains Stout's best creation. Amazingly, our

  knowledge of Saul is largely once removed—we know

  him best through Archie's deft descriptions of his ge-

  nius.)

  A final note. Several years ago, when Orson Welles

  was appearing with disappointing frequency on The

  Tonight Show, it occurred to me (as no doubt to others)

  that Welles had actually become Nero Wolfe, in both

  physical and intellectual dimensions, and that Holly-

  wood should build a film around that metamorphosis.

  Hardly a brilliant insight, but that was only a subordi-

  nate impulse. The capper was, Why not Carson as

  Archie? Johnny as Goodwin? Indeed.

  Sadly, the two stars had a falling out, for reasons

  unknown to me; Welles became a butt of Carson's jibes,

  viii Introduction

  and the film remains unmade. But the books survive,

  and thrive, and another generation has the pleasure of

  meeting Nero and Archie and Fritz and Theodore (and

  Saul and Orrie and Fred and Doll).

  What could be more satisfactory?

  —Stephen Greenleaf

  Contents

  EENY MEENY MURDER MO 1

  DEATH OF A DEMON 69

  COUNTERFEIT FOR MURDER 139

  Chapter 1

  I was standing there in the office with my hands in

  my pockets, glaring down at the necktie on Nero

  Wolfe's desk, when the doorbell rang.

  Since it would be a different story, and possibly no

  story at all, if the necktie hadn't been there, I had better

  explain about it. It was the one Wolfe had worn that

  morning—brown silk with little yellow curlicues, A

  Christmas gift from a former client. At lunch Fritz,

  coming to remove the leavings of the spareribs and

  bring the salad and cheese, had told Wolfe there was a

  drop of sauce on his tie, and Wolfe had dabbed at it with

  his napkin; and later, when we had left the dining room

  to cross the hall to t
he office, he had removed the tie and

  put it on his desk. He can't stand a spot on his clothes,

  even in private. But he hadn't thought it worth the

  effort to go up to his room for another one, since no

  callers were expected, and when four o'clock came and

  he left for his afternoon session with the orchids in the

  plant rooms on the roof, his shirt was still unbuttoned at

  the neck and the tie was still on his desk.

  It annoyed me. It annoyed Fritz too when, shortly

  after four, he came to say he was going shopping and

  4 Rex Stout The Homicide Trinity 5

  would be gone two hours. His eye caught the tie and

  fastened on it. His brows went up.

  "Schlampick," I said.

  He nodded. "You know my respect and esteem for

  him. He has great spirit and character, and of course he

  is a great detective, but there is a limit to the duties of

  a chef and housekeeper. One must draw the line some-

  where. Besides, there is my arthritis. You haven't got

  arthritis, Archie."

  "Maybe not," I conceded, "but if you rate a limit so do

  I. My list of functions from confidential assistant detec-

  tive down to errand boy is a mile long, but it does not

  include valeting. Arthritis is beside the point. Consider

  the dignity of man. He could have taken it on his way up

  to the plant rooms."

  "You could put it in a drawer."

  "That would be evading the issue."

  "I suppose so." He nodded. "I agree. It is a delicate

  affair. I must be going." He went.

  So, having finished the office chores at 5:20, including

  a couple of personal phone calls, I had left my desk and

  was standing to glare down at the necktie when the

  doorbell rang. That made the affair even more delicate.

  A necktie with a greasy spot should not be on the desk

  of a man of great spirit and character when a visitor

  enters. But by then I had got stubborn about it as a

  matter of principle, and anyway it might be merely

  someone with a parcel. Going to the hall for a look, I saw

  through the one-way glass panel of the front door that it

  was a stranger, a middle-aged female with a pointed

  nose and a round chin, not a good design, in a sensible

  gray coat and a black turban. She had no parcel. I went

  and opened the door and told her good afternoon. She

  said she wanted to see Nero Wolfe. I said Mr. Wolfe was

  engaged, and besides, he saw people only by appoint-

  ment. She said she knew that, but this was urgent. She

  had to see him and would wait till he was free.

  There were several factors: that we had nothing on

  the fire at the moment; that the year was only five days

  old and therefore the income-tax bracket didn't enter

  into it; that I wanted something to do besides recording

  the vital statistics of orchids; that I was annoyed at him

  for leaving the tie on his desk; and that she didn't try to

  push but kept her distance, with her dark eyes, good

  eyes, straight at me.

  "Okay," I told her, "I'll see what I can do," and

  stepped aside for her to enter. After taking her coat and

  hanging it on the rack and escorting her to the office, I

  gave her one of the yellow chairs near me instead of the

  red leather one at the end ofWolfe's desk. She sat with

  her back straight and her feet together—nice little feet

  in fairly sensible gray shoes. I told her that Wolfe

  wouldn't be available until six o'clock.

  "It will be better," I said, "if I see him first and tell

  him about you. In fact, it will be essential. My name is

  Archie Goodwin. What is yours?"

  "I know about you," she said. "Of course. If I didn't I

  wouldn't be here."

  "Many thanks. Some people who know about me

  have a different reaction. And your name?"

  She was eyeing me. "I'd rather not," she said, "until I

  know if Mr. Wolfe will take my case. It's private. It's

  very confidential."

  I shook my head. "No go. You'll have to tell him what

  your case is before he decides if he'll take it, and I'll be

  sitting here listening. So? Also I'll have to tell him more

  about you than you're thirty-five years old, weigh a

  hundred and twenty pounds, and wear no earrings,

  before he decides if he'll even see you."

  She almost smiled. "I'm forty-two."

  I grinned. "See? I need facts. Who you are and what

  you want."

  Her mouth worked. "It's very confidential." Her

  mouth worked some more. "But there was no sense in

  coming unless I tell you."

  "Right."

  She laced her fingers. "All right. My name is Bertha

  Aaron. It is spelled with two A's. I am the private

  secretary of Mr. Lamont Otis, senior partner in the law

  firm of Otis, Edey, Heydecker, and Jett. Their office is

  6 Rex Stout

  on Madison Avenue at Fifty-first Street. I'm worried

  about something that happened recently and I want

  Mr. Wolfe to investigate it. I can pay him a reasonable

  fee, but it might develop that he will be paid by the firm.

  It might."

  "Were you sent here by someone in the firm?"

  "No. Nobody sent me. Nobody knows I'm here."

  "What happened?"

  Her fingers laced tighter. "Maybe I shouldn't have

  come," she said. "I didn't realize . . . maybe I'd better

  not."

  "Suit yourself, Miss Aaron, Miss Aaron?"

  "Yes. I am not married." Her fingers flew apart to

  make fists and her lips tightened. "This is silly. I've got

  to. I owe it to Mr. Otis. I've been with him for twenty

  years and he has been wonderful to me. I couldn't go to

  him about this because he's seventy-five years old and

  he has a bad heart and it might kill him. He comes to the

  office every day, but it's a strain and he doesn't do

  much, only he knows more than all the rest of them put

  together." Her fists opened. "What happened was that

  I saw a member of the firm with our opponent in a very

  important case, one of the biggest cases we've ever had,

  at a place where they wouldn't have met if they hadn't

  wanted to keep it secret."

  "You mean with the opposing counsel?"

  "No. The client. With opposing counsel it might pos-

  sibly have been all right."

  "Which member of the firm?"

  "I'm not going to say. I'm not going to tell Mr. Wolfe

  his name until he agrees to take the case. He doesn't

  have to know that in order to decide. If you wonder why

  I came, I've already said why I can't tell Mr. Otis about

  it, and I was afraid to go to any of the others because if

  one of them was a traitor another one might be in it with

  him, or even more than one. How could I be sure? There

  are only four members of the firm, but of course there

  are others associated—nineteen altogether. I wouldn't

  trust any of them, not on a thing like this." She made

  fists again. "You can understand that. You see what a

  hole I'm in."

  The Homicide Trinity 7

  "S
ure. But you could be wrong. Of course that's

  unethical, a lawyer meeting with an enemy client, but

  there could be exceptions. It might have been acciden-

  tal. When and where did you see them?"

  "Last Monday, a week ago today. In the evening.

  They were together in a booth in a cheap restaurant—

  more of a lunchroom. The kind of place she would never

  go to, never. She would never go to that part of town.

  Neither would I, ordinarily, but I was on a personal

  errand and I went in there to use the phone. They didn't

  see me."

  "Then one of the members of the firm is a woman?"

  Her eyes widened. "Oh. I said 'she.' I meant the

  opposing client. We have a woman lawyer as one of the

  associates, just an employee really, but no woman firm

  member." She laced her fingers. "It couldn't possibly

  have been accidental. But of course it was conceivable,

  just barely conceivable, that he wasn't a traitor, that

  there was some explanation, and that made it even

  harder for me to decide what to do. But now I know.

  After worrying about it for a whole week I couldn't

  stand it any longer, and this afternoon I decided the

  only thing I could do was tell him and see what he said.

  If he had a good explanation, all right. But he didn't.

  The way he took it, the way it hit him, there isn't any

  question about it. He's a traitor."

  "What did he say?"

  "It wasn't so much what he said as how he looked. He

  said he had a satisfactory explanation, that he was

  acting in the interest of our client, but that he couldn't

  tell me more than that until the matter had developed