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 be sure of your forgetting until certain difficulties have ended."
"That's pretty vague. Get your clothes on and we'll see." I picked up the phone and dialed, and he started toward me. I showed the gun, but he kept coming, saying something, and I dropped the phone and moved to meet him, and damned if he didn't swerve around me and dart for the phone. I had intended to tap him with the gun, not caring for bruised knuckles, but his swerve got him on the wrong side, so I took him from behind, with my left arm hooked under his chin and my hip at his rump, and levered him up and over. He landed on his hands and knees nine feet away. I said, "Cut out the horseplay and put your pants on," and went to the phone and dialed. After nine buzzes Wolfe's voice came. "Yes?"
"Me. Could we use fifty grand?"
A grunt. "In the box?"
"No. I haven't got it yet. I'm in Hazen's bedroom. There are four people with me, two men and two women, lined up against the wall. The four that came to dinner last night. They were in this room looking for something and hadn't found it. Perdis just off-"
"One of them has Hazen's key."
"No. I had them strip and went through their clothes. They say the maid let them in. She's not here; of course they greased her. Perdis just offered me fifty grand to go away and forget I was here. I'll split it with you. He would probably double it."
106 Rex Stout
"Pfui. Are you intact?"
"Sure. I'm calling just to tell you to expect us, say in half an hour, maybe less."
Silence. He would have to work, not tomorrow, but now-and two women. Then: "I suppose I must," and he hung up.
Perdis had joined the others at the wall. As I cradled the phone he spoke. "We will double it. One hundred thousand dollars."
"Skip it." I moved to the foot of the bed. "What would I tell my wife if I had one? You heard me tell Nero Wolfe to expect us in half an hour, but you have a choice. You can leave and go your ways and try to forget you were here, and I'll phone Inspector Cramer and report this incident, omitting nothing. Or you can come and talk it over with Nero Wolfe, and he may or may not care to bother Cramer about it. You may have two minutes to consider it." I looked at my wrist.
"Listen, Mr. Goodwin," Anne Talbot said. She had her clothes on, and with or without them she was highly ornamental. "We were looking for something that be- longs to us. We're not thieves. We're respectable-"
I cut her off. "Sorry, but don't waste it on me. I just run errands. It's either Nero Wolfe or the police. If you pick Nero Wolfe there will be a slight delay because I have a little chore to do in this room. You will take your things and go downstairs and on out, and get two taxis. You will get into one of the taxis and wait there in front of the house, and have the other one there for me. I'll be down soon, probably in a couple of minutes. There's one complication: if you split and one or two of you prefer to go somewhere else, I'll phone the police immediately. I would rather not, but I'd have to."