"Why wouldn't he take the job?"
"Because he's a genius and he's eccentric. Geniuses don't have to have reasons. But leave that to me. And if you're going to pay us I might as well start earning it. Have you got a stamp pad?"
She said yes, in the desk, and I went and found it in a pigeonhole. She said she had no glossy paper, and I took her magazine and found a page ad in color with wide margins in white, and tore it out. "I'll want all ten fingers," I told her. "First your right hand, the thumb. Like this."
She didn't ask why. She didn't ask anything. Either she knew why or she merely wanted to humor me, and your guess is as good as mine. When I had the set, the right hand on the right margin and the left on the left, I folded the sheet with care and put it between the pages of my notebook.
"Okay," I said. "You'll leave the door unbolted, and I'll tell Cramer-"
"No, I won't. If they break in that door they'll pay for it."
I explained again. I told her that anyone as realistic about money as she was ought to be able to be realistic about murder, but she wouldn't budge. I told her she didn't have to invite them in or let them in, just leave the door unbolted, and she said I was no good. So I left, and the second I was across the sill the door clicked shut and I heard the bolt go in. I walked to the rear and opened the door of Dell's room.
"Well?" Cramer demanded.
"No soap." I stood in the doorway. "If she has a brain I can't imagine what she uses it for. She wants to hire Nero Wolfe to make you eat dirt. I told her if you had to break in you would probably take her downtown and hold her, and she said you'd have to carry her. When I left she pushed the bolt."
"All right," Cramer said, "if that's the way she wants it." He turned to speak to Rowcliff, but I didn't stay to listen, because I had an urgent errand. Callahan, the dick who had brought me from the kitchen, wasn't in
174 Rex Stout
sight, and if I went downstairs unescorted I probably wouldn't be stopped. I backed off, made the landing, descended, asked the dick in the lower hall if it was still snowing as I got my hat and coat, took my time putting my coat on, opened the front door, and was gone.
The snow was coming down thicker and was an inch deep on the sidewalk. Outside were two harness bulls, four police cars double-parked, and a small group of unofficial criminologists. I headed east, found a phone booth in a bar and grill around the corner on Eighth Avenue, and dialed. It was after four and Wolfe would be up in the plant rooms for his afternoon session with the orchids, which is from four to six, so it was Fritz who answered, and I told him to switch it.
"Yes?" Wolfe is always gruff on the phone, but when it interrupts him up there he is even gruffer.
"Me again. From a booth on Eighth Avenue. I left the scene informally because I have something to report. We won't be contradicted about the money. Miss Annis, whom I now call Hattie, has buttoned her lip and will keep it buttoned. She is in her room with the door bolted and Cramer and Rowcliff are going to batter their way in. Stebbins isn't around. I was re-"
"He was here."
"Who? Stebbins?"
"Yes. I spoke with him at the door. He wanted the package of money. I told him it was not mine to surren- der, since it had been left in your safekeeping. He said nothing about its being bogus. I didn't admit him. He was not pleased."
"I'll bet. I was requested by Cramer to persuade Hattie to let them in, and I tried-not through the door, she let me in. When I told her that if they had to bust the door to get to her they would take her downtown and hold her, she said she wanted to hire you to make them eat dirt. I said the only job you might take would be to investigate the murder, and dirt-eating, if any, would be a by-product, and your fee would be high. She said she could pay you twenty-one thousand dollars, one- tenth of the tax-exempt bonds she has in a bank vault. I
The Homicide Trinity 175
said we would leave it that you are hired, and if you refuse to take it on because you're eccentric I'll notify her. The trouble is, how can I notify her if she's not accessible? Shall I ask Cramer to tell her you're too busy?"
"Yes."
"Naturally," I said sympathetically. "You would rather starve than work if only you had no appetite. The fact is, she wanted to hire me and I told her to get me she had to hire you. I'll hold the wire while you count ten."
"Confound you." It was a growl from the depths. "She may have no bonds. She is probably indigent."
"Not a chance. She's my favorite screwball, but she's not a liar. I'm under her spell and I'm in her debt. She made Cramer ask me a favor."
Silence. Then, more growl. "Come home and report. We'll see."
Chapter 5
One of the rules in that house is no business talk at meals, ever, and another is no business in the plant rooms except in emergencies. That winter day the emergency was not that some sudden develop- ment demanded immediate action or that an important case had reached a crisis; it was that Wolfe had to decide, to work or not to work, and he could get no pleasure fiddling with orchids with that hanging over him. He took my report not in one of the three plant rooms, with their dazzle of color, but in the potting room, perched on his made-to-order stool, at the bench. Theodore was washing pots at the sink, and I used his stool.
Wolfe keeps his eyes closed when I am reporting and
176 Rex Stout
rarely interrupts with questions. When I finished he took in air clear down to his middle, let it out, opened his eyes, and grunted. "Any comments or suggestions?"
"Yes, sir, plenty. First, Hattie Annis is out. She couldn't possibly have been faking it when we went in and found the body. I wouldn't try to predict what she's going to do, but I know what she didn't do. She didn't kill Tammy Baxter. Second, their not asking if I knew the money is counterfeit is an insult to my intelligence and yours too. Leach had told Canner not to mention it because what he wants is to find the source. He'd rather catch a counterfeiter than a murderer any day, and if counterfeiting was mentioned to me I might mention it to a reporter. Evidently he thinks we can't add two and two. A T-man coming to ask me about a woman who had left a package of bills with me, and the idea that they might be counterfeit wouldn't occur to me?"
"He didn't know she had been here and left a pack- age."
"He did when I was being questioned. He heard me tell Cramer. Cramer must have been biting nails. He'd love to get us for being in possession of a stack of the queer. Ten to one Leach didn't know he sent Stebbins here to get it. Third, Tammy Baxter was a T-woman."
Wolfe made a face. "That mean something?"
"It does now. If there are T-men there can be a T-woman, though I've never heard of one. This morning Leach asked if she was here, and when I told him she had been and gone he asked if she had been back or phoned and then switched to Hattie Annis. Why didn't he ask what Tammy Baxter had said? Because he knew;
she had reported to him. Also he knew the phone num- ber of that house. Also Cramer. Why wasn't he more interested in my talk with Tammy Baxter only an hour or so before she was murdered? Because he already knew about it from Leach."
"Then she had been posted in that house by the Secret Service?"
"Sure. A good guess is that they knew someone who lived there had passed bad money. I doubt if they knew