Homicide Trinity (Crime Line)

Chapter 4

I pushed the button down, released it, dialed Park- er's home number, got him, buzzed the kitchen, and Wolfe got on. He gave Parker the necessary facts, and not much more-nothing of what Mrs. Hazen had told us that morning, nothing about the gun. He did say that I had formed the conclusion that she had not shot her husband, and that he had accepted it. Parker was to arrange for bail if she was bailable, if they held her on the big charge he was to get what he could at the DA's office. I waited to hang up until Wolfe was at the office door. He went to his desk, sat, leveled his eyes at Theodore Weed, and spoke.

"Now sir. That was timely. It was Mrs. Hazen on the phone. I have sent-"

"Where is she?"

"At the District Attorney's office. She thinks she is going to be held. I have sent a lawyer to her, and I have agreed to act in her behalf. You were assuming that I declined her offer of a check because I thought she was guilty of murder or at least was implicated, but you were wrong. She is now my client." He wiggled a finger at the bills on the desk. "Your money. Take it."

Weed's jaw was hanging, his lips parted. He found words. "But you-I don't see why you-"

"You're not obliged to see and I'm not obliged to explain. Why do you think Mrs. Hazen killed her hus- band? Was it merely surmise?"

"I don't-I don't think she killed him. She didn't!"

"If I had taken your money what were you going to ask me to do?" "I don't know exactly. I was going… to consult you. I wanted to know what you did with the gun. Have the police got it?"

Wolfe shook his head. "I am acting for her now, Mr. Weed. You are the enemy-one of them. What if you killed Mr. Hazen, or know who did, and would like to see it imputed to her, and suspecting, for whatever reason, that she left a gun with me this morning, you want to find out? What if you are indeed the enemy?"

Weed sat and stared at him. His jaw started to work again and he stopped it. "Look here," he said. "I want to know something. I know your reputation, I know about you. Is that straight, Mrs. Hazen phoned you just now and you're working for her?"

"It is."

"All right, then this is straight too." He stuck an arm out. "You can cut off this arm if it will help her any. And the other one. If that's corny, okay, that's where I stand."

Wolfe regarded him with narrowed eyes. So did I. He looked as if he meant it, but even if he did, that didn't make him our pal. If he would give an arm to help her, and if he had known how she felt about her husband, he might have taken steps to get rid of him for her, which wouldn't cost him even a finger if he was lucky.

Wolfe made a tent with his fingers, the tips together, his elbows on the chair arms. "Indeed," he said. "I have no use for your arm, but some information might be helpful. When did you last see Mr. Hazen?"

"I want to know where that gun is. I know she left it here, she told me so."

"When did she tell you?"

"This afternoon. I was there when she came home."

"What else did she tell you?"

"Not much-there wasn't time. We were inter- rupted. I knew Hazen had a gun in a drawer in his room, and I had looked to see if it was there and it wasn't, and I asked her if she knew where it was. Have the police got it?"

"No. I'll indulge you further, Mr. Weed. The bullet that killed Mr. Hazen wasn't fired by that gun. If you already knew that it's no news for you; if you didn't, it should relieve-"

"How do you know it wasn't?"

"Enough for you that I do. Now you indulge me. When did you last see Mr. Hazen?"

"This morning. At the morgue. I went there to iden- tify him, by request. Alive, I saw him last at his house, last night."

"At what hour?"

"Around half past nine. Five or ten minutes either way. The police wanted it more exact, but that's as close as I can come."

"The circumstances?"

"There were people there for dinner. Do you want their names?"

"Yes."

"They were clients of Hazen's. Mrs. Victor Oliver, a widow. Mrs. Henry Lewis Talbot, the wife of the banker. Ambrose Perdis, the shipping tycoon. Jules Khoury, the inventor. And Mr. and Mrs. Hazen and me. Seven. After dinner Hazen told Lucy-his wife-that we were going to discuss a business matter and she left. I left soon after that, and that was the last I saw him alive, there with them."

"How did you spend the next six hours?"

"I walked to the Overseas Press Club-it's a short walk-and was there until around midnight, and then I went home and went to bed. And stayed in bed."

"You were associated with Mr. Hazen in his busi- ness?"

"I was in his employ."

"In what capacity?"

"Mostly I write stuff. Handouts, plugs, the usual junk. Also I was supposed to use my contacts. I was a newspaperman when Hazen hired me a little more than a year ago."

"If they were going to discuss a business matter why did you leave?"

"I wasn't needed. Or wanted."

"Then why were you there at all?" Weed put his hands on the chair arms, levered his fanny up, settled farther back, and took a breath. He rubbed his chair arms with his palms. "You don't think Lucy killed him," he said. "Or you wouldn't be working for her. But even if she didn't she's in one hell of a jam. If you're half as good as you're supposed to be… I don't know. Maybe I ought to give you a different answer than the one I gave the District Attorney when he asked why I was there. The right answer. Even if it makes you think I killed him. I didn't."

"If you did, Mr. Weed, you're doomed in any case, no matter what answers you give."

"Okay, then here's why I was there. Exclusive for you. Hazen liked to have me in the same room with his wife because he knew how I felt about her. God only knows how he knew, I certainly tried not to show it and I thought I did pretty well, and I'm sure she doesn't know, but he did. He was a remarkable man. He had a sixth sense about people, and maybe a seventh and an eighth, but he also had blind spots. He actually didn't know how his wife felt about him, or if he did he was even more remarkable than I thought."

"Did you know?"

"Of course."

"She told you?"

"My God, no. I doubt if she even told her best friend. Don't think that the way I feel about her made me imagine it. I saw her when he touched her, how she tried to cover up. So that's why I was invited to dinner last night. I don't think he expected or hoped to see me squirm, he didn't have to, he knew how I felt. Of course he was a sadist, but he was a damned subtle one. I was onto him, in a way, after I had been with him a couple of months, but I didn't leave because I… I had met her."

"And your feeling for her was returned?"

"Certainly not. I was just a guy that worked for her husband."

"Rather a forlorn situation for you."

"Yeah. That's the right word, forlorn. I told you because you asked why I was there, and I've got a little idea how you work, and you're working for her. An- other thing you might want to know, I think there was something screwy about his business. I know the public-relations game is mostly just a high-grade racket, but even so. Take the four people who were there last night. Why did Mrs. Victor Oliver, the sixty-year-old widow of a millionaire broker, pay him two thousand dollars a month? She needs public rela- tions like I need a hole in the head. The same for Mrs. Talbot-twenty-five hundred a month. Maybe her hus- band, the banker, could use a P.R. expert, granted that there is one, but why her? Jules Khoury's amounts vary, sometimes a couple of thousand, sometimes more. Possibly an inventor likes to stand in well with the public, though I don't see why, and during the time I've been there Khoury has got damn little for his money. Ambrose Perdis is the screwiest of all. For his business, his shipping corporations, he uses one of the big P.R. operators, the Codray Associates, but person- ally he has paid Hazen more than forty thousand dollars this past year. I'm not supposed to know all this. I got curious and I got at the records one day."

Wolfe grunted. "A man who hires another man to forge distinction for him deserves as little as he gets. Are you suggesting that Mr. Hazen extorted those sums?"

"I don't know, but he didn't earn them. I admit that very few P.R. operators do earn what they get. If any."

"Did he have any clients other than those four?"

"Sure, about a dozen. Fifteen altogether, as of yes- terday. His total take was over a quarter of a million a year."

Wolfe looked up at the clock. "It will be my dinner time in five minutes. If my assumption that Mrs. Hazen didn't kill her husband is correct, and if you didn't, who did?"

That question gets a helpful answer about once in a hundred times. It was obvious that Weed had given it no brain room at all before he rang our doorbell, be- cause he had either thought that Lucy had done it or known that he had, so he had no guesses ready. He was more than willing; the idea appealed to him; but he had to start from scratch, and five minutes wasn't enough. He thought that Wolfe should forget about dinner, though he didn't say so, which was just as well. He said he would return after dinner, but Wolfe said no, if he would leave his phone number he would hear from us. He would have left the bills there on Wolfe's desk if I hadn't handed them to him.

By the time we had finished dinner and were back in the office, with coffee, I had no personal worry. If the bullets had matched we would have heard from Cramer by then. Wolfe got at the letters to sign, still on his desk, and as he finished the last one and I took it he spoke. "Did Mr. Weed shoot him?"

I shook my head. "No comment. I'd have to flip a coin. He cleared up one point, anyway, about her. You said that no one wants to kill a man merely because she despises him. Sure. So what was eating her? Weed. He says she doesn't know how he feels about her and the feeling is not returned. Nuts. Either he lies or he's simple. Of the ten thousand women I have fallen in love with, every single one of them knew it before I did. As for Weed shooting him, I am split. It would be tough to send her a bill for nailing him, but if he didn't you've got a job. Where do you start? Apparently Hazen was the kind of specimen-"

The doorbell rang. Could Cramer possibly have held off so long? No. It would be Weed, to help some more. No. It was a more familiar figure, a tall thin middle- aged man in a dark gray overcoat that had been cut to give him more shoulder, but not overdoing it. Nathaniel Parker had his clothes made by Stover. When I opened the door and greeted and admitted him he headed for the office, keeping his coat on and his homburg in his hand, and I followed.

He was one of the eight men, not counting me, that Wolfe shook hands with. He declined Wolfe's invitation to be seated, saying that he was an hour and a half late for a dinner appointment. "I stopped in instead of phon- ing," he said, "because I had to deliver this." He took a key from his pocket and handed it to me. "That's the key to Mrs. Hazen's house. Also this." From his inside pocket he took a folded paper. "That's authority from her to enter and get something. What you're to get, if you want to, is an iron box-she said iron but I suppose it's tin or steel-that is under the bottom drawer of the chest in Hazen's bedroom. You remove the drawer and pry up the board that it slides in on, and the box is underneath. She doesn't know what's in it. One day about a year ago Hazen lifted the board and showed her the box, and told her that if he died she was to get the box, have it opened by a locksmith, and bum the con- tents without looking at them. I thought you might want to have a look, and she is willing. You'll be acting for her, through her attorney."

Wolfe grunted. "I'll use my discretion."

"I know you will. If you don't want to tell me what was in it you'll say it was empty. I'd like to be present when it's opened, but I have an appointment. As for her, what did she tell you this morning?"

"Ask her."

"I did. She wouldn't tell me. She said she would disclose it only if you told her to. If she is charged with homicide I'll want to know that or I'll step out. She has been there more than five hours, and they'll probably keep her another five. If she is held as a material witness I can do nothing about bail until morning. I have an appointment with Hazen's lawyer at nine- thirty. He has the will. Anything else now?"

Wolfe said no, and he went. I escorted him out, re- turned to the office, and asked, "Any special instruc- tions?"

"No. Will the police be there?"

"I shouldn't think so. It's only where he lived, he wasn't shot there. Do I wear gloves?"

"No. You have her authority."

Ever since a difficulty I got into some years ago I

100 Rex Stout

have made it a practice to have a gun along when I am on an errand that may interfere with a murderer's program. I took off my jacket, got a shoulder holster and a Mariey, which I loaded, from the drawer, put them where they belonged, put the jacket back on, checked that Lucy's key was in a pocket and her author- ity in another one, and went to the hall for my coat and hat.