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.'
Two of them, Perdis and Mrs. Oliver, started to speak, but I shut them off and moved away from the bed. Anne Talbot went to the bed and got her coat, and Khoury went and held it for her, and then got his own. Anne Talbot said to Perdis and Mrs. Oliver, 'Is there any alternative?' Perdis went and got Mrs. Oliver's
The Homicide Trinity 107
coat and took it to her, and she went to the bed for her bag.
Perdis was the last one out. When he had started down the stairs I shut the door, put a chair against it, went to the chest of drawers, a big heavy piece at the left wall, and took out the bottom drawer. There was a folded blanket in it. I squatted at the opening. The board that the drawer slid on, solid, not a plywood panel, was flush and snugly fitted, no play to it. I tried to get its edge with my thumbnails; nothing doing. I got out my pocketknife, stuck the point of the blade in the crack at the center, just barely in, pried gently, and up it came. The front edge of the board was beveled. Very neat. I put my hand in, felt metal, got a finger under, and here came the box. It was steel, anything but flimsy, twelve inches by six and about two inches deep, and weighed a good four pounds, with a lock not to be opened with a nail file. I shook it and heard no move- ment, which didn't prove anything. With the board down, I replaced the drawer, moved the chair away from the door and opened it, and went to the head of the stairs. No sound of voices from below. If I had gone down and joined them in the hall
