hours with Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins. I didn't even have the satisfaction of getting a chance to break my record with Lieutenant Rowcliff. I once got him stut- tering in two minutes and twenty seconds, and I have a bet with Saul Panzer that I can do it in two minutes flat with three more tries.
Cramer and Stebbins finally decided they had had enough of me. It was 9:32 by my watch, and 9:34 by the clock on the wall, which was wrong, as I crossed the reception room of the precinct house to the door, and on
122 Rex Stout
out. I stood on the sidewalk for three good breaths of the cold fresh air, giving my lungs a treat and deciding which way to turn. If right, toward Eighth Avenue, it would be for a taxi; if left, toward Ninth, it would be for a fifteen-minute walk. Voting for the walk, I moved, and had taken three steps when my shoulder was grabbed and yanked from behind and a voice came, with feeling: 'You dirty rat!'
The yank had turned me some and I turned myself the rest of the way. It was Theodore Weed. His hands were fists, and the right one was back a foot, with the elbow bent. His eyes were blazing and his bony jaw was set.
'Not here, you damn fool,' I said. 'Even if you drop me with one swing, which is doubtful, I'll yell police as I go down and here they'll come. Besides, I have a right to know why I'm a rat while I'm still conscious. Why?'
'You know why. You're a filthy stool, and Nero Wolfe too. You're working for Lucy? You are like hell. You gave the police the gun.'
'How do you know we did?'
'Things they asked me. Do you deny it?'
My brain was a little tired after the long day, but it was doing its best. This character was by no means crossed off. We only had his word for it that he would give both arms to help Lucy; he had said himself that she didn't know how he felt about her. A chat with him wouldn't hurt and might help, but I couldn't take him home with me until I knew what Wolfe had on his program, if anything.
He still had fists. 'I'll tell you what,' I said. 'We'll go around the comer to Jake's and I'll buy you a drink and we'll discuss it. Then if you still want to take a poke at me Jake will let us use the back room provided we let him watch. Afterwards you can comb your hair if you're up to it. It needs it.'
It didn't appeal to him, but what would have? A couple of passersby, noticing his stance and his fists, had stopped to see, and a harness bull, emerging from the station, had also stopped. So he came.
The Homicide Trinity 123
At Jake's, when we had sat at a table by the wall and given our orders to the white apron, and I said I had to make a phone call, he got up and came along to the booth. Very bad manners, but I didn't correct him. I even let him stand in the door of the booth so I couldn't close it. I dialed a number and got it.
'Me. In a booth on Eighth Avenue. Theodore Weed is here at my elbow. He stopped me on the sidewalk to tell me that you and I are filthy stools because we gave the gun to the cops. When I asked him how he knew we did he said from things they asked him, which is possible since he had just come from Homicide West, probably from a session with Rowcliff, and you know Rowcliff. I'm buying him a drink, but I thought you might like to apologize to him personally for tossing our client to the wolves. He has blood in his eye.'
'No. Come home at once.'
'You have Saul.'
'Not here. I need you. Mrs. Oliver and Mr. Perdis are in the front room. Mrs. Oliver has been here since seven o'clock. Mr. Khoury will arrive at any moment. I have been pestered by this confounded telephone all day. Mrs. Talbot called for the fifth time half an hour ago to say that she hopes to be here by ten o'clock, and it's nearly that now. On second thought, bring Mr. Weed. I have a question for him.'
'You'll have to bulldog him first.'
'Pfui. Bring him. How soon will you be here?'
I told him fifteen minutes, and hung up. 'No time for a drink,' I told Weed. 'Nor for a floor show, with me on the floor. Mr. Wolfe wants me. You may came along if you care to.'
'I was going there,' he said grimly, 'when I saw you.'
'Good. But take it easy. He has a knife in his belt that he uses to stab people in the back.'
On the way out I handed the white apron, whose name was Gil, a couple of ones. Outside, we flagged a taxi, and as it rolled uptown I undertook to straighten him out. 'Look at it,' I said. 'If we're stools and selling
124 Rex Stout
her to the cops there's not much of anything you can do but shoot us, and even that wouldn't help her any. The fact is, we're with her and you're not. We know she didn't kill her husband. Either you thought she had and probably still do, or you killed him yourself. If the former, your feeling for her has got a smudge. If the latter, you did a swell job, handling it so that she gets the credit for it. Go soak your head.'
'Why did you give the police the gun?'
'Soak your head some more. We're working for her, not you.'
No comment until the cab was turning into 35th Street, then: 'I don't think she killed him.'
'Good for you. We appreciate it.'
'And I didn't.'
'That's not so important, but we'll keep it in mind.'
