Homicide Trinity by Rex Stout

secretary of a client of his, Jules Khoury, the inventor. My father, Titus Postel, was also an inventor, and he was associated with Mr. Khoury until his death five years ago. That’s where I met Barry, at Mr. Khoury’s office. I thought I really was in love with him. I have tried and tried to decide what was the real reason why I married him, I mean the
real
one, whether it was only because I wanted to have—”
    She stopped and put her teeth on her lip. She shook her head, with energy, as if to chase a fly. “There you are,” she said. “I mean there I am. You don’t need to know all that. I’m blubbering, fishing for pity. You don’t even need to know why I want to kill him.”
    Wolfe muttered, “It’s your half-hour, madam.”
    “I don’t hate him.” She shook her head again. “I think I despise him—I know I do—and he won’t let me get adivorce. I tried to leave him, I did leave him, but he made such a—There I go again! I don’t
need
to tell you all that!”
    “As you please.”
    “It’s not as I please, Mr. Wolfe, it’s as I must!”
    “As you must, then.”
    “This is what I
must
tell you. He has a gun in a drawer in his bedroom. That’s it there on your desk. We have separate bedrooms. You know how there can be something in your mind but you don’t know it’s there until all of a sudden there it is?”
    “Certainly. The subconscious is not a grave; it’s a cistern.”
    “But we don’t know what’s in it. I didn’t. One day a month ago, it was the day after Christmas, I went to his bedroom and took the gun from the drawer and looked to see if it was loaded, and it was, and all of a sudden I was thinking how easy it would be to shoot him while he was in bed asleep. I said to myself, “You idiot, you absolute idiot,’ and put the gun back, and I didn’t go near that drawer again. But the thought came back, it kept coming, mostly when I was trying to go to sleep, and it got worse. It got worse this way, it wasn’t just going in when he was asleep and getting the gun and shooting him, it was planning how to do it so I wouldn’t get caught. I knew it was idiotic, but I couldn’t stop. I could
not!
And one night, just two nights ago, Sunday night, I got out of bed trembling all over and went to the shower and turned on the cold water and stood under it. I had found a plan that would work. I don’t have to tell you what the plan was.”
    “As you please. As you must.”
    “It doesn’t matter. I went back to bed, but I didn’t sleep. I wasn’t afraid I might do something in my sleep, I was afraid of what my mind might do. I had found out that I couldn’t manage my mind. So yesterday afternoon I decided I would fix it so my mind would have to quit. I would tell someone all about it and then the plan wouldn’t work, and no plan would work so I wouldn’t get caught. Telling a friend wouldn’t do, not a realfriend, because that would leave a loophole. Of course I couldn’t tell the police. I have no pastor because I don’t go to church. Then I thought of you, and I phoned for an appointment, and here I am. That’s all, except this: I want you to promise that if my husband is shot and killed you will tell the police about my coming here and what I said.”
    Wolfe grunted.
    She unlocked her fingers, straightened her shoulders, and took a long deep breath—in with her mouth closed and out with it open. “There!” she said. “That’s it.”
    Wolfe was regarding her. “I engaged only to listen,” he said, “but I must offer a comment. Your stratagem should be effective as a self-deterrent, but what if someone else shoots him? And I report this conversation to the police. You’ll be in a pickle.”
    “Not if I didn’t do it.”
    “Pfui. Of course you will, unless the culprit is soon exposed.”
    “If I didn’t do it I wouldn’t care.” She extended a hand, palm up. “Mr. Wolfe. After I decided to tell you and made the appointment, I had the first good night’s sleep