Plot summary
Over the years I have been suspected of a lot of things by various authorities, from corrupting a cop by buying him a drink to complicity in a murder, and that day they added a new one to the list. None of them came right out with it, but what was really biting them was their suspicion that I was in collusion with the United States government.
— Archie Goodwin, contemplating a turf battle between the police and the Treasury Department, in "Counterfeit for Murder," chapter 8
Hattie Annis doesn't like cops. [1] So when she shows up at Wolfe's door with a brown paper package holding a large stack of $20 bills, she thinks that there could be a reward for returning it to its owner, but she won't trust the cops with it. They'll probably stiff her.
Wolfe is busy with the orchids, but Hattie says she'll come back later if Archie will hold the money for her. Sometime later, a young woman named Tammy Baxter shows up. She is one of the tenants of Hattie's cheap boarding house, whose rooms she only rents to people working in show business. Tammy is concerned for Hattie, who almost never leaves her house, but today she said she was going to see Nero Wolfe, and she hasn't come home. Feeling protective of Hattie, Tammy has gone to Nero Wolfe's house to see if Hattie arrived. Archie lies and says he hasn't seen her, and Miss Baxter leaves.
When Hattie returns, she collapses at the doorstep; on her way back to Wolfe's house, a car swerved onto the sidewalk and hit her – fortunately, not hard enough to break bones, but enough to shake her up. In the front room, Hattie is revived by Fritz's coffee, and tells Wolfe and Archie about the money. She was chasing a mouse that ran behind the shelves in her parlor when she found the package hidden behind some books. She took the package and opened it to find a large amount of money – Archie estimates $10,000 in twenties.
The doorbell rings. It's Albert Leach, an agent of the Treasury Department, wanting to know if Archie has seen or spoken with a young woman named Tammy Baxter or an older woman named Hattie Annis. Archie, not caring for Leach's approach, admits to meeting Tammy, but does not mention that Hattie is present in the house. Then he returns to the front room, closely examines one of the twenties, and announces that there will probably be a reward: the bills are counterfeit.
Wolfe won't take Hattie on as a client, but he allows Archie to accompany her to her boarding house and investigate. Once there, Archie meets Hattie's boarders: Raymond Dell, Noel Ferris and Paul Hannah, three actors, and Martha Kirk, a dancer; Hattie caters to stage people. It isn't until Archie and Hattie enter the parlor that Archie sees the fifth boarder, Tammy Baxter, lying dead on the floor with a kitchen knife in her chest.
When Homicide arrives, Hattie locks herself in her bedroom and refuses to communicate with the police. Cramer doesn't want to break Hattie's door down and asks Archie to reason with her. Archie does so, and, acting as Wolfe's agent, takes Hattie as a client, but cannot talk her into coming out from her room. Eventually, Cramer gives up, breaks down her door, and has her carried away to be interrogated.
On his way back to the brownstone, Archie phones Wolfe to inform him that he has been hired. Over Wolfe's objection, Archie mentions that Hattie has extensive assets – close to half a million dollars in bonds, in addition to her four-story house in Manhattan. Wolfe, reluctant as always, accedes, and concurs that Parker should be instructed to see to her bail.
Archie has concluded that the murdered woman, Tammy Baxter, was a Treasury agent: Leach, when he asked about Miss Baxter, indicated that he knew both her phone number and that she had been to the brownstone earlier that day. He and Wolfe conjecture that she had been placed in Hattie's boardinghouse by the Treasury Department to investigate a counterfeiting operation.
The surviving tenants, Dell, Ferris, Hannah and Kirk, call at the brownstone. As she was being carried out of her house, Hattie told them to go to Nero Wolfe and tell him everything they had told the police. They set in to do so, but Wolfe takes control of the conversation, and questions each of them about personal background, present employment and source of income.
Wolfe gets some hints, and the next day sends Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather to reconnoiter at the boarders' places of employment. Archie is called to the DA's office to help sort out why the Treasury Department, and not Manhattan Homicide, has possession of the counterfeit money, which is evidence in a murder case. When Archie returns to the brownstone it is to find all concerned – the boarders, Inspector Cramer and Sgt. Stebbins, Agent Leach, and Saul Panzer – in the office to hear Saul describe the counterfeiting equipment that he found in the building where Wolfe sent him.
