The League Of Frightened Men Part 12

"Archie." Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. "I think it would be as well to correct your perspective. You must not let the oddities of this case perplex you to the point of idiocy. For instance, Inspector Cramer. He is an excellent man. In nine murder cases out of ten his services would be much more valuable than mine; to mention a few points only, I need to keep regular hours, I could not function even pa.s.sably where properly chilled beer was not continually available, and I cannot run fast. If I am forced to engage in extreme physical effort, such as killing a snake, I am hungry for days. But it is utterly futile, in this case or any other case in which we are interested, to give consideration to the contents of Mr.

Cramer's bean. I supposed that in seven years you had learned that."

"Sure. His bean's out." I waved it out with my hand. "But what about his facts? Such as Elkus going back alone to the office?"

Wolfe shook his head. "You see, Archie? The dizzy revolutions of Mr.

Chapin's cunning wheel of vengeance have hurled you off on a tangent. Consider what we have engaged to do under our memorandum: free our clients from fear of Paul Chapin's designs. Even if it were possible to prove that Dr. Elkus poisoned Mr. Dreyer's drink which I strongly doubt to what purpose should we attempt it? No; let us stick to the circ.u.mference of our own necessities and desires. Inspector Cramer might some day have a fact for us, as anyone might, there is no denying that, but he is welcome to this one. It is beyond our circle of endeavor."

"Still I don't see it. Look here. Say Elkus put the stuff in Dreyer's gla.s.s. Of course Chapin was in on it, look at the second warning. How are you going to prove Chapin guilty of Dreyer's murder unless you also prove how Elkus did his part?"

I Wolfe nodded. "Your logic is I impeccable. Your premise is absurd. I haven^t the slightest expectation of proving Chapin guilty of Dreyer's murder."

"Then what the devil -"

I got that much out before I realized exactly what he had said. I stared at him.

He went on: "It could not be expected that you should know Paul Chapin as I know him, because you have not had the extended and intimate a.s.sociation that I have enjoyed through his books. He is possessed of a demon. A fine old melodramatic phrase. The same thing can be said in modern scientific terms, but it would mean no more and its flavor would *be much impaired. He is possessed of a demon, but he is also, within certain limits, an extraordinarily astute man.

Emotionally he is infantile he even prefers a vicar to a subst.i.tute, when the original object is unattainable, as witness his taking Dora Ritter to proxy for her mistress. But his intellectual competence is such that it is problematical whether factual proof could ever be obtained of any act of his which he intended to remain anonymous."

He stopped for some beer. I said, "If you mean you give up, you're wasting a lot of time and money. If you mean you're waiting for him to croak another one, and you're tailing him to watch him do it, and he's as smart as you say he is...

I drank milk. Wolfe wiped his lips and went on: "Of course we have our usual advantage: we are on the offensive. And of course the place to attack the enemy is his weak spot; those are truisms. Since Mr. Chapin has an aversion to factual proof and has the intellectual equipment to preclude it, let us abandon the intellectual field, and attack him where he is weak. His emotions. I am acquainting you now with this decision which was made last Sunday. We are gathering what ammunition we may. Certainly facts are not to be sneered at; I need two more of them, possibly three, before I can feel confident of persuading Mr. Chapin to confess his guilt."

Wolfe emptied his gla.s.s. I said, "Confess, huh? That cripple?"

He nodded. "It would be simple. I am T.

sure it will be."

"What are the three facts?"

"First, to find Mr. Hibbard. His meat and bone; we can do without the vital spark if it has found another errand.

That, however, is more for the satisfaction of our clients and the fulfillment of the terms of our memorandum than for the effect on Mr. Chapin. That sort of fact will not impress him. Second, to find the I typewriter on which he wrote the menacing verses. That I must have, for him. Third the possibility to learn if he has ever kissed his wife. That may not be needed. Given the first two, I probably should not wait for it."

"And with that you can make him confess?"

"I should think so. I see no other way out for him."; "That's all you need?"

"It seems ample."

I looked at him. Sometimes I thought I could tell how much he was being fanciful; sometimes I knew I couldn't. I* grunted. "Then I might as well phone Fred and Bill and Orrie and the others to come up and check out."

"By no means. Mr. Chapin himself might lead us to the typewriter or the Hibbard meat and bone."

"And I've been useful too. According to you. Why did you buy the gasoline I burned up yesterday and today if you decided Sunday night you couldn't get the goods on him? It seems as if I'm like a piece of antique furniture or a pedigreed I dog, I'm in the luxury cla.s.s. You keep me on for beauty. Do you know what I think? I think that all this is just your delicate way of telling me that on the Dreyer thing you've decided I'm a washout and you think I might try something else. Okay. What?" v Wolfe's cheeks unfolded a little.

"Veritably, Archie, you are overwhelming.

The turbulence of a Carpathian torrent. It would be gratifying if you should discover Mr. Hibbard."

"I thought so. Forget Dreyer?"

"Let him rest in peace. At least for tomorrow."

"A thousand d.i.c.ks and fifteen thousand , cops have been looking for Hibbard for eight days. Where shall I bring him when I find him?"

"If alive, here. If dead, he will care as little as I. But his niece will care, I presume. To her."

"Do you tell me where to look?"

"Our little globe."

"Okay."

I went upstairs. I was riled. We had never had a case, and I suppose never will have, without Wolfe getting cryptic about it sooner or later; I was used to it and expected it, but it always riled me. In the Fairmont-Avery thing he had deliberately waited for twenty-four hours to close in on Pete Avery after he had him completely sewed up, just for the pleasure of watching me and d.i.c.k Morley of the D. A.'s office play fox-and-goose with that old fool that couldn't find his ear trumpet. I suppose his awful conceit was one of the wheels that worked the machinery that got his results, but that didn't make it any more enjoyable when I was doing the worrying for both of us.

That Wednesday night I nearly took the enamel off of my teeth with the brush, stabbing with it at Wolfe's conceit.

The next morning, Thursday, I had had my breakfast and was in the office by eight o'clock, taking another good look at the photograph of her uncle which Evelyn Hibbard had given to us. Saul Panzer had phoned and I had told him to meet me in the McAlpin lobby at eight-thirty. After I had soaked in all I could of the photograph I made a couple of phone calls, one to Evelyn Hibbard and one to Inspector Cramer. Cramer was friendly.

He said that on Hibbard he had spread the net pretty wide. If a body of a man was washed up on the sand at Montauk Point, or found in a coal mine at Scranton, or smelled in a trunk in a Village rooming-house, or pulled out of a turnip pit in south Jersey, he would know about it in ten minutes, and would be asking for specifications. That satisfied me that there was no sense in my wasting time or shoe leather looking for a dead Hibbard; I'd better concentrate on the Possibility of a live one.

I went to the McAlpin and talked it over with Saul Panzer. He, with his wrinkled little mug not causing any stranger to suspect how cute he was, and he could be pretty d.a.m.n cute he sat on the edge of a tapestry chair, smoking a big slick light-brown cigar that smelled like something they scatter on lawns in the early spring, and told me about it to date.

It was obvious from the instructions Saul had been following, either that Wolfe had reached the same conclusion that I had, that if Hibbard had been croaked the police routine was the best and quickest way of finding him, or that Wolfe thought Hibbard was still alive. Saul had been digging up every connection Hibbard had had in and around the city for the past five years, every degree of intimacy, man, woman, and child, and calling on them. * Since Hibbard had been an instructor at a I large university, and also a sociable man, Saul hadn't made much more than a start.

I supposed that Wolfe's idea was that there was a possibility that Chapin's third warning was a fake, that Hibbard had just got too scared to breathe and had run off ^ to hide, and that in that case he was practically certain to get in touch with * someone he knew.

My heart wasn't really in it. For my part, I believed the cripple, third warning and all. In the first place, Wolfe hadn't said definitely that he didn't; and secondly, I had known Wolfe to be wrong, not often, but more than once.

When the event proved that he had been wrong about something, it was a delight to see him handle it. He would wiggle his finger a little more rapidly and violently than usual, and mutter with his eyes nearly open at me, "Archie. I love to make a mistake, it is my only a.s.surance that I cannot reasonably be expected to a.s.sume the burden of omniscience."^ But although I believed the cripple and I was perfectly comfortable with the notion that Hibbard wasn't using up any more air, I couldn't see that there was anything better to be done than to smell around places where he had once been alive. I left the general list neighbors, friends, . Pupils and miscellaneous to Saul, and chose for myself the members of the * League of the White Feather. ^_ The Tribune office was only sevenblocks away, so I called there first, but Mike Ayers wasn't in. Next I went up on Park Avenue, to Drummond's florist shop, and the little fat tenor was all ready for a talk. He wanted to know many things, and I hope he believed what I told ^ him, but he had nothing to offer in exchange that helped me any. From there I went back down to Thirty-ninth Street to see Edwin Robert Byron the editor, and that was also empty. For over half an hour about all he found time for was "Excuse me" as he was reaching for the telephone. I was thinking, with all that practice, if he should happen to get fired as an editor he could step right in anywhere as a telephone girl.

When I was out working I was supposed to phone in at eleven o'clock, at which I time Wolfe got down from the plantrooms, to ask if there were any new instructions. Leaving Edwin Robert Byron's office a little before eleven, I decided I might as well roll over to the house in person, since it was only a couple of blocks out of my way to the next call.

Wolfe wasn't down yet. I went to the kitchen and asked Fritz if anyone had left a corpse on the stoop for us, and he said he didn't think so. I heard the elevator and went to the office.

Wolfe was in one of his sighing moods.

He sighed as he said good morning and he sighed as he got into his chair. It might have meant anything from one measly little orchid getting bugs on it up to a major relapse. I waited until he got his little routine ch.o.r.es done before trying to pa.s.s a couple of words.

Out of one of the envelopes in the morning mail he took some pieces of paper that looked familiar from where I stood. I approached. Wolfe looked up at me and back at the papers.

I asked, "What's that, FarrelPs second edition?"

He handed me one of the sheets, a different size from the others. I read it: ^ * * Dear Mr. Wolfe: Here are two more samples which I failed to deliver with the others. I found them in another pocket. I am called suddenly to Philadelphia on a chance at a commission, and am mailing them to you so you will have*' them first thing in the morning.

Sincerely, Augustus Farrell Wolfe had already got his magnifying gla.s.s and was inspecting one of the samples. I felt my blood coming up to my head, which meant a hunch. I told myself to hang onto the aplomb, that there was no more reason to expect it of these than of the others, and there were only two chances. I stood and watched Wolfe.

After a little he pushed the sheet aside and .shook his head, and reached for the other one.

One more, I thought. If it's that one he's got one of his facts. I looked for an expression on his face as he examined it, but of course I might as well have saved my eyes the strain. He moved the gla.s.s along, intent, but a little too rapidly for me not to suspect that he had had a hunch too. At length he looked up at me, and sighed.

"No." ^ I demanded, "You mean it's not it?"

"No, I believe, is negative. No."

"Let me see the d.a.m.n things."

He pushed them across and I got the gla.s.s and gave them a look. I didn't need to be very thorough, after the practice I had had the night before. I was really almost incredulous, and sore as the devil, because in the detective business nothing is more important than to find your hunches good as often as possible. If you once get off of your hunches you might as well give up and go and get a job on the Homicide Squad. Not to mention that Wolfe had said that that typewriter was one of the two things he needed.

He was saying, "It is a pity Mr. Farrell has deserted us. I am not sure that my next suggestion should await his return; and he does not, by the way, mention his return." He picked up the note from Farrell and looked at it. "I believe, Archie, that you had best abandon the Hibbard search temporarily -"

He stopped himself; and said in a different tone: "Mr. Goodwin. Hand me the gla.s.s."

I gave it to him. His using my formal handle when we were alone meant that he was excited almost beyond control, but I had no idea what about. Then I saw what he wanted the gla.s.s for. He was looking through it at the note from Farrell! I stared at him. He kept on looking. I didn't say anything. A beautiful suspicion was getting into me that you shouldn't ever ignore a hunch.

Finally Wolfe said, "Indeed."

I held out my hand and he gave me the note and the gla.s.s. I saw it at a glance, but I kept on looking, it was so satisfactory to see that a off the line and a little to the left, and the n c.o.c.keyed, and all the other signs. I laid it on the table and grinned at Wolfe.

"Old Eagle Eye. d.a.m.n me for missing it."

He said, "Take off your coat and hat, Archie. Whom can we telephone in Philadelphia to learn where an architect there in pursuit of a commission might possibly be found?" n

14.

I started for the hall to put my coat and hat away, but before I got to the door I turned and went back.

"Listen," I said, "the roadster needs some exercise. We might fool around with the phone all afternoon and not get anywhere. Why don't we do this: you phone Farrell's friends here and see if you can get a line on him. I'll roll down to Philly and call you up as soon as I arrive.

If you haven't found out anything, I'll be on the ground to look for him. I can get there by two-thirty."

"Excellent," Wolfe agreed. "But the noon train will reach Philadelphia at two o'clock."

"Yeah, I know, but -"

"Archie. Let us agree on the train."

"Okay. I thought I might get away with it."

There was plenty of time to discuss a few probabilities, since it was only a fiveminute walk to the Pennsylvania Station. I caught the noon train, had lunch on the diner, and phoned Wolfe from the Broad Street Station at two minutes after two.

He had no dope, except the names of a few friends and acquaintances of FarrelPs in Philadelphia. I telephoned all I could get hold of, and chased around all afternoon, the Fine Arts Club, and an architectural magazine, and the newspaper offices to see if they knew who intended to build something and so on. I was beginning to wonder if an idea that had come to me on the train could possibly have anything in it. Was Farrell himself entangled somehow in the Chapin business, and had he written that note on that typewriter for some reason maybe to be discovered, and then beat it? Was there a chance that he hadn't come to Philadelphia at all but somewhere else, even perhaps on a transatlantic liner? j But around six o'clock I got him. I had taken to phoning architects. After about ^1 three dozen I found one who told me that a Mr. Allenby who had got rich and sentimental was going to build a library for a Missouri town that had been lucky enough to give birth to him and then lose him. That was a building project I hadn't heard of before. I phoned Allenby, and was told that Mr. Farrell was expected at his home at seven o'clock for dinner.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed a pair of sandwiches and went out there, and then had to wait until he had finished his meal. f-'

He came to me in Mr. Allenby's library.

Of course he couldn't understand how I got there. I allowed him ten seconds for surprise and so forth, and then I asked him: "Last night you wrote a note to Nero Wolfe. Where's the typewriter you wrote it on?"

He smiled like a gentleman being bewildered. He said, (I suppose it's where I left it. I didn't take it away."

"Well, where was it? Excuse me for taking you on the jump like this. I've been hunting you for over five hours and I'm out of breath. The machine you wrote that ^te on is the one Paul Chapin used for away with it."

There was plenty of time to discuss a few probabilities, since it was only a fiveminute walk to the Pennsylvania Station. I caught the noon train, had lunch on the diner, and phoned Wolfe from the Broad Street Station at two minutes after two.

He had no dope, except the names of a few friends and acquaintances of FarrelPs in Philadelphia. I telephoned all I could get hold of, and chased around all afternoon, the Fine Arts Club, and an architectural magazine, and the newspaper 1 offices to see if they knew who intended to build something and so on. I was beginning to wonder if an idea that had come to me on the train could possibly have anything in it. Was Farrell himself * entangled somehow in the Chapin * business, and had he written that note on that typewriter for some reason maybe to be discovered, and then beat it? Was there a -chance that he hadn't come to Philadelphia at all but somewhere else, even perhaps on a transatlantic liner? m But around six o'clock I got him. I had taken to phoning architects. After about three dozen I found one who told me that a Mr. Allenby who had got rich and sentimental was going to build a library for a Missouri town that had been lucky enough to give birth to him and then lose him. That was a building project I hadn't heard of before. I phoned Allenby, and was told that Mr. Farrell was expected at his home at seven o'clock for dinner.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed a pair of sandwiches and went out there, and then had to wait until he had finished his meal. ^ He came to me in Mr. Allenby's library.

Of course he couldn't understand how I got there. I allowed him ten seconds for surprise and so forth, and then I asked him: "Last night you wrote a note to Nero Wolfe. Where's the typewriter you wrote it on?"; He smiled like a gentleman being bewildered. He said, "I suppose it's where I left it. I didn't take it away."

"Well, where was it? Excuse me for taking you on the jump like this. I've been hunting you for over five hours and I'm ut of breath. The machine you wrote that ^te on is the one Paul Chapin used for his poems. That's the little detail."

"No!" He stared at me, and laughed.

"By G.o.d, that's good. You're sure? After working so hard to get all those samples, and then to write that note I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"Yeah. When you get around to it..."

"Certainly. I used a typewriter at the Harvard Club."?

"Oh. You did." lu"I did indeed. I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"Yeah. Where do they keep this typewriter?" li "Why, it's one it's available to any of the members. I was there last evening when the telegram came from Mr.

Allenby, and I used it to write two or three notes. It's in a little room off the smoking-room, sort of an alcove. A great many of the fellows use it, off and on."

"Oh. They do." I sat down. "Well, this is nice. It's sweet enough to make you sick. It's available to anybody, and ^thousands of them use it." BB "Hardly thousands, but quite a few -" ^ "Dozens is enough. Have you ever seen Paul Chapin use it?" m I "I couldn't say I believe, though -yes, in that little chair with his game leg pushed under Pm pretty sure I have."

"Any of your other friends, this bunch?" I really couldn't say." 'm "Do many of them belong to the club?"

"Oh, yes, nearly all. Mike Ayers doesn't, and I believe Leo Elkus resigned a few years ago..."

"I see. Are there any other typewriters in the alcove?"

"There's one more, but it belongs to a public stenographer. I understand this one was donated by some club member. They used to keep it in the library, but some of the one-finger experts made too much Inoise with it."

"All right." I got up. "You can imagine how I feel, coming all the way to Philadelphia to get a kick in the pants.