Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

“Erskine the actor?” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “I was thinking he might join us after the theater, but scarcely at this hour. He is working, I believe.”

Drummond said, “He’s in The Iron Heel , he has the lead.”

“Then he couldn’t dine. Not at a civilized hour.” Wolfe looked at Julius Adler. “Could you come here at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon and bring Erskine with you?”

“Perhaps.” The lawyer looked annoyed. “I suppose I could manage it. Couldn’t you come to my office?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Believe me, I am; but knowing my habits as I do, it seems extravagantly improbable. If you could arrange to bring Mr. Erskine—”

“All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.—You had better run, Mr. Kommers, or you’ll miss your train. Another reason, and one of the best, for staying at home.—Gentlemen, so far as our business is concerned I need not further detain you. But in connection with my remark to Mr. Kommers it occurs to me that no publication either before or since the invention of printing, no theological treatise and no political or scientific creed, has ever been as narrowly dogmatic or as offensively arbitrary in its prejudices as a railway timetable. If any of you should care to remain half an hour or so to help me enlarge upon that...”

Byron the magazine editor, who had stuck in his shell all evening, suddenly woke up. He got up from his chair and slipped his head in between a couple of shoulders to see Wolfe. “You know, that idea could be developed into a first-rate little article. Six hundred to seven hundred words, about. The Tyranny of the Wheel, you could call it, with a colored margin of trains and airplanes and ocean liners at top speed — of course liners don’t have wheels, but you could do something about that — if I could persuade you, Mr. Wolfe—”

“I’m afraid you could only bewilder me, Mr. Byron.”

Cabot the lawyer smiled. “I never saw a man less likely to be bewildered, even by Eddie Byron. Good night, Mr. Wolfe.” He picked up the memorandum and folded it and put it in his pocket. “I’ll send you these in the morning.”

They got moving. Pratt and Farrell went and got Mike Ayers to his feet and slapped him around a little. Byron started trying to persuade Wolfe again and was pulled off by Adler. Kommers had gone. The others drifted to the hall, and I went out and stood around while they got their hats and coats on. Bowen and Burton went off together, as they had come. I held the door for Pratt and Farrell to get Mike Ayers through; they were the last out.

After I had shut the door and bolted it I went to the kitchen for a pitcher of milk. Fritz was sitting there reading that newspaper printed in French, with his butler shoes still on, in spite of how he loved to put on his slippers after dinner on account of things left on his toes and feet by the war to remember it by. We said what we always said under those circumstances. He said, “I could bring your milk, Archie, if you would just tell me,” and I said, “If I can drink it I can carry it.”

In the office, Wolfe sat back with his eyes closed. I took the milk to my desk and poured a glass and sat down and sipped at it. The room was full of smoke and the smell of different drinks and chairs were scattered around and cigar and cigarette ashes were all over the rugs. It annoyed me, and I got up and opened a window. Wolfe said, “Close it,” and I got up and closed it again. I poured another glass of milk.

I said, “This bird Chapin is a lunatic, and it’s long past midnight. I’m damn good and sleepy.”

Wolfe kept his eyes shut, and also ignored me in other ways. I said, “Do you realize we could earn all that jack and save a lot of trouble just by having a simple little accident happen to Paul Chapin? Depression prices on accidents like that run from fifty bucks up. It’s smart to be thrifty.”

Wolfe murmured, “Thank you, Archie. When I exhaust my own expedients I shall know where to turn.—A page in your notebook.”

I opened a drawer and took out a book and pencil.

“Phone Mr. Cabot’s office at nine o’clock and make sure that the memorandums will be here by eleven, ready for Mr. Farrell. Ask where the reports from the Bascom Agency are and arrange to get them. The men will be here at eight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send one of them to get the reports. Put three of them on Paul Chapin, first thing. We want a complete record of his movements, and phone anything of significance.”

“Durkin and Keems and Gore?”

“That is your affair. But Saul Panzer is to get his nose onto Andrew Hibbard’s last discoverable footstep. Tell him to phone me at eleven-thirty.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put Cather onto Chapin’s past, outside the circle of our clients, especially the past two years. As complete as possible. He might succeed in striking an harmonious chord with Dora Chapin.”

“Maybe I could do that myself. She’s probably a lulu.”

“I suspect that of being a vulgarization of the word allure. If she is alluring, resist the temptation for the moment. Your special province will be the deaths of Harrison and Dreyer. First read the Bascom reports, then proceed. Wherever original investigation is indicated and seems still feasible after the lapse of time, undertake it. Use men as necessary, but avoid extravagance. Do not call upon any of our clients until Mr. Farrell has seen them.—That’s all. It’s late.”

Wolfe opened his eyes, blinked, and closed them again. But I noticed that the tip of his finger was doing a little circle on the arm of the chair. I grinned:

“Maybe we’ve got this and that for tomorrow and next day, but maybe right now you’re troubled by the same thing I am. Why is this Mr. Chapin giving hip room to a Civil War gat with the hammer nose filed off so that it’s about as murderous as a beanshooter?”

“I’m not troubled, Archie.” But his finger didn’t stop. “I’m wondering whether another bottle of beer before going to bed would be judicious.”

“You’ve had six since dinner.”

“Seven. One upstairs.”

“Then for God’s sake call it a day. Speaking of Chapin’s cannon, do you remember the lady dope-fiend who carried a box of pellets made out of flour in her sock, the usual cache, and when they took that and thought she was frisked, she still had the real thing in the hem of her skirt? Of course I don’t mean that Chapin had another gun necessarily, I just mean, psychologically...”

“Good heavens.” Wolfe pushed back his chair, not of course with violence, but with determination. “Archie. Understand this. As a man of action you are tolerable, you are even competent. But I will not for one moment put up with you as a psychologist. I am going to bed.”

I had heard Wolfe, at various times, make quite a few cracks about murder. He had said once that no man could commit so complicated a deed as a premeditated murder and leave no opening. He had also said that the only way to commit a murder and remain safe from detection, despite any ingenuity in pursuit and trusting to no luck, was to do it impromptu; await your opportunity, keep your wits about you, and strike when the instant offered; and he added that the luxury of the impromptu murder could be afforded only by those who happened to be in no great hurry about it.

By Tuesday evening I was convinced of one thing about the death of Wm. R. Harrison, Federal judge from Indianapolis: that if it had been murder at all it had been impromptu. I would like to say another thing right here, that I know when I’m out of my class. I’ve got my limitations, and I never yet have tried to give them the ritz. Paul Chapin hadn’t been in Nero Wolfe’s office more than three minutes Monday night when I saw he was all Greek to me; if it was left to me to take him apart he was sitting pretty. When people begin to get deep and complicated they mix me up. But pictures never do. With pictures, no matter how many pieces they’ve got that don’t seem to fit at first, I’m there forty ways from Sunday. I spent six hours Tuesday with the picture of Judge Harrison’s death — reading the Bascom reports, talking with six people including thirty minutes on long distance with Fillmore Collard, and chewing it along with two meals — and I decided three things about it: first, that if it was murder it was impromptu; second, that if anybody killed him it was Paul Chapin; and third, that there was as much chance of proving it as there was of proving that honesty was the best policy.