Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

I swallowed. “Cramer’s downstairs. The rugged Inspector.”

“What of it? You heard me speaking to him on the telephone.”

“Look here,” I said, “I want this distinctly understood. I came up here only for one reason, because I thought maybe you had changed your mind and would like to see him. Yes or no will do it. If you give me a bawling out it will be nothing but pure childishness. You know what I think.”

Wolfe opened his eyes a little wider, winked the left one at me, twice, and turned to face the potting-bench again. All I could see was his broad back that might have been something in a Macy Thanksgiving Day parade. He said to Horstmann:

“This will do. Get the charcoal. No sphagnum, I think.”

I went back down to the office and told Cramer, “Mr. Wolfe can’t come down. He’s too infirm.”

The Inspector laughed. “I didn’t expect him to. I’ve known Nero Wolfe longer than you have, sonny. You don’t suppose I thought I was going to tear any secrets out of him? Anything he would tell me he has already told you. Can I light a pipe?”

“Shoot. Wolfe hates it. To hell with him.”

“What’s this, you staging on me?” Cramer packed his pipe, held a match to it, and puffed. “You don’t... need to. Did Wolfe tell you what... I told him on the phone?”

“I heard it.” I patted my notebook. “I’ve got it down.”

“The hell you have. Okay. I don’t want George Pratt riding me, I’m too old to enjoy it. What went on here night before last?”

I grinned. “Just what Wolfe told you. That’s all. He closed a little contract.”

“Is it true that he nicked Pratt for four thousand dollars?”

“He didn’t nick anybody. He offered something for sale, and they gave him the order.”

“Yeah.” He puffed. “You know Pratt? Pratt thinks that it’s funny that he has to shell out to a private dick when the city maintains such a magnificent force of brave and intelligent men to cope with such problems. He said cope. I was there. He was talking to the Deputy Commissioner.”

“Indeed.” I bit my lip. I always felt like a sap when I caught myself imitating Wolfe. “Maybe he was referring to the Department of Health. That never occurred to me before, a cop coping.”

Cramer grunted. He sat back and looked at the vase of orchids, and pulled at his pipe. Pretty soon he said:

“I had a funny experience this afternoon. A woman called up downtown and said she wanted Nero Wolfe arrested because he had tried to cut her throat. They put her onto me because they knew I had Wolfe in mind about this case. I said I’d send a man up to get the details and she gave me her name and address. You could have flipped me cold with a rubber band when I heard it.”

I said, “That’s a hot one. I wonder who it could have been.”

“Sure you do. I’ll bet you’re puzzled. Then a couple of hours later a guy came to see me. By invitation. He was a taxi-driver. He said that no matter how much diversion it offered he didn’t care to take the rap for perjury, and that he saw blood on her when she got in his cab on Perry Street. That was one of the things I was wanting to mention to Wolfe on the phone, but the picture in my mind’s eye of him slicing a lady’s gullet was so damn remarkable that I didn’t get it out.” He puffed at his pipe, lit a match, and got it going again. He went on, more forceful and rugged. “Look here, Goodwin. What the hell’s the idea? I’ve tried that Chapin woman three times, and I couldn’t get her to break down enough to tell me what her name was. She put on the clamp and left it. Wolfe gets in the case late Monday night, and here already, Wednesday morning, she’s chasing up to his office to show him her operation. What the hell is it about him that gets them coming like that?”

I grinned. “It’s his sympathetic nature, inspector.”

“Yeah. Who carved her neck?”

“Search me. She told you, Wolfe. Pull him in and give him the works.”

“Was it Chapin?”

I shook my head. “If I know that secret, it’s buried here.” I tapped my chest.

“Much obliged. Now listen to me. I’m being serious. Am I on the level?”

“Absolutely.

“I am?”

“You know damn well you are.”

“Okay. Then I’m telling you, I didn’t come here to lift the silver. I’ve been after Chapin more than six weeks, ever since Dreyer was croaked, and what I’ve got on him is exactly nothing. Maybe he killed Harrison, and I’m damn sure he killed Dreyer, and it looks like he got Hibbard, and he’s got me feeling like a Staten Island flatfoot. He’s as slick as a wet pavement. Right in a courtroom he confesses he committed murder, and the judge fines him fifty bucks for contempt of court! Later I find that he mentioned it beforehand to his publisher, as a publicity stunt! Covered everywhere. Is he slick?”

I nodded. “He’s slick.”

“Yes. Well, I’ve tried this and that. For one thing, I’ve got it figured that his wife hates him and she’s afraid of him, and probably she knows enough about it to fill out a hand for us, if we could get her to spill it. So when I heard that she had dashed up here to see Wolfe, I naturally surmised that he had learned things. And I want to say this. You don’t need to tell me a damn thing if you don’t want to. I’m not trying to horn in. But whatever you got out of that Chapin woman, maybe you can make better use of it if you see whether it fits a few pieces I’ve got hold of, and you’re welcome—”

“But, inspector. Wait a minute. If you think she came here friendly, to dump the can, how do you account for her calling up to get Wolfe arrested?”

“Now, sonny.” Cramer’s sharp eyes twinkled at me. “Didn’t I say I’ve known Nero Wolfe longer than you have? If he wanted me to think she hadn’t got confidential with him, that would be about exactly what he would tell her to do.”

I laughed. While I was laughing it occurred to me that it wouldn’t do any particular harm if Cramer continued to nurse that notion, so I laughed some more. I said, “He might, he sure might, but he didn’t. Why she phoned you to arrest him — wait till I get a chance to tell Wolfe about it — why she did that, she’s psychopathic. So’s her husband. They’re both psychopathic. That’s Park Avenue for batty.”

Cramer nodded. “I’ve heard the word. We’ve got a department — oh, well...”

“And you’re damn sure he killed Dreyer.”

He nodded again. “I think Dreyer was murdered by Paul Chapin and Leopold Elkus.”

“You don’t say!” I looked at him. “That might turn out to be right. Elkus, huh?”

“Yeah. You and Wolfe won’t talk. Do you want me to talk?”

“I’d love it.”

He filled his pipe again. “You know about the Dreyer thing. Do you know who bought the nitroglycerin tablets? Dreyer did. Sure. A week before he died, the day after Elkus phoned him that the pictures were phony and he wanted his money back. Maybe he had ideas about suicide and maybe he didn’t; I think he didn’t; there’s several things people take nitroglycerin for in small doses.”

He took a drag at the pipe, pulled it in until I expected to see it squirt out at his belly-button, and went on leaving it to find its way by instinct. “Now, how did Chapin get the tablets out of the bottle that day? Easy. He didn’t. Dreyer had had them for a week, and Chapin was in and out of the gallery pretty often. He had been there a couple of hours Monday afternoon, probably for a talk about Elkus’s pictures. He could have got them then and saved them for an opening. The opening came Wednesday afternoon.—Wait a minute. I know what Elkus says. That Thursday morning a detective questioned Santini too, the Italian expert, and it checked, but of course at that time it looked like nothing but routine. Since then I’ve sent a request to Italy, and they found Santini in Florence and had a good long talk with him. He says it was like he told the detective in the first place, but he forgot to mention that after they all left the office Elkus went back for something and was in the office alone for maybe half a minute. What if Dreyer’s glass was then maybe half full, and Elkus, having got the tablets from Chapin, fixed it up for him?”