Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

I flipped the pages of the record book, and I didn’t turn around until Wolfe came in.

I had many times seen Wolfe enter the office when a visitor was there waiting for him, and I watched him to see if he would vary his common habit for the sake of any effect on the cripple. He didn’t. He stopped inside the door and said, “Good morning, Archie.” Then he turned to Chapin and his trunk and head went forward an inch and a half from the perpendicular, in a sort of mammoth elegance. “Good morning, sir.” He proceeded to his desk, fixed the orchids in the vase, sat down, and looked through the mail. He rang for Fritz, took out his pen and tried it on the scratch pad, and when Fritz came nodded for beer. He looked at me:

“You saw Mr. Wright? Your errand was successful?”

“Yes, sir. In the bag.”

“Good. If you would please move a chair up for Mr. Chapin.—If you would be so good, sir? For either amenities or hostilities, the distance is too great. Come closer.” He opened a bottle of beer.

Chapin got up, grasped his stick, and hobbled over to the desk. He paid no attention to the chair I placed for him, nor to me, but stood there leaning on his stick, his flat cheeks pale, his lips showing a faint movement like a race horse not quite steady at the barrier, his light-colored eyes betraying neither life nor death — neither the quickness of the one nor the glassy stare of the other. I got at my desk and shuffled my pad in among a pile of papers, ready to take my notes while pretending to do something else, but Wolfe shook his head at me. “Thank you, Archie, it will not be necessary.

The cripple said, “There need be neither amenities nor hostilities. I’ve come for my box.”

“Ah! Of course. I might have known.” Wolfe had turned on his gracious tone. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Chapin, may I ask how you knew I had it?”

“You may ask.” Chapin smiled. “Any man’s vanity will stand a pat on the back, won’t it, Mr. Wolfe? I inquired for my package where I had left it, and was told it was not there, and learned of the ruse by which it had been stolen. I reflected, and it was obvious that the likeliest thief was you. You must believe me, this is not flattery, I really did come to you first.”

“Thank you. I do thank you.” Wolfe, having emptied a glass, leaned back and got comfortable. “I am considering — this shouldn’t bore you, since words are the tools of your trade — I am considering the comical and tragical scantiness of all vocabularies. Take, for example, the procedure by which you acquired the contents of that box, and I got the box and all; both our actions were, by definition, stealing, and both of us are thieves; words implying condemnation and contempt, and yet neither of us would concede that he has earned them. So much for words — but of course you know that, since you are a professional.”

“You said contents. You haven’t opened the box.”

“My dear sir! Could Pandora herself have resisted such a temptation?”

“You broke the lock.”

“No. It is intact. It is simple, and surrendered easily.”

“And... you opened it. You probably...” He stopped and stood silent. His voice had gone thin on him, but I couldn’t see that his face displayed any feeling at all, not even resentment. He continued, “In that case... I don’t want it. I don’t want to see it.—But that’s preposterous. Of course I want it. I must have it.”

Wolfe, looking at him with half-closed eyes, motionless, said nothing. That lasted for seconds. All of a sudden Chapin demanded, suddenly hoarse:

“Damn you, where is it?”

Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Mr. Chapin. Sit down.”

“No.”

“Very well. You can’t have the box. I intend to keep it.”

Still there was no change on the cripple’s face. I didn’t like him, but I was admiring him. His light-colored eyes had kept straight into Wolfe’s, but now they moved; he glanced aside at the chair I had placed for him, firmed his hand on the crook of his stick, and limped three steps and sat down. He looked at Wolfe again and said:

“For twenty years I lived on pity. I don’t know if you are a sensitive man, I don’t know if you can guess what a diet like that would do. I despised it, but I lived on it, because a hungry man takes what he can get. Then I found something else to sustain me. I got a measure of pride in achievement, I ate bread that I earned, I threw away the stick that I needed to walk with, one that had been given me, and bought one of my own. Mr. Wolfe, I was done with pity. I had swallowed it to the extreme of toleration. I was sure that, whatever gestures I might be brought, foolishly or desperately, to accept from my fellow creatures, it would never again be pity.”

He stopped. Wolfe murmured. “Not sure. Not sure unless you carried death ready at hand.”

“Right. I learn that today. I seem to have acquired a new and active antipathy to death.”

“And as regards pity...”

I need it. I ask for it. I discovered an hour ago that you had got my box, and I have been considering ways and means. I can see no other way to get it than to plead with you. Force” — he smiled the smile that his eyes ignored — “is not feasible. The force of law is of course, under the circumstances, out of the question. Cunning — I have no cunning, except with words. There is no way but to call upon your pity. I do so, I plead with you. The box is mine by purchase. The contents are mine by... by sacrifice. By purchase I can say, though not with money. I ask you to give it back to me.”

“Well. What plea have you to offer?”

“The plea of my need, my very real need, and your indifference.”

“You are wrong there, Mr. Chapin. I need it too.”

“No. It is you who are wrong. It is valueless to you.”

“But, my dear sir.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “If I permit you to be the judge of your own needs you must grant me the same privilege. What other plea?”

“None. I tell you, I will take it in pity.”

“Not from me. Mr. Chapin. Let us not keep from our tongues what is in our minds. There is one plea you could make that would be effective.—Wait, hear me. I know that you are not prepared to make it, not yet, and I am not prepared to ask for it. Your box is being kept in a safe place, intact. I need it here in order to be sure that you will come to see me whenever I am ready for you. I am not yet ready. When the time comes, it will not be merely my possession of your box that will persuade you to give me what I want and intend to get. I am preparing for you. You said you have acquired a new and active antipathy to death. Then you should prepare for me: for the best I shall be able to offer you, the day you come for your box, will be your choice between two deaths. I shall leave that, for the moment, as cryptic as it sounds; you may understand me, but you certainly will not try to anticipate me.—Archie. In order that Mr. Chapin may not suspect us of gullery, bring the box please.”

I went and unlocked the cabinet and got the box from the shelf, and took it and put it down on Wolfe’s desk. I hadn’t looked at it since Wednesday and had forgotten how swell it was; it certainly was a pip. I put it down with care. The cripple’s eyes were on me, I thought, rather than on the box, and I had a notion of how pleased he probably was to see me handling it. For nothing but pure damn meanness I rubbed my hand back and forth along the top of it. Wolfe told me to sit down.

Chapin’s hands were grasping the arms of his chair, as if to lift himself up. He said, “May I open it?”

“No.”

He got to his feet, disregarding his stick, leaning on a hand on the desk. “I’ll just... lift it.”

“No. I’m sorry, Mr. Chapin. You won’t touch it.”