Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

“You will see, I think.” Wolfe emptied his glass. “Naturally you do not know that Mr. Chapin has mailed verses to your friends stating explicitly that he killed you by clubbing you over the head.”

“Oh yes. I know that.”

“The devil you do. Who told you?”

“Pit. Pitney Scott.”

I gritted my teeth and wanted to bite myself. Another chance underplayed, and all because I had believed the cripple’s warning. Wolfe was saying:

“Then you did keep a bridge open.”

“No. He opened it himself. The third day I was around there I met him face to face by bad luck, and of course he recognized me.” Hibbard suddenly stopped, and turned a little pale. “By heaven — ha, there goes another illusion — I thought Pit...”

“Quite properly, Mr. Hibbard. Keep your illusion; Mr. Scott has told us nothing; it was Mr. Goodwin’s acuteness of observation, and my feeling for phenomena, that uncovered you.—But to resume: if you knew that Mr. Chapin had sent those verses, falsely boasting of murdering you, it is hard to see how you could keep your respect for him as an assassin. If you knew one of his murders, the latest one, to be nothing but rodomontade...”

Hibbard nodded. “You make a logical point, certainly. But logic has nothing to do with it. I am not engaged in developing a scientific thesis. There are twenty-five years behind this... and Bill Harrison, Gene Dreyer... and Paul that day in the courtroom... I was there, to testify to the psychological value of his book... It was on the day that Pit Scott showed me those verses about me sucking air in through my blood that I discovered that I wanted to kill Paul, and if I wanted it I intended it, or what the devil was I doing there?”

Wolfe sighed. “It is a pity. The back-seat driving of the less charitable emotions often makes me wonder that the brain does not desert the wheel entirely, in righteous exasperation. Not to mention their violent and senseless oscillations. Mr. Hibbard. Three weeks ago you were filled with horrified aversion at the thought of engaging me to arrange that Mr. Chapin should account legally for his crimes; today you are determined to kill him yourself. You do intend to kill him?”

“I think so.” The psychological runt put his whiskey glass on the desk. “That doesn’t mean that I will. I don’t know. I intend to.”

“You are armed? You have a weapon?”

“No. I... no.”

“You what?”

“Nothing. I should have said, he. He is physically a weakling.”

“Indeed.” The shadows on Wolfe’s face altered; his cheeks were unfolding. “You will rip him apart with your bare hands. Into quivering bloody fragments...”

“I might,” Hibbard snapped. “I don’t know whether you taunt me through ignorance or through design. You should know that despair is still despair, even when there is an intellect to perceive it and control its hysteria. I can kill Paul Chapin and still know what I am doing. My physical build is negligible, next to contemptible, and my mental equipment has reached the decadence which sneers at the blood that feeds it, but in spite of those incongruities I can kill Paul Chapin.—I think I understand now why it was such a relief to be able to talk again in my proper person, and I thank you for it. I think I needed to put this determination into words. It does me good to hear it.—Now I would like you to let me go. I can go on, of course, only by your sufferance. You have interfered with me, and frankly I’m grateful for it, but there is no reason—”

“Mr. Hibbard.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Permit me. The least offensive way of refusing a request is not to let it be made. Don’t make it.—Wait, please. There are several things you either do not know or fail to consider. For instance, do you know of an arrangement I have entered into with your friends?”

“Yes. Pit Scott told me. I’m not interested—”

“But I am. In fact I know of nothing else, at the moment, that interests me in the slightest degree; certainly not your recently acquired ferocity. Further, do you know that there, on Mr. Goodwin’s desk, is the typewriter on which Mr. Chapin wrote his sanguinary verses? Yes, it was at the Harvard Club; we negotiated a trade. Do you know that I am ready for a complete penetration of Mr. Chapin’s defenses, in spite of his pathetic bravado? Do you know that within twenty-four hours I shall be prepared to submit to you and your friends a confession from Mr. Chapin of his guilt, and to remove satisfactorily all your apprehensions?”

Hibbard was staring at him. He emptied his whiskey glass, which he had been holding half full, and put in on the desk, and stared at Wolfe again. “I don’t believe it.”

“Of course you do. You merely don’t want to. I’m sorry, Mr. Hibbard, you’ll have to readjust yourself to a world of words and compromises and niceties of conduct. I would be glad — well?”

He stopped to look at Fritz, who had appeared on the threshold. Wolfe glanced at the clock; it was seven-twenty-five. He said, “I’m sorry, Fritz. Three of us will dine, at eight o’clock. Will that be possible?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.—As I was saying, Mr. Hibbard, I would like to help make the readjustment as pleasant as possible for you, and at the same time serve my own convenience. The things I have just told you are the truth, but to help me in realizing the last one I shall need your co-operation. I mentioned twenty-four hours. I would like to have you remain here as my guest for that period. Will you?”

Hibbard shook his head, with emphasis. “I don’t believe you. You may have the typewriter, but you don’t have Paul Chapin as I do. I don’t believe you’ll get him to confess, ever in God’s world.”

“I assure you, I will. But that can be left to the event. Will you stay here until tomorrow evening, and communicate with no one? My dear sir. I will bargain with you. You were about to make a request of me. I counter with one of my own. Though I am sure twenty-four hours will do, let us allow for contingencies; make it forty-eight. If you will agree to stay under this roof incommunicado until Monday evening, I engage that at that time, if I have not done as I said and closed the Chapin account forever, you will be free to resume your whimsical adventure without fear of any betrayal from us. Do I need to add a recommendation of our discretion and intelligence?”

As Wolfe finished speaking Hibbard unaccountably burst into laughter. For a runt he had a good laugh, deeper than his voice, which was baritone but a little thin. When he had laughed it out he said, “I was thinking that you probably have an adequate bathtub.”

“We have.”

“But tell me this. I am still learning. If I refused, if I got up now to walk out, what would you do?”

“Well... you see, Mr. Hibbard, it is important to my plans that your discovery should remain unknown until the proper moment. Certain shocks must be administered to Mr. Chapin, and they must be well timed. There are various ways of keeping a desired guest. The most amiable is to persuade him to accept an invitation; another would be to lock him up.”

Hibbard nodded. “You see? What did I tell you? You see how people go ahead and do things they feel like doing? Miraculous!”

“It is indeed.—And now the bathtub, if we are to dine at eight. Archie, if you would show Mr. Hibbard the south room, the one above mine...”

I got up. “It’ll be clammy as the devil, it hasn’t been used... he can have mine...”

“No. Fritz has aired it and the heat is on; it has been properly prepared, even to Brassocattlaelias Truffautianas in the bowl.”

“Oh.” I grinned. “You had it prepared.”

“Certainly.—Mr. Hibbard. Come down when you are ready. I warn you, I am prepared to demonstrate that the eighth and ninth chapters of The Chasm of the Mind are mystic nonsense. If you wish to repel my attack, bring your wits to the table.”