Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

“If you would describe the urgency.”

“I’d rather not, on the telephone — but that’s silly. It’s my uncle, Andrew Hibbard, he went to see you two weeks ago, you may remember. He has disappeared.”

“Indeed. When?”

“Tuesday evening. Four days ago.”

“You have had no word of him?”

“Nothing.” The female Hibbard’s voice caught. “Nothing at all.”

“Indeed.” I saw Wolfe’s eyes shift to take in the clock — it was four minutes past one — and shift again towards the door to the hall, where Fritz stood on the threshold, straight for announcing. “Since ninety hours have passed, another one may be risked. At a quarter past two? Will that be convenient?”

“If you can’t... all right. I’ll be there.”

Two receivers were returned simultaneously to their racks. Fritz spoke as usual:

“Luncheon, sir.”

I’m funny about women. I’ve seen dozens of them I wouldn’t mind marrying, but I’ve never been pulled so hard I lost my balance. I don’t know whether any of them would have married me or not, that’s the truth, since I never gave one a chance to collect enough data to form an intelligent opinion. When I meet a new one there’s no doubt that I’m interested and I’m fully alive to all the possibilities, and I’ve never dodged the issue as far as I can tell, but I never seem to get infatuated. For instance, take the women I meet in my line of business — that is, Nero Wolfe’s business. I never run into one, provided she’s not just an item for the cleaners, without letting my eyes do the best they can for my judgment, and more than that, it puts a tickle in my blood. I can feel the nudge on the accelerator. But then of course the business gets started, whatever it may happen to be, and I guess the trouble is I’m too conscientious. I love to do a good job more than anything else I can think of, and I suppose that’s what shorts the line.

This Evelyn Hibbard was little and dark and smart. Her nose was too pointed and she took too much advantage of her eyelashes, but nobody that knew merchandise would have put her on a bargain counter. She had on a slick gray twill suit, with a fur piece, and a little red hat with a narrow brim on the side of her head. She sat straight without crossing her legs, and her ankles and halfway to her knees was well trimmed but without promise of any plumpness.

I was at my desk of course with my pad, and after the first couple of minutes got only glances at her in between. If worry about her uncle was eating her, and I suppose it was, she was following what Wolfe called the Anglo-Saxon theory of the treatment of emotions and desserts: freeze them and hide them in your belly. She sat straight in the chair I had shoved up for her, keeping her handsome dark eyes level on Wolfe but once in a while flapping her lashes in my direction. She had brought with her a package wrapped in brown paper and held it on her lap. Wolfe leaned back in his seat with his chin down and his forearms laid out on the arms of the chair; it was his custom to make no effort to join his fingers at the high point of his middle mound sooner than a full hour after a meal.

She said that she and her younger sister lived with their uncle in an apartment on One Hundred Thirteenth Street. Their mother had died when they were young. Their father was remarried and lived in California. Their uncle was single. He, Uncle Andrew, had gone out Tuesday evening around nine o’clock, and had not returned. There had been no word from him. He had gone out alone, remarking casually to Ruth, the younger sister, that he would get some air.

Wolfe asked, “This has no precedent?”

“Precedent?”

“He has never done this before? You have no idea where he may be?”

“No. But I have an idea... I think... he has been killed.”

“I suppose so.” Wolfe opened his eyes a little. “That would naturally occur to you. On the telephone you mentioned his visit to me. Do you know what its purpose was?”

“I know all about it. It was through my Mend Sarah Barstow that I heard of you. I persuaded my uncle to come to see you. I know what he told you and what you said to him. I told my uncle he was a sentimental romantic. He was.” She stopped, and kept her lips closed a moment to get them firm again; I looked up to see it. “I’m not. I’m hard-boiled. I think my uncle has been murdered, and the man who killed him is Paul Chapin, the writer. I came here to tell you that.”

So here was the notion Wolfe had entertained, coming right to his office and sitting on a chair. But too late? The five hundred a week had gone out to get some air.

Wolfe said, “Quite likely. Thank you for coming. But it might be possible, and more to the point, to engage the attention of the police and the District Attorney.”

She nodded. “You are like Sarah Barstow described you. The police have been engaged since Wednesday noon. They have been willing so far, at the request of the president of the university, to keep the matter quiet. There has been no publicity. But the police — you might as well match me at chess against Capablanca. Mr. Wolfe...” The fingers of her clasped hands, resting on the package on her lap, twisted a closer knot, and her voice tightened. “You don’t know. Paul Chapin has the cunning and subtlety of all the things he mentioned in his first warning, the one he sent after he killed Judge Harrison. He is genuinely evil... all evil, all dangerous... you know he is not a man...”

“There, Miss Hibbard. There now.” Wolfe sighed. “Surely he is a man, by definition. Did he indeed kill a judge? In that instance the presumption is of course in his favor. But you mentioned the first warning. Do you by any chance have a copy of it?”

She nodded. “I have.” She indicated the package. “I have all the warnings, including...” She swallowed. “… the last one. Dr. Burton gave me his.”

“The one after the apparent suicide.”

“No. The one... another one came this morning to them. I suppose to all of them; after Dr. Burton told me I telephoned two or three. You see, my uncle has disappeared... you see...”

“I see. Indeed. Dangerous. For Mr. Chapin, I mean. Any kind of a rut is dangerous in his sort of enterprise. So you have all the warnings. With you? In that package?”

“Yes. Also I have bundles of letters which Paul Chapin has at various times written to my uncle, and a sort of diary which my uncle kept, and a book of records showing sums advanced to Paul Chapin from 1919 to 1928 by my uncle and others, and a list of the names and addresses of the members — that is, of the men who were present in 1909 when it happened. A few other things.”

“Preposterous. You have all that? Why not the police?”

Evelyn Hibbard shook her head. “I decided not. These things were in a very private file of my uncle’s. They were precious to him, and they are now precious to me... in a different way. The police would get no help from them, but you might. And you would not abuse them. Would you?”

At the pause I glanced up, and saw Wolfe’s lips pushing out a little... then in, then out again... That excited me. It always did, even when I had no idea what it was all about. I watched him. He said, “Miss Hibbard. You mean you removed this file from the notice of the police, and kept it, and have now brought it to me? Containing the names and addresses of the members of the League of Atonement? Remarkable.”

She stared at him. “Why not? It has no information that they cannot easily obtain elsewhere — from Mr. Farrell or Dr. Burton or Mr. Drummond — any of them—”

“All the same, remarkable.” Wolfe reached to his desk and pushed a button. “Will you have a glass of beer? I drink beer, but would not impose my preferences. There is available a fair port, Solera, Dublin stout, Maderia, and more especially a Hungarian vin du pays which comes to me from the cellar of the vineyard. Your choice...”