Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

I hung up. Someone had come in and was standing there, and I looked up and saw it was a flatfoot wearing a silly grin, directed at me. He asked me something and I told him to take his shoes off to rest his brains. He made me some kind of a reply that was intended to be smart, and I laid my head down on the top of the telephone stand to get the range, and banged it up and down a few times on the wood, but it didn’t seem to do any good. The elevator man said something to the cop and he went towards the kitchen.

I got up and went to open a window and damn near fell out. The cold air was like ice. The way I felt I was sure of two things: first, that if my head went on like that much longer it would blow up, and second, that Wolfe was dead. It seemed obvious that after that woman once got him into that taxi there was nothing for her to do with him but kill him. I stood looking out onto Perry Street, trying to hold my head together, and I had a feeling that all of New York was there in front of me, between me and the house fronts I could see across the street — the Battery, the river fronts, Central Park, Flatbush, Harlem, Park Avenue, all of it — and Wolfe was there somewhere and I didn’t know where. Something occurred to me, and I held on to the window jamb and leaned out enough so I could see below. There was the roadster, where I had parked it, its fender shining with the reflection from a street light. I had an idea that if I could get down there and get it started I could drive it all right.

I decided to do that, but before I moved away from the window I thought I ought to decide where to go. One man in one roadster, even if he had a head on him that would work, wouldn’t get far looking for that taxi. It was absolutely hopeless. But I had a notion that there was something important I could do, somewhere important I could go, if only I could figure out where it was. All of a sudden it came to me that where I wanted to go was home. I wanted to see Fritz, and the office, and go over the house and see for myself that Wolfe wasn’t there, look at things...

I didn’t hesitate. I let go of the window jamb and started across the room, and just as I got to the hall the telephone rang. I could walk a little better. I went back to the telephone stand and picked up the receiver and said hello. A voice said:

“Chelsea-two three-nine-two-four? Please give me Mr. Chapin’s apartment.”

I nearly dropped the receiver, and I went stiff. I said, “Who is this?” The voice said:

“This is someone who wishes to be connected with Mr. Chapin’s apartment. Didn’t I make that clear?”

I let the phone down and pressed it against one of my ribs for a moment, not wanting to make a fool of myself. Then I put it up to my mouth again: “Excuse me for asking who it is. It sounded like Nero Wolfe. Where are you?”

“Ah! Archie. After what Mrs. Chapin has told me, I scarcely expected to find you operating an apartment house switchboard. I am much relieved. How are you feeling?”

“Swell. Wonderful. How are you?”

“Fairly comfortable. Mrs. Chapin drives staccato, and the jolting of that infernal taxicab... ah well. Archie. I am standing, and I dislike to talk on the telephone while standing. Also I would dislike very much to enter that taxicab again. If it is practical, get the sedan and come for me. I am at the Bronx River Inn, near the Woodlawn railroad station. You know where that is?”

“I know. I’ll be there.”

“No great hurry. I am fairly comfortable.”

“Okay.”

The click of his ringing off was in my ear. I hung up and sat down.

I was damn good and sore. Certainly not at Wolfe, not even at myself, just sore. Sore because I had phoned Cramer an SOS, sore because Wolfe was to hell and gone up beyond the end of the Grand Concourse and I didn’t really know what shape he was in, sore because it was up to me to get there and there was no doubt at all about the shape I was in. I felt my eyes closing and jerked my head up. I decided that the next time I saw Dora Chapin, no matter when or where, I would take my pocketknife and cut her head off, completely loose from the rest of her. I thought of going to the kitchen and asking the doctor for another shot of the brown stuff, but didn’t see how it could do me any good.

I picked up the phone and called the garage, on Tenth Avenue, and told them to fill the sedan with gas and put it at the curb. Then I got up and proceeded to make myself scarce. I would rather have done almost anything than try walking again, except go back to crawling. I made it to the hall, and opened the door, and on out to the elevator. There I was faced by two new troubles: the elevator was right there, the door standing wide open, and I didn’t have my hat and coat. I didn’t want to go back to the kitchen for the elevator man because in the first place it was too far, and secondly if the flatfoot found out I was leaving he would probably want to detain me for information and there was no telling how I would act if he tried it. I did go back to the hall, having left the door open. I got my hat and coat and returned to the elevator, inside, and somehow got the door closed, and pulled the lever, hitting down by luck. It started down and I leaned against the wall.

I thought I was releasing the lever about the right time, but the first thing I knew the elevator hit bottom like a ton of brick and shook me loose from the wall. I picked myself up and opened the door and saw there was a dark hall about two feet above my level. I climbed out and got myself up. It was the basement. I turned right, which seemed to be correct, and for a change it was. I came to a door and went through, and through a gate, and there I was outdoors with nothing between me and the sidewalk but a flight of concrete steps. I negotiated them, and crossed the street and found the roadster and got in.

I don’t believe yet that I drove that car from Perry Street to Thirty-sixth, to the garage. I might possibly have done it by caroms, bouncing back from the buildings first on one side of the street and then on the other, but the trouble with that theory is that next day the roadster didn’t have a scratch on it. If anyone is keeping a miracle score, chalk one up for me. I got there, but I stopped out in front, deciding not to try for the door. I blew my horn and Steve came out. I described my condition in round figures and told him I hoped there was someone there he could leave in charge of the joint, because he had to get in the sedan and drive me to the Bronx. He asked if I wanted a drink and I snarled at him. He grinned and went inside, and I transferred to the sedan, standing at the curb. Pretty soon he came back with an overcoat on, and got in and shoved off. I told him where to go and let my head fall back in the corner against the cushion, but I didn’t dare to let my eyes shut. I stretched them open and kept on stretching them every time I blinked. My window was down and the cold air slapped me, and it seemed we were going a million miles a minute in a swift sweeping circle and it was hard to keep up with my breathing.

Steve said, “Here we are, mister.”

I grunted and lifted my head up and stretched my eyes again. We had stopped. There it was, Bronx River Inn, just across the sidewalk. I had a feeling it had come to us instead of us to it. Steve asked, “Can you navigate?”

“Sure.” I set my jaw again, and opened the door and climbed out. Then after crossing the sidewalk I tried to walk through a lattice, and set my jaw some more and detoured. I crossed the porch, with cold bare tables around and no one there, and opened the door and went inside to the main room. There some of the tables had cloths on them and a few customers were scattered here and there. The customer I was looking for was at a table in the far corner, and I approached it. There sat Nero Wolfe, all of him, on a chair which would have been economical for either half. His brown greatcoat covered another chair, beside him, and across the table from him I saw the bandages on the back of Dora Chapin’s neck. She was facing him, with her rear to me. I walked over there.