The League of Frightened Men

Chapter 12

I had a nice piece of leather of my own, not as big as Paul Chapin’s treasure box, but fancier. Sitting at my desk around five o’clock that Wednesday afternoon, killing time waiting for a visitor who had phoned, I took it out of my inside breast pocket and looked at it; I had only had it a couple of weeks. It was brown, ostrich-skin, and was tooled in gold all over the outside. On one side the tooling was fine lines about half an inch apart, with flowers stemming out from them; the flowers were orchids; the workmanship was so good that you could tell Wolfe had given the guy a Cattleya to work from. The other side was covered with Colt automatics, fifty-two perfect little gold pistols all aiming at the center. Inside was stamped in gold: A. G. from N. W. Wolfe had given it to me on October 23rd, at the dinner-table, and I didn’t even know he knew when my birthday was. I carried my police and fire cards in it, and my operator’s license. I might have traded it for New York City if you had thrown in a couple of good suburbs.

When Fritz came and said Inspector Cramer was there I put it back in my pocket.

I let Cramer get eased into a chair and then I went upstairs to the plant-rooms. Wolfe was at the potting-bench with Horstmann, spreading out some osmundine and leaning over to smell it; a dozen or so pots of Odontoglossums, overgrown, were at his elbow. I waited until he looked around, and I felt my throat drying up.

“Well?”

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?”

“What for? Just for a prank?”

“I’m not saying what for. That’s one thing we’re working on now. For instance, what if the pictures Dreyer sold Elkus were the real thing — it was six years ago — and Elkus put them away and substituted phonies for them, and then demanded his money back? We’re looking into that. The minute I get any evidence what for, I’ll arrange for some free board and room for Elkus and Chapin.”

“You haven’t got any yet.”

“No.”

I grinned. “Anyway, you’re working in a lot of nice complications. I’ll have to tell Wolfe about it; I hope to God it don’t bore him. Why don’t you just decide to believe it was suicide after all, and let it go at that?”

“Nothing doing. Especially since Hibbard disappeared. And even if I wanted to, George Pratt and that bunch wouldn’t let me. They got those warnings. I don’t blame them. Those things sound like business to me, even if they are dolled up. I suppose you’ve read them.”

I nodded. He stuck his paw in his breast pocket and pulled out some papers and began looking through them. He said, “I’m a damn fool. I carry copies of them around with me, because I can’t get rid of a hunch that there’s a clue in them somewhere, some kind of a clue, if I could find it. Listen to this one, the one he sent last Friday, three days after Hibbard disappeared:

“I ask you, does that sound like business?” Cramer folded it up again. “Did you ever see a guy that had been beaten around the head enough so that things were busted inside? Did you ever notice one? All right, get this: to suck the air in through the bubbling blood. Does that describe it? I’ll say it does. The man that wrote that was looking at it, I’m telling you he was looking right at it. That’s why, as far as Andrew Hibbard is concerned, all I’m interested in is stiffs. Chapin got Hibbard as sure as hell, and the only question is where did he put the leavings. Also, he got Dreyer, only with that one Elkus helped him.”

The Inspector stopped for a couple of pulls at his pipe. When that had been attended to he screwed his nose up at me and demanded, “Why, do you think it was suicide?”

“Hell no. I think Chapin killed him. And maybe Harrison, and maybe Hibbard. I’m just waiting to see you and Nero Wolfe and the Epworth League prove it on him. Also I’m annoyed about Elkus. If you get Elkus wrong you may gum it.”

“Uh-huh.” Cramer screwed his nose again. “You don’t like me after Elkus? I wonder if Nero Wolfe will like it. I hope not to gum it, I really do. I suppose you know Elkus has got a shadow on Paul Chapin? What’s he suspicious about?”

I lifted my brows a little, and hoped that was all I did. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“The hell you didn’t.”

“No. Of course you have one, and we have...” I remembered that I never had got hold of Del Bascom to ask him about the dick in the brown cap and pink necktie. “I thought that runt keeping the boys company down there was one of Bascom’s experts.”

“Sure you did. You didn’t know Bascom’s been off the case since yesterday morning. Try having a talk with the runt. I did, last night, for two hours. He says he’s got a goddam legal right to keep his goddam mouth shut. That’s the way he talks, he’s genteel. Finally I just shooed him away, and I’m going to find out who he’s reporting to.”

“I thought you said, Elkus.”

“That’s my idea. Who else could it be? Do you know?”

I shook my head. “Hope to die.”

“All right, if you do don’t tell me, I want to guess. Of course you realize that I’m not exactly a boob. If you don’t, Nero Wolfe does. I arrested a man once and he turned out to be guilty, that’s why I was made an inspector. I know Wolfe expects to open up this Mr. Chapin and get well paid for it, and therefore if I expected him to pass me any cards out of his hand I would be a boob. But I’ll be frank with you, in the past six weeks I’ve made so many grabs at this cripple without getting anything that I don’t like him at all and in fact I’d like to rip out his guts. Also, they’re giving me such a riding that I’m beginning to get saddle-sores. I would like to know two things. First, how far has Wolfe got?—Sure, I know he’s a genius. Okay. But has he got enough of it to stop that cripple?”

I said, and I meant it, “He’s got enough to stop any guy that ever started.”

“When? I won’t lose any sleep if he nicks Pratt for four grand. Can you say when, and can I help?”

I shook my head. “No twice. But he’ll do it.”

“All right. I’ll go on poking around myself. The other thing, you might tell me this, and I swear to God you won’t regret it. When Dora Chapin was here this morning did she tell Wolfe she saw nitroglycerin tablets in her husband’s pocket any time between September eleventh and September nineteenth?”

I grinned at him. “There are two ways I could answer that, inspector. One way would be if she had said it, in which case I would try to answer it so you couldn’t tell whether she had or not. The other way is the one you’re hearing: she wasn’t asked about it, and she said nothing about it. She just came here to get her throat cut.”

“Uh-huh.” Cramer got up from his chair. “And Wolfe started working on her from behind. He would. He’s the damnedest guy at getting in the back door... well. So-long. I’ll say much obliged some other day. Give Wolfe a Bronx cheer for me, and tell him that as far as I’m concerned he can have the money and the applause of the citizens in this Chapin case, and the sooner the better. I’d like to get my mind on something else.”

“I’ll tell him. Like to have a glass of beer?”

He said no, and went. Since he was an inspector, I went to the hall and helped him on with his coat and opened the door for him. At the curb was a police car, one of the big Cadillacs, with a chauffeur. Now, I thought, that’s what I call being a detective.

I went back to the office. It looked dismal and gloomy; it was nearly six o’clock and the dark had come over half an hour ago and I had only turned on one light. Wolfe was still upstairs monkeying with the plants; he wasn’t due down for seven minutes. I didn’t feel like sitting watching him drink beer, and had no reason to expect anything more pertinent out of him, and I decided to go out and find a stone somewhere and turn it up to see what was under it. I opened a couple of windows to let Cramer’s pipe-smoke out, got my Colt from the drawer and put it in my pocket from force of habit, went to the hall for my hat and coat, and beat it.