The League of Frightened Men

Chapter 13

I didn’t know Perry Street much, and was surprised when I walked up in front of number 203, across the street, having left the roadster half a block away. It was quite a joint, stucco to look like Spanish, with black iron entrance lamps and no fire escapes. On both sides were old brick houses. A few cars were parked along the block, and a couple of taxis. On my side of the street was a string of dingy stores: stationery, laundry, delicatessen, cigar store and so on. I moved along and looked in. At the delicatessen I stopped and went inside. There were two or three customers, and Fred Durkin was leaning against the end of the counter with a cheese sandwich and a bottle of beer. I turned around and went out, and walked back down to where the roadster was and got inside. In a couple of minutes Fred came along and climbed in beside me. He was still chewing and working his tongue in the corners. He asked me what was up. I said, nothing, I had just come down to gossip. I asked him:

“Where’s the other club members?”

He grinned. “Oh, they’re around. The city feller is probably in the laundry, I think he likes the smell. I suppose Pinkie is down at the next corner, in the Coffee Pot. He usually deserts his post around this time to put on the nose bag.”

“You call him Pinkie?”

“Oh, I can call him anything. That’s for his necktie. What do you want me to call him?”

I looked at him. “You’ve had one or ten drinks. What’s the big idea?”

“I swear to God I haven’t, Archie. I’m just glad to see you. It’s lonesome as hell around here.”

“You chinned any with this Pinkie?”

“No. He’s reticent. He hides somewhere and thinks.”

“Okay. Go on back to your pickle emporium. If you see any kids scratching their initials on my car, pat ’em on the head.”

Fred climbed out and went. In a minute I got out too, and walked down to the next corner, where if you was blind the smell would have told you Coffee Pot. I went in. There were three little tables along the wall, and half a dozen customers at the counter. Pinkie was there all right, along at one of the little tables, working on a bowl of soup, trying to get the spoon out of his mouth. He had his brown cap on, over one ear. I went over alongside his table and said to him, keeping my voice low:

“Oh, here you are.”

He looked up. I said, “The boss wants to see you right away. I’ll sit on the lid here a while. Make it snappy.”

He stared at me a couple of seconds, and then squeaked so that I nearly jumped. “You’re a goddam filthy liar.”

The little runt! I could have reached down and jerked his gold teeth out. I slid the other chair back with my toe and sat down and put my elbows on the table and looked at him, “I said, the boss wants to see you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He sneered at me with his mouth open, showing his gilded incisors. “You wouldn’t string a guy, would you, mister? By God, I’ll tell the goddam world you wouldn’t. Who was I talking to a while ago on the goddam telephone?”

I grinned. “That was me. Listen here a minute. I can see you’re tough. Do you want a good job?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’ve got one. If you’d just move your goddam carcass away from my table...”

“All right, I will. Go on and eat your soup, and don’t try to scare me with your bad manners. I might decide to remove your right ear and put it where the left one is, and hang the left one on your belt for a spare. Go on and eat.”

He dropped his spoon in the soup-bowl and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What the hell do you want, anyway?”

“Well,” I said, “I was having tea with my friend, Inspector Cramer, this afternoon, and he was telling me how much he enjoyed his talk with you last night, and I thought I’d like to meet you. That’s one story. Then another story might be that a certain guy whose name I needn’t mention has got the idea that you’re selling him out, and I’m supposed to find out, and I thought the quickest way was to ask you. How many people are you working for?”

“Of all the goddam curiosity!” He sucked something from between his teeth with his tongue. “Last night the goddam inspector, and now you. Hell, my soup’s getting cold.”

He got up from his chair and picked up the bowl and carried it ten feet to the table at the end. Then he came back for the bread and butter and glass of water and took them. I waited till he was through moving, then I got up and went to the end table and sat down across from him. I was sore because my nifty opening had gone wild. The counterman and the customers were watching us, but only to pass the time. I reached in my pocket and got out my roll and peeled off a pair of twenties.

“Look here,” I said, “I could spot you in a day or two, but it would cost both money and time, and I’d just as soon you’d get it. Here’s forty bucks. Half now if you tell me who’s paying you, and the other half as soon as I check it. I’ll find out, anyhow, this’ll just save time.”

I’ll be damned if he didn’t get up and pick up his soup again and start back for the first table. A couple of the customers began to laugh, and the counterman called out, “Hey, let the guy eat his soup, maybe he just don’t like you.” I felt myself getting sore enough to push in somebody’s nose, but I knew there was no profit in that, so I swallowed it and put on a grin. I picked up the runt’s bread and butter and water and took it down and set it in front of him. Then I went and tossed a dime on the counter and said, “Give him some hot soup and put poison in it.” Then I left.

I walked the block back to the roadster, not in a hurry. Fred Durkin was in the cigar store as I passed by. I had a notion to see him and tell him to keep an eye on his friend Pinkie and maybe catch him on a phone call or something, but knowing how his mind worked I thought it would be better to let it stay on his main job. I got in the roadster and headed uptown.

I couldn’t figure the runt at all. Was it possible that a dick that looked like that was as honest as that? Who was paying him enough to make him look at forty dollars like it was soap wrappers? Who was so particular about its not being known that he was having Paul Chapin tailed? The inspector’s idea didn’t seem to me to make sense, even if Leopold Elkus had helped out that day with Dreyer’s highball. Why would he put a shadow on Chapin? Of course it was possible, but my practice was to let the brain off easy on an idea until it got a little better than possible. If it wasn’t Elkus, who was it? It might have been any one of the bunch who was too scared for Wolfe’s memorandum to quiet him down and thought he needed his own reports of the cripple’s activities, but in that case why all the mystery? Driving uptown, I went over the list in my mind, without any results.

I put the roadster in the garage and walked home. It was nearly dinner time when I got there. Wolfe was in the office, at his desk. He was doing something. His beer tray had been pushed to one side, and he was leaning over a piece of paper, inspecting it with a magnifying glass, with the strong light turned on. He looked up to nod at me, and then resumed. There was a little pile of similar papers under a weight. The typewriting on the paper began, Ye should have killed me, watched the last mean sigh. It was the first warning.

Pretty soon he looked up again, and blinked. He put the magnifying glass on the table. I asked, “These are Farrell’s samples?”

“Yes. Mr. Farrell brought them ten minutes ago. He decided to get a specimen from each machine in Mr. Oglethorpe’s office. I have examined two, and discarded them — those marked with red pencil.” He sighed. “You know, Archie, it is remarkable how the shortening of the days at this time of year, the early darkness, seems to lengthen the period between luncheon and dinner. I suppose I have made that comment before.”

“Not very often, sir. Not more than once or twice a day.”

“Indeed. It deserves more. You haven’t washed.”

“No, sir.”

“There are two pheasants which should not be kept waiting.”

I went upstairs.

After dinner we worked together at Farrell’s samples; there were sixteen of them. He wasn’t so good at the typewriter; he had exed out a good deal, but for our purpose that didn’t matter. I brought a glass down from the plant-rooms and Wolfe went on with his. It didn’t matter which of the originals we used, so long as it wasn’t one of the carbons, since it had been definitely determined that they had all been written on the same machine. We did a thorough job of it, not finally eliminating one until we had both examined it. Wolfe loved that kind of work, every minute of it; when he had gone through a sample and made sure that the a wasn’t off the line and the n wasn’t cockeyed, he grunted with satisfaction. I liked it only when it got results. As we neared the bottom of the pile with the red pencil unanimous, I wasn’t getting any gayer.

Around ten o’clock I got up and handed the last one across to him, and then went to the kitchen and got a pitcher of milk. Fritz, sitting there reading the French paper, giggled at me: “You drink milk looking like that, you curdle it.” I stuck my tongue out at him and went back to the office. Wolfe had fastened the sheets together with a clip and was putting the originals back in the envelope.

I said, “Well. This has been a fine pregnant evening. Huh?” I drank some milk and licked my lips.

Wolfe leaned back and got his fingers twined. He kept his eyes nearly open. He finally remarked, “We have sacrificed it to Mr. Chapin’s adroitness, a tribute to him. And established a fact: that he did not type the warnings in his publisher’s office. But he did type them, and doubtless holds himself in readiness to type another; so the machine exists and can be found. I have already another suggestion ready for Mr. Farrell — a little complicated, but worth the experiment.”

“Maybe I could offer one. Tell him to get samples from the machines in Leopold Elkus’s office.”

Wolfe’s brows went up. “Why particularly Elkus?”

“Well, for one thing Inspector Cramer got the idea of having someone in Italy get in touch with Mr. Santini. Dumb idea, of course, but he got it. Santini says that he has remembered that after they all left the office that day Elkus went back for something and was in there alone for maybe half a minute. Plenty of time to drop some tablets into a highball.”

“But hardly enough to filch the bottle from Mr. Dreyer’s pocket and return it again, not to mention the dexterity required.”

“That’s all right. Chapin did that himself some time previously, maybe the week before, and gave them to Elkus.”

“Indeed. This was in the news reels?”

“It’s in Cramer’s bean. But it may also be in his bag one of these days. We would have to get a mirror and see how we look in it, if it turns out to be the dope and he bags it first. Another item is that Elkus has got a shadow on Chapin.”

“That likewise is in Mr. Cramer’s bean?”

“Yeah, likewise. But one of those dicks—”

“Archie.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. “I think it would be as well to correct your perspective. You must not let the oddities of this case perplex you to the point of idiocy. For instance, Inspector Cramer. He is an excellent man. In nine murder cases out of ten his services would be much more valuable than mine; to mention a few points only, I need to keep regular hours, I could not function even passably where properly chilled beer was not continually available, and I cannot run fast. If I am forced to engage in extreme physical effort, such as killing a snake, I am hungry for days. But it is utterly futile, in this case or any other case in which we are interested, to give consideration to the contents of Mr. Cramer’s bean. I supposed that in seven years you had learned that.”

“Sure. His bean’s out.” I waved it out with my hand. “But what about his facts? Such as Elkus going back alone to the office?”

Wolfe shook his head. “You see, Archie? The dizzy revolutions of Mr. Chapin’s cunning wheel of vengeance have hurled you off on a tangent. Consider what we have engaged to do under our memorandum: free our clients from fear of Paul Chapin’s designs. Even if it were possible to prove that Dr. Elkus poisoned Mr. Dreyer’s drink — which I strongly doubt — to what purpose should we attempt it? No; let us stick to the circumference of our own necessities and desires. Inspector Cramer might some day have a fact for us, as anyone might, there is no denying that, but he is welcome to this one. It is beyond our circle of endeavor.”

“Still I don’t see it. Look here. Say Elkus put the stuff in Dreyer’s glass. Of course Chapin was in on it, look at the second warning. How are you going to prove Chapin guilty of Dreyer’s murder unless you also prove how Elkus did his part?”

Wolfe nodded. “Your logic is impeccable. Your premise is absurd. I haven’t the slightest expectation of proving Chapin guilty of Dreyer’s murder.”

“Then what the devil—”

I got that much out before I realized exactly what he had said. I stared at him. He went on:

“It could not be expected that you should know Paul Chapin as I know him, because you have not had the extended and intimate association that I have enjoyed — through his books. He is possessed of a demon. A fine old melodramatic phrase. The same thing can be said in modern scientific terms, but it would mean no more and its flavor would be much impaired. He is possessed of a demon, but he is also, within certain limits, an extraordinarily astute man. Emotionally he is infantile — he even prefers a vicar to a substitute, when the original object is unattainable, as witness his taking Dora Ritter to proxy for her mistress. But his intellectual competence is such that it is problematical whether factual proof could ever be obtained of any act of his which he intended to remain anonymous.”

He stopped for some beer. I said, “If you mean you give up, you’re wasting a lot of time and money. If you mean you’re waiting for him to croak another one, and you’re tailing him to watch him do it, and he’s as smart as you say he is...”

I drank milk. Wolfe wiped his lips and went on: “Of course we have our usual advantage: we are on the offensive. And of course the place to attack the enemy is his weak spot; those are truisms. Since Mr. Chapin has an aversion to factual proof and has the intellectual equipment to preclude it, let us abandon the intellectual field, and attack him where he is weak. His emotions. I am acquainting you now with this decision which was made last Sunday. We are gathering what ammunition we may. Certainly facts are not to be sneered at; I need two more of them, possibly three, before I can feel confident of persuading Mr. Chapin to confess his guilt.”

Wolfe emptied his glass, I said, “Confess, huh? That cripple?”

He nodded. “It would be simple. I am sure it will be.”

“What are the three facts?”

“First, to find Mr. Hibbard. His meat and bone; we can do without the vital spark if it has found another errand. That, however, is more for the satisfaction of our clients and the fulfillment of the terms of our memorandum than for the effect on Mr. Chapin. That sort of fact will not impress him. Second, to find the typewriter on which he wrote the menacing verses. That I must have, for him. Third — the possibility — to learn if he has ever kissed his wife. That may not be needed. Given the first two, I probably should not wait for it.”

“And with that you can make him confess?”

“I should think so. I see no other way out for him.”

“That’s all you need?”

“It seems ample.”

I looked at him. Sometimes I thought I could tell how much he was being fanciful; sometimes I knew I couldn’t. I grunted. “Then I might as well phone Fred and Bill and Orrie and the others to come up and check out.”

“By no means. Mr. Chapin himself might lead us to the typewriter or the Hibbard meat and bone.”

“And I’ve been useful too. According to you. Why did you buy the gasoline I burned up yesterday and today if you decided Sunday night you couldn’t get the goods on him? It seems as if I’m like a piece of antique furniture or a pedigreed dog, I’m in the luxury class. You keep me on for beauty. Do you know what I think? I think that all this is just your delicate way of telling me that on the Dreyer thing you’ve decided I’m a washout and you think I might try something else. Okay. What?”

Wolfe’s cheeks unfolded a little. “Veritably, Archie, you are overwhelming. The turbulence of a Carpathian torrent. It would be gratifying if you should discover Mr. Hibbard.”

“I thought so. Forget Dreyer?”

“Let him rest in peace. At least for tomorrow.”

“A thousand dicks and fifteen thousand cops have been looking for Hibbard for eight days. Where shall I bring him when I find him?”

“If alive, here. If dead, he will care as little as I. But his niece will care, I presume, to her.”

“Do you tell me where to look?”

“Our little globe.”

“Okay.”

I went upstairs. I was riled. We had never had a case, and I suppose never will have, without Wolfe getting cryptic about it sooner or later; I was used to it and expected it, but it always riled me. In the Fairmont-Avery thing he had deliberately waited for twenty-four hours to close in on Pete Avery after he had him completely sewed up, just for the pleasure of watching me and Dick Morley of the D.A.’s office play fox-and-goose with that old fool that couldn’t find his ear trumpet. I suppose his awful conceit was one of the wheels that worked the machinery that got his results, but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable when I was doing the worrying for both of us. That Wednesday night I nearly took the enamel off of my teeth with the brush, stabbing with it at Wolfe’s conceit.

The next morning, Thursday, I had had my breakfast and was in the office by eight o’clock, taking another good look at the photograph of her uncle which Evelyn Hibbard had given to us. Saul Panzer had phoned and I had told him to meet me in the McAlpin lobby at eight-thirty. After I had soaked in all I could of the photograph I made a couple of phone calls, one to Evelyn Hibbard and one to Inspector Cramer. Cramer was friendly. He said that on Hibbard he had spread the net pretty wide. If a body of a man was washed up on the sand at Montauk Point, or found in a coal mine at Scranton, or smelled in a trunk in a Village roominghouse, or pulled out of a turnip pit in south Jersey, he would know about it in ten minutes, and would be asking for specifications. That satisfied me that there was no sense in my wasting time or shoe leather looking for a dead Hibbard; I’d better concentrate on the possibility of a live one.

I went to the McAlpin and talked it over with Saul Panzer. He, with his wrinkled little mug not causing any stranger to suspect how cute he was, and he could be pretty damn cute — he sat on the edge of a tapestry chair, smoking a big slick light-brown cigar that smelled like something they scatter on lawns in the early spring, and told me about it to date. It was obvious from the instructions Saul had been following, either that Wolfe had reached the same conclusion that I had, that if Hibbard had been croaked the police routine was the best and quickest way of finding him, or that Wolfe thought Hibbard was still alive. Saul had been digging up every connection Hibbard had had in and around the city for the past five years, every degree of intimacy, man, woman, and child, and calling on them. Since Hibbard had been an instructor at a large university, and also a sociable man, Saul hadn’t made much more than a start. I supposed that Wolfe’s idea was that there was a possibility that Chapin’s third warning was a fake, that Hibbard had just got too scared to breathe and had run off to hide, and that in that case he was practically certain to get in touch with someone he knew.

My heart wasn’t really in it. For my part, I believed the cripple, third warning and all. In the first place, Wolfe hadn’t said definitely that he didn’t; and secondly, I had known Wolfe to be wrong, not often, but more than once. When the event proved that he had been wrong about something, it was a delight to see him handle it. He would wiggle his finger a little more rapidly and violently than usual, and mutter with his eyes nearly open at me, “Archie, I love to make a mistake, to assume the burden of omniscience.”

But although I believed the cripple and was perfectly comfortable with the notion that Hibbard wasn’t using up any more air, I couldn’t see that there was anything better to be done than to smell around places where he had once been alive. I left the general list — neighbors, friends, pupils and miscellaneous — to Saul, and chose for myself the members of the League of the White Feather.

The Tribune office was only seven blocks away, so I called there first, but Mike Ayers wasn’t in. Next I went up on Park Avenue, to Drummond’s florist shop, and the little fat tenor was all ready for a talk. He wanted to know many things, and I hope he believed what I told him, but he had nothing to offer in exchange that helped me any. From there I went back down to Thirty-ninth Street to see Edwin Robert Byron the editor, and that was also empty. For over half an hour about all he found time for was “Excuse me” as he was reaching for the telephone. I was thinking, with all that practice, if he should happen to get fired as an editor he could step right in anywhere as a telephone girl.

When I was out working I was supposed to phone in at eleven o’clock, at which time Wolfe got down from the plant-rooms, to ask if there were any new instructions. Leaving Edwin Robert Byron’s office a little before eleven, I decided I might as well roll over to the house in person, since it was only a couple of blocks out of my way to the next call.

Wolfe wasn’t down yet. I went to the kitchen and asked Fritz if anyone had left a corpse on the stoop for us, and he said he didn’t think so. I heard the elevator and went to the office.

Wolfe was in one of his sighing moods. He sighed as he said good morning and he sighed as he got into his chair. It might have meant anything from one measly little orchid getting bugs on it up to a major relapse. I waited until he got his little routine chores done before trying to pass a couple of words.

Out of one of the envelopes in the morning mail he took some pieces of paper that looked familiar from where I stood. I approached. Wolfe looked up at me and back at the papers.

I asked, “What’s that, Farrell’s second edition?”

He handed me one of the sheets, a different size from the others. I read it:

Wolfe had already got his magnifying glass and was inspecting one of the samples. I felt my blood coming up to my head, which meant a hunch. I told myself to hang onto the aplomb, that there was no more reason to expect it of these than of the others, and there were only two chances. I stood and watched Wolfe. After a little he pushed the sheet aside and shook his head, and reached for the other one.

One more, I thought. If it’s that one he’s got one of his facts. I looked for an expression on his face as he examined it, but of course I might as well have saved my eyes the strain. He moved the glass along, intent, but a little too rapidly for me not to suspect that he had had a hunch too. At length he looked up at me, and sighed.

“No.”

I demanded, “You mean it’s not it?”

“No, I believe, is negative. No.”

“Let me see the damn things.”

He pushed them across and I got the glass and gave them a look. I didn’t need to be very thorough, after the practice I had had the night before. I was really almost incredulous, and sore as the devil, because in the detective business nothing is more important than to find your hunches good as often as possible. If you once get off of your hunches you might as well give up and go and get a job on the Homicide Squad. Not to mention that Wolfe had said that that typewriter was one of the two things he needed.

He was saying, “It is a pity Mr. Farrell has deserted us. I am not sure that my next suggestion should await his return; and he does not, by the way, mention his return.” He picked up the note from Farrell and looked at it. “I believe, Archie, that you had best abandon the Hibbard search temporarily—”

He stopped himself; and said in a different tone:

“Mr. Goodwin. Hand me the glass.”

I gave it to him. His using my formal handle when we were alone meant that he was excited almost beyond control, but I had no idea what about. Then I saw what he wanted the glass for. He was looking through it at the note from Farrell! I stared at him. He kept on looking. I didn’t say anything. A beautiful suspicion was getting into me that you shouldn’t ever ignore a hunch.

Finally Wolfe said, “Indeed.”

I held out my hand and he gave me the note and the glass. I saw it at a glance, but I kept on looking, it was so satisfactory to see that a off the line and a little to the left, and the n cockeyed, and all the other signs. I laid it on the table and grinned at Wolfe.

“Old Eagle Eye. Damn me for missing it.”

He said, “Take off your coat and hat, Archie. Whom can we telephone in Philadelphia to learn where an architect there in pursuit of a commission might possibly be found?”