The League of Frightened Men

Chapter 3

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...”

She shook her head. “Thank you.”

“I may have beer?”

“Please do.”

Wolfe did not lean back again. He said, “If the package could perhaps be opened? I am especially interested in that first warning.”

She began to untie the string. I got up to help. She handed me the package and I put it on Wolfe’s desk and got the paper off. It was a large cardboard letter-file, old and faded but intact. I passed it to Wolfe, and he opened it with the deliberate and friendly exactness which his hands displayed towards all inanimate things.

Evelyn Hibbard said, “Under I. My uncle did not call them warnings. He called them intimations.”

Wolfe nodded. “Of destiny, I suppose.” He removed papers from the file. “Your uncle is indeed a romantic. Oh yes, I say is. It is wise to reject all suppositions, even painful ones, until surmise can stand on the legs of fact. Here it is. Ah! Ye should have killed me, watched the last mean sigh. Is Mr. Chapin in malevolence a poet? May I read it?”

Wolfe sat with the paper in his hand, glancing from it to Miss Hibbard. “It would seem likely that Mr. Chapin pushed the judge over the edge of a cliff. Presumably impromptu. I presume also, totally unobserved, since no suspicions were aroused. There was a cliff around handy?”

“Yes. It was in Massachusetts, up near Marble-head. Last June. A crowd was there at Fillmore Collard’s place. Judge Harrison had come east, from Indiana, for commencement, for his son’s graduation. They missed him that night, and the next morning they found his body at the foot of the cliff, beaten among the rocks by the surf.”

“Mr. Chapin was among them?”

She nodded. “He was there.”

“But don’t tell me the gathering was for purposes of atonement. It was not a meeting of this incredible league?”

“Oh no. Anyway, Mr. Wolfe, no one ever quite seriously called it a league. Even Uncle Andrew was not—” she stopped short, shut her lips, stuck her chin up, and then went on, “as romantic as that. The crowd was just a crowd, mostly from the class of 1912, that Fillmore Collard had taken up from Cambridge. Seven or eight of the — well, league — were there.”

Wolfe nodded and regarded her for a moment, then got at the file again and began pulling things out of its compartments. He flipped through the sheets of a loose-leaf binder, glanced inside a record book, and shuffled through a lot of papers. Finally he looked at Miss Hibbard again:

“And this quasi-poetic warning came to each of them after they had returned to their homes, and astonished them?”

“Yes, a few days later.”

“I see. You know, of course, that Mr. Chapin’s little effort was sound traditionally. Many of the most effective warnings in history, particularly the ancient ones, were in verse. As for the merits of Mr. Chapin’s execution, granted the soundness of the tradition, it seems to me verbose, bombastic, and decidedly spotty. I cannot qualify as an expert in prosody, but I am not without an ear.”

It wasn’t like Wolfe to babble when business was on hand, and I glanced up wondering where he thought he was headed for. She was just looking at him. I had to cut my glance short, for he was going on:

“Further, I suspect him specifically, in his second stanza — I suppose he would call it stanza — of plagiarism. It has been many years since I have read Spenser, but in a crack of my memory not quite closed up there is a catalogue of beasts — Archie. If you wouldn’t mind, bring me that Spenser? The third shelf, at the right of the door. No, farther over — more yet — dark blue, tooled. That’s it.”

I took the book over and handed it to him, and he opened it and began skimming.

“The Shepheardes Calender, I am certain, and I think September. Not that it matters; even if I find it, a petty triumph scarcely worth the minutes I waste. You will forgive me, Miss Hibbard? Bulls that bene bate... Cocke on his dunghill... This wolvish sheepe would catchen his pray... no, certainly not that. Beasts here and there, but not the catalogue in my memory. I shall forgo the triumph; it isn’t here. Anyway, it was pleasant to meet Spenser again, even for so brief a nod.” He slid forward in his chair, to a perilous extreme, to hand the book to Miss Hibbard. “A fine example of bookmaking, worth a glance of friendship from you. Printed of course in London, but bound in this city by a Swedish boy who will probably starve to death during the coming winter.”

She summoned enough politeness to look at it, turn it over in her hand, glance inside, and look at the backbone again. Wolfe was back at the papers he had taken from the file. She was obviously through with the book, so I got up and took it and returned it to the shelf.

Wolfe was saying, “Miss Hibbard. I know that what you want is action, and doubtless I have tried your patience. I am sorry. If I might ask you a few questions?”

“Certainly. It seems to me—”

“Of course. Pardon me. Only two questions, I think. First, do you know whether your uncle recently took out any life insurance?”

She nodded impatiently. “But, Mr. Wolfe, that has nothing to do with—”

He broke in to finish for her, “With the totalitarian evil of Paul Chapin. I know. Possibly not. Was it a large amount of insurance?”

“I think so. Yes. Very large.”

“Were you the beneficiary?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. He told me you spoke to him of insurance. Then, about a week ago, he told me he had rushed it through and they had distributed it among four companies. I didn’t pay much attention because my mind was on something else. I was angry with him and was trying to persuade him... I suppose my sister Ruth and I were the beneficiaries.”

“Not Paul Chapin?”

She looked at him, and opened her mouth and closed it again. She said, “That hadn’t occurred to me. Perhaps he would. I don’t know.”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, a sentimental romantic might do that. Now, the second question. Why did you come to see me? What do you want me to do?”

She gave him her eyes straight. “I want you to find proof of Paul Chapin’s guilt, and see that he pays the penalty. I can pay you for it. You told my uncle ten thousand dollars. I can pay that.”

“Do you have a personal hostility for Mr. Chapin?”

“Personal?” She frowned. “Is there any other kind of hostility except personal? I don’t know. I hate Paul Chapin, and have hated him for years, because I loved my uncle and my sister Ruth loved him and he was a fine sensitive generous man, and Paul Chapin was ruining his life. Ruined his life... oh... now...”

“There, Miss Hibbard. Please. You did not intend to engage me to find your uncle? You had no hope of that?”

“I think not. Oh, if you do! If you do that... I think I have no hope, I think I dare not. But then—even if you find him, there will still be Paul Chapin.”

“Just so.” Wolfe sighed, and turned his eyes to me. “Archie. Please wrap up Miss Hibbard’s file for her. If I have not placed the contents in their proper compartments, she will forgive me. The paper and string are intact? Good.”

She was protesting, “But you will need that — I’ll leave it—”

“No, Miss Hibbard. I’m sorry. I can’t undertake your commission.”

She stared at him. He said, “The affair is in the hands of the police and the District Attorney. I would be hopelessly handicapped. I shall have to bid you good day.”

She found her tongue. “Nonsense. You don’t mean it.” She exploded, forward in her chair. “Mr. Wolfe, it’s outrageous! I’ve told you all about it... you’ve asked me and I’ve told you... the reason you give is no reason at all... why—”

He stopped her, with his finger wiggling and the quality in his voice, without raising it, that always got me a little sore because I never understood how he did it. “Please, Miss Hibbard. I have said no, and I have given you my reason. That is sufficient. If you will just take the package from Mr. Goodwin. Of course I am being rude to you, and on such occasions I always regret that I do not know the art of being rude elegantly. I have all the simplicities, including that of brusqueness.”

But he got up from his chair, which, though she didn’t know it, was an extraordinary concession. She, on her feet too, had taken the package from me and was mad as hell. Before turning to go, though, she realized that she was more helpless than she was mad. She appealed to him:

“But don’t you see, this leaves me... what can I do?”

“I can make only one suggestion. If you have made no other arrangements and still wish my services, and the police have made no progress, come to see me next Wednesday.”

“But that’s four whole days—”

“I’m sorry. Good day, Miss Hibbard.”

I went to open the door for her, and she certainly had completely forgotten about her eyelashes.

When I got back to the office Wolfe was seated again, with what I supposed Andrew Hibbard would have called the stigmata of pleasure. His chin was up, and he was making little circles with the tip of his finger on the arm of his chair. I came to a stop by his desk, across from him, and said:

“That girl’s mad. I would say, on a guess, she’s about one-fifth as mad as I am.”

He murmured, “Archie. For a moment, don’t disturb me.”

“No, sir. I wouldn’t for anything. A trick is okay, and a deep trick is the staff of life for some people, but where you’ve got us to at present is wallowing in the unplumbed depths of — wait a minute, I’ll look it up, I think it’s in Spenser.”

“Archie, I warn you, some day your are going to become dispensable.” He stirred a little. “If you were a woman and I were married to you, which God forbid, no amount of space available on this globe, to separate us, would put me at ease. I regret the necessity for my rudeness to Miss Hibbard. It was desirable to get rid of her without delay, for there is a great deal to be done.”

“Good. If I can help any—”

“You can. Your notebook, please. Take a telegram.”

I sat down. I wasn’t within a hundred miles of it, and that always irritated me. Wolfe dictated:

“Regarding recent developments and third Chapin warning you are requested to attend meeting this address nine o’clock Monday evening November fifth without fail. Sign it Nero Wolfe and address.”

“Sure.” I had it down. “Just send it to anybody I happen to think of?”

Wolfe had lifted up the edge of his desk blotter and taken a sheet of paper from underneath and was pushing it at me. He said, “Here are the names. Include those in Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington; those farther away can be informed later by letter. Also, make a copy of the list; two — one for the safe. Also—”

I had taken the paper from him and a glance showed what it was. I stared at him, and I suppose something in my face stopped him. He interrupted himself, “Reserve your disapproval, Archie. Save your fake moralities for your solitude.”

I said, “So that’s why you had me get the Spenser, so she would have something to look at. Why did you steal it?”

“I borrowed it.”

“You say. I’ve looked in the dictionary. That’s what I mean, why didn’t you borrow it? She would have let you have it.”

“Probably not.” Wolfe sighed. “I didn’t care to risk it. In view of your familiarity with the finer ethical points, you must realize that I couldn’t very well accept her as a client and then propose to others, especially to a group—”

“Sure, I see that all right. Now that the notion you entertained has drifted in on me, I’d have my hat off if I had one on. But she’d have let you have it. Or you could have got the dope—”

“That will do, Archie.” He got a faint tone on. “We shall at any rate be acting in her interest. It appears likely that this will be a complicated and expensive business, and there is no reason why Miss Hibbard should bear the burden alone. In a few minutes I shall be going upstairs, and you will be fairly busy. First, send the telegrams and copy the list. Then — take this, a letter to Miss Hibbard, sign my name and mail it this evening by special delivery: I find that the enclosed paper did not get back into your file this afternoon, but remained on my desk. I trust that its absence has not caused you any inconvenience. If you are still of a mind to see me next Wednesday, do not hesitate to call upon me.”

“Yes, sir. Send her the list.”

“Naturally. Be sure your copies are correct. Make three copies. I believe you know the home address of Mr. Higgam of the Metropolitan Trust Company?”

I nodded. “Up at Sutton—”

“Find him tomorrow and give him a copy of the list. Ask him to procure first thing Monday morning a financial report on the men listed. No history is required; their present standing is the point. For those in other cities, telegraph. We want the information by six o’clock Monday.”

“Hibbard’s name is here. Maybe the other dead ones.”

“The bank’s ingenuity may discover them, and not disturb their souls. Get in touch with Saul Panzer and tell him to report here Monday evening at eight-thirty. Durkin likewise. Find out if Gore and Cather and two others — your selection — will be available for Tuesday morning.”

I grinned. “How about the Sixty-first Regiment?”

“They will be our reserve. As soon as you have sent the telegrams, phone Miss Hibbard at her home. Try until you get her. Employ your charm. Make an appointment to call on her this evening. If you get to see her, tell her that you regret that I refused her commission, and that you have my leave to offer her your assistance if she wishes it. It will save time. It will afford you an opportunity to amass a collection of facts from her, and possibly even a glance through the papers and effects of Mr. Hibbard. Chiefly for any indication of an awareness on his part that he would not soon return. We are of course in agreement with some of the tendencies of the law; for instance, its reluctance to believe a man dead merely because he is not visible on the spot he is accustomed to occupy.”

“Yes, sir. Take my own line with her?”

“Any that suggests itself.”

“If I go up there I could take the list along.”

“No, mail it.” Wolfe was getting up from his chair. I watched him; it was always something to see. Before he got started for the door, I asked:

“Maybe I should know this, I didn’t get it. What was the idea asking her about the life insurance?”

“That? Merely the possibility that we were encountering a degree of vindictive finesse never before reached in our experience. Chapin’s hatred, diluted of course, extended from the uncle to the niece. He learned of the large sum she would receive in insurance, and in planning Hibbard’s murder planned also that the body would not be discovered; and the insurance money would not be paid her.”

“It would some day.”

“But even a delay in an enemy’s good fortune is at least a minor pleasure. Worth such a finesse if you have it in you. That was the possibility. And another one: let us say Chapin himself was the beneficiary. Miss Hibbard was sure he would kill her uncle, would evade discovery, and would collect a huge fortune for his pains. The thought was intolerable. So she killed her uncle herself — he was about to die in any event — and disposed of the body so that it could not be found. You might go into that with her this evening.”

I said, “You think I won’t? I’ll get her alibi.”