The League of Frightened Men

Chapter 9

Wednesday morning pretty early I was sitting in the kitchen, with the Times propped up in front of me but not really seeing it because I was busy in my mind mapping out the day, getting on towards the bottom of my second cup of coffee, when Fritz returned from a trip to the front door to say that Fred Durkin wanted to see me. One thing I hate to be disturbed at is my last two healthy swallows of morning coffee, so I nodded and took my time. When I got to the office Fred was sitting there scowling at his hat on the floor, where it had landed when he had tried to toss it so it would hook on the back of my chair. He always missed. I picked it up and handed it to him and said:

“A dollar even you can’t do it once out of ten tries.”

He shook his big Irish bean. “No time. I’m a workingman. I was just waiting for you to pick your teeth. Can I see Wolfe?”

“You know damn well you can’t. Up to eleven o’clock Mr. Nero Wolfe is a horticulturist.”

“Uh-huh. This is special.”

“Not special enough for that. Spill it to the Chief of Staff. Has the lop put dust in your eyes? Why aren’t you on his tail?”

“I don’t relieve Johnny until nine. I’ll be there.” Durkin grabbed his hat by the brim, squinted for an aim, tossed it at the back of my chair again, and missed it by a mile. He grunted with disgust. “Listen here, Archie. It’s a washout.”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Well, you put three of us on this to cover him twenty-four hours a day. When Wolfe spends money like that, that shows it’s important. He really wants this bird’s program. Also, you told us to use taxis all we needed to, and so on. Well, it’s a washout. Chapin lives in an apartment house at 203 Perry Street with six floors and an elevator. He’s on the fifth. The house has a big court in the back, with a couple of trees and some shrubs, and in the spring it’s full of tulips. The elevator boy told me three thousand tulips. But the idea is that there’s another house on the court, facing on Eleventh Street, built by the same landlord, and so what? Anybody that wants to can go out of the Perry Street house the back way instead of the front. They can cross the court and go through a passage and come out on Eleventh Street. Of course they could get back in the same way if they felt like it. So parked in a cigar store the other side of Perry Street with my eye fastened on 203, I feel about as useful as if I was watching one of the tunnel exits at the Yankee Stadium for a woman in a dark hat. Not that I’ve got any kick coming, my only trouble is my honest streak. I just wanted to see Wolfe and tell him what he’s paying me money for.”

“You could have phoned him last night.”

“I could not. I got lit last night. This is the first job I’ve had in a month.”

“Got any expense money left?”

“Enough for a couple of days. I’ve learned self-control.”

“Okay.” I picked his hat up and put it on my desk. “That’s a nice picture you’ve got down there. It’s no good. It looks to me like there’s no way out of it but three more men for Eleventh Street. That would be buying it, six tails for one cripple and—”

“Wait a minute.” Fred waved a hand at me. “That’s not all of it. The other trouble is that the traffic cop at the corner is going to run us in. For blocking the street. There’s too many of us, all after that cripple. There’s a city feller there, I guess from the Homicide Squad, I don’t recognize him, and a little guy with a brown cap and a pink necktie that must be one of Bascom’s men. I don’t recognize him either. But get this, for example. Yesterday afternoon a taxi drives up and stops in front of 203, and in a minute Chapin hobbles out of the building on his stick, and gets in the taxi. You should have seen the hustle around there. It was like Fifth Avenue in front of St. Patrick’s at one o’clock Sunday, only Perry Street is narrow. There was another taxi coming along and I beat the town dick to it by a jump and he had to run half a block to find one. Bascom’s pet got into one that apparently he had waiting. I had a notion to yell to Chapin to wait a minute till we got lined up, but it wasn’t necessary. It was all right, his driver went slow and none of us lost him. He went to the Harvard Club and stayed there a couple of hours and then stopped off at 248 Madison Avenue and then went back home and we all followed him. Honest to God, Archie. Three of us, but I was in front.”

“Yeah. It sounds swell.”

“Sure it was. I kept looking around to see if they was all right. My idea was this, it came to me while I was riding along. Why couldn’t we pal up? You get one more man and him and Bascom and the town dick could cover Eleventh Street and let us on Perry Street have a little peace. I suppose they’re on twelve hours now, maybe they’ve got reliefs, I don’t know. How’s that for an idea?”

“Rotten.” I got up and handed him his hat. “No good at all, Fred. Out. Wolfe’s not using any second-hand tailing. I’ll get three men from the Metropolitan and we’ll cover Eleventh Street. It’s a damn shame, because as I told you, Wolfe wants Chapin covered as tight as a drum. Get back on the job and don’t lose him. It sounds sad, the way you describe that traffic jam, but do the best you can. I’ll get in touch with Bascom and maybe he’ll call his dog off, I didn’t know he had any more money to spend. Run along now, I’ve got some errands you wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m not due till nine o’clock.”

“Run along anyway.—Oh, all right. One shot, just one. A quarter to a dime.”

He nodded, shifted in his seat to get good position, and let her go. It was a close call; the hat hung there on its edge for a tenth of a second, then toppled off. Durkin fished a dime out of his pocket and handed it to me, and beat it.

I thought at first I’d run up to Wolfe’s room and get his okay on covering Eleventh Street, but it was only eight-twenty and it always made me half-sick to see him in bed with that black silk cover drinking chocolate, not to mention that he would be sure to raise hell, so I got the Metropolitan Agency on the telephone and gave them the dope. I only ordered six-dollar men because it was nothing but a check anyway; I couldn’t see why Chapin should be trying to pull anything foxy like rear exits. Then I sat for a minute and wondered who was keeping Bascom on the job, and I thought I’d phone him on the chance of his spilling it, but nobody answered. All this had made me a little late on my own schedule, so I grabbed my hat and coat and went to the garage for the roadster.

I had collected a few facts about the Dreyer business in my wanderings the day before. Eugene Dreyer, art dealer, had been found dead, on the morning of Thursday, September 20, in the office of his gallery on Madison Avenue near Fifty-sixth Street. His body had been found by three cops, one a lieutenant, who had broken in the door on orders. He had been dead about twelve hours, and the cause had been nitroglycerin poisoning. After an investigation the police had pronounced it suicide, and the inquest had verified it. But on the Monday following, the second warnings arrived; everybody got one. We had several copies in Wolfe’s office, and they read like this:

Wolfe said it was better than the first one, because it was shorter and there were two good lines in it. I took his word for it.

Hell had popped right off. They forgot all about practical jokes and yelled to the cops and the D.A.’s office to come on back and nab him; suicide was out. When I got a description of the run-around that little poem had started, I was inclined to agree with Mike Ayers and cross out League of Atonement and make it the League of the White Feather. The only ones that hadn’t seemed to develop an acute case of knee-tremor were Dr. Burton and Leopold Elkus the surgeon. Hibbard had been as much scared as anyone, more if anything, but had still been against the police. Apparently he had been ready to go to bed with the willies, but also ready for the sacrifice. Elkus, of course, had been in on it, but I’m coming to that.

My date with Elkus that Wednesday morning was for nine-thirty, but I made an early start because I wanted to stop off at Fifty-sixth Street for a look at the Dreyer gallery where it had happened. I got there before nine. It wasn’t a gallery any more, but a bookstore. A middle-aged woman with a wart in front of her ear was nice to me and said of course I could look around, but there wasn’t much to be made of it because everything had been changed. The little room on the right, where the conference had taken place on a Wednesday evening and the body had been found the following morning, was still an office, with a desk and a typewriter and so on, but a lot of shelves had been put in that were obviously new. I called the woman over and she came in the office. I pointed at a door in the back wall and said:

“I wonder if you could tell me. Is that the closet where Mr. Eugene Dreyer kept the materials for mixing his drinks?”

She looked hazy. “Mr. Dreyer... oh... that’s the man...”

“The man that committed suicide in this room, yes, ma’am. I suppose you wouldn’t know.”

“Well, really...” She seemed startled. “I hadn’t realized it was right in this little room... of course I’ve heard about it...”

I said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and went back to the street and got in the roadster. People who quit living a year ago Christmas and haven’t found out about it yet give me a pain, and all I’ve got for them is politeness and damn little of that.

Leopold Elkus hadn’t quit living, I discovered when I got to him in his private room, but he was a sad guy. He was medium-sized, with a big head and big hands, and strong black eyes that kept floating away from you, not sideways or up or down but back into his head. He invited me to sit down and said in a friendly soft voice:

“Understand, Mr. Goodwin, I am seeing you only as a courtesy to my friends who have requested it. I have explained to Mr. Farrell that I will not support the enterprise of your employer. Nor will I lend any assistance.”

“Okay.” I grinned at him. “I didn’t come to pick a scrap, Dr. Elkus. I just want to ask some questions about September nineteenth, when Eugene Dreyer died. Questions of fact.”

“I have already answered any question you could possibly put. To the police several times, and to that incredibly ignorant detective...”

“Right. So far we agree. Just as a matter of courtesy to your friends, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t answer them once more, is there? To converse with the cops and Del Bascom and then draw the line at Nero Wolfe and me... well, that would be like...”

He smiled a sad smile. “Swallow a camel and strain at a gnat?” God that guy was sad.

“Yeah, I guess so. Only if you saw Nero Wolfe you wouldn’t call him a gnat.—It’s like this, Dr. Elkus. I know you won’t lend a hand to get the goods on Paul Chapin. But in this Dreyer business you’re my only source of firsthand information and so I had to get at you. I understand the other man, the art expert, has gone back to Italy.”

He nodded. “Mr. Santini sailed some time ago.”

“Then there’s only you. There’s no sense in my trying to ask you a lot of trick questions. Why don’t you just tell me about it?”

He smiled sad again. “I presume you know that two or three of my friends suspect me of lying to shield Paul Chapin?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

“No. I would neither shield him nor injure him, beyond the truth.—Here is the story, Mr. Goodwin. You know, of course, that Eugene Dreyer was an old friend of mine, a classmate in college. He was pretty successful with his art gallery before the depression. I bought things from him occasionally. I have never been under the necessity of pursuing success, since I inherited wealth. My reputation as a surgeon is a by-product of my conviction that there is something wrong with all human beings, beneath the surface. By chance I have a sure and skillful hand.”

I looked at his big hands folded on his lap, and nodded at his black eyes floating back into his head. He went on:

“Six years ago I gave Eugene Dreyer a tentative order for three Mantegnas — two small ones and a larger one. The price was one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. The paintings were in France. Paul Chapin happened to be in Europe at that time, and I wrote to ask him to look at them. After I received his report I ordered them. You know, I suppose, that for ten years Paul Chapin tried to be a painter. His work showed great sensitiveness, but his line was erratic and he had no feeling for form. It was interesting, but not good. I am told that he is finding himself in literature — I do not read novels.

“The paintings arrived at a time when I was overworked and had no leisure for a proper examination. I accepted them and paid for them. I was never happy with them; the friendly overtures which I made to those pictures from time to time, and there were many, were always repelled by them with an indelicacy, a faint harshness, which embarrassed and irritated me. I did not at first suspect them of imposture, I simply could not get along with them. But a few remarks made by expert persons finally aroused my suspicion. In September, nearly two months ago now, Enrico Santini, who knows Mantegna as I know the human viscera, visited this country. I asked him to look at my Mantegnas, and he pronounced them frauds. He further said that he knew their source, a certain talented swindler in Paris, and that it was not possible that any reputable dealer had handled them in good faith.

“I imagine it was the uncomfortable five years those pictures had given me, more than anything else, that caused me to act as I did with Dreyer. Ordinarily I am far too weak in my convictions to display any sort of ruthlessness, but on this occasion there was no hesitation in me at all. I told Eugene that I wished to return the pictures and receive my money back without delay. He said he had not the money, and I knew he hadn’t, since I had within a year lent him considerable sums to tide him over. Nevertheless, I insisted that he must find it or suffer the consequences. I suspect that in the end I would have weakened as usual, and agreed to any sort of compromise, but unfortunately it is a trick of my temperament now and then to show the greatest determination of purpose when the resolution is most likely to falter. Unfortunately also, Mr. Santini was about to return to Italy. Eugene demanded an interview with him; that, of course, was a bluff.

“It was arranged that I should call at five o’clock Wednesday afternoon with Mr. Santini and Paul Chapin. Paul was included on account of the inspection he had given the pictures in France. I surmised that Eugene had arranged for his support, but as it turned out that was probably incorrect. We arrived. Eugene’s suavity—”

I interrupted, “Just a minute, doctor. Did Paul Chapin get to the gallery before you did?”

“No. We arrived together. I was in my car, and called for him at the Harvard Club.”

“Had he been there earlier that afternoon?”

“My dear sir.” Elkus looked sad at me.

“Okay. You wouldn’t know that. Anyway, the girl there says he hadn’t.”

“So I understand. I was saying, Eugene’s suavity was painful, because of the nervousness it failed to hide. He mixed highballs for us, jerkily, not himself. I was embarrassed and therefore brusque. I asked Mr. Santini to make a statement and he did so; he had written it down. Eugene contradicted him. They argued; Eugene was somewhat excited but Mr. Santini remained cool. Finally Eugene called on Paul for his views, in obvious expectation of support. Paul smiled around at us, the smile that comes from his Malpighian capsules, and made a calm brief statement. He said that three months after his inspection of the pictures — a month after they had been shipped to New York — he had learned definitely that they had been painted by Vasseult, the greatest forger of the century, in 1924. That was the man Mr. Santini had named. Paul also said that he had kept silent about it because his affection for both Eugene and myself was so great that he could take no step that would injure either of us.

“I feared Eugene would collapse. He was plainly as astonished as he was hurt. I was of course embarrassed into silence. I do not know whether Eugene had in desperation swindled me, or whether he had himself been imposed upon. Mr. Santini rose. I did likewise, and we left. Paul Chapin came with us. It was noon the following day when I learned that Eugene had committed suicide by drinking nitroglycerin — apparently within a few minutes, at the most an hour, after we left. I learned it when the police arrived at my office to question me.”

I nodded, and sat and looked at him a while. Then all of a sudden I straightened up in my chair and shot at him, “What made you think it was suicide?”

“Now, Mr. Goodwin.” He smiled at me, sadder than ever. “Are all detectives alike? You know perfectly well why I thought it was suicide. The police thought so, and the circumstances indicated it.”

“My mistake.” I grinned. “I said no trick questions, didn’t I? If you’re willing to grant that a detective can have an idea in his mind, you know what mine is. Did Paul Chapin have any opportunity to put the nitroglycerin tablets in Dreyer’s highball? That ignorant detective, and all the bright cops, seem to have the impression that you think he didn’t.”

Dr. Elkus nodded. “I labored to produce that impression. You know of course that Mr. Santini agreed with me. We are perfectly certain that Paul had no such opportunity. He went to the gallery with us, and we all entered the office together. Paul sat at my left, near the door, at least six feet away from Eugene. He touched no glass but his own. Eugene prepared the drinks and handed them around; we had only one. Departing, Paul preceded me through the door. Mr. Santini was ahead.”

“Yeah. That’s on the record. But in a fracas like that, so much excitement, there must have been some moving around, getting up and sitting down, walking back and forth...”

“Not at all. We were not excited, except possibly Eugene. He was the only one who left his chair.”

“Did he change his coat, or put it on or anything, after you got there?”

“No. He wore a morning coat. He did not remove it.”

“The bottle with what was left of the nitroglycerin was found in the pocket of his coat.”

“So I understand.”

I sat back and looked at him again. I would have given the roadster and a couple of extra tires to know if he was lying. He was as much out of my class as Paul Chapin was. There was no way for me to get at him that I could see. I said:

“Will you have lunch with Mr. Nero Wolfe tomorrow at one o’clock?”

“I’m sorry. I shall be engaged.”

“Friday?”

He shook his head. “No. Not any day. You are in error regarding me, Mr. Goodwin. I am not a knot to be untangled or a nut to be cracked. Give up your hope that I am deceptive, as most men are; I am really as simple as I seem. Give up your hope, too, to demonstrate the guilt of Paul Chapin in the death of Eugene Dreyer. It is not feasible. I know it isn’t; I was there.”

“Could you make it Saturday?”

He shook his head and smiled, still sad. I got up from my chair and picked up my hat, and thanked him. But before I started for the door I said:

“By the way, you know that second warning Paul Chapin wrote — anyhow, somebody else wrote it. Is nitroglycerin oily and sweet-burning?”

“I am a surgeon, not a pharmacologist.”

“Well, try one guess.”

He smiled. “Nitroglycerin is unquestionably oily. It is said to have a sweet, burning taste. I have never tried it.”

I thanked him again and went out, and down to the street, and got in the roadster and stepped on the starter. As I rolled off downtown I was thinking that Dr. Leopold Elkus was exactly the kind of man that so often makes life a damn nuisance. I never yet have had any serious trouble with an out-and-out liar, but a man that might be telling the truth is an unqualified pain in the rumpus. And what with the Harrison line-up, and now this, I suspected that I began to perceive dimly that the memorandum Wolfe had concocted was going to turn out to be just a sheet of paper to be used for any purpose that might occur to you, unless we managed somehow to bust Elkus’s story wide open.

I had intended to stop off again at Fifty-sixth Street for another look at the Dreyer gallery, but after listening to Elkus I decided it would be a waste of time, considering how the place had been done over. I kept on downtown, headed for home. The best bet I could think of at the moment was a try at Santini. The police had only questioned him once on account of his sailing for Italy that Thursday night, and of course the warnings hadn’t been received yet and they had no particular suspicions. Wolfe had connections in several cities in Europe, and there was a smart guy in Rome who had turned in a good one on the Whittemore bonds. We could cable him and set him on Santini and maybe get a wedge started. I’d have to persuade Wolfe it was worth about ninety-nine dollars in transatlantic words.

It was a quarter to eleven when I got there. In the office the phone was ringing, so I went on in with my hat and coat on. I knew Wolfe would eventually answer it from upstairs, but I thought I might as well get it. It was Saul Panzer. I asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted to report. I asked him what, and he said, nothing, just report. I was sore at everything anyway, so I got sarcastic. I said if he couldn’t find Hibbard alive or dead, maybe he could rig up a dummy that would do. I said I had just got a smack in the eye on another angle of the case, and if he was no better than I was he’d better come on down to the office with a pinochle deck, and I hung up on him, which alone is enough to aggravate a nun.

It took me five minutes to dig the address of the Roman snoop out of the file. Wolfe came down on time, right at eleven. He said good morning, sniffed at the air, and got seated at his desk. I was impatient, but I knew I’d have to wait until he had glanced through the mail, fixed the orchids in the vase, tried his pen to see if it was working, and rung for beer. After that was all over he murmured at me:

“Had you thought of venturing forth?”

“I tiptoed out at eight-thirty and just got back. Saul just telephoned. Another nickel wasted. If you want to get puckered up, here’s a nice pickle to chew on.”

Fritz brought his beer and he poured a glass. I told him all about Elkus, every word of it, even that nitroglycerin was oily and sweet-burning. I thought if I gave him all of Elkus I could, he might get a notion. Then I handed him my own notion about the Roman. Right away, as I expected, he got restive. He blinked, and drank some more beer. He said:

“You can cable four thousand miles for a fact or an object, but not for a subtlety like this. As a last resort you or Saul Panzer might go to call on Mr. Santini in Florence; it might in the end be worth that chance.”

I tried an argument on him, for I couldn’t see any other move. I didn’t seem to be making much impression, but I kept on anyway, getting stubborn, because my main point was that it was only a matter of a hundred bucks. I was forgetting that I still had to tell him about the three Metropolitan men I had ordered for Eleventh Street. I got good and stubborn.

I was stopped in the middle of my stride by the sound of Fritz going down the hall to answer the doorbell. I didn’t try to pick it up again, but waited to see who it was.

Fritz stepped in and closed the door behind him. He said there was a lady there to see Wolfe. No card.

“Her name?”

Fritz shook his head; usually he was more correct. He looked uncertain.

“Show her in, Fritz.”

I felt uncertain too, when I saw her. They don’t come any uglier. She came in and stood looking straight at Wolfe, as if she was deciding how to do him over. At that she wasn’t really ugly, I mean she wasn’t hideous. Wolfe said it right the next day: it was more subtle than plain ugliness, to look at her made you despair of ever seeing a pretty woman again. Her eyes were rather small, gray, and looked as if they’d never move again when they got fixed. She had on a dark gray woolen coat with a hat to match, and an enormous gray furpiece was fastened around her neck. She sat down on the chair I pulled up for her and said in a strong voice:

“I had a hard time getting here. I think I’m going to faint.”

Wolfe said, “I hope not. A little brandy.”

“No.” She gave a little gasp. “No, thank you.” She put her hand up to the furpiece and seemed to be trying to reach under it, behind. “I’ve been wounded. Back there. I think you’d better look at it.”

Wolfe shot me a glance, and I went. She got the thing unfastened in front, and I pulled it around and lifted it off. I gave a gasp then myself. Not that I haven’t seen a little blood here and there, but not often that much, and it was so unexpected. The back of the furpiece, inside, was soaked. The collar of her coat was soaked too. She was a sight. It was still oozing out, plenty, from gashes across the back of her neck; I couldn’t tell how deep they were. She moved and it came out in a little spurt. I dropped the furpiece on the floor and said to her:

“For God’s sake keep still. Don’t move your head.” I looked at Wolfe and said, “Somebody’s tried to cut her head off. I can’t tell how far they got.”

She spoke to Wolfe: “My husband wanted to kill me.”

Wolfe’s eyes on her were half closed. “Then you’re Dora Ritter.”

She shook her head, and the blood started, and I told her to quit. She said, “I am Dora Chapin. I have been married three years.”