The League of Frightened Men By Rex Stout Also available in Large Print by Rex Stout: a , Fer-De-Lance ' j 77^ 7?^ Box , The Rubber Band Nero Wolfe i The League of Frightened Men ' By Rex Stout i * G.K.HALL&CO. Boston, Massachusetts 1981 05559 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stout, Rex, 18861975. The league of frightened men. At head of title: Nero Wolfe. Large print ed. "» 1. Large type books. I. Title. [PS3537.T733L4 1981] 813'.52 I 8029498 ISBN 0-8161-3255-9 ^ I U h 0 N T Q- PUBLIC ,LIBRARY^'«1---------------- ACQLHSIT'DNS " Copyright © 1935, 1963 by Rex Stout All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published in Large Print by arrangement with the estate of Rex Stout Set in Compugraphic 18 pt English Times by John Sullivan - ? .'& ' The League of Frightened Men By Rex Stout i 1 Wolfe and I sat in the office Friday afternoon. As it turned out, the name of Paul Chapin, and his slick and thrifty notions about getting vengeance at wholesale without paying for it, would have come to our notice pretty soon in - any event; but that Friday afternoon the | combination of an early November rain - and a lack of profitable business that had lasted so long it was beginning to be' painful, brought us an opening scene — a prologue, not a part of the main action — of the show that was about ready to begin. I Wolfe was drinking beer and looking at pictures of snowflakes in a book someone had sent him from Czechoslovakia. I was reading the morning paper, off and on. I had read it at breakfast, and glanced through it again for half an hour after checking accounts with Horstmann at eleven o'clock, and here I was with it once more in the middle of the rainy afternoon, thinking halfheartedly to find an item or two that would tickle the brain which seemed about ready to dry up on me. I do read books, but I never yet got any real satisfaction out of one; I always have a feeling there's nothing alive about it, it's all dead and gone, what's the use, you might as well try to enjoy yourself on a picnic in a graveyard. Wolfe asked me once why the devil I ever pretended to read a book, and I told him for cultural reasons, and he said I might as well forgo the pains, that culture was like money, it comes easiest to those who need it least. Anyway, since it was a morning paper and this was the middle of the afternoon, and I had already gone through it twice, it wasn't much better than a book and I was only hanging onto it as an excuse to keep my eyes open. •Wolfe seemed absorbed in the pictures. Looking at him, I said to myself, "He's in a battle with the elements. He's fighting his way through a raging blizzard, just sitting there comfortably looking at pictures of snowflakes. That's the advantage of being an artist, of having imagination." I said aloud, "You mustn't go to sleep, sir, it's fatal. You freeze to death." Wolfe turned a page, paying no attention to me. I said, "The shipment from Caracas, from Richardt, was twelve bulbs short. I never knew him to make good a shortage." ; Still no result. I said, "Fritz tells me that the turkey they sent is too old to broil and will be tough unless it is roasted two hours, which according to you will attenuate the flavor. So the turkey at* forty-one cents a pound will be a mess." Wolfe turned another page. I stared at him a while and then said, "Did you see the piece in the paper about the woman who has a pet monkey which sleeps at the head of her bed and wraps its tail around her wrist? And keeps it there all night? Did you see the one about the man who | found a necklace on the street and returned it to its owner and she claimed he stole two pearls from it and had him arrested? Did you see the one about the man on the witness-stand in a case about an obscene book, and the lawyer asked him what was his purpose in writing the book, and he said because he had committed a murder and all murderers had to talk about their crimes and that was his way of talking about it? Not that I get the idea, about the author's purpose. If a book's dirty it's dirty, and what's the difference how it got that way? The lawyer says if the author's purpose was a worthy literary purpose the obscenity don't matter. You might as well say that if my purpose is to throw a rock at a tin can it don't matter if I hit you in the eye with it. You might as well say that if my purpose is to buy my poor old grandmother a silk dress it don't matter if I grabbed the jack from a Salvation Army kettle. You might as well say —" I stopped. I had him. He did not lift his eyes from the page, his head did not move, there was no stirring of his massive frameilin the specially constructed enormous chair behind his desk: but I saw his right forefinger wiggle faintly — his minatory wand, as he once called it — and I knew I had him. He said: i "Archie. Shut up." I grinned. "Not a chance, sir. Great God, am I just going to sit here until I die? Shall I phone Pinkertons and ask if they want a hotel room watched or something? If you keep a keg of dynamite around the house you've got to expect some noise sooner or later. That's what I am, a keg of dynamite. Shall I go to a movie?" N» Wolfe's huge head tipped forward a, sixteenth of an inch, for him an emphatic nod. "By all means. At once." ip 1( I got up from my chair, tossed the newspaper halfway across the room to my desk, turned around, and sat down again. "What was wrong with my analogies?" I demanded. Wolfe turned another page. "Let us say," he murmured patiently, "that as an analogist you are supreme. Let us say that." "All right. Say we do. I'm not trying to pick a quarrel, sir. Hell no. I'm just breaking under the strain of trying to figure out a third way of crossing my legs. I've been at it over a week now." It flashed into my mind that Wolfe could never be annoyed by that problem, since his legs were so fat that there was no possibility of them ever getting crossed by any tactics whatever, but I decided not to mention that. I swerved. < "Just so. On one of those days a man came here and asked me to intercept his destiny. He didn't put it that way, but that was the substance of it. It proved not feasible to accept his commission ..." I had opened a drawer of my desk and taken out a loose-leaf binder, and I flipped through the sheets in it to the page I wanted. "Yes, sir. I've got it. I've read it twice. It's a bit spotty, the stenographer from Miller's wasn't so hot. He couldn't spell—" "The name was Hibbard." I nodded, glancing over the typewritten pages, "Andrew Hibbard. Instructor in psychology at Columbia. It was on October twentieth, a Saturday, that's two weeks ago today." "Suppose you read it." "Viva voce?'9 "Archie." Wolfe looked at me. "Where did you pick that up, where did you learn to pronounce it, and what do you think it means?" kj "Do you want me to read this stuff out loud, sir?" "It doesn't mean out loud. Confound you." Wolfe emptied his glass, leaned back in his chair, got his fingers to meet in front of his belly and laced them. "Proceed." "Okay. First there's a description of Mr. Hibbard. Small gentleman, around fifty f pointed nose, dark eyes —ff "Enough. For that I can plunder my memory." " ^ "Yes, sir. Mr. Hibbard seems to have started out by saying, How do you do, sir, my name is —" ^ ^ "Pass the amenities." r I glanced down the page. "How will this do? Mr. Hibbard said, / was advised to come to you by a friend whose name need not be mentioned, but the motivating force was plain funk. I was driven here by fear.lf ^ Wolfe nodded. I read from the typewritten sheets: Mr. Wolfe: Yes. Tell me about it. Mr. Hibbard: My card has told you, I am in the psychology department at Columbia. Since you are an expert, you probably observe on my face and in my bearing the stigmata of fright bordering on panic, o Mr. Wolfe: I observe that you are upset. I have no means of knowing whether it is chronic or acute. Mr. Hibbard: It is chronic. At least it is becoming so. That is why I have resorted to ... to you. I am under an intolerable strain. My life is in danger . . . no, not that, worse than that, my life has been forfeited. I admit it. Mr. Wolfe: Of course. Mine too, sir. All of us. Mr. Hibbard: Rubbish. Excuse me. I am not discussing original sin. Mr. Wolfe, I am going to be killed. A man is going to kill me. Mr. Wolfe: Indeed. When? How? ^ Wolfe put in, "Archie. You may delete the Misters." "Okay. This Miller boy was brought up right, he didn't miss one. Somebody told him, always regard your employer with respect forty-four hours a week, more or less, as the case may be. Well. Next we have: i§1 • • Hibbard: That I can't tell you, since I don't know. There are things about this / do know, also, which I must keep to myself. I can tell you . . . well . . . many years ago I inflicted an injury, a lasting injury, on a man. I was not alone, there were others in it, but chance made me chiefly responsible. At least I have so regarded it. It was a boyish prank . . . with a tragic outcome. I have never forgiven myself. Neither have the others who were concerned in it, at least most of them haven't. Not that I have ever been morbid about it — it was twenty-five years ago — I am a psychologist and therefore too involved in the morbidities of others to have room for any of my own. Well, we injured that boy. We ruined him. In effect. Certainly we felt the responsibility, and all through these twenty-five years some of us have had the idea of making up for it. We have acted on the idea — sometimes. You know how it is; we are busy men, most of us. But we have never denied the burden, and now and then some of us have tried to carry it. That was difficult, for pawn — that is, as the boy ^advanced into manhood he became increasingly peculiar. I learned that in the lower schools he had given evidence of talent, and certainly in college — that is to say, of my own knowledge, after the injury, he possessed brilliance. Later the brilliance perhaps remained, but became distorted. At a certain point — Wolfe interrupted me. "A moment. Go back a few sentences. Beginning that was difficult, for pawn — did you say pawn?" I found it. "That's it. Pawn. I don't get it." "Neither did the stenographer. Proceed." At a certain point, some five years ago, I decided definitely he was psychopathic. v Wolfe: You continued to know him then? Hibbard: Oh yes. Many of us did. Some of us saw him frequently; one or two associated with him closely. Around that time his latent brilliance seemed to find itself in maturity. He . . . well. . . he did things which aroused admiration and interest. Convinced as I was that he was psychopathic, I nevertheless felt less concern for him than I had for a long time, for he appeared to be genuinely involved in satisfactory — at least compensatory — achievement. The awakening came in a startling manner. There -was a reunion — a gathering — of a group of us, and one of us -was killed — died — obviously, we unanimously thought, by an accident. But he — that is, the man we had injured — was there; and a few days later each of us received through the mail a communication from him saying that he had killed one of us and that the rest would follow; that he had embarked on a ship of vengeance. Wolfe: Indeed. Psychopathic must have begun to seem almost an euphemism. Hibbard: Yes. But there was nothing we could do. Wolfe: Since you were equipped with evidence, it might not have proven hazardous to inform the police. P Hibbard: We had no evidence. Wolfe: The communication? Hibbard: They were typewritten, unsigned, and were expressed in ambiguous terms which rendered them worthless for practical purposes such as evidence. He had even disguised his style, very cleverly; it was not his style at all. But it was plain enough to us. Each of us got one; not only those who had been present at the gathering, but all of us, all members of the league. Of course -- Wolfe: The league? Hibbard: That was a slip. It doesn't matter. Many years ago, when a few of us were together discussing this, one -- maudlin, of course -- suggested that we should call ourselves the League of Atonement. The phrase hung on, in a way. Latterly it was never heard except in jest. Now I fancy the jokes are ended. I was going to say, of course all of us do not live in New York, only about half. One got his warning, just the same, in San Francisco. In New York a few of us got together and discussed it. We made a sort of an investigation, and we saw -- him, and had a talk with him. He denied sending the warnings. He seemed amused, in his dark soul, and unconcerned. | Wolfe: Dark soul is an odd phrase for a psychologist? H Hibbard: / read poetry weekends. Wolfe: Just so. And? Hibbard: Nothing happened for some time. Three months. Then another of us was killed. Found dead. The police said suicide, and it seemed that all indications pointed in that direction. But two days later a second warning was mailed to each of us, with the same purport and obviously from the same source. It was worded with great cleverness, with brilliance. Wolfe: This time, naturally, you went to the police.\ Hibbard: Why naturally? We were still without evidence. ; iy Wolfe: Only that you would. One or some of you would. \ Hibbard: They did. I was against it, but they did go — Wolfe: Why were you against it? Hibbard: I felt it was useless. Also . . . well. . . I could not bring myself to join in a demand for retribution, his life perhaps, from the man we had injured . . . you understand ... Wolfe: Quite. First, the police could find no proof. Second, they might. Hibbard: Very well. I was not engaged in an essay on logic. A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses. Wolfe: Good. Neat. And the police? Hibbard: They got nowhere. He made total asses of them. He described to me their questioning and his replies — ^ Wolfe: You still saw him? ^ r Hibbard: Of course. We -were friends. Oh yes. The police went into % it, questioned him, questioned all of us, investigated all they could, and came out empty-handed. Some of them, some of the group, got private detectives. That was two weeks, twelve days ago. The detectives are having the same success as the police. I'm sure of it. Wolfe: Indeed. What agency?^. ^"•l•'t Hibbard: That is irrelevant. The point is that something happened. I could speak of apprehensions and precautions and so forth, I know plenty of words of that nature, I could even frame the situation in technical psychological terms, but the plain fact is that I'm too scared to go on. I want you to save me from death. I want to hire you to protect my life. Wolfe: Yes. What happened? Hibbard: Nothing. Nothing of ^ significance except to me. He came to i; and said something, that's all. It w^ula^ of no advantage to repeat it. My sham^ admission is that I am at lem completely frightened. I'm afraid t^ g^ bed and I'm afraid to get up. Fm afr& to eat. I want whatever measure i security you can sell me. I am accu^tor^ to the arrangement of words, a^ ± necessity of talking intelligently to you ^ enforced a semblance of orde^- ^ urbanity in a section of my brai^ ^ around and beneath that order the^e iss veritable panic. After all my exploratki scientific and pseudo-scientific, of ^ extraordinary phenomenon, the hunss psyche, devil-possessed and h^av^ soaring, I am all reduced to this sim simple primitive concern: I am ferric afraid of being killed. The friend ^ suggested my coming here said thc^f ^ possess a remarkable combination ^ talents andi\ that you have only ^ [weakness. She did not call it cujJidih I forget her phrasing. I am i^ot \\ millionaire, but I have ample private means besides my salary, and I am in no state of mind for haggling. Wolfe: / always need money. That is of course my affair. I mil undertake to disembark this gentleman from his ship of vengeance, in advance of any injury to you, for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Hibbard: Disembark him? You can't. You don't know him. y Wolfe: Nor does he know me. A meeting can be arranged. Hibbard: I didn't mean — hah. It would take more than a meeting. It would take more, I think, than all your talents. But that is beside the point. I have failed to make myself clear. I would not pay ten thousand dollars, or any other sum, for you to bring this man to — justice? Ha! Call it justice. A word that reeks with maggots. Anyhow, I would not be a party to that, even in the face of death. I have not told you his name. I shall not. Already perhaps I have disclosed too much. I wish your services as a safeguard for myself, not as an agency for his destruction. 1 Wolfe: If the one demands the other? Hibbard: / hope not. I pray not . . . could I pray? No. Prayer has been washed ' from my strain of blood. Certainly I -would not expect you to give me a warrant | of security. But your experience and ingenuity — I am sure they would be worth whatever you might ask — , Wolfe: Nonsense. My ingenuity would be worth less than nothing, Mr. Hibbard. Do I understand that you wish to engage me to protect your life against the unfriendly designs of this man without taking any steps whatever to expose and . restrain him? ^01 ^ a. Hibbard: Yes, sir. Precisely. And I have been told that once your talents are - committed to an enterprise, any attempt to !• circumvent you will be futile. ?r Wolfe: / have no talents. I have genius or nothing. In this case, nothing. No, Mr. Hibbard; and I do need money. What you need, should you persist in your quixotism, is first, if you have dependents, generous life insurance; and second, a patient acceptance of the fact that your death is only a matter of time. That of course is true of all of us; we all share that disease with you, only yours seems to have reached a rather acute stage. My advice would be, waste neither time nor money on efforts at precaution. If he has decided to kill you, and if he possesses ordinary intelligence — let alone the brilliance you grant him — you will die. There are so many methods available for killing a fellow-being! Many more than there are for most of our usual activities, like pruning a tree or threshing wheat or making a bed or swimming. I have been often impressed, in my experience, by the ease and lack of bother with which the average murder is executed. Consider: with the quarry within reach, the purpose fixed, and the weapon in hand, it will often require up to eight or ten minutes to kill a fly, whereas the average murder, I would guess, consumes ten or fifteen seconds at the outside. In cases of slow poison and similar ingenuities death of course is lingering, but the act of murder itself is commonly quite brief. Consider again: there are certainly not more than two or three methods of killing a pig, but there are hundreds of ways to kill a man. If your friend is half as brilliant as you think him, and doesn't get in a rut as the ordinary criminal does, he may be expected to evolve a varied and interesting repertory before your league is half disposed of. He may even invent something new. One more point: it seems to me there is a fair chance for you. You may not, after all, be the next, or even the next or the next; and it is quite possible that somewhere along the line he may miscalculate or run into bad luck; or one of your league members, less quixotic than you, may engage my services. That would save you. I took my eyes from the sheet to look at Wolfe. "Pretty good, sir. Pretty nice. I'm surprised it didn't get him, he must have been tough. Maybe you didn't go far enough. You only mentioned poison really, you could have brought in strangling and bleeding and crushed skulls and convulsions —" "Proceed." I Hibbard: / will pay you five hundred dollars a week. Wolfe: I am sorry. To now my casuistry has managed a satisfactory persuasion that the money I have put in my bank has been earned. I dare not put this strain upon it. Hibbard: But . . . you -wouldn't refuse. You can't refuse a thing like this. My God. You are my only hope. I didn't realize it, but you are. < Wolfe: I do refuse. I can undertake to render this man harmless, to remove the threat — Hibbard: No. No! Wolfe: Very well. One little suggestion: if you take out substantial life insurance, which would be innocent of fraud from the legal standpoint, you should if possible manage so that when the event comes it cannot plausibly be given the appearance of suicide; and since you will not be aware of the event much beforehand you will have to keep your wit sharpened. That is merely a practical suggestion, that the insurance may not be voided, to the loss of your beneficiary. IB- Hibbard: But . . . Mr. Wolfe . . . look here . . . you can't do this. I came here . . . I tell you it isn't reasonable — I Wolfe stopped me. "That will do, Archie." I looked up. "There's only a little more." "I know. I find it painful. I refused that five hundred dollars — thousands perhaps — once; I maintained my position; your reading it causes me useless discomfort. Do not finish it. There is nothing further except Mr. Hibbard's confused protestations and my admirable steadfastness." "Yes, sir. I've read it." I glanced over the remaining lines. "I'm surprised you let . him go. After all —" 4 Wolfe reached to the desk to ring for Fritz, shifted a little in his chair, and settled back again. "To tell you the truth, | Archie, I entertained a notion." "Yeah. I thought so." "But nothing came of it. As you know, it takes a fillip on the flank for my mare to dance, and the fillip was not forthcoming. You were away at the time, and since your return the incident has not •been discussed. It is odd that you should have innocently been the cause, by mere chance, of its revival." <i I had to pour him another drink before the next customer arrived. This time it was a pair, Ferdinand Bowen, the stockbroker, and Dr. Loring A. Burton. I went to the hall for them to get away from Mike Ayers. Burton was a big fine-looking guy, straight but not stiff, well-dressed and not needing any favors, with dark hair and black eyes and a tired mouth. Bowen was medium-sized, and he was tired all over. He was trim in black and white, and if I'd wanted to see him any evening, which I felt I wouldn't, I'd have gone to the theater where there was a first night and waited in the lobby. He had little feet in neat pumps, and neat little lady-hands in neat little gray gloves. When he was taking his coat off I had to stand back so as not to get socked in the eye with his arms •swinging around, and I don't cotton to a guy with that sort of an attitude toward his fellowmen in confined spaces. Particularly I think they ought to be kept out of elevators, but I'm not fond of them anywhere. I took Burton and Bowen to the office | and explained that Wolfe would be down soon and showed them Mike Ayers. He called Bowen Ferdie and offered him a drink, and he called Burton Lorelei. Fritz brought in another one, Alexander Drummond the florist, a neat little duck with a thin mustache. He was the only one on the list who had ever been to Wolfe's house before, he having come a couple of years back with a bunch from an association meeting to look at the plants. I remembered him. After that they came more or less all together: Pratt the Tammany assemblyman, Adier and Cabot, lawyers, Kommers, sales manager from Philadelphia, Edwin Robert Byron, all of that, magazine editor, Augustus Farrell, architect, and a bird named Lee Mitchell, from Boston, who said he represented both Collard and Gaines the banker. He had a letter from Gaines. That made twelve accounted for, figuring both Collard and Gaines in, at ten minutes past nine. Of course they all knew each other, but it couldn't be said they were getting much gaiety out of it, not even Mike Ayers, who was going around with an empty glass in his hand, scowling. The others were mostly sitting with their funeral manners on. I went to Wolfe's desk and gave Fritz's button three short pokes. In a couple of minutes I heard the faint hum of the elevator. The door of the office opened and everybody turned their heads. Wolfe came in; Fritz pulled the door to behind him. He waddled halfway to his desk, stopped, turned, and said, "Good evening, gentlemen." He went to his chair, got the edge of the seat up against the back of his knees and his grip on the arms^ and lowered himself. ' ^ Mike Ayers demanded my attention by waving his glass at me and calling, "Hey! A eunuch and a camel!" Wolfe raised his head a little and said in one of his best tones, "Are you suggesting those additions to Mr. Chapin's catalogue | of his internal menagerie?" "Huh? Oh. I'm suggesting —" H George Pratt said, "Shut up, Mike," and Farrell the architect grabbed him and pulled him into a chair. I had handed Wolfe a list showing those who were present, and he had glanced • over it. He looked up and spoke. "I am glad to see that Mr. Cabot and Mr. Adier are here. Both, I believe, attorneys. Their knowledge and their trained minds will restrain us from vulgar errors. I note also the presence of Mr. Michael Ayers, a journalist. He is one of your number, so I merely remark that the risk of publicity, should you wish to avoid it —" Mike Ayers growled, "I'm not a journalist, I'm a newshound. I interviewed Einstein —" "How drunk are you?" ; "Hell, how do I know?" Wolfe's brow lifted. "Gentlemen?" Farrell said, "Mike's all right. Forget him. He's all right." Julius Adier the lawyer, about the build of a lead-pencil stub, looking like a necktie clerk except for his eyes and the way he was dressed, put in, "I would say yes. We realize that this is your house, Mr. Wolfe, and that Mr. Ayers is lit, but after all we don't suppose that you invited us here to censor our private habits. You Jiave something to say to us?" B "Oh, yes . . ." _ "My name is Adier." «Yes,^"Mr. Adier. Your remark illustrates what I knew would be the chief hindrance in my conversation with you gentlemen. I was aware that you would be antagonistic at the outset. You are all badly frightened, and a frightened man is hostile almost by reflex, as a defense. He suspects everything and everyone. I knew that you would regard me with suspicion." "Nonsense." It was Cabot, the other lawyer. "We are not frightened, and there is nothing to suspect you of. If you have anything to say to us, say it." I said, "Mr. Nicholas Cabot." Wolfe nodded. "If you aren't frightened, Mr. Cabot, there is nothing to discuss. I mean that. You might as well go home." Wolfe opened his eyes and let them move slowly across the eleven faces. "You see, gentlemen, I invited you here this evening only after making a number of assumptions. If any one of them is wrong, this meeting is a waste of time, yours and mine. The first assumption is that you are convinced that Mr. Paul Chapin has murdered two, possibly three, of your friends. The second, that you are apprehensive that unless something is done about it he will murder you. The third, that my abilities are equal to the task of removing your apprehension; and the fourth, that you will be willing to pay well for that service. Well?" They glanced at one another. Mike Ayers started to get up from his chair and Farrell pulled him back. Pratt muttered loud enough to reach Wolfe, "Good here." Cabot said: / "We are convinced that Paul Chapin is a dangerous enemy of society. That naturally concerns us. As to your abilities ..." v. Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. "Mr. Cabot. If it amuses you to maintain the fiction that you came here this evening to protect society, I would not dampen the diversion. The question is, how much is it | worth to you?" , ^ -Mike Ayers startled all of us with a sudden shout, "Slick old Nick!" and followed it immediately with a falsetto whine, "Nicky darling ..." Farrell poked him in the ribs. Someone grumbled, "Gag him." But the glances of two or three others in the direction of Cabot showed that Wolfe was right; the only way to handle that bird was to rub it in. A new voice broke in, smooth and easy. "What's the difference whether we're scared or not?" It was Edwin Robert Byron, the magazine editor. "I'd just as soon say I'm scared, what's the difference? It seems to me the point is, what does Mr. Wolfe propose to do about it? Grant him his premise —" "Grant hell." Mike Ayers got up, flinging his arm free of Farrell's grasp, and started for the table in the alcove. Halfway there he turned and blurted at them, "You're damned tootin' we're scared. We jump at noises and we look behind us and we drop things, you know damn well we do. All of you that didn't lay awake last night wondering how he got Andy and what he did with him, raise your hands. You've heard of our little organization, Wolfe you old faker? The League of Atonement? We're changing it to the Craven Club, or maybe the League of the White Feather." He filled his glass and lifted it; I didn't bother to call to him that he had got hold of the sherry decanter by mistake. "Fellow members! To the League of the White Feather!" He negotiated the drink with one heroic swallow. "You can make mine an ostrich plume." He scowled, and made a terrific grimace of disgust and indignation. "Who the hell put horse manure in that whiskey?" 4 - Farrell let out a big handsome guffaw, and Pratt seconded him. Drummond the florist was giggling. Bowen the stockbroker, u either bored or looking successfully like it, took out a cigar and cut off the end and lit it. I was over finding the right bottle for Mike Ayers, for I knew he'd have to wash the taste out of his mouth. Lee Mitchell of Boston got to his feet: ;w ' "If I may remark, gentlemen." He coughed. "Of course I am not one of you, but I am authorized to say that both Mr. Collard and Mr. Gaines are in fact apprehensive, they have satisfied themselves of the standing of Mr. Wolfe, and they are ready to entertain his suggestions." "Good." Wolfe's tone cut short the buzz of comment. He turned his eyes to me. "Archie. If you will just pass out those slips." I had them in the top drawer of my desk, twenty copies just in case, and I took them and handed them around. Wolfe had rung for beer and was filling his glass. After he had half emptied it he said:"-- I . - -i.^.' A^ "That, as you see, is merely a list of your names with a sum of money noted after each. I can explain it most easily by reading to you a memorandum which I have here ... or have I? Archie?" "Here it is, sir." a "Thank you. -- I have dictated it thus; it may be put into formal legal phrasing or not, as you prefer. I would be content to have it an initialed memorandum. For the sake of brevity I have referred to you, those whose names are on the list you have -- those absent as well as those present -- as the league. The memorandum provides: 1. / undertake to remove from the league all apprehension and expectation of injury from (a) Paul Chapin. (b) The person or persons who sent the metrical typewritten warnings. (c) The person or persons responsible for the deaths of Wm. R. Harrison and Eugene Dreyer, and for the disappearance of Andrew Hibbard. ( r ^ 2. Decision as to the satisfactory performance of the undertaking shall be made by a majority vote of the members of the league, n r. ^ , ry ^ 3. The expenses of the undertaking shall be borne by me, and in the event of my failure to perform it satisfactorily the league shall be under no obligation to pay them, nor any other obligation. 4. Upon decision that the undertaking has been satisfactorily performed, the members of the league will pay me, each the amount set after his name on the attached list; provided, that the members will be severally and jointly responsible for the payment of the total amount. ' p^: y^ ""' ; <(I believe that covers it. Of course, should you wish to make it terminable after a stated period --" Nicholas Cabot cut in, "It's preposterous. I won't even discuss it." Julius Adier said with a smile, "I think we should thank Mr. Wolfe's secretary for adding it up and saving us the shock. Fifty-six thousand, nine hundred and fifteen dollars. Well!" His brows went up and stayed up. Kommers, who had spent at 3 least ten bucks coming from Philadelphia, made his maiden speech, < < "That's it, you see. The effect is psychological. I learned a good deal about psychology from my friend Andy Hibbard." There were ejaculations. George Pratt stepped to Chapin and glared at him. Pratt's hands were working at his sides as he stammered, "You — you snake! If you weren't a goddam cripple I'd knock you so far I'll say you'd be harmless —" Chapin showed no alarm. "Yes, George. And what made me a goddam cripple?" Pratt didn't retreat. "I helped to, once. Sure I did. That was an accident, we all have 'em, maybe not as bad as yours. Christ, can't you ever forget it? Is there no man in you at all? Has your brain got twisted —" j "No. Man? No." Chapin cut him off, and smiled at him with his mouth. He looked around at the others. "You fellows are all men though. Aren't you? Every one. God bless you. That's an idea, depend on God's blessing. Try it. I tried it once. Now I must ask you to excuse me." He turned to Wolfe. "Good evening, sir. I'll go. Thank you for your courtesy. I trust I haven't put too great a strain on your intelligence." ^ He inclined his head to Wolfe and to me, turned and made off. His stick had thumped three times on the rug when he was halted by Wolfe's voice: "Mr. Chapin. I almost forgot. May I ask you for a very few minutes more? Just a small --" Nicholas Cabot's voice broke in, "For God's sake, Wolfe, let him go --" "Please, Mr. Cabot. May I, gentlemen? Just a small favor, Mr. Chapin. Since you are innocent of any ill intent, and as anxious as we are to see your friends' difficulties removed, I trust you will help me in a little test. I know it will seem nonsensical to you, quite meaningless, but I should like to try it. Would you help me out?" Chapin had turned. I thought he looked careful. He said, "Perhaps. What is it?" "Quite simple. You use a typewriter, I suppose?" "Of course. I type all my manuscripts myself." "We have a typewriter here. Would you be good enough to sit at Mr. Goodwin's desk and type something at my dictation?" ^Why should I?" He hesitated, and was certainly being careful now. He looked around and saw twelve pairs of eyes at him; then he smiled and said easily, "But | for that matter, why shouldn't I?" He limped back towards me. I pulled the machine up into position, inserted a sheet of paper, got up, and held my chair for him. He shook his head and I moved away, and he leaned his stick up against the desk and got himself into the chair, shoving his bum leg under with his hand. Nobody was saying a word. He looked around at Wolfe and said, "I'm not very fast. Shall I double-space it?" "I would say, single-space. In that way it will most nearly resemble the original. Are you ready?" Wolfe suddenly and unexpectedly put volume and depth into his voice: "Ye should have killed me — comma — watched the last mean sigh —ff There was complete silence. It lasted ten seconds. Then Chapin's fingers moved and the typewriter clicked, firm and fast. I followed the words on it. It got through the first three, but at the fourth it faltered. It stopped at the second / in killed, stopped completely. There was silence again. You could have heard a feather falling. The sounds that broke it came from Paul Chapin. He moved with no haste but with a good deal of finality. He pushed back, got himself onto his feet, took his stick, and thumped off. He brushed past me, and Arthur Kommers had to move out of his way. Before he got to the door he stopped and turned. He did 1 not seem especially perturbed, and his | light-colored eyes had nothing new in I them as far as I could see from where I was. He said, "I would have been glad to help in any authentic test, Mr. Wolfe, but I wouldn^t care to be the victim of a trick. I was referring, by the way, to intelligence, not to a vulgar and obvious cunning." He turned. Wolfe murmured, "Archie," and I went out to help him on with his coat and open the door for him. 7 When I got back to the office everybody was talking. Mike Ayers had gone to the table to get a drink, and three or four others had joined him. Dr. Burton stood with his hands dug into his pockets, frowning, listening to Farrell and Pratt. Wolfe had untwined his fingers and was showing his inner tumult by rubbing his nose with one of them. When I got to his desk Cabot the lawyer was saying to him: "I have an idea you'll collect your fees, Mr. Wolfe. I begin to understand your repute." < The taxi was still there. The driver wasn't winking any more; he just looked at me. I said, "Greetings." He said, <k I Chapin, probably because Bowen had J been one of the three who had hired the Bascom detectives, and Hibbard disapproved of it and didn't want to spoil the evening with an argument. I asked him, "Hibbard had a trading account with your firm?" He nodded. "For a long while, over ten years. It wasn't very active, mostly back and forth in bonds." "Yeah. I gathered that from the statements among his papers. You see, one thing that might help would be any evidence that when Hibbard left his apartment that Tuesday evening he had an idea that he might not be back again. I can't find any. I'm still looking. For instance, during the few days preceding his disappearance, did he make any unusual arrangements or give any unusual orders regarding his account here?" | Bowen shook the round thing that he used to grow his hair on. "No. I would have been told ... but I'll make sure." From a row on the wall behind him he pulled out a telephone, and talked into it. He waited a while, and talked some more. He pushed the phone back, and turned to me. "No, as I thought. There has been no transaction on Andy's account for over two weeks, and there were no instructions from him." I bade him farewell. That was a good sample of the steady progress I made that day in the search for Andrew Hibbard. It was a triumph. I found out as much from the other six guys I saw as I did from Ferdinand Bowen, so I was all elated when I breezed in home around dinner time, not to mention the fact that with the roadster parked on Ninetieth Street some dirty lout scraped the rear fender while I was in seeing Dr. Burton. I didn't feel like anything at all, not even like listening to the charming gusto of Wolfe's dinner conversation — during a meal he refused to remember that there was such a thing as a murder case in the world — so I was glad that he picked that evening to leave the radio turned on. After dinner we went to the office. Out of spite and bitterness I started to tell him about all the runs I had scored that afternoon, but he asked me to bring him the atlas and began to look at maps. There were all sorts of toys he was apt to begin playing with when he should have had his mind on business, but the worst of all was the atlas. When he got that out I gave up. I fooled around a while with the plant records and the expense account, then I closed my affairs for the night and went over to his desk to look him over. He was doing China! The atlas was a Gouchard, the finest to be had, and did China more than justice. He had the folded map opened out, and with his pencil in one hand and his magnifying glass in the other, there he was buried in the Orient. Without bothering to say good night to him, for I knew he wouldn't answer, I picked up his copy of Devil Take the Hindmost and went upstairs to my room, stopping in the kitchen for a pitcher of milk. B After I had got into pajamas and slippers I deposited myself in my most comfortable chair, under the reading lamp, with the milk handy on the little tile-top table, and took a crack at Paul |Chapin's book. I thought it was about •time I caught up with Wolfe. I flipped through it, and saw there were quite a few places he had marked — sometimes only a phrase, sometimes a whole sentence, occasionally a long passage of two or three paragraphs. I decided to concentrate on those, and I skipped around and took them at random: . . . not by the intensity of his desire, but merely by his inborn impulse to act; to do, disregarding all pale considerations . . . For Alan there was no choice in the matter, for he knew that the fury that spends itself in words is but the mumbling of an idiot, beyond the circumference of reality. I read a dozen more, yawned, and drank some milk. I went on: She said, "That's why I admire you . . . / don't like a man too squeamish to butcher his own meat.ff . . . and scornful of all the whining eloquence deploring the awful brutalities of war; for the true objection to war is not the blood it soaks into the grass and the thirsty soil, not the bones it crushes, not the flesh it mangles, not the warm nutritious viscera it exposes to the hunger of the innocent birds and beasts. These things have their beauty, to compensate for the fleeting agonies of this man and that man. The trouble with war is that its noble and quivering excitements transcend the capacities of our weakling nervous systems; we are not men enough for it; it properly requires for its sublime sacrifices the blood and bones and flesh of heroes, and what have we to offer? This little coward, that fat sniveler, all these regiments of puny cravens . . . There was a lot of that. I got through it, and went on to the next. Then some more. It got monotonous, and I skipped around. There were some places that looked interesting, some conversations, and a long scene with three girls in an apple orchard, but Wolfe hadn't done any marking there. Around the middle of the book he had marked nearly a whole chapter which told about a guy croaking two other guys by manicuring them with an axe, with an extended explanation of | how psychology entered into it. I thought that was a pretty good job of writing. Later I came across things like this, for instance: . . . for "what counted was not the worship of violence, but the practice of it. Not the turbulent and complex emotion, but the act. What had killed Art Billings and Curly Stephens? Hate? No. Anger? No. Jealousy, vengefulness, fear, enmity? No, none of these things. They had been killed by an axe, gripped by his fingers and melded by the muscles of his arm . . . At eleven o'clock I gave up. The milk was all gone, and it didn't seem likely that I would catch up with where Wolfe thought he was if I sat up all night. I thought I detected a hint here and there that the author of that book was reasonably bloodthirsty, but I had some faint suspicions on that score already. I dropped the book on the table, stretched for a good yawn, went and opened the window and stood there looking down on the street long enough to let the sharp cold air make me feel like blankets and hopped for the hay. Saturday morning I started out again. It was all stale bread to me, and I suppose I did a rotten job of it; if one of those guys had had some little fact tucked away that might have helped there wasn't much chance of my prying it loose, the way I was going about it. I kept moving anyhow. I called on Elkus, Lang, Mike Ayers, Adier, Cabot and Pratt. I phoned Wolfe at eleven o'clock and he had nothing to say. I decided to tackle Pitney Scott the taxi-driver. Maybe my wild guess that day had been right; there was a chance that he did know something about Andrew Hibbard. But I couldn't find him. I called up the office of his cab company, and was told that he wasn't expected to report in until four o'clock. They told me that his usual cruising radius was from Fourteenth to Fifty-ninth streets, but that he might be anywhere. I went down and looked around Perry Street, but he wasn't there. At a quarter to one I phoned Wolfe again, expecting to be invited home to lunch, and instead he handed me a hot °ne. He asked me to grab a bite somewhere and run out to Mineola for him. Ditson had phoned to say that he had a dozen bulbs of a new Miltonia just arrived from England, and had offered to give Wolfe a couple if he would send for them. The only times I ever really felt like turning Communist were the occasions when, in the middle of a case, Wolfe sent me chasing around after orchids. It made me feel too damn silly. But it wasn't as bad this time as usual, since the particular job I was on looked like a washout anyhow. It was cold and raw that Saturday afternoon, and kept trying to make out that it was going to snow, but I opened both windows of the roadster and enjoyed the air a lot and the Long Island traffic not at all. I got back to Thirty-fifth Street around three-thirty, and took the bulbs in the office to show them to Wolfe. He felt them and looked them over carefully, and asked me to take them upstairs to Hortsmann and tell him not to snip the roots. I went up, and came back down to the office, intending to stop only a minute to enter the bulbs in the record book and then beat it again to get Pitney Scott. But Wolfe, from his chair, said: "Archie." I knew from the tone it was the start of a speech, so I settled back. He went on: "Now and then I receive the impression that you suspect me of neglecting this or that detail of our business. Ordinarily you are wrong, which is as it should be. In the labyrinth of any problem that confronts us, we must select the most promising paths; if we attempt to follow all at once we shall arrive nowhere. In any art — and I am an artist or nothing — one of the deepest secrets of excellence is a discerning elimination. Of course that is a truism." "Yes, sir." a! "Yes. Take the art of writing. I am, let us say, describing the actions of my hero rushing to greet his beloved, who has just entered the forest. He sprang up from the log on which he had been sitting, with his ^ft foot forward; as he did so, one leg of his trousers fell properly into place but the other remained hitched up at the knee. He began running towards her, first his ^ght foot, then his left, then his right ^ain, then left, right, left, right, left, ^ht ... As you see, some of that can surely be left out — indeed, must be, if he is to accomplish his welcoming embrace in the same chapter. So the artist must leave out vastly more than he puts in, and one of his chief cares is to leave out nothing vital to his work." "Yes, sir." "You follow me. I assure you that the necessity I have just described is my constant concern when we are engaged in an enterprise. When you suspect me of neglect you are in a sense justified, for I do ignore great quantities of facts and impingements which might seem to another intelligence — let it go without characterization — to be of importance to our undertaking. But I should consider myself an inferior workman if I ignored a fact which the event proved actually to have significance. That is why I wish to make this apology to myself, thus publicly, in your hearing." I nodded. "I'm still hanging on. Apology for what?" ' "For bad workmanship. It may prove not to have been disastrous, it may even turn out of no importance whatever. But sitting here this afternoon contemplating my glories and sifting out the sins, it occurred to me, and I need to ask you about it. You may remember that on Wednesday evening, sixty-five hours ago, i i ' you were describing for me the contents of ( Inspector Cramer's bean." • I grinned. "Yeah." "You told me that it was his belief that Dr. Elkus was having Mr. Chapin •shadowed." "Yep." "And then you started a sentence; I think you said, But one of those clicks — Something approximating that. I was impatient, and I stopped you. I should not ' have done so. My impulsive reaction to •what I knew to be nonsense betrayed me into an error. I should have let you finish. Pray do so now." • I nodded. "Yeah, I remember. But since you've dumped the Dreyer thing into the ash can, what does it matter whether Elkus —" "Archie. Confound it, I care nothing about Elkus; what I want is your sentence about a dick. What dick? Where is he?" "Didn't I say? Tailing Paul Chapin." "One of Mr. Cramer's men." I shook my head. "Cramer has a man there too. And we've got Durkin and Gore and Keems, eight-hour shifts. This bird's an extra. Cramer wondered who was paying him and had him in for a conference, but he's tough, he never says anything but cuss words. I thought maybe he was Bascom's, but no." "Have you seen him?" "Yeah, I went down there. He was eating soup, and he's like you about meals, business is out. I waited on him a little, carried his bread and butter and so on, and came on home." "Describe him." "Well ... he hasn't much to offer to the eye. He weighs a hundred and thirty-five, five feet seven. Brown cap and pink necktie. A cat scratched him on the cheek and he didn't clean it up very well. Brown eyes, pointed nose, wide thin mouth but not tight, pale healthy skin." "Hair?" "He kept his cap on." Wolfe sighed. I noticed that the tip of his finger was doing a little circle on the arm of his chair. He said, "Sixty-five hours. Get him and bring him here at once." I got up. "Yeah. Alive or dead?" "By persuasion if possible, certainly with a minimum of violence, but bring him." "It's five minutes to four. You'll be in the plant-rooms." ; "Well? This house is comfortable. Keep him." I got some things from a drawer of my desk and stuffed them in my pockets, and beat it. • / sy 1 I 16 I was not ever, in the Chapin case or any other case, quite as dumb as the prosecution would try to make you believe if I was on trial for it. For instance, as I went out and got into the roadster, in spite of all the preconceptions that had set up housekeeping in my belfry, I wasn't doing any guessing as to the nature of _ the fancy notion Wolfe had plucked out of his contemplation of his sins. My _ guessing had been completed before I | left the office. On account of various considerations it was my opinion that he was cuckoo — I had told him that Cramer had had the dick in for a talk — but it was going to be diverting whether it turned out that he was or he wasn't. I drove to Perry Street and parked fifty feet down from the Coffee Pot. I had already decided on my tactics. Considering what I had learned of Pinkie's reaction to the diplomatic approach, it didn't seem practical to waste any time on persuasion. I walked to the Coffee Pot and glanced in. Pinkie wasn't there; of course it was nearly two hours till his soup time. I strolled back down the street, looking in at all the chances, and I went the whole long block to the next corner without a sign either of Pinkie, Fred Durkin, or anything that looked like a city detective. I went back again, clear to the Coffee Pot, with the same result. Not so good, I thought, for of course all the desertion meant that the beasts of prey were out trailing their quarry, and the quarry might stay out for a dinner and a show and get home at midnight. That would be enjoyable, with me substituting for Fred on the delicatessen sandwiches and Wolfe waiting at home to see what his notion looked like. \" I drove around the block to get the foadster into a better position for | surveying the scene, and sat in it and Waited. It was getting dark, and it got dark, and I waited. A little before six a taxi came along and stopped in front of 203. I tried to get a glimpse of the driver, having Pitney Scott on my mind, and made out that it wasn't him. But it was the cripple that got out. He paid, and hobbled inside the building, and the taxi moved off. I looked around, taking in the street and the sidewalk. Pretty soon I saw Fred Durkin walking up from the corner. He was with another guy. I climbed out to the sidewalk and stood there near a street light as they went by. Then I got back in. In a couple of minutes Fred came along and I moved over to make room for him. I said, "If you and the town dick want to cop a little expense money by pairing up on a taxi, okay. As long as nothing happens, then it might be your funeral." Durkin grinned. "Aw, forget it. This whole layout's a joke. If I didn't need the money —" "Yeah. You take the money and let me do the laughing. Where's Pinkie?" "Huh? Don't tell me you're after the runt again!" "Where is he?" "He's around. He was behind us on the ride just now — there he goes, look, the Coffee Pot. He must have gone down Eleventh. He takes chances. It's time for his chow." I had seen him going in. I said, "All right. Now listen. I'm going to funny up your joke for you. You and the town dick are pals." "Well, we speak." "Find him. Do they sell beer at that joint on the corner? — Okay. Take him there and quench his thirst. On expense. Keep him there until my car's gone from in front of the Coffee Pot. I'm going to * take Pinkie for a ride." 1 "No! I'll be damned. Keep his necktie for me." "All right. Let's go. Beat it." •He climbed out and went. I sat and waited. Pretty soon I saw him come out of ^he laundry with the snoop, and start off ^ the other direction. I stepped on the starter and pushed the gear lever, and ^lled along. This time I stopped right in ^ont of the Coffee Pot. I got out and went in. I saw no cop around. Pinkie was there, at the same table as before, with what looked like the same bowl of soup. I glanced at the other customers, on the stools, and observed nothing terrifying. I walked over to Pinkie | and stopped at his elbow. He looked up and said: n "Well, goddam it." Looking at him again, I thought there i was a chance Wolfe was right. I said, "Come on, Inspector Cramer wants to see you," and took bracelets out of one pocket and my automatic out of another. There must have been something in my eyes that made him suspicious, and 141 say the little devil had nerve. He said, "I don't believe it. Show me your goddam badge." | I couldn't afford an argument. I grabbed his collar and lifted him up out of his chair and set him on his feet. Then I snapped the handcuffs on him. I kept the gat completely visible and told him, "Get going." I heard one or two mutters from , the lunch counter, but didn't bother to look. Pinkie said, "My overcoat." I A grabbed it off the hook and hung it on my arm, and marched him out. He went nice. Instead of trying to hide the bracelets, like most of them do, he held his hands stuck out in front. The only danger was that a flatfoot might happen along outside and offer to help me, and the roadster wasn't a police car. But all I saw was curious citizens. I herded him to the car, opened the door and shoved him in, and climbed in after him. I had left the engine running, just in case of a hurry. I rolled off, got to Seventh Avenue, and turned north. I said, "Now listen. I've got two pieces of information. First, to ease your mind, I'm taking you to Thirty-fifth Street to call on Mr. Nero Wolfe. Second, if you open your trap to advertise anything, you'll go there just the same, only faster and more unconscious." < "Thank you, Henny, not now. Don't try it again, please don't, I really couldn't swallow. And the rest of you ... if you don't mind ... we wish to see Rose a few minutes. Just Rose." ? "But, mother, really —" "No, dear. Please, just a few minutes. Johnny, this is very nice of you. I appreciate it very much. Come here, i Rose." The kid blushed. "Aw, don't mention it, Mrs. Burton." They faded back through the door. The maid came and stood in front of us and tried some swallowing which didn't seem to work. Her face looked quite peculiar because it intended to be sympathetic but she was too shocked and scared, and it would have been fairly peculiar at any time with its broad flat nose and plucked eyebrows. Mrs. Burton told her I wanted to ask her some questions, and she looked at me as if she had been informed that I was going to sell her down the river. Then she stared at the pad on my knee and looked even worse. I said: " ^ ? "Rose. I know exactly what's in your mind. You're thinking that the other man wrote down your answers to his questions and now I'm going to do the same, and then we'll compare them and if they're not alike we'll take you to the top of the Empire State Building and throw you off. Forget that silly stuff. Come on, forget it. ^ By the way." I turned to Mrs. Burton: "Does Dora Chapin have a key to the | apartment?" "No." -^ ^ 'Okay. Rose, did you go to the door when Dora Chapin came this evening?" "Yes, sir." "You let her in and she was alone." ;i "Yes, sir." "When she left did you let her out?" "No, sir. I never do. Mrs. Kurtz don't either. She just went." •:-: ? "Where were you when she went?" "I was in the dining-room. I was there a long while. We weren't serving dinner, and I was dusting the glasses in there." "Then I suppose you didn't let Mr. Bowen out either. That was the man —" "Yes, sir, I know Mr. Bowen. No, I didn't let him out, but that was a long time before." ^ t ^ r "I know. All right, you let nobody out. Let's go back to in. You answered the door when Mr. Chapin came." 2 "Yes, sir." ^ ^ "Was he alone?" , " /, "Yes, sir." i, "You opened the door and he came in and you shut the door again." "Yes, sir." "Now see if you can remember this. It doesn't matter much if you can't, but maybe you can. What did Mr. Chapin say to you?" > She looked at me, and aside at Mrs. Burton, and down at the floor. At first I thought maybe she was trying to fix up a fake for an answer, then I saw that she was ^just bewildered at the terrible complexity of the problem I had confronted her with by asking her a question that couldn't be answered yes or no. I said, "Come on. Rose. You know, Mr. Chapin came in, and you took his hat and coat, and he said --" ^ %. ^ She looked up. <'1. " fVf: , 19 I haven't the slightest idea how long I sat there on the floor with my head laying in my hands trying to force myself out of it enough to pick up the telephone again. It may have been a minute and it may have been an hour. The trouble was that I should have been concentrating on the phone, and it kept sweeping over me that Wolfe was gone. I couldn't get my head out of my hands. Finally I heard a noise. It kept on and got louder, and at last it seeped into me that someone seemed to be trying to knock the door down. I grabbed the top of the telephone stand and pulled myself up, and decided I could keep my fet if I didn't let go of the wall, so I followed it around to the door where the noise was. I got my hands on it and turned the lock and the knob, and it flew open and down I went again. The two guys that came in walked on me and then stood and looked at me, and I heard remarks about full to the gills and leaving the receiver off the hook. By that time I could talk better. I said I don9! know what, enough so that one of them beat it for a doctor, and the other one helped me get up and steered me to the kitchen. He turned the light on. Scott had slewed off of his chair and curled up on the floor. My chair was turned over on its side. I felt cold air and the guy said something about the window, and I looked at it and saw the glass was shattered with a big hole in it. I never did learn what it was I had thrown through the window, maybe the plate of chicken; anyway it hadn't aroused enough curiosity down below to do any good. The guy stooped over Scott and shook him, but he was dead to the world. By working the wall again, and furniture, I got back to the dining-room and sat on the floor and began collecting my things and putting them in my pockets. I got worried because I thought something was missing and I couldn't figure out what it was, and then I realized it was the leather case Wolfe had given me, with pistols on one side and orchids on the other, that I carried my police and fire cards in. And by God I started to cry again. I was doing that when the other guy came back with the doctor. I was crying, and trying to push my knuckles into my temples hard enough to get my brain working on why Dora Chapin had fed me a knockout so she could frisk me and then took nothing but that leather case. ^ I had a fight with the doctor. He insisted that before he could give me anything he'd have to know just what it was I had inside of me, and he went to the bathroom to investigate bottles and boxes and I went after him with the idea of plugging him. I was beginning to have thoughts and they were starting to bust in my head. I got nearly to the bathroom when I forgot all about the doctor because I suddenly remembered that there had been something peculiar about Scott curled up on the floor, and I turned around and started for the kitchen. I was getting overconfident and fell down again, but I picked myself up and went on. I looked at Scott and saw what it was: he was in his shirt-sleeves. His gray taxi-driver's jacket was gone. I was trying to decide why that was important when the doctor came in with a glass of brown stuff in his hand. He said something and handed me the glass and watched me drink it, and then went over and knelt down by Scott. The stuff tasted bitter. I put the empty glass on the table and got hold of the guy who had gone for the doctor — by this time I recognized him as the elevator man — and told him to go downstairs and switch the Chapin phone in, and then go outside and see if Scott's taxi was at the curb. Then I made it through the diningroom again into the sitting-room and got into a chair by the telephone stand. I got the operator, and gave her the number. Fritz answered. I said, "This is Archie. What was it you told me a while ago about Mr. Wolfe?" "Why ... Mr. Wolfe is gone." I could hear him better, and I could tell he was trying not to let his voice shake. "He told me he was going to get you, and that he suspected you of trying to coerce him into raising your pay. He went —9f "Wait a minute, Fritz. Talk slow. What time is it? My watch says a quarter to seven." "Yes. That's right. Mr. Wolfe has been gone nearly four hours. Archie, where are you?" ^ "To hell with where I am. What happened? Someone came for him?" 'Yes. I went to the door, and a man handed me an envelope." "Was it a taxi-driver?" "Yes, I think so. I took the envelope to Mr. Wolfe, and pretty soon he came to the kitchen and told me he was going. Mr. Hibbard helped him into his coat, the brown one with the big collar, and I got his hat and stick and gloves —" "Did you see the taxi?" "Yes, I went out with Mr. Wolfe and opened the door of the cab for him. Archie, for God's sake, tell me what I can do —" |,i B "You can't do anything. Let me talk to Mr. Hibbard." "But Archie — I am so disturbed —" "So am I. Hold the fort, Fritz, and sit tight. Put Hibbard on." I waited, and before long heard Hibbard's hello. I said to him: "This is Archie Goodwin, Mr. Hibbard. Now listen, I can't talk much. When Nero Wolfe gets home again we want to be able to tell him that you've kept your word. You promised him to stay dead until Monday evening. Understand?" Hibbard sounded irritated. "Of course I understand, Mr. Goodwin, but it seems to me —" "For God's sake forget how it seems to you. Either you keep your word or you don't." "Well ... I do." "That's fine. Tell Fritz I'll call again as soon as I have anything to say." I hung up. The brown stuff the doctor had given me seemed to be working, but not to much advantage; my head was pounding like the hammers of hell. The elevator man had come back and was standing there. I looked at him and he said Scott's taxi was gone. I got hold of a in the phone again and called Spring 7-3100. Cramer wasn't in his office and they couldn't find him around. I got my wallet out of my pocket and with some care managed to find my lists of telephone numbers, and called Cramer's home. At first they said he wasn't there, but I persuaded them to change their mnds, and finally he came to the phone. I didn't know a cop's voice could ever sound so welcome to me. I told him where I was and what had happened to me, and said I was trying to remember what it was he had said that morning about doing a favor for Nero Wolfe. He said whatever it was he had meant it. I told him: "Okay, now's your chance. That crazy Chapin bitch has stole a taxi and she's got Nero Wolfe in it taking him somewhere. I don't know where and I wouldn't know even if my head was working. She got him four hours ago and she's had time to get to Albany or anywhere else. — No matter how she got him, I'll settle for that some other day. Listen, inspector, for God's sake. Send out a general for a brown taxi, a Stuyvesant, MO 29-6342. Got it down? Say it back. — Will you put the radios on it? Will you send it to Westchester and Long Island and Jersey? Listen, the dope I was cooking up was that it was her that croaked Doc Burton. By God, if I ever get my hands on her — What? I'm not excited. — Okay. Okay, inspector, thanks." : , 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 jhim 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-ninetwo-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 "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." r / "Okay." 'W 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 ft sore. Sore because I had phoned Cramer an SOS, sore because Wolfe was to hell 1 | I 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 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 I 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?" ^ c .1 "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 git. 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. Wolfe nodded at me. ^Good evening, Archie. I am relieved again. It occurred to me after I phoned you that you were probably in no condition to pilot a car through this confounded labyrinth. I am greatly relieved. — You have met Mrs. Chapin. — Sit down. You don9! look as if standing was very enjoyable." He lifted his glass of beer and took a couple of swallows. I saw the remains of some kind of a mess on his plate, but Dora Chapin had cleaned hers up. I moved his hat and stick off of a chair and sat down on it. He asked me if I wanted a glass of milk and I shook my head. He said: •< ,;< ,• ' • "And it's noon." I slid to my feet. "Look out, I might run into you." I started for the bathroom.? ? ^ I began soaping up, and he came to the bathroom door and said he had left instructions with Fritz for my breakfast. I told him I didn't want instructions, I wanted ham and eggs. He laughed again, and beat it. I was glad to hear him laugh, because it seemed likely that if there really were ice-picks sticking in my head he, being a doctor, would be taking them out instead of laughing at me. r I made it as snappy as I could with my dizziness, cleansing the form and assuming the day's draperies, and went downstairs in pretty good style but hanging onto the banister. Wolfe, in his chair, looked up and said good morning and asked me how I felt. I told him I felt like twin colts and went to my desk. He said: "But, Archie. Seriously. Should you be up?" "Yeah. Nor only should I be up, I should have been up. You know how it is, I'm a man of action." His cheeks unfolded. "And I, of course, am super-sedentary. A comical interchange of roles, that you rode home last evening from the Bronx River Inn, a matter of ten miles or more, with your head on my lap all the way." I nodded. "Very comical. I told you a long while ago, Mr. Wolfe, that you pay me half for the chores I do and half for listening to you brag." . —"So you did. And if I did not then remark, I do so now — but no. We can pursue these amenities another time, now there is business. Could you take some notes, and break your fast with our lunch? — Good. I spoke on the telephone this morning with Mr. Morley, and with the A ^^ District Attorney himself. It has been arranged that I shall see Mr. Chapin at the Tombs at two-thirty this afternoon. You will remember that on Saturday evening I was beginning to dictate to you the confession of Paul Chapin when we were interrupted by news from Fred Durkin which caused a postponement. If you will turn to that page we can go on. Pll have to have it by two o'clock." So as it turned out I not only didn't get to tie into the ham and eggs I had yearned for, I didn't even eat lunch with Wolfe and Hibbard. The dictating wasn't done until nearly one, and I had the typing to do. But by that time the emptiness inside had got to be a vacuum, or whatever it may be that is emptier than emptiness, and I had Fritz bring some hot egg sandwiches and milk and coffee to my desk. I wanted this typed just right, this document that Paul Chapin was to sign, and with my head not inclined to see the importance of things like spelling and punctuation I had to take my time and concentrate. Also, I wasted three minutes phoning the garage to tell them to bring the sedan around, for I supposed of course I would take Wolfe in it; but they said they already had instructions from Wolfe, and that the instructions included a driver. I thought maybe I ought to be sore about that, but decided not to. Wolfe ate a quick lunch, for him. When he came into the office at a quarter to two I barely had the thing finished and was getting the three copies clipped into brown folders. He took them and put them in his pocket and told me to take my notebook and started on the instructions for my afternoon. He explained that he had asked for a driver from the garage because I would be busy with other things. He also explained that on account of the possibility of visitors he had procured from Hibbard a promise that he would spend the entire afternoon in his room, until dinner time. Hibbard had gone there from the lunchtable. Fritz came to the door and said the car was there, and Wolfe told him he would be ready in a few minutes. I What gave me a new idea of the dimensions of Wolfe's nerve was the disclosure that a good part of the arrangements had been completed for a meeting of the League of the White Feather, in the office that evening at nine o'clock. Before he had seen Chapin at all! Of course I didn't know what Dora might have told him, except a couple of details that had been included in the confession, but it wasn't Dora that was supposed to sign on the dotted line, it was her little crippled husband with the light-colored eyes; and that was a job I was glad Wolfe hadn't bestowed on me, even if it did mean his sashaying out of the house twice in two days, which was an all-time record. But he had gone ahead and telephoned Boston and Philadelphia and Washington, and six or eight of them in New York, after we got home Sunday evening and from his room early that morning, and the meeting was on. My immediate job was to get in touch with the others, by phone if possible, and ensure as full an attendance as we could get. "'* He "gave me ^another one more immediate, just before he left. He told me to go and see Mrs. Burton at once, and dictated two questions to ask her. I suggested the phone, and he said no, it would be better if I saw the daughter and the maids also. Fritz was standing there holding his coat. Wolfe said: ^And I was almost forgetting that our guests will be thirsty. Fritz, put the coat down and come here, and we shall see what we need. — Archie, if you don't mind you had better start, you should be back by three. — Let us see, Fritz. I noticed last week that Mr. Cabot prefers Aylmer's soda —" ; • I beat it. I walked to the garage for the roadster, and the sharp air glistened in my lungs. After I got the roadster out into the light I looked it over and couldn't find a scratch on it, and it was then I reflected on miracles. I got back in and headed uptown. fl was worried about Wolfe. It looked to me like he was rushing things beyond reason. It was true that Andrew Hibbard's parole was up that evening, but probably he could have been persuaded to extend it, and besides it certainly wasn't vital to produce him at the meeting as a stunt. But it was like Wolfe not to wait until the confession was actually in the bag. That sort of gesture, thumbing his nose at luck, was a part of him, and maybe an important part; there were lots of things about Wolfe I didn't pretend to know. Anyhow, there was no law against worrying, and it didn't make my head feel any better to reflect on the outcome of the meeting that evening if Paul Chapin stayed mule. So that was what I reflected on, all the way to Ninetieth Street. Wolfe had said that both of the questions I was to ask Mrs. Burton were quite important. The first was simple: Did Dr. Burton telephone Paul Chapin between 6:50 and 7:00 o'clock Saturday evening and ask him to come to see him? The second was more complicated: At 6:30 Saturday evening a pair of gray gloves was lying on the table in the Burton foyer, near the end towards the double doors. Were the gloves removed between then and 7:20 by anyone in the apartment? g|I got a break. Everybody was home. The housekeeper had me wait in the drawingroom and Mrs. Burton came to me there. She looked sick, I thought, and had on a gray dress that made her look sicker, but the spine was still doing its stuff. The first question took about nine seconds; the answer was no, definitely. Dr. Burton had done no telephoning after 6:30 Saturday evening. The second question required more time. Mrs. Kurtz was out of it, since she hadn't been there. The daughter, having left before 6:30, seemed out of it too, but I asked Mrs. Burton to call her in anyhow, to make sure. She came, and said she had left no gloves on the foyer table and had seen none there. Mrs. Burton herself had not been in the foyer between the time she returned home around six, and 7:33 when the sound of the shots had taken her there on the run. She said she had left no gloves on that table, and certainly had removed none. She sent for Rose. Rose came, and I asked her if she had removed a pair of gloves from the foyer table between 6:30 and 7:20 Saturday evening. Rose looked at Mrs. Burton instead of me. She hesitated, and then she spoke: "No, ma'am, I didn't take the gloves. it was like Wolfe not to wait until the confession was actually in the bag. That sort of gesture, thumbing his nose at luck, was a part of him, and maybe an important part; there were lots of things about Wolfe I didn't pretend to know. Anyhow, there was no law against worrying, and it didn't make my head feel any better to reflect on the outcome of the meeting that evening if Paul Chapin stayed mule. So that was what I reflected on, all the way to Ninetieth Street. Wolfe had said that both of the questions I was to ask Mrs. Burton were quite important. The first was simple: Did Dr. Burton telephone Paul Chapin between 6:50 and 7:00 o'clock Saturday evening and ask him to come to see him? The second was more complicated: At 6:30 Saturday evening a pair of gray gloves was lying on the table in the Burton foyer, near the end towards the double doors. Were the gloves removed between then and 7:20 by anyone in the apartment? IS •I S01 a break. Everybody was home. The housekeeper had me wait in the drawingroom and Mrs. Burton came to me there. She looked sick, I thought, and had on a gray dress that made her look sicker, but the spine was still doing its stuff. The first question took about nine seconds; the answer was no, definitely. Dr. Burton had done no telephoning after 6:30 Saturday evening. The second question required more time. Mrs. Kurtz was out of it, since she hadn't been there. The daughter, having left before 6:30, seemed out of it too, but I asked Mrs. Burton to call her in anyhow, to make sure. She came, and said she had left no gloves on the foyer table and had seen none there. Mrs. Burton herself had not been in the foyer between the time she returned home around six, and 7:33 when the sound of the shots had taken her there on the run. She said she had left no gloves on that table, and certainly had removed none. She sent for Rose. Rose came, and I asked her if she had removed a pair of gloves from the foyer table between 6:30 and 7:20 Saturday evening. Rose looked at Mrs. Burton instead of me. She hesitated, and then she spoke: ^No, ma'am, I didn't take the gloves. But Mrs. Chapin—" She stopped. I said, "You saw some gloves there." "Yes, sir." . . r "When?" , "When I went to let Mrs. Chapin in." "Did Mrs. Chapin take them?" l "No, sir. That's when I noticed them, when she picked them up. She picked them up and then put them down again." "You didn't go back later and get them?" l "No, sir, I didn't." , , That settled that. I thanked Mrs. Burton, and left. I wanted to tell her that before tomorrow noon we would have definite news for her that might help a little, but I thought Wolfe had already done enough discounting for the firm and I'd better let it ride. - ^ It was after three when I got back to the office, and I got busy on the phone. There were eight names left for me, that Wolfe hadn't been able to get. He had told me the line to take, that we were prepared to mail our bills to our clients, the signers of the memorandum, but that before doing so we would like to explain to them in a body and receive their approval. Which again spoke fairly well for Wolfe's nerve, inasmuch as our clients knew damn well that it was the cops who had grabbed Chapin for Burton's murder and that we had had about as much to do with it as the lions in front of the library. But I agreed that it was a good line, since the object was to get them to the office. I was doing pretty well with my eight, having hooked five of them in a little over half an hour, when, at a quarter to four, while I was looking in the book for the number of the Players' Club, on the trail of Roland Erskine, the phone rang. I answered, and it was Wolfe. As soon as I heard his voice I thought to myself, uh-huh, here we go, the party's up the flue. But it didn't appear that that was the idea. He said to me: "Archie? What luck at Mrs. Burton's?" "All negatives. Burton didn't phone, and nobody took any gloves." "But perhaps the maid saw them?" "Oh. You knew that too. She did. She saw Mrs. Chapin pick them up and put them down again." A A t "Excellent. I am telephoning because I have just made a promise and I wish to redeem it without delay. Take Mr. Chapin's box from the cabinet, wrap it carefully, and convey it to his apartment and deliver it to Mrs. Chapin. I shall probably be at home by your return." "Okay. You got any news?" "Nothing startling." "I wouldn't expect anything startling. Let's try a plain straightforward question. Did you get the confession signed or didn't you?" u "I did." "It's really signed?" "It is. But I forgot to say: before you wrap Mr. Chapin's box take out a pair of gloves, gray leather, and keep them. Please get the box to Mrs. Chapin at once." ttr\^»-.r » 'Okay." I hung up. The fat devil had put it over. I had no idea what items of ammunition he had procured from Dora Chapin, and ^ of course he had the advantage that Chapin was already in the Tombs with a » first degree murder charge glued on him, but even so I handed it to him. I would say that that cripple was the hardest guy to deal with I had ever run across, except I the perfume salesman up in New Rochelle who used to drown kittens in the bathtub and one day got hold of his wife by mistake. I would have loved to see Wolfe inserting the needle in him. Wolfe had said without delay, so I let the last three victims wait. I wrapped the box up and drove down to Perry Street with it, removing a pair of gloves first in accordance with instructions and putting them in a drawer of my desk. I parked across the street from 203 and got out. I had decided on the proper technique for that delivery. I went across to where the elevator man was standing inside the entrance and said to him: "Take this package up to Mrs. Chapin on the fifth floor. Then come back here and I'll give you a quarter." He took the package and said, "The cop was sore as a boil yesterday when he found you'd gone. How're you feeling?" • "Magnificent. Run ahead, mister.^ He went, and came back, and I gave him a quarter. I asked him, "Did I break anything on your vertical buggy? The lever wouldn't work." He grinned about a sixteenth of an inch. "141 bet it wouldn't. Naw, you didn't break it." So I kept Wolfe's promise for him and got the package delivered without running any unnecessary risk of being invited in for tea, and all it cost me was two bits, which was cheap enough. Wolfe returned before I got back home. I knew that in the hall, seeing his hat and coat there. Since it was after four o'clock he would of course be upstairs with the plants, but all of his traipsing around had me nervous, and before going to the office I went up the three flights. I had hardly . seen the orchids for more than brief | glances for nearly a week. Wolfe was in the tropical room, going down the line looking for aphids, and from the expression on his face I knew he had found some. I stood there, and pretty soon he turned and looked at me as if I was either an aphid myself or had them all over me. There was no use attempting any conversation. I beat it downstairs to resume at the telephone. I only got two of the remaining three, couldn't find Roland Erskine anywhere. As it was, we had done pretty good. A telegram had come from Boston saying that Collard and Gaines would be there, and Mollison was coming down from New Haven. I suspected that Wolfe would have handled the long distance babies himself even if I hadn't been in bed. Wolfe didn't come to the office directly from the plant-rooms at six o'clock as usual. Apparently he had stopped in his room, for when he appeared around sixthirty he was lugging a stack of books and I saw they were Paul Chapin's novels. He put them on his desk and sat down and rang for beer. I told him Mrs. Chapin had the box, and read him the notes of my afternoon call on Mrs. Burton. He gave me some instructions for the evening, which I made notes of because he liked to have everything down, and then he got playful. He made a lot of random remarks and I took them like a gentleman, and then because it was getting on towards dinner I observed that it was about time I got acquainted with the mystery of the pair of gloves on the foyer table. To my surprise he agreed with me. He said: "That was the contribution of Mrs. Chapin. She furnished other information too, but nothing as interesting as that. She arrived at the Burton apartment, as you know, at six-thirty. The maid called Rose let her in. As she passed through the foyer she saw a pair of gloves on the table, and she stopped to pick them up. She says she intended to take them in to Mrs. Burton, but it would not be uncharitable to surmise that she had in mind starting a new treasure box for her husband; and that it is supported by the reasons she gives for returning the gloves to the table. She gives two reasons: that the maid had turned and was looking at her, and that the gloves seemed a little heavier than any she had known Mrs. Burton to wear. At any rate, she left them there. But when she went through the foyer, alone, on the way out, she thought to look at them again to satisfy herself whether they were Mrs. Burton's or not. The gloves were gone. She even looked around for them. They were gone." < They all looked, and I moved out of the ^ way so they could see it. Wolfe drank beer, and wiped his lips. He resumed: <