Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 - The League of Frightened Men Read online

  This Saturday morning I finally had to admit that Fritz’s good humor was too much for me. By eleven o’clock I was back in the office trying to pretend there might be something to do if I looked for it, but I’m not much good at pretending. I was thinking, ladies and gentlemen, my friends and customers, I won’t hold out for a real case with worry and action and profit in it, just give us any old kind of a break. I’ll even tail a chorus-girl for you, or hide in the bathroom for the guy that’s stealing the toothpaste, anything this side of industrial espionage. Anything …

  Wolfe came in and said good morning. The mail didn’t take long. He signed a couple of checks I had made out for bills he had gone over the day before, and asked me with a sigh what the bank balance was, and gave me a few short letters. I tapped them off and went out with them to the mailbox. When I got back Wolfe was starting on a second bottle of beer, leaning back in his chair, and I thought I saw a look in his half-closed eyes. At least, I thought, he’s not back on the pretty snowflakes again. I sat at my desk and let the typewriter down.

  Wolfe said, “Archie. One would know everything in the world there is to know, if one waited long enough. The one fault in the passivity of Buddha as a technique for the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom is the miserably brief span of human life. He sat through the first stanza of the first canto of the preamble, and then left for an appointment with … let us say, with a certain chemist.”

  “Yes, sir. You mean, we just go on sitting here and we learn a lot.”

  “Not a lot. But more, a little more each century.”

  “You maybe. Not me. If I sit here about two more days I’ll be so damn goofy I won’t know anything.”

  Wolfe’s eyes flickered faintly. “I would not care to seem mystic, but might not that, in your case, mean an increase?”

  “Sure.” I grunted. “If you had not once instructed me never again to tell you to go to hell, I would tell you to go to hell.”

  “Good.” Wolfe gulped beer and wiped his lips. “You are offended. So, probably, awake. My opening remark was in the nature of a comment on a recent fact. You will remember that last month you were away for ten days on a mission that proved to be highly unremunerative, and that during your absence two young men were here to perform your duties.”

  I nodded. I grinned. One of the men had been from the Metropolitan Agency as Wolfe’s bodyguard, and the other had been a stenographer from Miller’s. “Sure. Two could handle it on a sprint.”

  “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?”

  “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?”

  “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, pointed nose, dark eyes—”

  “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.”

  I glanced down the page. “How will this do? Mr. Hibbard said, I 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.”

  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.

  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:

  Hibbard: That I can’t tell you, since I don’t know. There are things about this I 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 saw 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.

  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.

  Hibbard: W
e 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?

  Hibbard: I read poetry week-ends.

  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.

  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?

  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?

  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 any significance except to me. He came to me and said something, that’s all. It would be of no advantage to repeat it. My shameful admission is that I am at length completely frightened. I’m afraid to go to bed and I’m afraid to get up. I’m afraid to eat. I want whatever measure of security you can sell me. I am accustomed to the arrangement of words, and the necessity of talking intelligently to you has enforced a semblance of order and urbanity in a section of my brain, but around and beneath that order there is a veritable panic. After all my exploration, scientific and pseudo-scientific, of that extraordinary phenomenon, the human psyche, devil-possessed and heaven-soaring, I am all reduced to this single simple primitive concern: I am terribly afraid of being killed. The friend who suggested my coming here said that you possess a remarkable combination of talents and that you have only one weakness. She did not call it cupidity; I forget her phrasing. I am not a millionaire, but I have ample private means besides my salary, and I am in no state of mind for haggling.

  Wolfe: I always need money. That is of course my affair. I will 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.

  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.

  Wolfe: If the one demands the other?

  Hibbard: I 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?

  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.

  Wolfe: I 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.”

  Hibbard: I will pay you five hundred dollars a week.

  Wolfe: I am sor
ry. 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.

  Hibbard: But … Mr. Wolfe … look here … you can’t do this. I came here … I tell you it isn’t reasonable—

  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—”

  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.”