The League of Frightened Men Read online

  "He was a freshman."

  Cabot nodded. "Paul had a personality, a force in him, already at that age. Maybe he was already distorted. I'm not a | psychiatrist. Andy Hibbard has told me … but that wouldn't help you any.

  Anyway, we had been inclined to let him alone. Now, here he was delivered to us by chance. Somebody told him what was expected of him. He was quite cool about it. He asked what floor Andy's room was on, and we told him the fourth, three flights up. He said he was sorry, in that | case he couldn't do it. Ferd Bowen said to him, 'What's the matter, you're not a cripple, are you?' He said he was perfectly sound. Bill Harrison, who was seriousminded in his cradle, asked him if he had vertigo. He said no. We marched him upstairs. Ordinarily not more than a dozen or so would probably have gone up to see ^^ – - ' ^^^^H the fun, but on account of the way he was taking it thirty-five of us. herded him up.

  We didn't touch him. He went, because he knew what would happen if he didn't."

  "What would happen?"

  "Oh, things. Whatever might occur to us. You know college kids."

  "As few as possible."

  "Yes. Well, he went. I'll never forget his face as he was getting out of the hall window, backwards. It was white as a sheet, but it was something else too, I don't know what. It got me. It got Andy Hibbard too, for he jumped forward and called to Chapin to come back in, he would do it himself. Others grabbed Andy and told him not to be a damn fool. All who could crowded up and looked out of the window. It was moonlight. Others ran to one of the rooms and looked out of the windows there. Chapin got onto the ledge all right, and got straightened up and moved along a little, his hand stretched out as far as he could, trying to reach the next window. I didn't see it, I wasn't looking, but they said that all of a sudden he began to tremble, and down he went."

  Cabot stopped. He reached in his pocket for his case and lit a cigarette. He didn't hold the match to it as steady as he might have. He took a couple of puffs and said, 'That's all. That's what happened." I Wolfe grunted. "You say there were thirty-five of you?"

  "Yes. So it turned out." Cabot pulled at his cigarette. "We chipped in, of course, and did all we could. He was in the hospital two months and had three operations. I don't know where he got a list of our names; I suppose from Andy.

  Andy took it hard. Anyway, the day he left the hospital he sent all of us copies of a poem he had written. Thanking us. It was clever. There was only one of us • smart enough to see what kind of thanks • it was. Pitney Scott."

  "Pitney Scott is a taxi-driver."

  Cabot raised his brows. "You should write our class history, Mr. Wolfe. Pit tooky-to drink in 1930, one of the " depression casualties. Not, like Mike m Ayers, for the annoyance of other people.

  For his own destruction. I see you have him down for five dollars. I'll pay it." t ^Indeed. That would indicate that you are prepared to accept my proposal." is ^Of course I am. We all are. But you know that. What else can we do? We are menaced with death, there's no question about it. I have no idea why, if Paul had this in him, he waited so long to get it out – possibly his recent success gave him a touch of confidence that he needed, or money to finance his plans – I don't know. Of course we accept your proposal.

  Did you know that a month ago Adier and Pratt and Bowen seriously discussed the notion of hiring a gangster to kill him? They invited me in, but I wouldn't – everyone's squeamishness begins somewhere, and I suppose that was the starting point for mine – and they abandoned the idea. What else can we do?

  The police are helpless, which is understandable and nothing against them; they are equipped to frustrate many kinds of men, but not Paul Chapin – I grant him his quality. Three of us hired detectives a month ago, and we might as well have engaged a troop of Boy Scouts.

  They spent days looking for the typewriter on which the warnings were written, and never even found it; and if they had found it they would not have been able to fasten it on Paul Chapin."

  "Yes." Wolfe reached out and pressed the button for Fritz. "Your detectives called on me and offered to place their findings at my disposal – with your consent." Fritz appeared, and Wolfe nodded for beer. "Mr. Cabot. What does Mr. Chapin mean when he says that you killed the man in him?"

  "Well… that's poetry, isn't it?"

  "It might be called that. Is it merely poetry, or is it also technical information?" I "I don't know." Cabot's eyes fell. I watched him and thought to myself, he's actually embarrassed; so there's kinks in your love-life too, huh, smoothie? He went on, "I couldn't say; I doubt if any of us could. You'd have to ask his doctor." 3fe la A new voice cut in. Julius Adier and ass-.,-;-;

  Alex Drummond had come over a few minutes before and stood listening; Adier, I suppose, because he was a lawyer and therefore didn't trust lawyers, and Drummond since he was a tenor. I never saw a tenor that wasn't inquisitive. At this point Drummond horned in with a giggle:

  "Or his wife."

  Wolfe snapped at him, "Whose wife?"

  "Why, Paul's." „

  If I had seen Wolfe astonished only three times in seven years, which is what I would guess, this was the fourth. He even moved in his chair. He looked at Cabot, not at Drummond, and demanded, "What is this nonsense?"

  Cabot nodded. "Sure, Paul has a wife."

  Wolfe poured a glass of beer, gulped half of it, let it settle a second, and swallowed the rest. He looked around for his handkerchief, but it had dropped to the floor. I got him one out of the drawer where I kept them, and he wiped his lips.

  He said, "Tell me about her."

  "Well…" Cabot looked for words.

  "Paul Chapin is full of distortions, let us say, and his wife is one of them. Her name was Dora Ritter. He married her three years ago, and they live in an apartment on Perry Street."

  "What is she like and who was she?"

  Cabot hesitated again, differently. This time he didn't seem to be looking for words, he was looking for a way out. He finally said, ‹I don't see – I really don't see that this is going to help you any, but I suppose you'll want to know it. But I'd rather not – you'd better get it from Burton himself." He turned and called, "Lorry! Come over here a minute."

  Dr. Burton was with the group at the table, talking and working on a highball.

  He looked around, made some remark to

  Farrell the architect, and crossed to

  Wolfe's desk. Cabot said to him: ' "Mr. Wolfe has just asked me who Paul's wife was. Maybe I'm being more delicate than the circumstances require, I but I'd rather you'd tell him."

  Burton looked at Wolfe and frowned.

  He looked at Cabot, and his voice – sounded irritated: "Why not you, or anybody? Everybody knows it." i Cabot smiled. "I said maybe I was j overdelicate."

  "I think you were." Burton turned to

  Wolfe. "Dora Ritter was a maid in my employ. She is around fifty, extremely homely, disconcertingly competent, and stubborn as a wet boot. Paul Chapin married her in 1931."

  "What did he marry her for?"

  "I am as likely to tell you as he is.

  Chapin is a psychopath."

  "So Mr. Hibbard informed me. What sort of maid was she?"

  "What^sort?"

  "Was she in your office, for instance?"

  Burton was frowning. "No. She was my wife^s maid.",,.

  "How long have you known her and how long has Chapin known her? – Wait." Wolfe wiggled a finger. "I must ask you to bear with me, Dr. Burton. I have just received a shock and am floundering in confusion. I have read all of Paul Chapin's novels, and so naturally supposed myself to be in possession of a fairly complete understanding of his character, his temperament, his processes of thought and his modes of action. I thought him incapable of following any of the traditional channels leading to matrimony, either emotional or practical.

  Learning that he has a wife, I am greatly shocked; I am even desperate. I need to have disclosed everything about her that is discoverable."

  "Oh. You do." Burton looked at him, s
izing him up, with sour steadiness. "Then I might as well disclose it myself. It was common gossip." He glanced at the others. "I knew that, though naturally it didn^t reach my ears. If I show reluctance, it is only because it was… unpleasant."

  "Yes."}?

  "Yes, it was. I presume you don't know that of all of us, this group, I was the only one who knew Paul Chapin before the college days. We came from the same town – I more or less grew up with him.

  He was in love with a girl. I knew her – one of the girls I knew, that was all. He was infatuated with her, and he finally, through persistence, reached an understanding with her before he went away to college. Then the accident occurred, and he was crippled, and it was all off. In my opinion it would'have been off anyway, sooner or later, without the intervention of an accident. I didn't go home for my vacations; I spent my summers working. It wasn't until after I was through with medical school that I went back for a visit, and discovered that this girl had become… that is… I married her." w He glanced aside at Cabot9 s cigarette case thrust at him by the lawyer, shook his head, turned back to Wolfe and went on, "We came to New York. I was lucky in my profession; I have a good bedside manner and a knack with peopled insides, especially women. I made a lot of money.

  I think it was in 1923 that my wife engaged Dora Ritter – yes, she was with us eight years. Her competence was a jewel in a nigger's ear -"

  "Ethiope." '

  "Well, that's a nigger. One day Paul came to me and said he was going to marry my wife's maid. That was what was unpleasant. He made a nasty scene out of it."

  Wolfe inclined his head. ‹I can imagine him explaining that the action contemplated was by way of a paraphrase on the old institution of whipping-boy."

  Dr. Burton jerked his head up, startled, and stared at him. "How the devil did you know that?"

  "He said that?"

  "Those words. He said paraphrase."

  "I suspected he would have lit on that."

  Wolfe scratched his ear, and I knew he was pleased. "Having read his novels, I am not unacquainted with his style of thought and his taste in allusion. – So he married her. She, of course, having but one jewel and the rest all slag, would not be finicky.

  Do they make a happy pair? Do you ever see her?"

  "Not frequently." Burton hesitated, then went on, "I see her very seldom. She comes once or twice a week to dress my wife^s hair, and occasionally to sew. I am usually not at home."

  Wolfe murmured. "It is a temptation to cling to competence when we find it."

  Burton nodded. "I suppose so. My wife finds it impossible to forgo the indulgence.

  Dora is an expert hag."™

  "Well." Wolfe took some beer. "Thank you, doctor. It has often been said, you will find romance in the most unlikely spots. Mr. Chapin's no longer upsets me, since it fits my presumptions. By the way, this probably clears up another point.

  Permit me. – Archie, would you ask Mr.

  Farrell to join us?"

  I went and got Farrell and brought him over. He was brisk; the Scotch was putting some spring into him. He gave Wolfe an amiable look.

  "Mr. Farrell. Earlier this evening you remarked to Dr. Burton that it was a wonder he was not the first. I supposed that you meant, the first victim of Mr.

  Chapin's campaign. Did that remark mean anything in particular?"

  Farrell looked uncomfortable. "Did I say that?"

  "You did." '

  "I don't remember it. I suppose I thought I was cracking a joke, I don't know."

  Wolfe said patiently, "Dr. Burton has just been telling me the exegesis of Chapin's marriage and the former occupation of his wife. I thought perhaps -"

  "Oh, he has." Farrell shot a glance at

  Burton. "Then what are you asking me for?"

  "Don't be testy, Mr. Farrell; let me save your life in amity. That was the basis of your remark?"

  "Of course. But what the devil have Lorrie Burton's private affairs got to do with it? Or mine or anybody's? I thought what we are going to pay you for is to stop-"

  He broke off. He looked around at the others and his face got red. He finished to Wolfe in a completely different tone,

  "Forgive me. I forgot for a moment."

  "Forgot what?"

  "Nothing of any importance. Only that I'm out of it. In your total of fifty-odd • thousand, you've got me down for ten | dollars. Your sources of information are up-to-date. Have you any idea what architects have been up against the past four years? Even good ones. I did the new city hall at Baltimore in 1928. Now I 1 couldn't get – you're not thinking of • doing any building, Mr. Wolfe? A telephone stand or a dog kennel or • anything? I'd be glad to submit designs – Oh, the devil. Anyway, I forgot I'm just here ex-officio, I'm not paying my way. – Come on, Lorrie, come and finish your drink. You ought to be home in bed, you're sagging worse than I am." He took Burton's arm.

  Moving off, they halted for Wolfe:

  "Mr. Farrell. I am under the same necessity of earning your ten dollars as Mr.

  Collard's nine thousand. If you have comments -"

  "Hell no. I haven't even got a comment.

  Nor am I even contributing ten bucks to the pot of retribution, I'm taking it out in Scotch."George Pratt said to Cabot, "Come on, Nick, have a little refreshment," and they followed the other two. Alex Drummond was left alone at the corner of Wolfe's desk; he jerked to join the procession, then jerked back. He looked at Wolfe with his bright little eyes, stepped closer to him, and made his voice low:

  "Uh – Mr. Wolfe. I imagine your sources of information are pretty good."

  Wolfe said without looking at him,

  "They are superlative."

  "I imagine so. Gus Farrell hasn't really been up against it for more than a couple of months, but I notice you are aware of it.

  Uh – I wonder if you would be willing to enlighten me regarding another item on your list. Just curiosity."

  "I haven't engaged to satisfy your curiosity."

  "No. But I was wondering. Why have you got Gaines down for eight thousand and Burton for seven thousand and so on, and Ferd Bowen for only twelve hundred?

  He's something in Wall Street – I mean really something. Isn't he? The firm of Galbraith and Bowen…" Drummond made his voice a little lower. "Frankly, it's more than curiosity… he handles a few little investments for me…"

  Wolfe looked at him and looked away again. I thought for a minute he wasn't going to reply at all, but he did, with his eyes shut. "Don't bother to disparage your investments. It can have no effect on the amount of your payment to me, for that has already been calculated and recorded.

  As for your question, my sources of information may be superlative, but they are not infallible. If Mr. Bowen ventures to object that I have belittled him, I shall consider his protest with an open mind."

  "Of course," Drummond agreed. "But if you could just tell me in confidence -" i*'If you will excuse me." Wolfe opened his eyes, got his chin up, and raised his voice a little. "Gentlemen. Gentlemen?

  Could I have a word with you?"

  They approached his desk, three or four from the corner the bookshelves made, and the wet contingent from the alcove table.

  Two or three still in chairs stayed there!

  Drummond, his hide too thick to show any red from Wolfe^s sandpapering, trotted around to the far side. Mike Ayers flopped into a chair again, stretching out his legs; his mouth gaped wide in a free-for-all yawn, then suddenly he clamped his lips tight with a look of indignant and wary surprise. I had a notion to go and move him off the rug, but decided he was going to hold it. Wolfe was handing it to them in his handsome manner:

  "The hour is getting late, and I would not wish to detain you beyond necessity. I take it that we are in agreement -"

  Arthur Kommers interrupted, "I ought to leave in a minute to catch the midnight back to Philadelphia. Do you want my initials on that thing?"

  "Thank you, sir. Not at present. There is a phrase to be deleted. I
shall ask Mr.

  Cabot to prepare copies in his office tomorrow morning and send them to me for distribution." He sent a glance at the lawyer, and Cabot nodded. "Thank you.

  –In that connection, Mr. Farrell, I wish to make a proposal to you. You are broke, but you have a fairly intelligent face. To be broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe. You can help me. For instance, you can take, or send, copies of the memorandum to those members of the _ league not present this evening, and | arrange for their co-operation. I will pay you twenty dollars a day. There will be other little jobs for you."

  The architect was staring at him.

  "You're quite a guy, Mr. Wolfe. By God if you're not. But I'm not a detective." • "I shall keep my demands modest, and expect no intrepidity."

  B "All right." Farrell laughed. "I can use twenty dollars."

  "Good. Report here tomorrow at eleven. – Now, Dr. Burton. Your lifelong acquaintance with Paul Chapin places you in a special position, for my purpose.

  Could you dine with me tomorrow evening?"

  Without hesitation, Burton shook his head. "I'm sorry, I shall be engaged." ^ "Could you call on me after dinner?

  Forgive me for not asking permission to call on you instead. My disinclination to leave my home has a ponderable basis."

  But Burton shook his head again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wolfe, I can't come." He hesitated, and went on, "More frankly, I won't. It's softness in me. I'm not as soft about it as Andy Hibbard and Leo Elkus. I answered yes to the question you put this evening, though you made it as raw as possible. Of course you did that purposely.

  I answered yes, and I'll pay my share, but that's as far as I'll go. I will not confer on ways and means of exposing Paul Chapin's guilt and getting him convicted and electrocuted. – Oh, don't misunderstand me. I don't pretend to be standing on a principle, I'm perfectly aware it's only a temperamental prejudice. I wouldn't move a finger to protect Paul or save him from the consequences of his crimes. In fact, in so far as the thing may be considered a personal issue between him and myself, I am ready to defeat him by a violence equal to his own."