Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 (3 page)

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 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.

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.”

“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 don’t get you.”

Fritz came with beer. Wolfe took the opener from the drawer, poured a glass, gulped, and leaned back again. He resumed, “By annoying me about the man on the witness-stand. I resigned myself to your tantrum because it was nearly four o’clock. As you know, the book came. I read it last night.”

“Why did you read it?”

“Don’t badger me. I read it because it was a book. I had finished
The Native’s Return
, by Louis Adamic, and
Outline of Human Nature
, by Alfred Rossiter, and I read books.”

“Yeah. And?”

“This will amuse you. Paul Chapin, the man on the witness-stand, the author of
Devil Take the Hindmost
, is the villain of Andrew Hibbard’s tale. He is the psychopathic avenger of an old and tragic injury.”

“The hell he is.” I gave Wolfe a look; I had known him to invent for practice. “Why is he?”

Wolfe’s eyelids went up a shade. “Do you expect me to explain the universe?”

“No, sir. Retake. How do you know he is?”

“By no flight. Pedestrian mental processes. Must you have them?”

“I’d greatly appreciate it.”

“I suppose so. A few details will do. Mr. Hibbard employed the unusual phrase,
embark on a ship of vengeance
, and that phrase occurs twice in
Devil Take the Hindmost.
Mr. Hibbard did not say, as the stenographer has it,
that was difficult, for pawn
, which is of
course meaningless; he said,
that was difficult, for Paul
, and caught himself up pronouncing the name, which he did not intend to disclose. Mr. Hibbard said things indicating that the man was a writer, for instance speaking of his disguising his style in the warnings. Mr. Hibbard said that five years ago the man began to be involved in compensatory achievement. I telephoned two or three people this morning. In 1929 Paul Chapin’s first successful book was published, and in 1930 his second. Also, Chapin is a cripple through an injury which he suffered twenty-five years ago in a hazing accident at Harvard. If more is needed … “

“No. Thank you very much. I see. All right. Now that you know who the guy is, everything is cozy. Why is it? Who are you going to send a bill to?”

Two of the folds in Wolfe’s cheeks opened out a little, so I knew he thought he was smiling. I said, “But you may just be pleased because you know it’s corn fritters with anchovy sauce for lunch and it’s only ten minutes to the bell.”

“No, Archie.” The folds were gently closing. “I mentioned that I entertained a notion. It may or may not be fertile. As usual, you have furnished the fillip. Luckily our stake will be negligible. There are several possible channels of approach, but I believe … yes. Get Mr. Andrew Hibbard on the phone. At Columbia, or at his home.”

“Yes, sir. Will you speak?”

“Yes. Keep your wire and take it down as usual.”

I got the number from the book and called it. First the university. I didn’t get Hibbard. I monkeyed around with two or three extensions and four or five people, and it finally leaked out that he wasn’t anywhere
around, but no one seemed to know where he was. I tried his home, an Academy number, up in the same neighborhood. There a dumb female nearly riled me. She insisted on knowing who I was and she sounded doubtful about everything. She finally seemed to decide Mr. Hibbard probably wasn’t home. Through the last of it Wolfe was listening in on his wire.

I turned to him. “I can try again and maybe with luck get a human being.”

He shook his head. “After lunch. It is two minutes to one.”

I got up and stretched, thinking I would be able to do a lot of destructive criticism on a corn fritter myself, especially with Fritz’s sauce. It was at that moment that Wolfe’s notion decided to come to him instead of waiting longer for him to go to it. It was a coincidence, too, though that was of no importance; she must have been trying to get our number while I was talking.

The telephone rang. I sat down again and got it. It was a woman’s voice, and she asked to speak to Nero Wolfe. I asked if I might have her name, and when she said “Evelyn Hibbard” I told her to hold the line and put my hand over the transmitter.