The League Of Frightened Men Part 5

You've all been too kind to me, you know very well you have. If I may get a little literary and sentimental about it you have lightened life's burden for me. I'll never forget it, I've told you that a thousand times. Of course, now that I seem to have found my metier, now that I am standing on my own feet that is, my own foot -"he smiled around again I shall be able to find my way the rest of the journey without you. But I shall always be grateful." He turned to Wolfe. "That's how it is, you see. But I didn't come here to say that, I came to see you. I was thinking that possibly you are a reasonable and intelligent man. Are you?"

Wolfe was looking at him. I was saying to myself, look out, Paul Chapin, look out for those half-closed eyes, and if you a take my advice you'll shut up and beat it quick. Wolfe said: (I reach that pinnacle occasionally, Mr.

Chapin."

"I'll try to believe you. There are few who do. I just wanted to say this to you: my friends have wasted a lot of time and money pursuing a mirage which someone has cleverly projected for them. I tell you straight, Mr. Wolfe, it's been a shock to me. That they should suspect me, knowing as they do how grateful I am for all their kindness! Really, incredible. I wanted to put this before you and save you from the loss of your time and money too. You would not be so fatuous as to chase a mirage?" I a.s.sure you, sir, I am far too immobile to chase anything whatever. But perhaps since you are by your own admission definitely out of it perhaps you have a theory regarding the incidents that have disturbed your friends? It might help us."

"I'm afraid not." Chapin shook his head regretfully. "Of course, it appears more than likely that it's a practical joke, but I have no idea -"

"Murder isn't a joke, Mr. Chapin.

Death is not a j oke.'' ^. o i "Oh, no? Really, no? Are you so sure?

Take a good case. Take me, Paul Chapin Would you dare to a.s.sert that my death would not be a joke?" ^ "Why, would it?".; "Of course. A howling anticlimax.

Death's pretensions to horror, considering what in my case has preceded it, would be indescribably ludicrous. That is why I have so greatly appreciated my friends, their thoughtfulness, their solicitude -"

A cry from behind interrupted him; a cry, deeply anguished, in the voice of Dr.

Burton: "Paul! Paul, for G.o.d's sake!"

Chapin wheeled about on his good leg.

"Yes?" Without raising his voice a particle he got into it a concentrated scorn that would have withered the love of G.o.d.

"Yes, Lorry?"

Burton looked at him, said nothing, shook his head, and turned his eyes away.

Chapin turned back to Wolfe. Wolfe said: "So you adhere to 'the joke theory."

"Not adhere precisely. It seems likely.

So far as I am concerned, Mr. Wolfe, the only point is this: I suffer from the delusion of my friends that I am a source of peril to them. Actually, they are afraid of me. Of me! I suffer considerably, I _ really do. The fact is that it would be difficult to conceive of a more harmless creature than I am. I am myself afraid!

Const.i.tutionally afraid of all sorts of things. For instance, on account of my pathetic physicallBinadequacy, I go in constant fear of this or that sort of violent attack, and I habitually am armed. See -" j Paul Chapin had us going all right. As his right hand came around behind him and his fingers started under the edge of his dinner coat, there were two or three cries of warning from the group, and I took it on the jump. With my momentum and him balanced against his walkingstick, I d.a.m.n near toppled him over, but I had my grip on his right wrist and saved him from a tumble. With my left hand I jerked the gat from his hip pocket.

"Archie!" Wolfe snapped at me.

"Release Mr. Chapin."; i r I let go his wrist. Wolfe was still snapping: "Give him back his article."

I looked at the gat. It was a thirty-two, an old veteran, and a glance showed me it wasn't loaded. Paul Chapin, his lightcolored eyes having no look in them at all, held out his hand. I put the gun in it and he let it sit there on his palm as if it was a dish of applesauce.

Wolfe said, "Confound you, Archie.

You have deprived Mr. Chapin of the opportunity for a dramatic and effective gesture. I know, Mr. Chapin. I am sorry.

May I see the gun?"

Chapin handed it to him and he looked it over. He threw the cylinder out and back, c.o.c.ked it, snapped the trigger, and looked it over again. He said, "An ugly weapon. It terrifies me. Guns always do.

May I show it to Mr. Goodwin?"

Chapin shrugged his shoulders, and Wolfe handed the gat to me. I took it under my light and gave it a few warm glances; c.o.c.ked it, saw what Wolfe had seen, and grinned. Then I looked up and saw Paul Chapin's eyes on me and stopped grinning. You could still have said there was no look in them, but behind them was something I wouldn't have cared to bring into plain sight. I handed him the gun, and he stuck it back into his hip pocket. He said, half to me and half to Wolfe, in an easy tone: "That's it, you see. The effect is psychological. I learned a good deal about psychology from my friend Andy Hibbard."

There were e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. 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 G.o.ddam 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 G.o.ddam 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. G.o.d bless you. That's an idea, depend on G.o.d'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 G.o.d'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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 b.u.m leg under with his hand. n.o.body was saying a word. He looked around at Wolfe and said, "I'm not very fast. Shall I double-s.p.a.ce it?"

"I would say, single-s.p.a.ce. 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 I 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." I shall make no discount for flummery, sir." Wolfe sighed. "For my part, I have an idea that if I collect my fees I shall have earned them. Your friend Mr. Chapin is a man of quality."

Cabot nodded. "Paul Chapin is a distorted genius."

"All genius is distorted. Including my own. But so for that matter is all life; a mad and futile ferment of substances meant originally to occupy s.p.a.ce without disturbing it. But alas, here we are in the I thick of the disturbance, and the only way that has occurred to us to make it tolerable is to join in and raise all the h.e.l.l our ingenuity may suggest. How did Paul Chapin acquire his special distortion?

I mean the famous accident. Tell me about it. I understand it was at college, a hazing affair."

"Yes. It was pretty terrible." Cabot sat on the edge of the desk. "No doubt of that, but good G.o.d, other men, the war, for instance... oh well. I suppose Paul was distorted from the beginning. He was a freshman, the rest of us were soph.o.m.ores and on up. Do you know the Yard?"

"The Yard?" "At Harvard."

"I have never been there." "Well. There were dormitories -Thayer Hall. This was at Thayer Middle Entry h.e.l.l Bend. We were having a beer night downstairs, and there were some there from outside that's how fellows like Gaines and Collard happened to be present. We were having a good time around ten o'clock when a fellow came in and said he couldn't get in his room; he had left his key inside and the doors had snap locks. Of course we all began to clap."

"That was a masterpiece, to forget one's key?" ^Oh no. We were clapping the opportunity. By getting out a hall window, or another room, you could make your way along a narrow ledge to the window of any locked room and get in that way. It was quite a trick I wouldn't try it now for my hope of the Supreme Court but I had done it in my freshman year and so had many others. Whenever an uppercla.s.sman forgot his key it was the native custom to conscript a freshman for that service. There was nothing extraordinary about it, for the agility of youth. Well, when this fellow it was Andy Hibbard when he announced he had locked himself out, of course we welcomed the opportunity for a little discipline. We looked around for a victim. Somebody heard a noise in the hall and looked out and saw one going by, and called to him to come in. He came in. It was Chapin."

"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 d.a.m.n 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 cla.s.s 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 b.u.t.ton 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 embarra.s.sed; 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 a.s.s-.,-;-; 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 gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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?"