The League of Frightened Men

by Rex Stout

  He was saying, "It is a pity Mr. Farrell has deserted us. I am not sure that my next suggestion should await his return; and he does not, by the way, mention his return." He picked up the note from Farrell and looked at it. "I believe, Archie, that you had best abandon the Hibbard search temporarily -"

  He stopped himself; and said in a different tone:

  "Mr. Goodwin. Hand me the glass."

  I gave it to him. His using my formal handle when we were alone meant that he was excited almost beyond control, but I had no idea what about. Then I saw what he wanted the glass for. He was looking through it at the note from Farrell! I stared at him. He kept on looking. I didn't say anything. A beautiful suspicion was getting into me that you shouldn't ever ignore a hunch.

  Finally Wolfe said, "Indeed."

  I held out my hand and he gave me the note and the glass. I saw it at a glance, but I kept on looking, it was so satisfactory to see that a off the line and a little to the left, and the n cockeyed, and all the other signs. I laid it on the table and grinned at Wolfe.

  "Old Eagle Eye. Damn me for missing it."

  He said, "Take off your coat and hat,

  Archie. Whom can we telephone in Philadelphia to learn where an architect there in pursuit of a commission might possibly be found?" n

  14

  I started for the hall to put my coat and hat away, but before I got to the door I turned and went back.

  "Listen," I said, "the roadster needs some exercise. We might fool around with the phone all afternoon and not get anywhere. Why don't we do this: you phone Farrell's friends here and see if you can get a line on him. I'll roll down to Philly and call you up as soon as I arrive.

  If you haven't found out anything, I'll be on the ground to look for him. I can get there by two-thirty."

  "Excellent," Wolfe agreed. "But the noon train will reach Philadelphia at two o'clock."

  "Yeah, I know, but -"

  "Archie. Let us agree on the train."

  "Okay. I thought I might get away with it."

  There was plenty of time to discuss a few probabilities, since it was only a fiveminute walk to the Pennsylvania Station. I caught the noon train, had lunch on the diner, and phoned Wolfe from the Broad Street Station at two minutes after two.

  He had no dope, except the names of a few friends and acquaintances of FarrelPs in Philadelphia. I telephoned all I could get hold of, and chased around all afternoon, the Fine Arts Club, and an architectural magazine, and the newspaper offices to see if they knew who intended to build something and so on. I was beginning to wonder if an idea that had come to me on the train could possibly have anything in it. Was Farrell himself entangled somehow in the Chapin business, and had he written that note on that typewriter for some reason maybe to be discovered, and then beat it? Was there a chance that he hadn't come to Philadelphia at all but somewhere else, even perhaps on a transatlantic liner? j But around six o'clock I got him. I had taken to phoning architects. After about ^1 three dozen I found one who told me that a Mr. Allenby who had got rich and sentimental was going to build a library for a Missouri town that had been lucky enough to give birth to him and then lose him. That was a building project I hadn't heard of before. I phoned Allenby, and was told that Mr. Farrell was expected at his home at seven o'clock for dinner.

  I snatched a pair of sandwiches and went out there, and then had to wait until he had finished his meal. f-'

  He came to me in Mr. Allenby's library.

  Of course he couldn't understand how I got there. I allowed him ten seconds for surprise and so forth, and then I asked him: "Last night you wrote a note to Nero Wolfe. Where's the typewriter you wrote it on?"

  He smiled like a gentleman being bewildered. He said, ‹(I suppose it's where I left it. I didn't take it away."

  "Well, where was it? Excuse me for taking you on the jump like this. I've been hunting you for over five hours and I'm out of breath. The machine you wrote that ^te on is the one Paul Chapin used for away with it."

  There was plenty of time to discuss a few probabilities, since it was only a fiveminute walk to the Pennsylvania Station. I caught the noon train, had lunch on the diner, and phoned Wolfe from the Broad Street Station at two minutes after two.

  He had no dope, except the names of a few friends and acquaintances of FarrelPs in Philadelphia. I telephoned all I could get hold of, and chased around all afternoon, the Fine Arts Club, and an architectural magazine, and the newspaper 1 offices to see if they knew who intended to build something and so on. I was beginning to wonder if an idea that had come to me on the train could possibly have anything in it. Was Farrell himself • entangled somehow in the Chapin • business, and had he written that note on that typewriter for some reason maybe to be discovered, and then beat it? Was there a -chance that he hadn't come to Philadelphia at all but somewhere else, even perhaps on a transatlantic liner? m But around six o'clock I got him. I had taken to phoning architects. After about three dozen I found one who told me that a Mr. Allenby who had got rich and sentimental was going to build a library for a Missouri town that had been lucky enough to give birth to him and then lose him. That was a building project I hadn't heard of before. I phoned Allenby, and was told that Mr. Farrell was expected at his home at seven o'clock for dinner.

  I snatched a pair of sandwiches and went out there, and then had to wait until he had finished his meal. ^ He came to me in Mr. Allenby's library.

  Of course he couldn't understand how I got there. I allowed him ten seconds for surprise and so forth, and then I asked him: "Last night you wrote a note to Nero Wolfe. Where's the typewriter you wrote it on?";

  He smiled like a gentleman being bewildered. He said, "I suppose it's where I left it. I didn't take it away."

  "Well, where was it? Excuse me for taking you on the jump like this. I've been hunting you for over five hours and I'm °ut of breath. The machine you wrote that ^te on is the one Paul Chapin used for his poems. That's the little detail."

  "No!" He stared at me, and laughed.

  "By God, that's good. You're sure? After working so hard to get all those samples, and then to write that note – I'll be damned."

  "Yeah. When you get around to it…"

  "Certainly. I used a typewriter at the

  Harvard Club."?

  "Oh. You did." lu"I did indeed. I'll be damned."

  "Yeah. Where do they keep this typewriter?" li "Why, it's one – it's available to any of the members. I was there last evening when the telegram came from Mr.

  Allenby, and I used it to write two or three notes. It's in a little room off the smoking-room, sort of an alcove. A great many of the fellows use it, off and on."

  "Oh. They do." I sat down. "Well, this is nice. It's sweet enough to make you sick. It's available to anybody, and ^thousands of them use it." §BB "Hardly thousands, but quite a few -" ^ "Dozens is enough. Have you ever seen Paul Chapin use it?" m / "I couldn't say – I believe, though -yes, in that little chair with his game leg pushed under – Pm pretty sure I have."

  "Any of your other friends, this bunch?" ‹I really couldn't say." 'm "Do many of them belong to the club?"

  "Oh, yes, nearly all. Mike Ayers doesn't, and I believe Leo Elkus resigned a few years ago…"

  "I see. Are there any other typewriters in the alcove?"

  "There's one more, but it belongs to a public stenographer. I understand this one was donated by some club member. They used to keep it in the library, but some of the one-finger experts made too much Inoise with it."

  "All right." I got up. "You can imagine how I feel, coming all the way to Philadelphia to get a kick in the pants.

  Can I tell Wolfe when you're coming back, in case he wants you?"

  He said probably tomorrow, he had to

  Iprepare drawings to submit to Mr. |Allenby, and I thanked him for nothing and went out to seek the air and a streetcar to North Philadelphia.

  The train ride back to New York, in a smoker filled with the discard from a hundred pa
irs of assorted lungs, was not what I needed to cheer me up. I couldn't think up anything to keep me awake, and I couldn't go to sleep. We pulled in at the Pennsylvania Station at midnight, and I walked home.

  The office was dark; Wolfe had gone to bed. There was no note for me on my desk, so nothing startling had happened. I got a pitcher of milk from the refrigerator I and went upstairs. Wolfe's room was on • the same floor as mine; mine overlooking Thirty-fifth Street, and his in the rear. I thought possibly he was still awake and | would like to hear the joyous news, so I I went towards the back of the hall to see if there was light under his door – not going close, for when he went to bed there was a switch he turned on, and if anyone stepped within eight feet of his door or touched any of his windows a gong went f off in my room that was enough to paralyze you. The slit under his door was • , I .J^l dark, so I went on with my milk, and drank it while I was getting ready for bed.

  Friday morning, after breakfast, I was still sitting in the office at eight-thirty. I sat there, first because I was sour on the Hibbard search anyway, and second because I was going to wait until nine o'clock and see Wolfe as soon as he got to the plant-rooms. But at eight-thirty the inside phone buzzed and I got on. It was Wolfe from his bedroom. He asked me if I had had a pleasant journey. I told him that all it would have needed to make it perfect was Dora Chapin for company. He asked if Mr. Farrell had remembered what typewriter he had used.

  I told him. "A thing at the Harvard Club, in a little room off the smokingroom.

  It seems that the members all play tunes on it whenever the spirit moves them. The good thing about this is that it narrows it down, it rules out all Yale men and other roughnecks. You can see Chapin wanted to make it as simple as Possible."

  I Wolfe's low murmur was in my ear:

  "Excellent."

  "Yeah. One of the facts you wanted.

  Swell."

  "No, Archie. I mean it. This will do | nicely. I told you, proof will not be needed in this case, facts will do for us.

  But we must be sure beyond peradventure I of the facts. Please find someone willing to favor us who is a member of the Harvard Club – not one of our present clients. Perhaps Albert Wright would do; if not him, find someone. Ask him to go to the club this morning and take you as a | guest. On that typewriter make a copy – no. Not that. There must be no hole for Mr. Chapin to squirm through, should he prove more difficult than I anticipate. In spite of his infirmity, he is probably capable of carrying a typewriter. Do this: – after making arrangements for a host, | purchase a new typewriter – any good one, follow your fancy – and take it with you to the club. Bring away the one that is there and leave the new one; manage it as you please, by arrangement with the steward, by prestidigitation, whatever suggests itself. With, however, the knowledge of your host, for he must be qualified to furnish corroboration, at any future time, as to the identity of the machine you remove. Bring it here." ^A new typewriter costs one hundred dollars." ‹I know that. It is not necessary to speak of it." ^Okay."

  I hung up and reached for the telephone book. N That was how it happened that at ten o'clock that Friday morning I sat in the smoking-room of the Harvard Club with Albert Wright, a vice-president of Eastern Electric, drinking vermouth, with a typewriter under a shiny rubberized cover on the floor at my feet. Wright had been very nice, as he should have been, since about all he owed to Wolfe was his wife and family. That was one of the neatest blackmailing cases… but let it rest. It was true that he had paid Wolfe's bill, which hadn't been modest, but what I've seen of wives and families has convinced "^ that they can't be paid for in cash;

  I either they're way above any money price ^hat could be imagined or they're clear out of sight in the other direction. Anyway, Wright had been nice about it. I was saying:

  "This is it. It's that typewriter in there that I showed you the number of and had you put a scratch under it. Mr. Wolfe wants it."

  Wright raised his brows. I went on:

  "Of course you don't care why, but if you do maybe he'll tell you some day. The real reason is that he's fond of culture and he don't like to see the members of a swell organization like the Harvard Club using a piece of junk like that in there. I've got a brand new Underwood." I touched it with my toe. ‹I just brought it, it's a new standard machine. I take it in there and leave it, and bring away the junk, that's _ all. If anyone sees me I am unconcerned. | It's just a playful lark; the club gets what it needs and Mr. Wolfe gets what he wants."

  Wright, smiling, sipped his vermouth. ‹(I hesitate chiefly because you had me mark the junk for identification. I would» do about anything for Nero Wolfe, but I would dislike getting in a mess and having ^L the club dragged in too, perhaps. I suppose you couldn't offer any guarantees on that score?"

  I shook my head. "No guarantees, but knowing how Mr. Wolfe is arranging this charade I'd take you on a thousand to one." ^ Wright sat a minute and looked at me, and then smiled again. "Well, I have to get back to the office. Go on with your lark. I'll wait here."

  There was nothing to it. I picked up the Underwood and walked into the alcove with it and set it down on the desk. The public stenographer was there only ten feet away, brushing up his machine, but I merely got too nonchalant even to glance at him. I pulled the junk aside and transferred the shiny cover to it, put the new one in its place, and picked up the Junk and walked out. Wright got up from his chair and walked beside me to the elevator.

  On the sidewalk, at the street entrance, Bright shook hands with me. He wasn't smiling; I guessed from the look on his face that his mind had gone back four years to another time we shook hands. He said, "Give Nero Wolfe my warmest regards, and tell him they will still be warm even if I get kicked out of the Harvard Club for helping to steal a typewriter."

  I grinned. "Steal my eye, it nearly broke my heart to leave that new Underwood there."

  I carried my loot to where I had parked the roadster on Forty-fifth Street, put it on the seat beside me, and headed downtown. Having it there made me feel like we were getting somewhere. Not that I knew where, but Wolfe either did or thought he did. I didn't very often get really squeamish about Wolfe's calculations; I worried, all right, and worked myself into a stew when it seemed to me that he was overlooking a point that was apt to trip us up, but down in my heart I nearly always knew that anything he was missing would turn out in the end to be something we didn't need. In this case I wasn't so sure, and what made me not so sure was that damn cripple. There was something in the way the others spoke about him, in the way he looked and acted that Monday night, in the way those warnings sounded, that gave me an uneasy idea that for once Wolfe might be underrating a guy. That wasn't like him, for he usually had a pretty high opinion of the people whose fate he was interfering with. I was thinking that maybe the mistake he had made in this case was in reading Chapin's books. He had definite opinions about literary merit, and possibly having rated the books pretty low, he had done the same for the man who wrote them. If he was rating Chapin low, I was all ready to fall in on the other side. For instance, here beside me was the typewriter on which the warnings had been written, all three of them, no doubt about it, and it was a typewriter to which Paul Chapin had had easy and constant access, but there was no way in the world of proving that he had done it. Not only that, it was a typewriter to which most of the other Persons connected with the business had •had access too. No, I thought, as far as Writing those warnings went, nearly -anything you might say about Chapin would be underrating him.

  When I got to the house it wasn't eleven o'clock yet. I carried the typewriter to the hall and put it down on the stand while I removed my hat and coat. There was another hat and coat there; I looked at 1 them; they weren't FarrelPs; I didn't recognize them. I went to the kitchen to ask Fritz who the visitor was, but he wasn't there, upstairs probably, so I went back and got the typewriter and took it to the office. But I didn't get more than six feet inside the door before I stopped.

  Sitting there turning ove
r the pages of a book, with his stick leaning against the arm of his chair, was Paul Chapin.

  Something I don't often do, I went tongue-tied. I suppose it was because I • had under my arm the typewriter he had • written his poems on, though certainly he couldn't recognize it under the cover. But he could tell it was a typewriter. I stood and stared at him. He glanced up and informed me politely: ^I'm waiting for Mr. Wolfe." « He turned another page in the book, and I saw it was Devil Take the Hindmost,

  A

  the one Wolfe had marked things in. I said:

  "Does he know you're here?"

  "Oh yes. His man told him some time ago. I've been here," he glanced at his wrist, "half an hour."

  There hadn't been any sign of his noticing what I was carrying. I went over and put it down on my desk and shoved it to the back edge. I went to Wolfe's desk and glanced through the envelopes of the morning mail, the corner of my eye telling me that Chapin was enjoying his book. I brushed off Wolfe's blotter and twisted his fountain pen around. Then I got sore, because I realized that I wasn't inclined to go and sit at my desk, and the reason was that it would put me with my back to Paul Chapin. So I went there and got into my chair and got some plant records from the drawer and began looking at them. It was a damn funny experience; I don't know what it was about that cripple that got under my skin so. Maybe he was magnetic. I actually had to clamp my jaw ^ keep from turning around to look at him, and while I was trying to laugh it off ^eas kept flashing through my mind such as whether he had a gun and if so was it the one with the hammer nose filed down.