“All of that. And what I’m here for is to ask you to lay off.”
Wolfe’s brows went up a shade. “To ask me?”
“To lay off.” Bascom slid forward in his chair and got earnest. “Look here, Mr. Wolfe. It’s the Chapin case. I’ve been on it for four weeks. Pratt and Cabot and Dr. Burton are paying me—that’s no secret, or if it was, it wouldn’t be for you after Monday. Pratt’s a sort of a friend of mine, I’ve done him a good turn or two. He phoned me last night and said if I wanted to hang my own price tag on Paul Chapin I’d better get a move on because Nero Wolfe was about to begin. That was how I found out about the telegrams you sent. I dusted around and saw Burton and Cabot and one or two others. Burton had never heard of you before and asked me to get a report on you, but he phoned me this morning and told me not to bother. I suppose he had inquired and got an earful.”
Wolfe murmured, “I am gratified at the interest they displayed.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Bascom laid a fist on the desk for emphasis and got more earnest still. “Mr. Wolfe. I want to speak to you as one professional man to another. You would be the first to agree that ours is a dignified profession.”
“Not explicitly. To assert dignity is to lose it.”
“Huh? Maybe. Anyway, it’s a profession, like the law. As you know, it is improper for a lawyer to solicit a client away from another lawyer. He would be disbarred. No lawyer with any decency would ever try it. And don’t you think our profession is as dignified as the law? That’s the only question. See?”
Bascom waited for an answer, his eyes on Wolfe’s face, and probably supposed that the slow unfolding on Wolfe’s cheeks was merely a natural phenomenon, like the ground swell on an ocean. Wolfe finally said, “Mr. Bascom. If you would abandon the subtleties of innuendo? If you have a request to make, state it plainly.”
“Hell, didn’t I? I asked you to lay off.”
“You mean, keep out of what you call the Chapin case? I am sorry to have to refuse your request.”
“You won’t?”
“Certainly not.”
“And you think it is absolutely okay to solicit another man’s clients away from him?”
“I have no idea. I shall not enter into a defense of my conduct with you; what if it turned out to be indefensible? I merely say, I refuse your request.”
“Yeah. I thought you would.” Bascom took his fist off the desk and relaxed a little. “My brother claimed you regarded yourself as a gentleman and you’d fall for it. I said you might be a gentleman but you wasn’t a sap.”
“Neither, I fear.”
“Well and good. Now that that’s out of the way, maybe we can talk business. If you’re going to take on the Chapin case, that lets us out.”
“Probably. Not necessarily.”
“Oh yes, it does. You’ll soak them until they’ll have to begin buying the cheaper cuts. I know when I’m done, I can take it. I couldn’t hang onto it much longer anyhow. God help you. I’d love to drop in here once a week and ask you how’s tricks. I’m telling you, this cripple Chapin is the deepest and slickest that’s ever run around loose. I said I had it about sewed up. Listen. There’s not the faintest chance. Not the faintest. I had really given that up, and had three men tailing him to catch him on the next one—and by God there goes Hibbard and we can’t even find what’s left of him, and do you know what? My three men don’t know where Chapin was Tuesday night! Can you beat it? It sounds dumb, but they’re not dumb, they’re damn good men. So as I say, I’d love to drop in here—”
Wolfe put in, “You spoke of talking business.”
“So I did. I’m ready to offer you a bargain. Of course you’ve got your own methods, we all have, but in these four weeks we’ve dug up a lot of dope, and it’s cost us a lot of money to get it. It’s confidential naturally, but if your clients are the same as mine that don’t matter. It would save you a lot of time and expense and circling around. You can have all the dope and I’ll confer with you on it any time, as often as you want.” Bascom hesitated a moment, wet his lips, and concluded, “For one thousand dollars.”
Wolfe shook his head gently. “But, Mr. Bascom. All of your reports will be available to me.”
“Sure, but you know what reports are. You know, they’re all right, but oh hell. You would really get some dope if I let you question any of my men you wanted to. I’d throw that in.”
“I question its value.”
“Oh, be reasonable.”
“I often try. I will pay one hundred dollars for what you offer.—Please! I will not haggle. And do not think me discourteous if I say that I am busy and need all the time the clock affords me. I thank you for your visit, but I am busy.” Wolfe’s fingers moved to indicate the books before him on the desk, one of them with a marker in it. “There are the five novels written by Paul Chapin; I managed to procure the four earlier ones yesterday evening. I am reading them. I agree with you that this is a difficult case. It is possible, though extremely unlikely, that I shall have it solved by midnight.”
I swallowed a grin. Wolfe liked bravado all right; for his reputation it was one of his best tricks.
Bascom stared at him. After a moment he pushed his chair back and got up, and the dick next to me lifted himself with a grunt. Bascom said, “Don’t let me keep you. I believe I mentioned we all have our own methods, and all I’ve got to say is thank God for that.”
“Yes. Do you wish the hundred dollars?”
Bascom, turning, nodded. “I’ll take it. It looks to me like you’re throwing the money away, since you’ve already bought the novels, but hell I’ll take it.”
I went across to open the door, and they followed.
Chapter 5
By dinner time Monday we were all set, so we enjoyed the meal in leisure. Fritz was always happy and put on a little extra effort when he knew things were moving in the office. That night I passed him a wink when I saw how full the soup was of mushrooms, and when I tasted the tarragon in the salad dressing I threw him a kiss. He blushed. Wolfe frequently had compliments for his dishes and expressed them appropriately, and Fritz always blushed; and whenever I found occasion to toss him a tribute he blushed likewise, I’d swear to heaven, just to please me, not to let me down. I often wondered if Wolfe noticed it. His attention to food was so alert and comprehensive that I would have said off hand he didn’t, but in making any kind of a guess about Wolfe off hand wasn’t good enough.
As soon as dinner was over Wolfe went up to his room, as he had explained he would do; he was staging it. I conferred with Fritz in the kitchen a few minutes and then went upstairs and changed my clothes. I put on the gray suit with pin checks, one of the best fits I ever had, and a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie. On my way back down I stopped in at Wolfe’s room, on the same floor, to ask him a question. He was in the tapestry chair by the reading lamp with one of Paul Chapin’s novels, and I stood waiting while he marked a paragraph in it with a lead pencil.
I said, “What if one of them brings along some foreign object, like a lawyer for instance? Shall I let it in?”
Without looking up, he nodded. I went down to the office.
The first one was early. I hadn’t looked for the line to start forming until around nine, but it lacked twenty minutes of that when I heard Fritz going down the hall and the front door opening. Then the knob of the office door turned, and Fritz ushered in the first victim. He almost needed a shave, his pants were baggy, and his hair wasn’t combed. His pale blue eyes darted around and landed on me.
“Hell,” he said, “you ain’t Nero Wolfe.”
I admitted it. I exposed my identity. He didn’t offer to shake hands. He said:
“I know I’m early for the party. I’m Mike Ayers, I’m in the city room at the Tribune. I told Oggie Reid I had to have the evening off to get my life saved. I stopped off somewhere to get a pair of drinks, and after a while it occurred to me I was a damn fool, there was no reason why there shouldn’t be a drink here. I am not referr
ing to beer.”
I said, “Gin or gin?”
He grinned. “Good for you. Scotch. Don’t bother to dilute it.”
I went over to the table Fritz and I had fixed up in the alcove, and poured it. I was thinking, hurrah for Harvard and bright college days and so on. I was also thinking, if he gets too loud he’ll be a nuisance but if I refuse to pander to his vile habit he’ll beat it. And having learned the bank reports practically by heart, I knew he had been on the Post four years and the Tribune three, and was pulling down ninety bucks a week. Newspapermen are one of my weak spots anyhow; I’ve never been able to get rid of a feeling that they know things I don’t know.
I poured him another drink and he sat down and held onto it and crossed his legs. “Tell me,” he said, “is it true that Nero Wolfe was a eunuch in a Cairo harem and got his start in life by collecting testimonials from the girls for Pyramid Dental Cream?”
Like an ass, for half a second I was sore. “Listen,” I said, “Nero Wolfe is exactly—” Then I stopped and laughed. “Sure,” I said. “Except that he wasn’t a eunuch, he was a camel.”
Mike Ayers nodded. “That explains it. I mean it explains why it’s hard for a camel to go through a needle’s eye. I’ve never seen Nero Wolfe, but I’ve heard about him, and I’ve seen a needle. You got any other facts?”
I had to pour him another drink before the next customer arrived. This time it was a pair, Ferdinand Bowen, the stockbroker, and Dr. Loring A. Burton. I went to the hall for them to get away from Mike Ayers. Burton was a big fine-looking guy, straight but not stiff, well-dressed and not needing any favors, with dark hair and black eyes and a tired mouth. Bowen was medium-sized, and he was tired all over. He was trim in black and white, and if I’d wanted to see him any evening, which I felt I wouldn’t, I’d have gone to the theater where there was a first night and waited in the lobby. He had little feet in neat pumps, and neat little lady-hands in neat little gray gloves. When he was taking his coat off I had to stand back so as not to get socked in the eye with his arms swinging around, and I don’t cotton to a guy with that sort of an attitude towards his fellowmen in confined spaces. Particularly I think they ought to be kept out of elevators, but I’m not fond of them anywhere.
I took Burton and Bowen to the office and explained that Wolfe would be down soon and showed them Mike Ayers. He called Bowen Ferdie and offered him a drink, and he called Burton Lorelei. Fritz brought in another one, Alexander Drummond the florist, a neat little duck with a thin mustache. He was the only one on the list who had ever been to Wolfe’s house before, he having come a couple of years back with a bunch from an association meeting to look at the plants. I remembered him. After that they came more or less all together: Pratt the Tammany assemblyman, Adler and Cabot, lawyers, Kommers, sales manager from Philadelphia, Edwin Robert Byron, all of that, magazine editor, Augustus Farrell, architect, and a bird named Lee Mitchell, from Boston, who said he represented both Collard and Gaines the banker. He had a letter from Gaines.
That made twelve accounted for, figuring both Collard and Gaines in, at ten minutes past nine. Of course they all knew each other, but it couldn’t be said they were getting much gaiety out of it, not even Mike Ayers, who was going around with an empty glass in his hand, scowling. The others were mostly sitting with their funeral manners on. I went to Wolfe’s desk and gave Fritz’s button three short pokes. In a couple of minutes I heard the faint hum of the elevator.
The door of the office opened and everybody turned their heads. Wolfe came in; Fritz pulled the door to behind him. He waddled halfway to his desk, stopped, turned, and said, “Good evening, gentlemen.” He went to his chair, got the edge of the seat up against the back of his knees and his grip on the arms, and lowered himself.
Mike Ayers demanded my attention by waving his glass at me and calling, “Hey! A eunuch and a camel!”
Wolfe raised his head a little and said in one of his best tones, “Are you suggesting those additions to Mr. Chapin’s catalogue of his internal menagerie?”
“Huh? Oh. I’m suggesting—”
George Pratt said, “Shut up, Mike,” and Farrell the architect grabbed him and pulled him into a chair.
I had handed Wolfe a list showing those who were present, and he had glanced over it. He looked up and spoke. “I am glad to see that Mr. Cabot and Mr. Adler are here. Both, I believe, attorneys. Their knowledge and their trained minds will restrain us from vulgar errors. I note also the presence of Mr. Michael Ayers, a journalist. He is one of your number, so I merely remark that the risk of publicity, should you wish to avoid it—”
Mike Ayers growled, “I’m not a journalist, I’m a newshound. I interviewed Einstein—”
“How drunk are you?”
“Hell, how do I know?”
Wolfe’s brow lifted. “Gentlemen?”
Farrell said, “Mike’s all right. Forget him. He’s all right.”
Julius Adler the lawyer, about the build of a lead-pencil stub, looking like a necktie clerk except for his eyes and the way he was dressed, put in, “I would say yes. We realize that this is your house, Mr. Wolfe, and that Mr. Ayers is lit, but after all we don’t suppose that you invited us here to censor our private habits. You have something to say to us?”
“Oh, yes …”
“My name is Adler.”
“Yes, Mr. Adler. Your remark illustrates what I knew would be the chief hindrance in my conversation with you gentlemen. I was aware that you would be antagonistic at the outset. You are all badly frightened, and a frightened man is hostile almost by reflex, as a defense. He suspects everything and everyone. I knew that you would regard me with suspicion.”
“Nonsense.” It was Cabot, the other lawyer. “We are not frightened, and there is nothing to suspect you of. If you have anything to say to us, say it.”
I said, “Mr. Nicholas Cabot.”
Wolfe nodded. “If you aren’t frightened, Mr. Cabot, there is nothing to discuss. I mean that. You might as well go home.” Wolfe opened his eyes and let them move slowly across the eleven faces. “You see, gentlemen, I invited you here this evening only after making a number of assumptions. If any one of them is wrong, this meeting is a waste of time, yours and mine. The first assumption is that you are convinced that Mr. Paul Chapin has murdered two, possibly three, of your friends. The second, that you are apprehensive that unless something is done about it he will murder you. The third, that my abilities are equal to the task of removing your apprehension; and the fourth, that you will be willing to pay well for that service. Well?”
They glanced at one another. Mike Ayers started to get up from his chair and Farrell pulled him back. Pratt muttered loud enough to reach Wolfe, “Good here.” Cabot said:
“We are convinced that Paul Chapin is a dangerous enemy of society. That naturally concerns us. As to your abilities …”
Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Mr. Cabot. If it amuses you to maintain the fiction that you came here this evening to protect society, I would not dampen the diversion. The question is, how much is it worth to you?”
Mike Ayers startled all of us with a sudden shout, “Slick old Nick!” and followed it immediately with a falsetto whine, “Nicky darling …” Farrell poked him in the ribs. Someone grumbled, “Gag him.” But the glances of two or three others in the direction of Cabot showed that Wolfe was right; the only way to handle that bird was to rub it in.
A new voice broke in, smooth and easy. “What’s the difference whether we’re scared or not?” It was Edwin Robert Byron, the magazine editor. “I’d just as soon say I’m scared, what’s the difference? It seems to me the point is, what does Mr. Wolfe propose to do about it? Grant him his premise—”
“Grant hell.” Mike Ayers got up, flinging his arm free of Farrell’s grasp, and started for the table in the alcove. Halfway there he turned and blurted at them, “You’re damned tootin’ we’re scared. We jump at noises and we look behind us and we drop things, you know damn well we do. All of you that did
n’t lay awake last night wondering how he got Andy and what he did with him, raise your hands. You’ve heard of our little organization, Wolfe you old faker? The League of Atonement? We’re changing it to the Craven Club, or maybe the League of the White Feather.” He filled his glass and lifted it; I didn’t bother to call to him that he had got hold of the sherry decanter by mistake. “Fellow members! To the League of the White Feather!” He negotiated the drink with one heroic swallow. “You can make mine an ostrich plume.” He scowled, and made a terrific grimace of disgust and indignation. “Who the hell put horse manure in that whiskey?”
Farrell let out a big handsome guffaw, and Pratt seconded him. Drummond the florist was giggling. Bowen the stockbroker, either bored or looking successfully like it, took out a cigar and cut off the end and lit it. I was over finding the right bottle for Mike Ayers, for I knew he’d have to wash the taste out of his mouth. Lee Mitchell of Boston got to his feet:
“If I may remark, gentlemen.” He coughed. “Of course I am not one of you, but I am authorized to say that both Mr. Collard and Mr. Gaines are in fact apprehensive, they have satisfied themselves of the standing of Mr. Wolfe, and they are ready to entertain his suggestions.”
“Good.” Wolfe’s tone cut short the buzz of comment. He turned his eyes to me. “Archie. If you will just pass out those slips.”
I had them in the top drawer of my desk, twenty copies just in case, and I took them and handed them around. Wolfe had rung for beer and was filling his glass. After he had half emptied it he said:
“That, as you see, is merely a list of your names with a sum of money noted after each. I can explain it most easily by reading to you a memorandum which I have here … or have I? Archie?”
“Here it is, sir.”
“Thank you.—I have dictated it thus; it may be put into formal legal phrasing or not, as you prefer. I would be content to have it an initialed memorandum. For the sake of brevity I have referred to you, those whose names are on the list you have—those absent as well as those present—as the league. The memorandum provides:
Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 Page 5