'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.'
'You are ready?' Wolfe had opened his eyes on him. 'You mean you are prepared?' ^ 'Not specially.' Burton looked irritated. 'It is of no importance whatever. I always seem to talk too much when Paul Chapin is concerned; I wish to the Lord I'd never heard of him. As far as that goes, of course we all do. I only meant… well, for years I've kept an automatic pistol in the drawer of my study-table. One evening last week Paul came to see me. For years, of course, he was welcome at my house, though he seldomttlcame. On this occasion, on account of recent events, I told the butler to keep him in the reception hall; and before I went to the reception hall I took the pistol from the drawer and stuck it in my pocket. – That was all I meant; I would be perfectly willing to use personal violence if the circumstances required it.'
Wolfe sighed. ‹I regret your soft spot,
Dr. Burton. But for that you might, for instance, tell us which evening Mr. Chapin went to see you and what it was he wanted.'
'That wouldn't help you.' Burton was brusque. 'It was personal – that is, it was only neurotic nonsense.'
'So, they say, was Napoleon's dream of empire. Very well, sir. By all means cling to the tattered shreds of humanity that are left you; there are enough of us in that respect quite unclothed. I must somehow manage my enterprise without stripping you. I would like as ask, gentlemen: which of you were most intimate with Mr. Hibbard?'
They looked at each other. George Pratt said, 'We all saw Andy off and on.'
Julius Adier put in, 'I would say that among us Roland Erskine was his closest friend. I would boast that I was next.'
'Erskine the actor?' Wolfe glanced at the clock. ‹I was thinking he might join us after the theater, but scarcely at this hour. He is working, I believe.'
Drummond said, 'He's in The Iron
Heel, he has the lead.'
'Then he couldn't dine. Not at a civilized hour.' Wolfe looked at Julius Adier. 'Could you come here at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon and bring Mr. Erskine with you?'
'Perhaps.' The lawyer looked annoyed. 'I suppose I could manage it.
Couldn't you come to my office?'
'I'm sorry, sir. Believe me, I am; but knowing my habits as I do, it seems extravagantly improbable. If you could arrange to bring Mr. Erskine -';
'All right. I'll see what I can do.'.
'Thank you. – You had better run, |
Mr. Kommers, or you'll miss your train.
Another reason, and one of the best, for staying at home. – Gentlemen, so far as our business is concerned I need not further detain you. But in connection with my remark to Mr. Kommers it occurs to me that no publication either before or since the invention of printing, no L theological treatise and no political or scientific creed, has ever been as narrowly dogmatic or as offensively arbitrary in its prejudices as a railway timetable. If any of you should care to remain half an hour or so to help me enlarge upon that…'
Byron the magazine editor, who had stuck in his shell all evening, suddenly woke up. He got up from his chair and slipped his head in between a couple of shoulders to see Wolfe. 'You know, that idea could be developed into a first-rate little article. Six hundred to seven hundred words, about. The Tyranny of the Wheel, you could call it, with a colored margin of trains and airplanes and ocean liners at ‹ top speed – of course liners don't have wheels, but you could do something about that – if I could persuade you, Mr.
Wolfe -' gt | 'I'm afraid you could only bewilder me, Mr. Byron.'
Cabot the lawyer smiled. 'I never saw a man less likely to be bewildered, even by Eddie Byron. Good night, Mr. Wolfe.'
He picked up the memorandum and folded it and put it in his pocket. 'I'll send you these in the morning.') They got moving. Pratt and Farrell went and got Mike Ayers to his feet and slapped him around a little. Byron started trying to persuade Wolfe again and was pulled off by Adier. Kommers had gone.
