That was dangerous.'
'How sure are you?'
'Sure -' • 'That he sent the threat.'
'Did I not say he did?'
'Yeah. Excuse me for living.'
'I would not take that responsibility; I have all I can do to excuse myself. – But so much for Judge Harrison; whatever chaos he inhabits now, let us hope he contemplates it with a wiser modesty. I would tell you about Mr. Hibbard. That is, I would tell you nothing, for there is nothing to tell. His niece, Miss Evelyn Hibbard, called on me this morning.'
'Oh, she did. I thought she was coming
Wednesday.'* ^
'She anticipated it, having received a report of last evening's gathering.'
'Did she spill anything new?'
'She could add nothing to what she told you Saturday evening. She has made another thorough search of the apartment, helped by her sister, and can find nothing whatever missing. Either Mr. Hibbard's 1 absence was unforeseen by him, or he was a remarkably intelligent and strong-willed man. He was devoted to two pipes, which i he smoked alternately. One of them is I there in its usual place. He made no uncommon withdrawal from his bank, but he always carried a good deal of cash.'
'Didn't I tell you about the pipe?' ill 'You may have. Saul Panzer, after a full day, had to offer one little morsel. A news vendor at One Hundred Sixteenth Street and Broadway, who has known Mr.
Hibbard by sight for several years, saw him enter the subway between nine and ten o'clock last Tuesday evening.'
'That was the only bite Saul got?'
Wolfe nodded, on his way slanting forward to reach the button on his desk.
'The police had got that too, and no more, though it has been a full week since Mr. Hibbard disappeared. I telephoned Inspector Cramer this morning, and Mr.
Morley at the District Attorney's office.
As you know, they lend information only at usurious rates, but I gathered that they have exhausted even conjecture.'
'Morley would deal you an extra card any time.' ',• •,;• 'Perhaps, but not when he has none to deal. Saul Panzer is following a suggestion I offered him, but its promise is negligible.
There is no point in his attempting a solitary fishing expedition; if Mr. Chapin went for a walk with Mr. Hibbard and pushed him off a bridge into the East River, we cannot expect Saul to dive for the corpse. The routine facilities of the police and Bascom's men have covered, and are covering, possibilities of that nature. As for Mr. Chapin, it would be useless to question him. He has told both Bascom and the police that he spent last Tuesday evening in his apartment, and his wife sustains him. No one in the neighborhood remembers seeing him venture forth.'
'You suggested something to Saul?'
'Merely to occupy him.' Wolfe poured a glass of beer. 'But on the most critical front, at the moment, we have met success. Mr. Farrell has gained the adherence of twenty individuals to the memorandum – all but Dr. Elkus in the city, and all but one without, over the telephone. Mr. Pitney Scott, the taxidriver, is excluded from these statistics; there would be no profit in hounding him, but you might find occasion to give him a glance; he arouses my curiosity, faintly, in another direction. Copies of the memorandum have been distributed, for return. Mr. Farrell is also collecting the warnings, all copies except those in the possession of the police. It will be well to have -'
The telephone rang. I nearly' knocked my glass of milk over getting it. I'm always like that when we're on a case, and I suppose I'll never get over it; if I had just landed ten famous murderers and had them salted down, and was at the moment I engaged in trying to run down a guy who had put a slug in a subway turnstile, Fritz going to answer the doorbell would put a quiver in me.
I heard a few words, and nodded at
Wolfe. 'Here's Farrell now.' Wolfe pulled his phone over, and I kept my receiver to my ear. They talked only a minute or two., After we had hung up, I said, 'What i what? Farrell taking Mr. Somebody to lunch at the Harvard Club? You're spending money like a drunken sailor.'
Wolfe rubbed his nose. ‹I am not spending it. Mr. Farrell is. Decency will of course require me to furnish it. I requested Mr. Farrell to arrange for an interview with.. Mr. Oglethorpe; I did not contemplate feeding him. It is now beyond remedy. Mr. Oglethorpe is a member of the firm which publishes Mr. Chapin's books, and Mr. Farrell is slightly acquainted with him.'
I grinned. 'Well, you're stuck. I suppose you want him to publish your essay on The Tyranny of the Wheel.
How's it coming on?' I
Wolfe ingnored my wit. He said, I
'Upstairs this morning I spent twenty minutes considering where Paul Chapin might elect to type something which he would not wish to be traced to him. The suggestion in one of Bascom's reports, that Chapin has a duplicate set of typebars for his machine which he substitutes on occasion, I regard as infantile. Not only would the changing of the bars be a difficult, laborious and uninspired proceeding; there is also the fact that the duplicate set would have to be concealed in some available spot, and that would be | hazardous. No. Not that. Then there is the old trick of going to a typewriter agency and using one of their machines exposed for sale. But a visit from Paul Chapin, with his infirmity, would be remembered; also, that is excluded by the fact that all | three of the warnings were executed on the same typewriter. I considered other possibilities, including some of those
