in the bowl on the table; fresh towels were in the bathroom. Not bad for a strictly male household. I went out, but at the door was stopped by Hibbard:
'Say. Do you happen to have a dark brown necktie?'
I grinned and went to my room and picked out a genteel solid-color, and took it up to him.
Down in the office Wolfe sat with his eyes shut. I went to my desk. I was sore as hell. I was still hearing the tone of Wolfed voice when he said, 'Sixty-five hours,' and though I knew the reproach had been for himself and not for me, I didn't need a whack on the shins to inform me that I had made a bad fumble. I sat and considered the general and particular shortcomings of my conduct. Finally I said aloud, as if to myself, not looking at him:
'The one thing I won't ever do again is believe a cripple. It was all because I believed that damn warning. If it hadn't been imbedded in my nut that Andrew Hibbard was dead, I would have been receptive to a decent suspicion no matter where it showed up. I suppose that goes for Inspector Cramer too, and I suppose that means that I'm of the same general order as he is. In that case -'
'Archie.' I glanced at Wolfe enough to see that he had opened his eyes. He went on, 'If that is meant as a defense offered to me, none is needed. If you are merely rubbing your vanity to relieve a soreness, please defer it. There is still eighteen minutes before dinner, and we might as well make use of them. I am suffering from my habitual impatience when nothing remains but the finishing touches. Take your notebook.'
I got it out, and a pencil.
'Make three copies of this, the original on the good bond. Date it tomorrow, November eleventh – ha, Armistice Day! |Most appropriate. It will have a heading caps as follows: CONFESSION OF
PAUL CHAPIN REGARDING THE
DEATHS OF WILLIAM R. HARRISON
AND EUGENE DREYER AND THE
WRITING AND DISPATCHING OF
CERTAIN INFORMATIVE AND
THREATENING VERSES
.
It is a concession to him to call them verses, but we should be magnanimous somewhere, let us select that for it. There will then be divisions, properly spaced and subheaded.
The subheadings will also be in caps. The first one is DEATH OF WILLIAM R.
HARRISON. Then begin… thus -9f •al interrupted. 'Listen, wouldn't it be fitting to type this on the machine from the Harvard Club? Of course it's crummy, but it would be a poetic gesture…'
'Poetic? Oh. Sometimes, Archie, the _ association of your ideas reminds me of a | hummingbird. Very well, you may do that. Let us proceed.' When he was giving me a document Wolfe usually began slow and speeded up as he went along. He began, 'I, Paul Chapin, of 203 Perry Street, New York City, hereby confess that -'
The telephone rang.
I put my notebook down and reached for it. My practice was to answer calls by saying crisp but friendly, 'Hello, this is the office of Nero Wolfe.' But this time I didn't get to finish it. I got about three words out, but the rest of it was stopped by an excited voice in my ear, excited but low, nearly a whisper, fast but trying to make it plain:
'Archie, listen. Quick, get it, I may be pulled off. Get up here as fast as you can – Doc Burton's, Ninetieth Street.
Burton's croaked. The lop got him with a Is gat, pumped him full. They got him clean, I followed him -' j There were noises, but no more words.
That was enough to last a while, anyway.
I hung up and turned to Wolfe. I suppose my face wasn't very placid, but the expression on his didn't change any as he looked at me. I said, 'That was Fred Durkin. Paul Chapin has just shot Dr.
Burton and killed him. At his apartment on Ninetieth Street. They caught him redhanded.
Fred invites me up to see the show.'
