is not a man…'
'There, Miss Hibbard. There now.'
Wolfe sighed. 'Surely he is a man, by definition. Did he indeed kill a judge? In that instance the presumption is of course in his favor. But you mentioned the first warning. Do you by any chance have a copy of it?'
She nodded. 'I have.' She indicated the package. 'I have all the warnings, including…' She swallowed. '… the last one. Dr. Burton gave me his.'
'The one after the apparent suicide.' |
'No. The one… another one came this morning to them. I suppose to all of them; after Dr. Burton told me I telephoned two or three. You see, my uncle has disappeared… you see…'
'I see. Indeed. Dangerous. For Mr.
Chapin, I mean. Any kind of a rut is dangerous in his sort of enterprise. So you have all the warnings. With you? In that package?'
'Yes. Also I have bundles of letters | which Paul Chapin has at various times written to my uncle, and a sort of diary | which my uncle kept, and a book of records showing sums advanced to Paul Chapin from 1919 to 1928 by my uncle and others, and a list of the names and addresses of the members – that is, of the men who were present in 1909 when it happened. A few other things.'
'Preposterous. You have all that?
Why not the police?'
Evelyn Hibbard shook her head. ‹I decided not. These things were in a very private file of my uncle's. They were precious to him, and they are now precious to me… in a different way.
The police would get no help from them, but you might. And you would not abuse them. Would you?'
At the pause I glanced up, and saw
Wolfe's lips pushing out a little… then in, then out again… That excited me. It always did, even when I had no idea what it was all about. I watched him. He said, 'Miss Hibbard. You mean you removed this file from the notice of the police, and kept it, and have now brought it to me?
Containing the names and addresses of the members of the League of Atonement?
Remarkable.'
She stared at him. 'Why not? It has no information that they cannot easily obtain elsewhere – from Mr. Farrell or Dr.
Burton or Mr. Drummond – any of them -'
'All the same, remarkable.' Wolfe reached to his desk and pushed a button.
'Will you have a glass of beer? I drink beer, but would not impose my preferences. There is available a fair port, Solera, Dublin stout, Madeira, and more especially a Hungarian vin du pays which j comes to me from the cellar of the vineyard. Your choice…'
She shook her head. 'Thank you.'
'I may have beer?' |
'Please do.'
Wolfe did not lean back again. He said, | 'If the package could perhaps be opened?
I am especially interested in that first warning.'
She began to untie the string. I got up to help. She handed me the package and I a put it on Wolfe's desk and got the paper off. It was a large cardboard letter-file, old and faded but intact. I passed it to | Wolfe, and he opened it with the deliberate and friendly exactness which his hands displayed toward all inanimate things.
Evelyn Hibbard said, 'Under I. My uncle did not call them warnings. He called them intimations.'
Wolfe nodded. 'Of destiny, I suppose.'
He removed papers from the file. 'Your uncle is indeed a romantic. Oh yes, I say is. It is wise to reject all suppositions, even painful ones, until surmise can stand on the legs of fact. Here it is. Ah! Ye should have killed me, watched the last mean sigh. Is Mr. Chapin in malevolence a poet? May I read it?'
She nodded. He read:
Ye should have killed me, watched the last mean sigh Sneak through my nostril like a fugitive slave Slinking from bondage.
Ye should have killed me.
Ye killed the man,
Ye should have killed me!
Ye killed the man, but not
The snake, the fox, the mouse that nibbles his hole, The patient cat, the hawk, the ape that grins, The wolf, the crocodile, the worm that works his way Up through the slime and down again to hide.
Ah! All these ye left in me,
