The League of Frightened Men

Knowing how easy it is to find excuses for • a friendly feeling for five grand, I'd say • something different, but Wolfe meant well, he's just eccentric. Seeing you here, it just occurred to me that you ought to know _ that your friend Hibbard is at present a • guest up at our house. I took him there I yesterday in time for dinner. If it's all the same to you, he'd like to stay under cover for another couple of days, till we get this whole thing straightened out. If you should happen to turn mercenary, you won't lose anything by keeping your sense of humor."

He grunted. "So. You got Andy. And you only need a couple of days to straighten it all out. I thought all detectives were dumb." rf "Sure, we are. I'm so dumb I don't even know whether it was you that took Dora Chapin up to Ninetieth Street last evening and brought her back again. I was just going to ask you."

"All right, ask me. Then I'll say it wasn't." He made noises and spat again – another futile attack on the imaginary obstruction in the throat of a man with a constant craving for a drink. He looked at me and went on, "You know, brother – if you will pardon the argot, I'm sore at you for spotting Andy, but I admire you for it too because it was halfway smart.

And anyway, Lorrie Burton was a pretty good guy. With him dead, and Mr. Paul Chapin in jail, the fun's gone. It's not funny any more, even to me, and Nero .Wolfe's right about my sense of humor.

It is admirable. I'm a character. I'm sardonic." He spat again. "But to hell with it. I didn't drive Mrs. Chapin to Burton's last night because she went in her own coupe."

"Oh. She drives herself."

"Sure. In the summertime she and her husband go to the country on picnics.

Now that was funny, for instance, and I don't suppose they'll ever do that again. I don't know why she's using me today, unless it's because she doesn't want to park it in front of the Tombs – there she comes now."

I got off the running-board and back a step. Dora Chapin had come out of the 203 entrance and was headed for the taxi.

She had on another coat and another furpiece, but the face was the same, and so were the little -gray eyes. She was carrying an oblong package about the size of a shoebox, and I supposed that was dainties for her husband's Sunday dinner.