The League of Frightened Men

"Understand, Mr. Goodwin, I am seeing you only,, as a courtesy to my friends who have requested it. I have explained to Mr. Farrell that I will not support the enterprise of your employer. ^ Nor will I lend any assistance."

"Okay." I grinned at him.^I didn't come to pick a scrap, Dr. Elkus. I just want to ask some questions about September nineteenth, when Eugene Dreyer died. Questions of fact." ‹I have already answered any question you could possibly put. To the police several times, and to that incredibly ignorant detective…"

"Right. So far we agree. Just as a matter of courtesy to your friends, there's no reason why you shouldn't answer them once more, is there? To converse with the cops and Del Bascom and then draw the line at Nero Wolfe and me… well, that would be like…"

He smiled a sad smile. "Swallow a camel and strain at a gnat?" God that guy was sad.

"Yeah, I guess so. Only if you saw Nero Wolfe you wouldn't call him a gnat.

–It's like this, Dr. Elkus. I know you won't lend a hand to get the goods on Paul Chapin. But in this Dreyer business you're my only source of firsthand information and so I had to get at you. I understand the other man, the art expert, has gone back to Italy."

He, nodded. "Mr. Santini sailed some time ago."

"Then there's only you. There's no sense in my trying to ask you a lot of trick questions. Why don't you just tell me about it?"

He smiled sad again. ‹I presume you know that two or three of my friends suspect me of lying to shield Paul Chapin?" n"Yeah. Are you?"

"No. I would neither shield him nor injure him, beyond the truth. – Here is the story, Mr. Goodwin. You know, of course, that Eugene Dreyer was an old friend of mine, a classmate in college. He was pretty successful with his art gallery before the depression. I bought things from him occasionally. I have never been under the necessity of pursuing success, since I inherited wealth. My reputation as a surgeon is a by-product of my conviction that there is something wrong with" all human beings, beneath the surface. By chance I have a sure and skillful hand."

I looked at his big hands folded on his lap, and nodded at his black eyes floating back into his head. He went on:

"Six years ago I gave Eugene Dreyer a tentative order for three Mantegnas – two small ones and a larger one. The price was one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. The paintings were in France.