The League of Frightened Men

Well, this Wednesday afternoon, after lunch, I was sore. He went indifferent on me; he even went contrary. He wouldn't cable the guy in Rome to get into converse with Santini; he said it was futile and expected me to take his word for it. He wouldn't help me concoct a loop we could use to drag Leopold Elkus into the office; according to him, that was futile too. He kept trying to read in a book while I was after him. He said there were only two men in the case whom he felt any inclination to talk to: Andrew Hibbard and Paul Chapin; and he wasn't ready yet for Chapin and he didn't know where Hibbard was, or whether he was alive or dead. I knew Saul Panzer was going to the morgue every morning and afternoon to look over the stiffs, but I didn't know what else he was doing. I also knew that Wolfe had talked with Inspector Cramer on the phone that morning, but that was nothing to get excited about; Cramer had shot his bolt a week ago at Paul Chapin and all that was keeping him awake was the routine of breathing. W '

Saul had phoned around noon and Wolfe had talked to him from the kitchen while I was out with Pitney Scott. A litt]^ after two Fred Durkin phoned. He sair that Paul Chapin had been to the barbe, and a drugstore, and that the town die)and the guy in the brown cap and pinlnecktie were still on deck, and he wa? thinking of forming a club. Wolfe went 01, reading. About a quarter to three Orri^ Gather called up and said he had got hol(j of something he wanted to show us and could he come on up with it; he was at th^ Fourteenth Street subway station. I told him yes. Then, just before Orrie arrived, ^ call came that made Wolfe put down his book. It was from Farrell the architect, and Wolfe talked to him. He said he had had a nice lunch with Mr. Oglethorpe, and he had had a tough argument but had finally persuaded him. He was phoning from the publisher's office. Paul Chapin had on several occasions found it convenient to make use of a typewriter there, but there was some disagreement as to which one or ones, so he was going to take samples from a dozen of them.

IWoPfe told him to be sure that the factory number of the machine appeared on each sample.

I said, after we hung up, "Okay, that one's turning brown. But even if you hang the warnings on him, you've just started.