The League Of Frightened Men by Stout Rex

Author:Stout, Rex [Stout, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Classic
ISBN: 9780553762983
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1935-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Nero Wolfe 02 - The League of Frightened Men

14

I started for the hall to put my coat and hat away, but before I got to the door I turned and went back.

“Listen,” I said, “the roadster needs some exercise. We might fool around with the phone all afternoon and not get anywhere. Why don’t we do this: you phone Farrell’s friends here and see if you can get a line on him. I’ll roll down to hilly and call you up as soon as I arrive. If you haven’t found out anything,

I’ll be on the ground to look for him. I can get there by two-thirty.”

“Excellent,” Wolfe agreed. “But the noon train will reach Philadelphia at two o’clock.”

“Yeah, I know, but - “

“Archie. Let us agree on the train.”

“Okay. I thought I might get away with it.”

There was plenty of time to discuss a few probabilities, since it was only a five-minute walk to the Pennsylvania Station. I caught the noon train, had lunch on the diner, and phoned Wolfe from the Broad Street Station at two minutes after two.

He had no dope, except the names of a few friends and acquaintances of Farrel’s in Philadelphia. I telephoned all I could get hold of, and chased around all afternoon, the Fine Arts Club, and an architectural magazine, and the newspaper offices to see if they knew who intended to build something and so on. I was beginning to wonder if an idea that had come to me on the train could possibly have anything in it. Was Farrell himself entangled somehow in the Chapin business, and had he written that note on that typewriter for some reason maybe to be discovered, and then beat it? Was there a chance that he hadn’t come to Philadelphia at all but somewhere else, even perhaps on a transatlantic liner?

But around six o’clock I got him. I had taken to phoning architects. After about three dozen I found one who told me that a Mr. Allenby who had got rich and sentimental was going to build a library for a Missouri town that had been lucky enough to give birth to him and then lose him. That was a building project I hadn’t heard of before. I phoned Allenby, and was told that Mr. Farrell was expected at his home at seven o’clock for dinner.

I snatched a pair of sandwiches and went out there, and then had to wait until he had finished his meal.

He came to me in Mr. Allenby’s library. Of course he couldn’t understand how I got there. I allowed him ten seconds for surprise and so forth, and then I asked him: “Last night you wrote a note to Nero Wolfe. Where’s the typewriter you wrote it on?”

He smiled like a gentleman being bewildered. He said, “I suppose it’s where I left it. I didn’t take it away.”

“Well, where was it? Excuse me for taking you on the jump like this. I’ve been hunting you for over five hours and I’m out of breath.

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