Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 by The League of Frightened Men Read Free Book Online Page B

enjoy that. I like bravado. You were saying, Mr. Bascom?”
    “Yeah. I might as well come to the point. It’s like this. I’m on a case. I’ve got five men on it. I’m pulling down close to a thousand dollars a week, four weeks now. When I wind it up I’ll get a fee that will keep me off of relief all winter. I’m getting it sewed up. About all I need now is some wrapping paper and a piece of string.”
    “That’s fine.”
    “All of that. And what I’m here for is to ask you to lay off.”
    Wolfe’s brows went up a shade. “To ask me?”
    “To lay off.” Bascom slid forward in his chair and got earnest. “Look here, Mr. Wolfe. It’s the Chapin case. I’ve been on it for four weeks. Pratt and Cabot and Dr. Burton are paying me—that’s no secret, or if it was, it wouldn’t be for you after Monday. Pratt’s a sort of a friend of mine, I’ve done him a good turn or two. He phoned me last night and said if I wanted to hang my own price tag on Paul Chapin I’d better get a move on because Nero Wolfe was about to begin. That was how I found out about the telegrams you sent. I dusted around and saw Burton and Cabot and one or two others. Burton had never heard of you before and asked me to get a report on you, but he phoned me this morning and told me not to bother. I suppose he had inquired and got an earful.”
    Wolfe murmured, “I am gratified at the interest they displayed.”
    “I don’t doubt it.” Bascom laid a fist on the desk foremphasis and got more earnest still. “Mr. Wolfe. I want to speak to you as one professional man to another. You would be the first to agree that ours is a dignified profession.”
    “Not explicitly. To assert dignity is to lose it.”
    “Huh? Maybe. Anyway, it’s a profession, like the law. As you know, it is improper for a lawyer to solicit a client away from another lawyer. He would be disbarred. No lawyer with any decency would ever try it. And don’t you think our profession is as dignified as the law? That’s the only question. See?”
    Bascom waited for an answer, his eyes on Wolfe’s face, and probably supposed that the slow unfolding on Wolfe’s cheeks was merely a natural phenomenon, like the ground swell on an ocean. Wolfe finally said, “Mr. Bascom. If you would abandon the subtleties of innuendo? If you have a request to make, state it plainly.”
    “Hell, didn’t I? I asked you to lay off.”
    “You mean, keep out of what you call the Chapin case? I am sorry to have to refuse your request.”
    “You won’t?”
    “Certainly not.”
    “And you think it is absolutely okay to solicit another man’s clients away from him?”
    “I have no idea. I shall not enter into a defense of my conduct with you; what if it turned out to be indefensible? I merely say, I refuse your request.”
    “Yeah. I thought you would.” Bascom took his fist off the desk and relaxed a little. “My brother claimed you regarded yourself as a gentleman and you’d fall for it. I said you might be a gentleman but you wasn’t a sap.”
    “Neither, I fear.”
    “Well and good. Now that that’s out of the way,maybe we can talk business. If you’re going to take on the Chapin case, that lets us out.”
    “Probably. Not necessarily.”
    “Oh yes, it does. You’ll soak them until they’ll have to begin buying the cheaper cuts. I know when I’m done, I can take it. I couldn’t hang onto it much longer anyhow. God help you. I’d love to drop in here once a week and ask you how’s tricks. I’m telling you, this cripple Chapin is the deepest and slickest that’s ever run around loose. I said I had it about sewed up. Listen. There’s not the faintest chance. Not the faintest. I had really given that up, and had three men tailing him to catch him on the next one—and by God there goes Hibbard and we can’t even find what’s left of him, and do you know what? My three men don’t know where Chapin was Tuesday night! Can you beat it? It sounds dumb, but they’re not