Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 Read Online Free

no proof. Second, they might.
    Hibbard:
Very well. I was not engaged in an essay on logic. A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.
    Wolfe:
Good. Neat. And the police?
    Hibbard:
They got nowhere. He made total asses of them. He described to me their questioning and his replies
—
    Wolfe:
You still saw him?
    Hibbard:
Of course. We were friends. Oh yes. The police went into it, questioned him, questioned all of us, investigated all they could, and came out empty-handed. Some of them, some of the group, got private detectives. That was two weeks, twelve days ago. The detectives are having the same success as the police. I’m sure of it.
    Wolfe:
Indeed. What agency?
    Hibbard:
That is irrelevant. The point is that something happened. I could speak of apprehensions and precautions and so forth, I know plenty of words of that nature, I could even frame the situation in technical psychological terms, but the plain fact is that I’m too scared to go on. I want you to save me from death. I want to hire you to protect my life
.
    Wolfe:
Yes. What happened?
    Hibbard:
Nothing. Nothing of any significance except to me. He came to me and said something,that’s all. It would be of no advantage to repeat it. My shameful admission is that I am at length completely frightened. I’m afraid to go to bed and I’m afraid to get up. I’m afraid to eat. I want whatever measure of security you can sell me. I am accustomed to the arrangement of words, and the necessity of talking intelligently to you has enforced a semblance of order and urbanity in a section of my brain, but around and beneath that order there is a veritable panic. After all my exploration, scientific and pseudo-scientific, of that extraordinary phenomenon, the human psyche, devil-possessed and heaven-soaring, I am all reduced to this single simple primitive concern: I am terribly afraid of being killed. The friend who suggested my coming here said that you possess a remarkable combination of talents and that you have only one weakness. She did not call it cupidity; I forget her phrasing. I am not a millionaire, but I have ample private means besides my salary, and I am in no state of mind for haggling.
    Wolfe:
I always need money. That is of course my affair. I will undertake to disembark this gentleman from his ship of vengeance, in advance of any injury to you, for the sum of ten thousand dollars.
    Hibbard:
Disembark him? You can’t. You don’t know him.
    Wolfe:
Nor does he know me. A meeting can be arranged.
    Hibbard:
I didn’t mean—hah. It would take more than a meeting. It would take more, I think, than all your talents. But that is beside the point I have failed to make myself clear. I would not pay ten thousand dollars, or any other sum, for you to bring this man to—justice? Ha! Call it justice. A word that reeks with maggots. Anyhow, I would not be a party to that, evenin the face of death. I have not told you his name. I shall not. Already perhaps I have disclosed too much. I wish your services as a safeguard for myself not as an agency for his destruction.
    Wolfe:
If the one demands the other?
    Hibbard:
I hope not. I pray not … could I pray? No. Prayer has been washed from my strain of blood. Certainly I would not expect you to give me a warrant of security. But your experience and ingenuity—I am sure they would be worth whatever you might ask
—
    Wolfe:
Nonsense. My ingenuity would be worth less than nothing, Mr. Hibbard. Do I understand that you wish to engage me to protect your life against the unfriendly designs of this man without taking any steps whatever to expose and restrain him?
    Hibbard:
Yes, sir. Precisely. And I have been told that once your talents are committed to an enterprise, any attempt to circumvent you will be futile.
    Wolfe:
I have no talents. I have genius or nothing. In this case, nothing. No, Mr. Hibbard; and I do need money. What you need, should you persist in your quixotism, is