I did those things. This gentleman, it appeared, represented the second fact Wolfe had demanded, and I was glad to wait on him. He held his hands out for me to take the bracelets off, but it seemed to be an effort for him, and a glance at his eyes showed me that he wasn’t feeling any too prime. I eased the chair up back of his knees, and all of a sudden he slumped into it, buried his face in his hands, and stayed that way. Wolfe and I regarded him, with not as much commiseration as he might have thought he had a right to expect if he had been looking at us. To me he was the finest hunk of bacon I had lamped for several moons.
Wolfe tipped me a nod, and I went to the cabinet and poured a stiff one and brought it over. I said:
“Here, try this.”
Finally he looked up. “What is it?”
“It’s a goddam drink of rye whiskey.”
He shook his head and reached for the drink simultaneously. I knew he had some soup in him so didn’t look for any catastrophe. He downed half of it, spluttered a little, and swallowed the rest. I said to Wolfe:
“I brought him in with his cap on so you could see him that way. Anyhow, all I ever saw was a photograph. And he was supposed to be dead. And I’m here to tell you, it would have been a pleasure to plug him, and no kinds of comments will be needed now or any other time.”
Wolfe, disregarding me, spoke to the runt: “Mr. Hibbard. You know of the ancient New England custom of throwing a suspected witch into the river, and if she drowned she was innocent. My personal opinion of a large drink of straight whiskey is that it provides a converse test: if you survive it you can risk anything. Mr. Goodwin did not in fact plug you?”
Hibbard looked at me and blinked, and at Wolfe and blinked again. He cleared his throat twice, and said conversationally:
“The truth of the matter is, I am not an adventurous man. I have been under a terrible strain for eleven days. And shall be — for many more.”