Wolfe said, “Mr. Hibbard. I am fascinated at the prospect of your education and I shall insist on hearing it entire, but I wonder if I could interpose a question or two. First I shall need to contradict you by observing that before your eleven days’ education began you had learned enough to assume a disguise simple and effective enough to preserve your incognito, though the entire police force — and one or two other people — were looking for you. Really an achievement.”
The fizz had ascended into the psychologist’s nose, and he pinched it. “Oh no. That sort of thing is rule of thumb. The first rule, of course, is, nothing that looks like disguise. My best items were the necktie and the scratch on my cheek. My profanity, I fear, was not well done; I should not have undertaken it. But my great mistake was the teeth; it was the very devil to get the gold leaf cemented on, and I was forced to confine my diet almost exclusively to milk and soup. Of course, having once made my appearance, I could not abandon them. The clothing, I am proud of.”
“Yes, the clothing.” Wolfe looked him over. “Excellent. Where did you get it?”
“A second-hand store on Grand Street. I changed in a subway toilet, and so was properly dressed when I went to rent a room on the lower West Side.”
“And you left your second pipe at home. You have estimable qualities, Mr. Hibbard.”
“I was desperate.”
“A desperate fool is still a fool. What, in your desperation, did you hope to accomplish? Did your venture pretend to any intelligent purpose?”
Hibbard had to consider. He swallowed some whiskey, washed it off with fizz, and coated that with another sip of whiskey. He finally said, “So help me, I don’t know. I mean I don’t know now. When I left home, when I started this, all that I felt moving me was fear. The whole long story of what that unlucky episode, twenty-five years ago — of what it did to me, would sound fantastic if I tried to tell it. I was too highly sensitized in spots; I suppose I still am, doubtless it will show again in the proper surroundings. I am inclining now to the environmental school — you hear that? Atavism! Anyhow, fear had me, and all I was aware of was a desire to get near Paul Chapin and keep him under my eye. I had no plans, further than that. I wanted to watch him. I knew if I told anyone, even Evelyn — my niece, there would be danger of his getting onto me, so I made a thorough job of it. But the last few days I have begun to suspect that in some gully of my mind, far below consciousness, was a desire to kill him. Of course there is no such thing as a desire without an intention, no matter how nebulous it may be. I believe I meant to kill him. I believe I have been working up to it, and I still am. I have no idea what this talk with you will do to me. I see no reason why it should have any effect one way or another.”
“You will see, I think.” Wolfe emptied his glass. “Naturally you do not know that Mr. Chapin has mailed verses to your friends stating explicitly that he killed you by clubbing you over the head.”
“Oh yes. I know that.”