“I assure you, sir, I am far too immobile to chase anything whatever. But perhaps — since you are by your own admission definitely out of it — perhaps you have a theory regarding the incidents that have disturbed your friends? It might help us.”
“I’m afraid not.” Chapin shook his head regretfully. “Of course, it appears more than likely that it’s a practical joke, but I have no idea—”
“Murder isn’t a joke, Mr. Chapin. Death is not a joke.”
“Oh, no? Really, no? Are you so sure? Take a good case. Take me, Paul Chapin. Would you dare to assert that my death would not be a joke?”
“Why, would it?”
“Of course. A howling anticlimax. Death’s pretensions to horror, considering what in my case has preceded it, would be indescribably ludicrous. That is why I have so greatly appreciated my friends, their thoughtfulness, their solicitude—”
A cry from behind interrupted him; a cry, deeply anguished, in the voice of Dr. Burton: “Paul! Paul, for God’s sake!”
Chapin wheeled about on his good leg. “Yes?” Without raising his voice a particle he got into it a concentrated scorn that would have withered the love of God. “Yes, Lorry?”
Burton looked at him, said nothing, shook his head, and turned his eyes away. Chapin turned back to Wolfe. Wolfe said:
“So you adhere to the joke theory.”