“She could add nothing to what she told you Saturday evening. She has made another thorough search of the apartment, helped by her sister, and can find nothing whatever missing. Either Mr. Hibbard’s absence was unforeseen by him, or he was a remarkably intelligent and strong-willed man. He was devoted to two pipes, which he smoked alternately. One of them is there in its usual place. He made no uncommon withdrawal from his bank, but he always carried a good deal of cash.”
“Didn’t I tell you about the pipe?”
“You may have. Saul Panzer, after a full day, had to offer one little morsel. A news vendor at One Hundred Sixteenth Street and Broadway, who has known Mr. Hibbard by sight for several years, saw him enter the subway between nine and ten o’clock last Tuesday evening.”
“That was the only bite Saul got?”
Wolfe nodded, on his way slanting forward to reach the button on his desk. “The police had got that too, and no more, though it has been a full week since Mr. Hibbard disappeared. I telephoned Inspector Cramer this morning, and Mr. Morley at the District Attorney’s office. As you know, they lend information only at usurious rates, but I gathered that they have exhausted even conjecture.”
“Morley would deal you an extra card any time.”
“Perhaps, but not when he has none to deal. Saul Panzer is following a suggestion I offered him, but its promise is negligible. There is no point in his attempting a solitary fishing expedition; if Mr. Chapin went for a walk with Mr. Hibbard and pushed him off a bridge into the East River, we cannot expect Saul to dive for the corpse. The routine facilities of the police and Bascom’s men have covered, and are covering, possibilities of that nature. As for Mr. Chapin, it would be useless to question him. He has told both Bascom and the police that he spent last Tuesday evening in his apartment, and his wife sustains him. No one in the neighborhood remembers seeing him venture forth.”
“You suggested something to Saul?”
“Merely to occupy him.” Wolfe poured a glass of beer. “But on the most critical front, at the moment, we have met success. Mr. Farrell has gained the adherence of twenty individuals to the memorandum — all but Dr. Elkus in the city, and all but one without, over the telephone. Mr. Pitney Scott, the taxi-driver, is excluded from these statistics; there would be no profit in hounding him, but you might find occasion to give him a glance; he arouses my curiosity, faintly, in another direction. Copies of the memorandum have been distributed, for return. Mr. Farrell is also collecting the warnings, all copies except those in the possession of the police. It will be well to have—”
The telephone rang. I nearly knocked my glass of milk over getting it. I’m always like that when we’re on a case, and I suppose I’ll never get over it; if I had just landed ten famous murderers and had them salted down, and was at the moment engaged in trying to run down a guy who had put a slug in a subway turnstile, Fritz going to answer the doorbell would put a quiver in me.