Character details
- First Name
- Dora
- Last Name
- Chapin
- Notes
- Paul Chapin's wife; maid of Dr. Loring Burton's wife; approximately 5- years old; generally unattractive.
- Reserved Notes
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Character cases:
Ch. 7 - Dora's existence is first revealed to Wolfe by Drummond. Wolfe is astonished and demands, "What is this nonsense?" Burton goes on to reveal that she is his wife's maid and that she is "... around fifty, extremely homely, disconcertingly competent, and stubborn as a wet boot. Paul Chapin married her in 1931."
Ch. 9 - arrives unannounced at the brownstone. Archie indicates, "... seeing her made you despair of ever seeing a pretty woman again" and then, "Somebody's tried to cut her head off. I can't tell how far they got."
Ch. 17 - Anne Burton tells Archie that Dora was present in the apartment just prior to the shooting.
Ch. 18 - invites Archie into her apartment after he arrives unannounced to talk; Dora serves fried chicken and coffee.
Reserved notes for this caseCh. 10 - Dora is mad at Wolfe when he asserts that her husband did not attack her with a knife and give her the wound on her neck. She leaves the brownstone angrily after telling Wolfe, "You're a fat fool."
Ch. 18 - puts sleeping pills in the coffee she serves Archie and Pitney Scott, rendering them both unconscious. Dora takes Archie's prized leather case (a personalized gift from Wolfe) and leaves in Scott's taxi; we learn later that she uses her possession of the case to convince Wolfe to leave the brownstone in order to save Archie.
Ch. 20 - Wolfe reveals that his during his time with Dora, he discovered that she believed Wolfe had framed Paul Chapin, having Archie murder Dr. Burton in order to have him imprisoned to get collect a fee from the League. He tells Archie, "She and I have much in common - for instance, our dislike of perturbation."
Ch. 8 - mentioned by Wolfe as he explains to Insp. Cramer that only extreme circumstances compel him to leave the brownstone.
Reserved notes for this case
Mentioned, regarding an incident from 'The League Of Frightened Men'.
Reserved notes for this caseOnce doped Archie with chloral hydrate; mentioned to explain how Archie knows what it's like.
Character quotations:
You're a fat fool!
Dora reacts to Wolfe who had not fallen for her subterfuge of being attacked with a knife by her husband Paul Chapin. Wolfe replies, "Fat visibly, though I prefer Gargantuan. A fool only in the broader sense as a characteristic of the race."