by Rex Stout
Wolfe leaned far forward in his chair and reached until the tip of his finger hovered delicately within an inch of the brown tweed of Mrs. Frost’s coat. He appealed to her: “Please. Stop him.”
She shrugged her shoulders. Her brother-in-law was going right on. Then abruptly she rose from her chair, stepped around behind the others, and approached me. She came close enough to ask quietly, “Have you any good Irish whiskey?”
“Sure,” I said. “Is that it?”
She nodded. “Straight. Double. With plain water.”
I went to the cabinet and found the bottle of Old Corcoran. I made it plenty double, got a glass of water, put them on a tray stand, and took it over and deposited it beside the orator’s chair. He looked at it and then at me.
“What the deuce is it? What? Where’s the bottle?” He lifted it to his off-center nose and sniffed. “Oh! Well.” His eyes circled the group. “Won’t anyone join me? Calida? Lew?” He sniffed the Irish again. “No? To the Frosts, dead and alive, God bless ’em!” He neither sipped it nor tossed it off, but drank it like milk. He lifted the glass of water and took a dainty sip, about half a teaspoonful, put it down again, leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully caressed his moustache with the tip of his finger. Wolfe was watching him like a hawk.
Mrs. Frost asked quietly, “What is that about Inspector Cramer?”
Wolfe shifted to her. “Nothing, madam, beyond what your nephew has told you.”
“He is coming here to consult with you?”
“So he said.”
“Regarding the … the death of Miss Lauck?”
“So he said.”
“Isn’t that …” She hesitated. “Is it usual for you to confer with the police about the affairs of your clients?”
“It is usual for me to confer with anyone who might have useful information.” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “Let’s see if we can’t cut across, Mrs. Frost. It is ten minutes to four. I permit nothing to interfere with my custom of spending the hours from four to six with my plants upstairs.” As your brother-in-law said with amazing coherence, this thing is simple. I do not deliver an ultimatum to Mr. Llewellyn Frost, I merely offer him an alternative. Either he can pay me at once the amount I would have charged him for completing his commission—he knew before he came here that I ask high fees for my services—and dismiss me, or he can expect me to pursue the investigation to a conclusion and send him a bill. Of course it will be much more difficult for me if his own family tries to obstruct—”
Mrs. Frost shook her head. “We have no wish to obstruct,” she said gently. “But it is apparent that you have misconstrued a remark my daughter Helen made while you were questioning her, and we … naturally, we are concerned about that. And then … if you are about to confer with the police, surely it would be desirable for you to understand.”
“I understand, Mrs. Frost.” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “You would like to be assured that I shall not inform Inspector Cramer of my misconstruction of your daughter’s remark. I’m sorry, I can’t commit myself on that, unless I am either dismissed from the case now with payment in full, or am assured by Mr. Llewellyn Frost—and, under the circumstances, by you and your brother-in-law also—that I am to continue the investigation for which I was engaged. I may add, you people are quite unreasonably alarmed, which is to be expected with persons of your station in society. It is highly unlikely that your daughter has any guilty connection with the murder of Miss Lauck; and if by chance she possesses an important bit of information which discretion has caused her to conceal, the sooner she discloses it the better, before the police do somehow get wind of it.”
Mrs. Frost was frowning. “My daughter has no information whatever.”
“Without offense—I would need to ask her about that myself.”
“And you … wish to be permitted to continue. If you are not, you intend to tell Inspector Cramer—”
“I have not said what I intend.”
“But you wish to continue.”
Wolfe nodded. “Either that, or my fee now.”
“Listen, Calida. I’ve been sitting here thinking.” It was Dudley Frost. He sat up straight. I saw Wolfe get his hands on the arms of his chair. Frost was going on: “Why don’t we get Helen down here? This man Wolfe is throwing a bluff. If we’re not careful we’ll find ourselves coughing up ten thousand dollars of Helen’s money, and since I’m responsible for it, it’s up to me to prevent it. Lew says he’ll have it next week, but I’ve heard that before. A trustee is under the most sacred obligation to preserve the property under his care, and it couldn’t be paid out of surplus income because you don’t have any surplus. The only way is to call this fellow’s bluff—”
I was about ready to go to the cabinet for some more Irish, since apparently the previous serving had all been assimilated, when I saw it wouldn’t be necessary. Wolfe shoved back his chair and got up, moved around and stopped in front of Llewellyn, and spoke loud enough to penetrate the Dudley Frost noise:
“I must go. Thank God. You can tell Mr. Goodwin your decision.” He started his progress to the door, and didn’t halt when Dudley Frost called at him:
“Now here! You can’t run away like that! All right, all right, sir! All right!” His target gone, he turned to his sister-in-law: “Didn’t I say, Calida, we’d call his bluff? See that? All it needs in a case like this—”
Mrs. Frost hadn’t bothered to turn in her chair to witness Wolfe’s departure. Llewellyn had reached across for another grip on his father’s knee and was expostulating: “Now, Dad, cut it out—now listen a minute—”
I stood up and said, “If you folks want to talk this over, I’ll leave you alone a while.”
Mrs. Frost shook her head. “Thank you, I don’t believe it will be necessary.” She turned to her nephew and sounded crisp: “Lew, you started this. It looks as if you’ll have to continue it.”
Llewellyn answered her, and his father joined in, but I paid no attention as I got at my desk and stuck a sheet of paper in the typewriter. I dated it at the top and tapped it off.
TO NERO WOLFE:
Please continue until further notice the investigation into the murder of Molly Lauck for which I engaged you yesterday, Monday, March 30, 1936.
I whirled it out of the machine, laid it on a corner of Wolfe’s desk, and handed Llewellyn my pen. He bent over the paper to read it. His father jumped up and pulled at him.
“Don’t sign that! What is it? Let me see it! Don’t sign anything at all—”
Llewellyn surrendered it to him, and he read it through twice, with a frown. Mrs. Frost stretched out a hand for it, and ran over it at a glance. She looked at me.
“I don’t believe my nephew will have to sign anything …”
“I believe he will.” I was about as fed up as Wolfe had been. “One thing you people don’t seem to realize, if Mr. Wolfe should feel himself relieved of his obligation to his client and tells Inspector Cramer his angle on that break of Miss Frost’s, there won’t be any argument about it. When Cramer has been working on a popular murder case for a week without getting anywhere, he gets so tough he swallows cigars whole. Of course he won’t use a piece of hose on Miss Frost, but he’ll have her brought to headquarters and snarl at her all night. You wouldn’t want—”
“All right.” Dudley Frost had his frown on me. “My son is willing for Wolfe to continue. I’ve thought all along that’s the best way to handle it. But he won’t sign this. He won’t sign anything—”
“Yes, he will.” I took the paper from Calida Frost and put it on the desk again. “What do you think?” I threw up my hands. “Holy heaven! You’re three and I’m one. That’s no good in case of bad memories. What is there to it, anyhow? It says ‘until further notice.’ Mr. Wolfe said you could tell me your decision. Well, I’ve got to have a record of it or so help me, I’ll have a talk with Inspector Cramer myself.”
Lew Frost looked at his aunt and his father, and then at me. “It certainly is one sweet mes
s.” He grimaced in disgust. “If I had ten thousand dollars this minute, I swear to God …”
I said, “Look out, that pen drips sometimes. Go ahead and sign it.”
While the other two frowned at him, he bent over the paper and scrawled his name.
Chapter 5
“I had a notion to call in a notary and make Stebbins swear to an affidavit.” Inspector Cramer chewed on his cigar some more. “Nero Wolfe a mile away from home in broad daylight and in his right mind? Then it must be a raid on the United States Treasury and we’ll have to call out the army and declare martial law.”
It was a quarter past six. Wolfe was back in the office again, fairly placid after two hours with Horstmann among the plants, and was on his second bottle of beer. I was comfortable, with my feet up on the edge of the bottom drawer pulled out, and my notebook on my knees.
Wolfe, leaning back in his chair with his fingers twined at the peak of his middle, nodded grimly. “I don’t wonder, sir. Some day I’ll explain it to you. Just now the memory of it is too vivid; I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Okay. What I thought, maybe you’re not eccentric any more.”
“Certainly I’m eccentric. Who isn’t?”
“God knows I’m not.” Cramer took his cigar from his mouth and looked at it and put it back again. “I’m too damn dumb to be eccentric. Take this Molly Lauck business, for instance. In eight days of intense effort, what do you think I’ve found out? Ask me.” He leaned forward. “I’ve found out Molly Lauck’s dead! No doubt about it! I screwed that out of the Medical Examiner.” He leaned back again and made a face of disgust at both of us. “By God, I’m a whirlwind. Now that I’ve emptied the bag for you, how about you doing the same for me? Then you’ll have your fee, which is what you want, and I’ll have an excuse for keeping my job, which is what I need.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Nothing, Mr. Cramer. I am not even aware Miss Lauck is dead, except by hearsay. I have not seen the Medical Examiner.”
“Oh, come on.” Cramer removed his cigar. “Who hired you?”
“Mr. Llewellyn Frost.”
“That one, eh?” Cramer grunted. “To keep somebody clear?”
“No. To solve the murder.”
“You don’t say. How long did it take you?”
Wolfe got himself forward to pour beer, and drank. Cramer was going on: “What got Lew Frost so worked up about it? I don’t get it. It wasn’t him that the Lauck girl was after, it was that Frenchman, Perren Gebert. Why is Lew Frost so anxious to spend good dough for a hunk of truth and justice?”
“I couldn’t say.” Wolfe wiped his lips. “As a matter of fact, there is nothing whatever I can tell you. I haven’t the faintest notion—”
“You mean to say you went clear to 52nd Street just for the exercise?”
“No. God forbid. But I have no scrap of information, or surmise, for you regarding Miss Lauck’s death.”
“Well.” Cramer rubbed a palm on his knee. “Of course, I know that the fact you’ve got nothing for me doesn’t prove you have nothing for yourself. You going on with it?”
“I am.”
“You’re not committed to Lew Frost to dig holes for anybody?”
“If I understand you—I think I do—I am not.”
Cramer stared at his worn-out cigar for a minute, then reached out and put it in the ashtray and felt in his pocket for a new one. He bit off the end and got the shreds off his tongue, socked his teeth into it again, and lit it. He puffed a thick cloud around him, got a new grip with his teeth, and settled back.
He said, “As conceited as you are, Wolfe, you told me once that I am better equipped to handle nine murder cases out of ten than you are.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah. So I’ve been keeping count, and this Lauck case is the tenth since that rubber band guy, old man Perry. It’s your turn again, so I’m glad you’re already in it without me having to shove you. I know; you don’t like to tell people things, not even Goodwin here. But since you’ve been up there, you might be willing to admit that you know how it happened. I understand that you’ve talked with McNair and the two girls who saw her eat it.”
Wolfe nodded. “I’ve heard the obvious details.”
“Okay. Obvious is right. I’ve gone over it ten times with those two. I’ve had sessions with everybody in the place. I’ve had twenty men out chasing after everyone who was there at the fashion show that day, and I’ve seen a couple of dozen of them myself. I’ve had half the force checking up all over town on sales of two-pound boxes of Bailey’s Royal Medley during the past month, and the other half trying to trace purchases of potassium cyanide. I’ve sent two men out to Darby, Ohio, where Molly Lauck’s parents live. I’ve had shadows on ten or twelve people where it looked like there was a chance of a tie-up.”
“You see,” Wolfe murmured, “as I said, you are better equipped.”
“Go to hell. I use what I’ve got, and you know damn well I’m a good cop. But after these eight days, I don’t even know for sure whether Molly Lauck was killed by poison that was intended for someone else. What if the Frost girl and the Mitchell girl did it together? You couldn’t beat it for a set-up, and maybe they’re that clever. Knowing Molly Lauck liked to play jokes, maybe they planted it for her to swipe, or maybe they just gave it to her and then told their story. But why? That’s another item, I can’t find anyone who had any reason at all to want to kill her. It seems she was mellow in the pump about this Perren Gebert and he couldn’t see her, but there’s no evidence that she was making herself a nuisance to him.”
Wolfe murmured, “Mellow where?”
I put in, “Okay, boss. Soft-hearted.”
“Gebert was there that day, too.” Cramer went on, “but I can’t get anywhere with him on that. There hasn’t been another single nibble on motive, if the stuff was intended for Molly Lauck. In my opinion, it wasn’t. It looks like she really did swipe it. And the minute you take that theory, what have you got? You’ve got the ocean. There were over a hundred people there that day, and it might have been intended for any one of them, and any of them might have brought it. You can see what a swell lay-out that is. We’ve traced over three hundred sales of two-pound boxes of Bailey’s Royal Medley, and among that bunch of humans that was there at the show we’ve uncovered enough grudges and jealousies and bad blood and biliousness to account for twenty murders. What do we do with it now? We file it.”
He stopped and chewed savagely on his cigar. I grinned at him: “Did you come here to inspect our filing system, Inspector? It’s a beaut.”
He growled at me, “Who asked you anything? I came here because I’m licked. What do you think of that? Did you ever hear me say that before? And no one else.” He turned to Wolfe. “When I heard you were up there today, of course I didn’t know for who or what, but I thought to myself, now the fur’s going to fly. Then I thought I might as well drop in and you might give me a piece as a souvenir. I’ll take anything I can get. This is one of those cases that can’t cool off, because the damn newspapers keep the heat turned on indefinitely, and I don’t mean only the tabloids. Molly Lauck was young and beautiful. Half of the dames that were there at the show that day are in the Social Register. H. R. Cragg was there himself, with his wife, and so on. The two girls that saw her die are also young and beautiful. They won’t let it cool off, and every time I go into the Commissioner’s office he beats the arm of his chair. You’ve seen him do that right here in your own office.”
Wolfe nodded. “Mr. Hombert is a disagreeable noise. I’m sorry I have nothing for you, Mr. Cramer, I really am.”
“Yeah, I am too. But you can do this, anyhow: give me a push. Even if it’s in the wrong direction and you know it.”
“Well … let’s see.” Wolfe leaned back with his eyes half closed. “You are blocked on motive. You can find none as to Miss Lauck, and too many in other directions. You can’t trace the purchase either of the candy or the poison. In fact, you have traced or found nothing what
ever, and you are without a starting-point. But you do really have one; have you used it?”
Cramer stared. “Have I used what?”
“The one thing that is indubitably connected with the murder. The box of candy. What have you done about that?”
“I’ve had it analyzed, of course.”
“Tell me about it.”
Cramer tapped ashes into the tray. “There’s not much to tell. It was a two-pound box that’s on sale pretty well all over town, at druggists and branch stores, put up by Bailey of Philadelphia, selling at a dollar sixty. They call it Royal Medley, and there’s a mixture in it, fruits, nuts, chocolates, and so on. Before I turned it over to the chemist I got Bailey’s factory on the phone and asked if all Royal Medley boxes were uniform. They said yes, they were packed strictly to a list, and they read the list to me. Then for a check I sent out for a couple of boxes of Royal Medley and spread them out and compared them with the list. Okay. By doing the same with the box Molly Lauck ate from, I found that three pieces were gone from it: candied pineapple, a candied plum, and a Jordan almond. That agreed with the Mitchell girl’s story.”
Wolfe nodded. “Fruits, nuts, chocolates—were there any caramels?”
“Caramels?” Cramer stared at him. “Why caramels?”
“No reason. I used to like them.”
Cramer grunted. “Don’t try to kid me. Anyhow, there aren’t any caramels in a Bailey’s Royal Medley. That’s too bad, huh?”