The Rubber Band/The Red Box 2-In-1

by Rex Stout

  “Okay. I’ll phone you.”

  I went back to the dining room and resumed with my tools and told Wolfe about it. He was provoked, as always when business intruded itself on a meal. I took my time eating, on to the coffee and through it, because I knew if I hurried and didn’t chew properly it would upset Wolfe’s digestion. It didn’t break his heart if I was caught out in the field at feeding time and had to grab what I could get, but if I once started a meal at that table I had to complete it like a gentleman. Also, I wasn’t champing at the bit for an errand I didn’t fancy.

  It was after two when I went to the garage for the roadster, and there I got another irritation when I found that the washing and polishing job had been done by a guy with one eye.

  Downtown, on Centre Street, I parked at the triangle, and went in and took the elevator. I walked down the upstairs corridor as if I owned it, entered the anteroom of Cramer’s office as cocky as they come, and told the hulk at the desk:

  “Tell the inspector, Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office.”

  I stood up for ten minutes, and then was nodded in. I was hoping somewhat that Cramer would be out and my dealings would be with Burke, not on account of my natural timidity, but because I knew it would be better for everyone concerned if Cramer had a little more time to cool off before resuming social intercourse with us. But he was there at his desk when I entered, and to my surprise he didn’t get up and take a bite at my ear. He snarled a little:

  “So it’s you. You walk right in here. Burke made a remark about you this morning. He said that if you ever wanted a rubdown you ought to get Smoky to do it for you. Smoky is the little guy with a bum leg that polishes the brass railings downstairs at the entrance.”

  I said, “I guess I’ll sit down.”

  “I guess you will. Go ahead. Want my chair?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “What do you want?”

  I shook my head at him wistfully. “I’ll be doggoned, Inspector, if you’re not a hard man to please. We do our best to help you find that red box, and you resent it. We catch a dangerous character trying to make an illegal entry, and hand him over to you, and you resent that. If we wrap this case up and present you with it, I suppose you’ll charge us as accessories. You may remember that in that Rubber Band affair—”

  “Yeah, I know. Past favors have been appreciated. I’m busy. What do you want?”

  “Well …” I tilted my head back so as to look down on him. “I represent the executor of Mr. McNair’s estate. I came to invite Mr. Perren Gebert to attend the funeral services at the Belford Memorial Chapel at nine o’clock this evening. If you would kindly direct me to his room?”

  Cramer gave me a nasty look. Then he heaved a deep sigh, reached in his pocket for a cigar, bit off the end and lit it. He puffed at it and got it established in the corner of his mouth. Abruptly he demanded:

  “What have you got on Gebert?”

  “Nothing. Not even passing a red light. Nothing at all.”

  “Did you come here to see him? What does Wolfe want you to ask him?”

  “Nothing. As Tammany is my judge. Wolfe says he’s just clinging to the cliff of existence or something like that and he wouldn’t let him in the house.”

  “Then what the devil do you want with him?”

  “Nothing. I’m just keeping my word. I promised somebody I would come down here and ask you how he is and what his future prospects are. So help me, that’s on the level.”

  “Maybe I believe you. Do you want to look at him?”

  “Not especially. I would just as soon.”

  “You can.” He pressed a button in a row. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to have you. This case is open and shut, open for the newspapers and shut for me. If you’ve got any curiosity about anything that you think Gebert might satisfy, go ahead and take your turn. They’ve been working on him since seven o’clock this morning. Eight hours. They can’t even make him mad.”

  A sergeant with oversize shoulders had entered and was standing there. Cramer told him: “This man’s name is Goodwin. Take him down to Room Five and tell Sturgis to let him help if he wants to.” He turned to me. “Drop in again before you leave. I may want to ask you something.”

  “Okay. I’ll have something thought up to tell you.”

  I followed the sergeant out to the corridor and down it to the elevator. We stayed in for a flight below the ground floor, and he led me the length of a dim hall and around a corner, and finally stopped at a door which may have had a figure 5 on it but if so I couldn’t see it. He opened the door and we went in and he closed the door again. He crossed to where a guy sat on a chair mopping his neck with a handkerchief, said something to him, and turned and went out again.

  It was a medium-sized room, nearly bare. A few plain wooden chairs were along one wall. A bigger one with arms was near the middle of the room, and Perren Gebert was sitting in it, with a light flooding his face from a floor lamp with.a big reflector in front of him. Standing closer in front of him was a wiry-looking man in his shirt sleeves with little fox ears and a Yonkers haircut. The guy on the chair that the sergeant had spoken to was in his shirt sleeves too, and so was Gebert. When I got close enough to the light so that Gebert could see me and recognize me, he half started up, and said in a funny hoarse tone:

  “Goodwin! Ah, Goodwin—”

  The wiry cop reached out and slapped him a good one on the left side of his neck, and then with his other hand on his right ear. Gebert quivered and sank back. “Sit down there, will you?” the cop said plaintively. The other cop, still holding his handkerchief in his hand, got up and walked over to me:

  “Goodwin? My name’s Sturgis. Who are you from, Buzzy’s squad?”

  I shook my head. “Private agency. We’re on the case and we’re supposed to be hot.”

  “Oh. Private, huh? Well … the inspector sent you down. You want a job?”

  “Not just this minute. You gentlemen go ahead. I’ll listen and see if I can think of something.”

  I stepped a pace closer to Gebert and looked him over. He was reddened up a good deal and kind of blotchy, but I couldn’t see any real marks. He had no necktie on and his shirt was torn on the shoulder and there was dried sweat on him. His eyes were bloodshot from blinking at the strong light and probably from having them slapped open when he closed them. I asked him:

  “When you said my name just now, did you want to tell me something?”

  He shook his head and made a hoarse grunt. I turned and told Sturgis: “He can’t tell you anything if he can’t talk. Maybe you ought to give him some water.”

  Sturgis snorted. “He could talk if he wanted to. We gave him water when he passed out a couple of hours ago. There’s only one thing in God’s world wrong with him. He’s contrary. You want to try him?”

  “Later maybe.” I crossed to the row of chairs by the wall and sat down. Sturgis stood and thoughtfully wiped his neck. The wiry cop leaned forward to get closer to Gebert’s face and asked him in a wounded tone:

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  No response, no movement.

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  Again, nothing.

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  Gebert shook his head faintly. The cop roared at him in indignation, “Don’t shake your head at me! Understand? What did she pay you that money for?”

  Gebert sat still. The cop hauled off and gave him a couple more slaps, rocking his head, and then another pair.

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  That went on for a while. It appeared to me doubtful that any progress was going to be made. I felt sorry for the poor dumb cops, seeing that they didn’t have brains enough to realize that they were just gradually putting him to sleep and that in another three or four hours he wouldn’t be worth fooling with. Of course he would be as good as new in the morning, but they couldn’t go on with that for weeks, even if he was a foreigner and couldn�
�t vote. That was the practical viewpoint, and though the ethics of it was none of my business, I admit I had my prejudices. I can bulldog a man myself, if he has it coming to him, but I prefer to do it on his home grounds, and I certainly don’t want any help.

  Apparently they had abandoned all the side issues which had been tried on him earlier in the day, and were concentrating on a few main points. After twenty minutes or more consumed on what she had paid him the money for, the wiry cop suddenly shifted to another one, what had he been after at Glennanne the night before. Gebert mumbled something to that, and got slapped for it. Then he made no reply to it and got slapped again. The cop was about on the mental level of a woodchuck; he had no variety, no change of pace, no nothing but a pair of palms and they must have been getting tender. He stuck to Glennanne for over half an hour, while I sat and smoked cigarettes and got more and more disgusted, then turned away and crossed to his colleague and muttered wearily:

  “Take him a while, I’m going to the can.”

  Sturgis asked me if I wanted to try, and I declined again with thanks. In fact, I was about ready to leave, but thought I might as well get a brief line on Sturgis’ technique. He stuck his handkerchief in his hip pocket, walked over to Gebert and exploded at him:

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  I gritted my teeth to keep from throwing a chair at the sap. But he did show some variation; he was more of a pusher than a slapper. The gesture he worked most was to put his paw on Gebert’s ear and administer a few short snappy shoves and then put his other paw on the other ear and even it up. Sometimes he took him full face and shoved straight back and then ended with a pat.

  The wiry cop had come back and sat down beside me and was telling me how much bran he ate. I had decided I had had my money’s worth and was taking a last puff on a cigarette, when the door opened and the sergeant entered—the one who had brought me down. He walked over and looked at Gebert the way a cook looks at a kettle to see if it has started to boil. Sturgis stepped back and pulled out his handkerchief and started to wipe. The sergeant turned to him:

  “Orders from the inspector. Fix him up and brush him off and take him to the north door and wait there for me. The inspector wants him out of here in five minutes. Got a cup?”

  Sturgis went and opened the door of a cupboard and came back with a white enameled cup. The sergeant poured into it from a bottle and returned the bottle to his pocket. “Let him have that. Can he navigate all right?”

  Sturgis said he could. The sergeant turned to me: “Will you go up to the inspector’s office, Goodwin? I’ve got an errand on the main floor.”

  He went on out and I followed him without saying anything. There was no one there I wanted to exchange telephone numbers with.

  I took the elevator back upstairs. I had to wait quite a while in Cramer’s anteroom. Apparently he was having a party in there, for three dicks came out, and a little later a captain in uniform, and still later a skinny guy with grey hair whom I recognized for Deputy Commissioner Alloway. Then I was allowed the gangway. Cramer was sitting there looking sour and chewing a cigar that had gone out.

  “Sit down, son. You didn’t get a chance to show us how downstairs. Huh? And we didn’t show you much either. There was a good man working on Gebert for four hours this morning, a good clever man. He couldn’t start a crack. So we gave up the cleverness and tried something else.”

  “Oh, that’s it.” I grinned at him. “That’s what those guys are, something else. It describes them all right. And now you’re turning him loose?”

  “We are.” Cramer frowned. “A lawyer was beginning to heat things up, I suppose hired by Mrs. Frost. He got a habeas corpus a little while ago, and I couldn’t see that Gebert was worth fighting for, and anyway, I doubt if we could have held him. Also the French consul started stirring around. Gebert’s a French citizen. Of course we’re putting a shadow on him, and what good will that do? When a man like that has got knowledge about a crime there ought to be some way of tapping him the way you do a maple tree, and draw it out of him. Huh?”

  I nodded. “Sure, that’d be all right. It would be better than …” I shrugged. “Never mind. Any news from the boys at Glennanne?”

  “No.” Cramer clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back into them, chewed his cigar, and scowled at me. “You know, I hate to say this to you. But it’s what I think. I wouldn’t like to see you get hurt, but it might have been more sensible if we had had you down in Room Five all day instead of that Gebert.”

  “Me?” I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. After all I’ve done for you.”

  “Oh, don’t kid me. I’m tired, I’m not in a mood for it. I’ve been thinking. I know how Wolfe works. I don’t pretend I could do it, but I know how he does it. I admit he never yet has finished up on the wrong side, but you only have to break an egg once. It’s just possible that in this case he has got his feet tangled up. He’s working for the Frosts.”

  “He’s working for a Frost.”

  “Sure, and that’s funny too. First he said Lew hired him, and then the daughter. I never knew him to shift clients like that before. Has it got anything to do with the fact that the fortune belongs to the daughter, but that it has been controlled by Lew’s father for twenty years? And Lew’s father, Dudley Frost, is a great one for keeping things to himself. We put it up to him that we’re investigating a murder case and asked him to let us check the assets of the estate because there might be a connection that would be helpful. We asked him to cooperate. He told us to go chase ourselves. Frisbie up at the D.A.’s office tried to get at it through court action, but apparently there’s no loophole. Now why did Wolfe all of a sudden quit Lew and transfer his affections to the other side of the family?”

  “He didn’t. It was what you might call a forced sale.”

  “Yeah? Maybe. I’d like to see Nero Wolfe forced into anything. I noticed it happened right after McNair was croaked. All right; Wolfe had got hold of some kind of positive information. Where did he get it from? From that red box. You see, I’m not trying to play foxy, I’m just telling you. His stunt at Glennanne was a cover. Your play with Gebert was a part of it too. And I warn you and I warn Wolfe: don’t think I’m too dumb to find out eventually what was in that red box, because I’m not.”

  I shook my head sadly. “You’re all wet, inspector. Honest to God, you’re dripping. If you’ve quit looking for the red box let us know, and we’ll take a shot at it.”

  “I haven’t given it up. I’m making all the motions. I don’t say Wolfe is deliberately covering a murderer, he’d have to get more than his feet tangled before he’d be fool enough to do that, but I do say he’s withholding valuable evidence that I want. I don’t pretend to know why; I don’t pretend to know one damn thing about this lousy case. But I do think it’s in the Frost family, because for one thing we haven’t been able to uncover any other connection of McNair’s that offers any line at all. We don’t get anything from his sister in Scotland. Nothing in McNair’s papers. Nothing from Paris. No trail on the poison. My only definite theory about the Frosts is something I dug up from an old family enemy, some old scandal about Edwin Frost disinheriting his wife because he didn’t like her ideas about friendship with a Frenchman, and forcing her to sign away her dower rights by threatening to divorce her. Well, Gebert’s a Frenchman, but McNair wasn’t, and then what? It looks as if we’re licked, huh? Remember what I said Tuesday in Wolfe’s office? But Wolfe is absolutely not a damned fool, and he ought to know better than to try to sit on a lid which sooner or later can be pried off. Will you take him a message from me?”

  “Sure. Shall I write it down?”

  “You won’t need to. Tell him this Gebert is going to have a shadow on him from now on until this case is solved. Tell him that if the red box hasn’t been found, or something else just as good, one of my best men will sail for France on the Normandie next Wednesday. And tell him that I know a few things already, for instance that in the past f
ive years $60,000 of his client’s money has been paid to this Gebert, and the Lord knows how much before that.”

  “Sixty grand?” I raised the brows. “Of Helen Frost’s money?”

  “Yes. I suppose that’s news to you.”

  “It certainly is. Shucks, that much is gone where we’ll never see it. How did she give it to him, nickels and dimes?”

  “Don’t try to be funny. I’m telling you this to tell Wolfe. Gebert opened a bank account in New York five years ago, and since then he has deposited a thousand dollar check every month, signed by Calida Frost. You know banks well enough to be able to guess how easy it was to dig that up.”

  “Yeah. Of course, you have influence with the police. May I call your attention to the fact that Calida Frost is not our client?”

  “Mother and daughter, what’s the difference? The income is the daughter’s, but I suppose the mother gets half of it. What’s the difference?”

  “There might be. For instance, that young lady up in Rhode Island last year that killed her mother. One was dead and the other one alive. That was a slight difference. What was the mother paying Gebert the money for?”

  Cramer’s eyes narrowed at me. “When you get home, ask Wolfe.”

  I laughed. “Oh, come, Inspector. Come, come. The trouble with you is you don’t see Wolfe much except when he’s got the sawdust in the ring and ready to crack the whip. You ought to see him the way I do sometimes. You think he knows everything. I could tell you at least three things he never will know.”

  Cramer socked his teeth into his cigar. “I think he knows where that red box is, and he’s probably got it. I think that in the interest of a client, not to mention his own, he’s holding back evidence in a murder case. And do you know what he expects to do? He expects to wait until May seventh to spring it, the day Helen Frost will be twenty-one. How do you think I like that? How do you think they like it at the D.A.’s office?”

  I slapped a yawn. “Excuse it, I only had six hours’ sleep. I’ll swear I don’t know what I can say to convince you. Why don’t you run up and have a talk with Wolfe?”