The Red Box

by Rex Stout

  I had made my usual diplomatic advances to Wolfe Wednesday evening after dinner, and again this morning when he got down from the plant rooms, but all I had got was a few assorted rebuffs. I hadn’t pressed him much, because I saw it was a case where a little thoughtless enthusiasm might easily project me out of bounds. He was about as touchy as I had ever seen him. A neat and complete murder had had its finale right in his own office, in front of his eyes, less than ten minutes after he had grandly assured the victim that nemesis was verboten on those premises. So I wasn’t surprised he wasn’t inclined to talk, and I made no effort to sink the spurs in him. All right, I thought, go ahead and be taciturn, you’re in it up to your neck now anyway, and you’ll have to stop treading water and head for a shore sooner or later.

  Inspector Cramer arrived as I inserted the last check in its envelope. Fritz ushered him in. He looked busy but not too harassed; in fact, he tipped me a wink as he sat down, knocked ashes from his cigar, returned it to the corner of his mouth and started off conversationally.

  “You know, Wolfe, I was just thinking on the way up here, this time I’ve got a brand new excuse for coming to see you. I’ve been here for a lot of different reasons, to try to pry something loose from you, to find out if you were harboring a suspect, to charge you with obstructing justice, and so on and so on, but this is the first time I’ve ever had the excuse that it’s the scene of the crime. In fact, I’m sitting right on it. Wasn’t he in this chair? Huh?”

  I told Wolfe consolingly, “It’s all right, boss. That’s just humor. The light touch.”

  “I hear it.” Wolfe was grim. “I have merited even Mr. Cramer’s humor. You may exhaust your supply, sir.” It had eaten into him even worse than I thought.

  “Oh, I’ve got more.” Cramer chuckled. “You know Lanzetta of the D.A.’s office? Hates your epidermis ever since that Fairmount business three years ago? He phoned the Commissioner this morning to warn him there was a chance you were putting over a fast one. The Commissioner told me about it, and I told him you’re rapid all right, but not faster than light.” Cramer chuckled again, removed his cigar, and slipped his briefcase from the desk onto his knees and unclasped it. He grunted. “Well. Here’s this murder. I’ve got to get back before lunch. You had any inspiration?”

  “No.” Wolfe remained grim. “I’ve almost had indigestion.” He wiggled a finger at the briefcase. “Have you papers of Mr. McNair’s?”

  Cramer shook his head. “This is just a lot of junk. There may be one or two items worth something. I’ve followed up your line, that it’s sure to be hooked up with the Frosts, on account of the way McNair started his story to you. The Frosts and this fellow Gebert are being investigated from every angle, up, down, and across. But there’s two other bare possibilities I don’t like to lose sight of. First, suicide. Second, this woman, this Countess von Rantz-Deichen, that’s been after McNair lately. There’s a chance—”

  “Tommyrot!” Wolfe was explosive. “Excuse me, Mr. Cramer. I am in no mood for fantasy. Get on.”

  “Okay.” Cramer grunted. “Sore, huh? Okay. Fantasy. Notwithstanding, I’ll leave two men on the Countess.” He was shuffling through the papers from the briefcase. “First for the bottle of aspirin. There were fourteen tablets in it. Twelve of them were perfectly all right. The other two consisted of potassium cyanide tablets, approximately five grains each, with a thin coating of aspirin on the outside, apparently put on as a dry dust and carefully tapped down all over. The chemist says the coating was put on skillfully and thoroughly, so there would have been no cyanide taste for the few seconds before the tablet was swallowed. There was no cyanide smell, the bitter almond smell, in the bottle, but of course it was bone dry.”

  Wolfe muttered, “And yet you talk of suicide.”

  “I said bare possibility. Okay, forget it. The preliminary on the autopsy says cyanide of potassium, but they can’t tell whether the tablets he took were loaded or not, because that stuff evaporates fast as soon as it’s moist. I don’t suppose he’s worrying much about whether it was one or two tablets, so I’m not either. Next, who put the phonies in with the aspirins? Or anyway, who had a chance to? I’ve had three good men on that, and they’re still on it. The answer so far is, most anyone. For the past week and more McNair has been taking aspirin the way a chicken takes corn. There has been a bottle either on his desk or in a drawer all the time. There’s none there now, so when he went out yesterday he must have stuck it in his pocket. Thirty-six are gone from that fifty, and if you figure he took twelve a day that would mean that bottle has been in use three days, and in that time dozens of people have been in and out of his office where the bottle was kept. Of course all the Frosts have, and this Gebert. By the way—” Cramer thumbed to find a paper and stopped at one—“what’s a camal … camallot doo something in French?”

  Wolfe nodded. “Camelot du roi. A member of a Parisian royalist political gang.”

  “Oh. Gebert used to be one. I cabled Paris last night and had one back this morning. Gebert was one of those. He has been around New York now over three years, and we’re after him. The preliminary reports I’ve had are vague. N.V.M.S. Paris says so too.”

  Wolfe lifted a brow. “N.V.M.S.”

  I told him, “Police gibberish. No visible means of subsistence. Bonton for bum.”

  Wolfe sighed. Cramer went on, “We’re doing all the routine. Fingerprints on the bottle, on the drawers of McNair’s desk and so on. Purchases of potassium cyanide—”

  Wolfe stopped him: “I know. Pfui. Not for this murderer, Mr. Cramer. You’ll have to do better than routine.”

  “Sure I will. Or you will.” Cramer discarded his cigar and got into his pocket for a new one. “But I’m just telling you. We’ve discovered one or two things. For instance, yesterday afternoon McNair asked his lawyer if there was any way of finding out whether Dudley Frost, as trustee of the property of his niece, had squandered any of it, and he told the lawyer to do that in a hurry. He said that when Edwin Frost died twenty years ago he cut off his wife without a cent and left everything to his daughter Helen, and made his brother Dudley the trustee under such condition that no one, not even Helen, could demand an accounting of Dudley, and Dudley has never made any accounting. According to McNair. We’re on that too. Do you get anywhere with it? If Dudley Frost is short a million or so as trustee, what good does it do him to bump off McNair?”

  “I couldn’t say. Will you have some beer?”

  “No thanks.” Cramer got his cigar lit and his teeth sunk in it. He puffed it just short of a conflagration. “Well, we may get somewhere on that.” He thumbed at the papers again. “Next is an item that you ought to find interesting. It happens that McNair’s lawyer is a guy that can be approached, within reason, and after your tip last night I was after him early this morning. He gave me that dope on Dudley Frost, and he admitted McNair made a will yesterday. In fact, after I explained to him how serious murder is, he let me see it and copy it. McNair gave it to you straight. He named you all right.”

  “Without my consent.” Wolfe was pouring beer. “Mr. McNair was not my client.”

  Cramer grunted. “He is now. You wouldn’t turn down a dead man, would you? He left a few little bequests, and the residuary estate to a sister, Isabel McNair, living in Scotland in a place called Camfirth. There’s a mention of private instructions which he had given his sister regarding the estate.” Cramer turned a sheet over. “Then you begin to come in. Paragraph six names you as executor, without remuneration. The next paragraph reads:

  7. To Nero Wolfe, of 918 West 35th Street, New York City, I bequeath my red leather box and its contents. I have informed him where it is to be found, and the contents are to be considered as his sole property, to be used by him at his will and his discretion. I direct that any bill he may render, for a reasonable amount, for services performed by him in this connection, shall be considered a just and proper debt of my estate, which shall be promptly paid.

  “Well.” Cramer coughe
d up smoke. “He’s your client now. Or he will be as soon as this is probated.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “I did not consent. I offer two comments: first, note the appalling caution of the Scotch. When Mr. McNair wrote that he was in a frenzy of desperation, he was engaging me for a job so vital to him that it had to be done right or his spirit could not rest, and yet he inserted, for a reasonable amount.” Wolfe sighed. “Obviously, that too was necessary for the repose of his spirit. Second, he has left me a pig in a poke. Where is the red leather box?”

  Cramer looked straight at him and said quietly, “I wonder.”

  Wolfe opened his eyes for suspicion. “What do you mean, sir, by that tone? You wonder what?”

  “I wonder where the red box is.” Cramer upturned a palm. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s a hundred to one that what’s in it will solve this case.” He looked around, and back at Wolfe. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance it could be right here in this office this minute, for instance in the safe or in one of the drawers of Goodwin’s desk.” He turned to me. “Mind looking, son?”

  I grinned at him. “I don’t have to. I’ve got it in my shoe.”

  Wolfe said, “Mr. Cramer. I told you last evening how far Mr. McNair got with his tale. Do you mean to say that you have the effrontery to suspect—”

  “Now listen.” Cramer got louder and firmer. “Don’t dump that on me. If I had any effrontery I wouldn’t bother to bring it here with me, I’d just borrow some. I’ve seen your indignant innocence too often. I remind you of the recent occasion when I ventured to suggest that that Fox woman might be hiding in your house. I also remind you that McNair said yesterday in his will—here, I’ll read it—I have informed him where it is to be found. Get it? Past tense. Sure, I know, you’ve told me everything McNair said yesterday afternoon, but where did he get that past tense idea before he saw you yesterday? You saw him Tuesday, too—”

  “Nonsense. Tuesday was a brief first interview—”

  “All right, I’ve known you to get further than that at a first interview. All right, I know I’m yelling and I’m going to keep on yelling. For once I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand in line out on the sidewalk until you decide to open the doors and let us in to see the show. There’s no reason in God’s world why you shouldn’t produce that red box right now and let me have a hand in it. I’m not trying to shove you off from a fee; go to it; I’m for you. But I’m the head of the Homicide Squad of the City of New York, and I’m sick and tired of you playing Godalmighty with any evidence and any clues and any facts and any witnesses—and anything you may happen to think you need for a while—nothing doing! Not this time! Not on your life!”

  Wolfe murmured mildly, “Let me know when you’re through.”

  “I’m not going to be through.”

  “Yes, you are. Sooner than you think. You’re playing in bad luck, Mr. Cramer. In demanding that I produce Mr. McNair’s red box, you have chosen the worst possible moment for bringing up your reserves and battering down the fort. I confess that I have on occasions quibbled with you and played with double meanings, but you have never known me to tell you a direct and categorical lie. Never, sir. I tell you now that I have never seen Mr. McNair’s red box, I have no idea where it is or was, and I have no knowledge whatever of its contents. So please don’t yell at me like that.”

  Cramer was staring, with his jaw loose. Being that he was usually so masterful, he looked so remarkable with his jaw hanging that I thought it wouldn’t hurt him any for me to show him how sympathetic I felt, so with my pencil in one hand and the notebook in the other, I raised them both high above my head, opened my mouth and expanded my chest, and executed a major yawn. He saw me, but he didn’t throw his cigar at me, because he actually was stunned. Finally he shaped words for Wolfe:

  “You mean that straight? You haven’t got it?”

  “I have not.”

  “You don’t know where it is? You don’t know what’s in it?”

  “I do not.”

  “Then why did he say yesterday in his will he had told you where it was?”

  “He intended to. He was anticipating.”

  “He never told you?”

  Wolfe frowned. “Confound it, sir! Leave redundancy to music and cross-examinations. I am not playing you a tune, and I don’t like to be badgered.”

  Ash fell from Cramer’s cigar to the rug. He paid no attention to it. He muttered, “I’ll be damned,” and sank back in his chair. I considered it a good spot for another yawn, but almost got startled into lockjaw in the middle of it when Cramer suddenly exploded at me savagely: “For God’s sake fall in it, you clown!”

  I expostulated with him: “Good heavens, Inspector, a fellow can’t help it if he has to—”

  “Shut up!” He sat and looked silly. That was about to get monotonous when he went plaintive with Wolfe: “This is a healthy smack, all right. I didn’t know you had me buffaloed as bad as that. I’ve got so used to you having rabbits in your hat that I was taking two things for granted as a sure bet. First, that the answer to this case is in that red box. Second, that you had it or knew where it was. Now you tell me number two is out. All right, I believe you. How about number one?”

  Wolfe nodded. “I would agree. A sure bet, I think, that if we had the contents of the red box we would know who tried to kill Mr. McNair a week ago Monday, and who did kill him yesterday.” Wolfe compressed his lips a moment and then added, “Killed him here. In my office. In my presence.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Cramer poked his cigar in the tray. “For you that’s what makes it a crime instead of a case.” He turned abruptly to me: “Would you get my office on the phone?”

  I swiveled to my desk and pulled the instrument across and dialed. I got the number, and the extension, and asked them to hold it, and vacated my chair. Cramer went over and got it.

  “Burke? Cramer. Got a pad? Put this down: red leather box, don’t know size or weight or old or new. Probably not very big, because the chances are it contains only papers, documents. It belonged to Boyden McNair. One: Give ten men copies of McNair’s photograph and send them to all the safe deposit vaults in town. Find any safe deposit box he had, and as soon as it’s found get a court order to open it. Send Haskins to that bird at the Midtown National that’s so damn cocky. Two: Phone the men that are going through McNair’s apartment and his place of business and tell them about the box and the one who finds it can have a day off. Three: Start all over again with McNair’s friends and acquaintances and ask if they ever saw McNair have such a box and when and where and what does it look like. Ask Collinger, McNair’s lawyer, too. I was so damn sure—I didn’t ask him that. Four: Send another cable to Scotland and tell them to ask McNair’s sister about the box. Did an answer come to the one you sent this morning?… No, hardly time. Got it?… Good. Start it quick. I’ll be down pretty soon.”

  He rang off. Wolfe murmured. “Ten men … a hundred … a thousand … Really, Mr. Cramer, with such an outfit as that, you should catch at least ten culprits for every crime committed.”

  “Yeah. We do.” Cramer looked around. “Oh, I guess I left my hat in the hall. I’ll let you know when we find the box, since it’s your property. I may look into it first, just to make sure there’s no bombs in it. I’d hate like the devil to see Goodwin here get hurt. You going to do any exploring?”

  Wolfe shook his head. “With your army of terriers scratching at every hole? There would be no room. I’m sorry, sir, for your disappointment here; if I knew where the red box was you would be the first to hear of it. I trust that we are still brothers-in-arms? That is to say, in this present affair?”

  “Absolutely. Pals.”

  “Good. Then I’ll make one little suggestion. See that the Frosts, all of them, are acquainted with the terms of Mr. McNair’s will immediately. You needn’t bother about Mr. Gebert; I surmise that if the Frosts know it he soon will. You are in a better position than I am to do this without trumpets.”

  “Right. An
ything else?”

  “That’s all. Except that if you do find the box I wouldn’t advise you to tack its contents to your bulletin board. I imagine they will need to be handled with restraint and delicacy. The person who put those coated poison tablets in the bottle of aspirin is fairly ingenious.”

  “Uh-huh. Anything else?”

  “Just better luck elsewhere than you have had here.”

  “Thanks. I’ll need that all right.”

  He departed.

  Wolfe rang for beer. I went to the kitchen for a glass of milk and came back to the office with it and stood by the window and started sipping. A glance at Wolfe had showed me that things were at a standstill, because he was sitting up with his eyes open, turning the pages of a Richardt folder which had come in the morning mail. I shrugged negligently. After I had finished the milk I sat at my desk and sealed the envelopes containing checks, and stamped them, went to the hall for my hat and moseyed out and down to the corner to drop them in a mailbox. When I got back again Wolfe was still having recess; he had taken a laeliocattleya luminosa aurea from the vase on his desk and was lifting the anthers to look at the pollinia with his glass. But at least he hadn’t started on the atlas. I sat down and observed:

  “It’s a nice balmy spring day outdoors. April second. McNair’s mourning day. You said yesterday it was ghoulish. Now he’s a ghoul himself.”

  Wolfe muttered indifferently. “He is not a ghoul.”

  “Then he’s inert matter.”

  “He is not inert matter. Unless he has been embalmed with uncommon thoroughness. The activity of decomposition is tremendous.”

  “All right, then he’s a banquet. Anything you say. Might I inquire, have you turned the case over to Inspector Cramer? Should I go down and ask him for instructions?”

  No response. I waited a decent interval, then went on, “Take this red leather box, for instance. Say Cramer finds it and opens it and learns all the things it would be fun to know, and hitches up his horse and buggy and goes and gets the murderer, with evidence. There would go the first half of your fee from Llewellyn. The second half is already gone, since McNair is dead and of course that heiress won’t work there any more. It begins to look as if you not only had the discomfort of seeing McNair die right in front of you, you’re not even going to be able to send anyone a bill for it. You’ve taught me to be tough in money matters. Do you realize that Doc Vollmer will charge five bucks for the call he made here yesterday? You could have him send the bill to McNair’s estate, but you’d have the trouble and expense of handling it anyhow, since you’re the executor without remuneration. And by the way, what about that executor stuff? Aren’t you supposed to bustle around and do something?”