The Red Box

by Rex Stout

  Cramer sounded a little weary. “Here’s a funny item, too,” he said in a wounded tone, “we can’t find the young Frosts anywhere. Your client, Lew, isn’t at his home or his office in the Portland Theatre or anywhere else, and Helen, the daughter, isn’t around either. Her mother says she went out around eleven o’clock, but she doesn’t know where, and I’ve learned that Helen was closer to McNair than anyone else, very close friends, so she’s our best chance on the red box. Then what’s she doing running around town, with McNair just croaked? There’s just a chance that something’s got too hot for them and they’ve faded. Lew was up at the Frost apartment on 65th Street and they went out together. We’re trying to trail—”

  “Mr. Cramer. Please. I’ve mumbled at you twice. Miss Helen Frost and Mr. Llewellyn Frost are in my office; I’m conversing with them. They had lunch—”

  “Huh? They’re there now?”

  “Yes. They got here this morning shortly after you left.”

  “I’ll be damned.” Cramer shrilled a little. “What are you trying to do, lick off some cream for yourself? I want to see them. Ask them to come down—or wait, let me talk to her. Put her on.”

  “Now, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe cleared his throat. “I do not lick cream; and this man and woman came to see me unannounced and unexpected. I am perfectly willing that you should talk with her, but there is no point—”

  “What do you mean, willing? What’s that, humor? Why the devil shouldn’t you be willing?”

  “I should. But it is appropriate to mention it, since Miss Frost is my client, and is therefore under my—”

  “Your client? Since when?” Cramer was boiling. “What kind of a shenanigan is this? You told me Lew Frost hired you!”

  “So he did. But that—er—we have changed that. I have—speaking as a horse—I have changed riders in the middle of the stream. I am working for Miss Frost. I was about to say there is no point in a duplication of effort. She has had a bad shock and is under a strain. You may question her if you wish, but I have done so and am not through with her, and there is little likelihood that her interests will conflict with yours in the end. She is as anxious to find Mr. McNair’s murderer as you are; that is what she hired me for. I may tell you this: neither she nor her cousin has any knowledge of the red box. They have never seen it or heard of it.”

  “The devil.” There was a pause on the wire. “I want to see her and have a talk with her.”

  Wolfe sighed. “In that infernal den? She is tired, she has nothing to say that can help you, she is worth two million dollars, and she will be old enough to vote before next fall. Why don’t you call at her home after dinner this evening? Or send one of your lieutenants?”

  “Because I—Oh, the hell with it. I ought to know better than to argue with you. And she doesn’t know where the red box is?”

  “She knows nothing whatever about it. Nor does her cousin. My word for that.”

  “Okay. I’ll get her later maybe. Let me know what you find, huh?”

  “By all means.”

  Wolfe hung up and pushed the instrument away, leaned back and locked his fingers on his belly, and slowly shook his head as he murmured, “That man talks too much. —I’m sure, Miss Frost, that you won’t be offended at missing a visit to police headquarters. It is one of my strongest prejudices, my disinclination to permit a client of mine to appear there. Let us hope that Mr. Cramer’s search for the red box will keep him entertained.”

  Llewellyn put in, “In my opinion, that’s the only thing to do anyway, wait till it’s found. All this hash of ancient history—if you were as careful to protect your client from your own annoyance as you are—”

  “I remind you, sir, you are here by sufferance. Your cousin has the sense, when she hires an expert, to permit him his hocus-pocus. —What were we saying, Miss Frost? Oh, yes. You were telling me that Mr. Gebert came to New York in 1931. You were then sixteen years old. You said that he is forty-four, so he was then thirty-nine, not an advanced age. I presume he called upon your mother at once, as an old friend?”

  She nodded. “Yes. We knew he was coming; he had written. Of course I didn’t remember him; I hadn’t seen him since I was four years old.”

  “Of course not. Did he perhaps come on a political mission? I understand that he was a member of the camelots du roi.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m sure he didn’t—but that’s silly, certainly I can’t be sure. But I think not.”

  “At any rate, as far as you know, he doesn’t work, and you don’t like that.”

  “I don’t like that in anyone.”

  “Remarkable sentiment for an heiress. However. If Mr. Gebert should marry you, that would be a job for him. Let us abandon him to that slim hope for his redemption. It is getting on for four o’clock, when I must leave you. I need to ask you about a sentence you left unfinished yesterday, shortly after I made my unsuccessful appeal to you. You told me that your father died when you were only a few months old, and that therefore you had never had a father, and then you said, ‘That is,’ and stopped. I prodded you, but you said it was nothing, and we let it go at that. It may in fact be nothing, but I would like to have it—whatever was ready for your tongue. Do you remember?”

  She nodded. “It really was nothing. Just something foolish.”

  “Let me have it. I’ve told you, we’re combing a meadow for a mustard seed.”

  “But this was nothing at all. Just a dream, a childish dream I had once. Then I had it several times after that, always the same. A dream about myself …”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well … the first time I had it I was about six years old, in Bali. I’ve wondered since if anything had happened that day to make me have such a dream, but I couldn’t remember anything. I dreamed I was a baby, not an infant but big enough to walk and run, around two I imagine, and on a chair, on a napkin, there was an orange that had been peeled and divided into sections. I took a section of the orange and ate it, then took another one and turned to a man sitting there on a bench, and handed it to him, and I said plainly, ‘For daddy.’ It was my voice, only it was a baby talking. Then I ate another section, and then took another one and said ‘For daddy’ again, and kept on that way till it was all gone. I woke up from the dream trembling and began to cry. Mother was sleeping in another bed—it was on a screened veranda—and she came to me and asked what was the matter, and I said, ‘I’m crying because I feel so good.’ I never did tell her what the dream was. I had it quite a few times after that—I think the last time was when I was about eleven years old, here in New York. I always cried when I had it.”

  Wolfe asked, “What did the man look like?”

  She shook her head. “That’s why it was just foolish. It wasn’t a man, it just looked like a man. There was one photograph of my father which mother had kept, but I couldn’t tell if it looked like him in the dream. It just … I just simply called it daddy.”

  “Indeed.” Wolfe’s lips pushed out and in. At length he observed, “Possibly remarkable, on account of the specific picture. Did you eat sections of orange when you were young?”

  “I suppose so. I’ve always liked oranges.”

  “Well. No telling. Possibly, as you say, nothing at all. You mentioned a photograph of your father. Your mother had kept only one?”

  “Yes. She kept that for me.”

  “None for herself?”

  “No.” A pause, then Helen said quietly. “There’s no secret about it. And it was perfectly natural. Mother was bitterly offended at the terms of father’s will, and I think she had a right to be. They had a serious misunderstanding of some sort, I never knew what, about the time I was born, but no matter how serious it was … anyway, he left her nothing. Nothing whatever, not even a small income.”

  Wolfe nodded. “So I understand. It was left in trust for you, with your uncle—your father’s brother Dudley—as trustee. Have you ever read the will?”

  “Once, a long while ago. Not long after we came
to New York my uncle had me read it.”

  “At the age of nine. But you waded through it. Good for you. I also understand that your uncle was invested with sole power and authority, without any right of oversight by you or anyone else. I believe the usual legal phrase is ‘absolute and uncontrolled discretion.’ So that, as a matter of fact, you do not know how much you will be worth on your twenty-first birthday; it may be millions and it may be nothing. You may be in debt. If any—”

  Lew Frost got in. “What are you trying to insinuate? If you mean that my father—”

  Wolfe snapped, “Don’t do that! I insinuate nothing; I merely state the fact of my client’s ignorance regarding her property. It may be augmented; it may be depleted; she doesn’t know. Do you, Miss Frost?”

  “No.” She was frowning. “I don’t know. I know that for over twenty years the income has been paid in full, promptly every quarter. Really, Mr. Wolfe, I think we’re getting—”

  “We shall soon be through; I must leave you shortly. As for irrelevance, I warned you that we might wander anywhere. Indulge me in two more questions about your father’s will: do you enter into complete possession and control on May seventh?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And in case of your death before your twenty-first birthday, who inherits?”

  “If I were married and had a child, the child. If not, half to my uncle and half to his son, my cousin Lew.”

  “Indeed. Nothing to your mother even then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So. Your father fancied his side of that controversy.” Wolfe turned to Llewellyn. “Take good care of your cousin for another five weeks. Should harm befall her in that time, you will have a million dollars and the devil will have his horns on your pillow. Wills are noxious things. Frequently. It is astonishing, the amount of mischief a man’s choler may do long after the brain-cells which nourished the choler have rotted away.” He wiggled a finger at our client. “Soon, of course, you yourself must make a will, to dispose of the pile in case you should die on—say—May eighth, or subsequently. I suppose you have a lawyer?”

  “No. I’ve never needed one.”

  “You will now. That’s what a fortune is for, to support the lawyers who defend it for you against depredation.” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “I must leave you. I trust the afternoon has not been wasted; I suppose you feel that it has. I don’t think so. May I leave it that way for the present? I thank you for your indulgence. And while we continue to mark time, waiting for that confounded box to be found, I have a little favor to ask. Could you take Mr. Goodwin home to tea with you?”

  Llewellyn’s scowl, which had been turned on for the past hour, deepened. Helen Frost glanced at me and then back at Wolfe.

  “Why,” she said, “I suppose … if you want …”

  “I do want. I presume it would be possible to have Mr. Gebert there?”

  She nodded. “He’s there now. Or he was when I phoned mother. Of course … you know … mother doesn’t approve …”

  “I’m aware of that. She thinks you’re poking a stick in a hornet’s nest. But the fact is the police are the hornets; you’ve avoided them, and she hasn’t. Mr. Goodwin is a discreet and wholesome man and not without acuity. I want him to talk with Mr. Gebert, and with your mother too if she will permit it. You will soon be of age, Miss Frost; you have chosen to attempt a difficult and possibly dangerous project; surely you can prevail on your family and close friends for some consideration. If they are ignorant of any circumstance regarding Mr. McNair’s death, all the more should they be ready to establish that point and help us to stumble on a path that will lead us away from ignorance. So if you would invite Mr. Goodwin for a cup of tea …”

  Llewellyn said sourly, “I think Dad’s there, too, he was going to stay till we got back. It’ll just be a big stew—if it’s Gebert you want, why can’t we send him down here? He’ll do anything Helen tells him to.”

  “Because for two hours I shall be engaged with my plants.” Wolfe looked at the clock again, and got up from his chair.

  Our client was biting her lip. She quit that, and looked at me. “Will you have tea with us, Mr. Goodwin?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Much obliged.”

  Wolfe, moving toward the door, said to her, “It is a pleasure to earn a fee from a client like you. You can come to a yes or no without first encircling the globe. I hope and believe that when we are finished you will have nothing to regret.” He moved on, and turned at the threshold. “By the way, Archie, if you will just get that package from your room before you leave. Put it on my bed.”

  He went to the elevator. I rose and told my prospective hostess I would be back in a minute, left the office and hopped up the stairs. I didn’t stop at the second floor, where my room was, but kept going to the top, and got there almost as soon as the elevator did with the load it had. At the door to the plant rooms Wolfe stood, awaiting me.

  “One idea,” he murmured, “is to observe the reactions of the others upon the cousins’ return from our office before there has been an opportunity for the exchange of information. Another is to get an accurate opinion as to whether any of them has ever seen the red box or has possession of it now. The third is a general assault on reticence.”

  “Okay. How candid are we?”

  “Reasonably so. Bear in mind that with all three there, the chances are many to one that you will be talking to the murderer, so the candor will be one-sided. You, of course, will be expecting cooperation.”

  “Sure, I always do, because I’m wholesome.”

  I ran back downstairs and found that our client had on her hat and coat and gloves and her cousin was standing beside her, looking grave but a little doubtful.

  I grinned at them. “Come on, children.”

  Chapter 12

  Strictly speaking, that wasn’t my job. I know pretty well what my field is. Aside from my primary function as the thorn in the seat of Wolfe’s chair to keep him from going to sleep and waking up only for meals, I’m chiefly cut out for two things: to jump and grab something before the other guy can get his paws on it, and to collect pieces of the puzzle for Wolfe to work on. This expedition to 65th Street was neither of those. I don’t pretend to be strong on nuances. Fundamentally I’m the direct type, and that’s why I can never be a really fine detective. Although I keep it down as much as I can, so it won’t interfere with my work, I always have an inclination in a case of murder to march up to all the possible suspects, one after the other, and look them in the eye and ask them, “Did you put that poison in the aspirin bottle?” and just keep that up until one of them says, “Yes.” As I say, I keep it down, but I have to fight it.

  The Frost apartment on 65th Street wasn’t as gaudy as I had expected, in view of my intimate knowledge of the Frost finances. It was a bit shiny, with one side of the entrance hall solid with mirrors, even the door to the closet where I hung my hat, and, in the living room, chairs and little tables with chromium chassis, a lot of red stuff around in upholsteries and drapes, a metal grille in front of the fireplace, which apparently wasn’t used, and oil paintings in modern silver frames.

  Anyway, it certainly was cheerfuller than the people that were in it. Dudley Frost was in a big chair at one side, with a table at his elbow holding a whiskey bottle, a water carafe, and a couple of glasses. Perren Gebert stood near a window at the other end, with his back to the room and his hands in his pockets. As we entered he turned, and Helen’s mother walked toward us, with a little lift to her brow as she saw me.

  “Oh,” she said. To her daughter: “You’ve brought …”

  Helen nodded firmly. “Yes, mother.” She was holding her chin a little higher than natural, to keep the spunk going. “You—all of you have met Mr. Goodwin. Yesterday morning at … that candy business with the police. I’ve engaged Nero Wolfe to investigate Uncle Boyd’s death, and Mr. Goodwin works for him—”

  Dudley Frost bawled from his chair, “Lew! Come here! Damn it, what kind of nonsens
e—”

  Llewellyn hurried over there to stem it. Perren Gebert had approached us and was smiling at me:

  “Ah! The fellow that doesn’t like scenes. You remember I told you, Calida?” He transferred the smile to Miss Frost. “My dear Helen! You’ve engaged Mr. Wolfe? Are you one of the Erinyes? Alecto? Megaera? Tisiphone? Where’s your snaky hair? So one can really buy anything with money, even vengeance?”

  Mrs. Frost murmured at him, “Stop it, Perren.”

  “I’m not buying vengeance.” Helen colored a little. “I told you this morning, Perren, you’re being especially hateful. You’d better not make me cry again, or I’ll … well, don’t. Yes, I’ve engaged Mr. Wolfe, and Mr. Goodwin has come here and he wants to talk to you.”

  “To me?” Perren shrugged. “About Boyd? If you ask it, he may, but I warn him not to expect much. The police have been here most of the day, and I’ve realized how little I really knew about Boyd, though I’ve known him more than twenty years.”

  I said, “I stopped expecting long ago. Anything you tell me will be velvet. —I’m supposed to talk to you, too, Mrs. Frost. And your brother-in-law. I have to take notes, and it gives me a cramp to write standing up …”

  She nodded at me, and turned. “Over here, I think.” She started toward Dudley Frost’s side of the room, and I joined her. Her straight back was graceful, and she was unquestionably streamlined for her age. Llewellyn started carrying chairs, and Gebert came up with one. As we got seated and I pulled out my notebook and pencil, I noticed that Helen still had to keep her chin up, but her mother didn’t. Mrs. Frost was saying:

  “I hope you understand this, Mr. Goodwin. This is a terrible thing, an awful thing, and we were all very old friends of Mr. McNair’s, and we don’t enjoy talking about it. I knew him all my life, from childhood.”