The Red Box

by Rex Stout

  “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 five 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?”

  “What for? I can see it. I sit down and explain to him why I think he’s a liar. He says ‘indeed’ and shuts his eyes and opens them again when he gets ready to ring for beer. He ought to start a brewery. Some great men, when they die, leave their brains to a scientific laboratory. Wolfe ought to leave his stomach.”

  “Okay.” I got up. “If you’re so sore at him that you even resent his quenching his thirst occasionally every few minutes, I can’t expect you to listen to reason. I can only repeat you’re all wet. Wolfe himself says that if he had the red box he could finish up the case”—I snapped my fingers—“like that.”

  “I don’t believe it. Give him my messages, will you?”

  “Right. Best regards.”

  “Go to hell.”

  I didn’t let the elevator take me that far, but got off at the main floor. At the triangle I found the roadster and maneuvered it into Centre Street.

  Of course Cramer was funny, but I wasn’t violently amused. It was no advantage to have him so cockeyed suspicious that he wouldn’t even believe a plain statement of fact. The trouble was that he wasn’t broadminded enough to realize that Wolfe and I were inherently as honest as any man should be unless he’s a hermit, and that if McNair had in fact given us the red box or told us where it was, our best line would have been to say so, and to declare that its contents were confidential matters which had nothing to do with any murder, and refuse to produce them. Even I could see that, and I wasn’t an inspector and never expected to be.

  It was after six when I got home. There was a surprise waiting there for me. Wolfe was in the office, leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced at the apex of his frontal buttress; and seated in the dunce’s chair, with the remains of a highball in a glass he clutched, was Saul Panzer. They nodded greetings to me and Saul went on talking:

  “… the first drawing is held on Tuesday, three days before the race, and that eliminates everyone whose number isn’t drawn for one or another of the entries. The horses. But another drawing is held the next day, Wednesday …”

  Saul went on with the sweepstakes lesson. I sat down at my desk and looked up the number of the Frost apartment and dialed it. Helen was home, and I told her I had seen Gebert and he had been rather exhausted with all the questions they had asked him, but that they had let him go. She said she knew it; he had telephoned a little while ago and her mother had gone to the Chesebrough to see him. She started to thank me, and I told her she’d better save it for an emergency. That chore finished, I swiveled and listened to Saul. It sounded as if he had more than theoretical knowlege of the sweep. When Wolfe had got enough about it to satisfy him he stopped Saul with a nod and turned to me:

  “Saul needs twenty dollars. There is only ten in the drawer.”

  I nodded. “I’ll cash a check in the morning.” I pulled out my wallet. Wolfe never carried any money. I handed four fives to Saul and he folded it carefully and tucked it away.

  Wolfe lifted a finger at him: “You understand, of course, that you are not to be seen.”

  “Yes, sir,” Saul turned and departed.

  I sat down and made the entry in the expense book. Then I whirled my chair again:

  “Saul going back to Glennanne?”

  “No.” Wolfe sighed. “He has been explaining the machinery of the Irish sweepstakes. If bees handled their affairs like that, no hive would have enough honey to last the winter.”

  “But a few bees would be rolling in it.”

  “I suppose so. At Glennanne they have upturned every flagstone on the garden paths and made a general upheaval without result. Has Mr. Cramer found the red box?”

&n
bsp; “No. He says you’ve got it.”

  “He does. Is he closing the case on that theory?”

  “No. He’s thinking of sending a man to Europe. Maybe he and Saul could go together.”

  “Saul will not go—at least, not at once. I have given him another errand. Shortly after you left Fred telephoned and I called them in. The state police have Glennanne in charge. Fred and Orrie I dismissed when they arrived. As for Saul … I took a hint from you. You meant it as sarcasm, I adopted it as sound procedure. Instead of searching the globe for the red box, consider, decide first where it is, then send for it. I have sent Saul.”

  I looked at him. I said grimly, “You’re not kidding me. Who came and told you?”

  “No one has been here.”

  “Who telephoned?”

  “No one.”

  “I see. It’s just blah. For a minute I thought you really knew—wait, who did you get a letter from, or a telegram or a cable or in short a communication?”

  “No one.”

  “And you sent Saul for the red box?”

  “I did.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “I couldn’t say. I would guess, tomorrow … possibly the day after …”

  “Uh-huh. Okay, if it’s only flummery. I might have known. You get me every time. We don’t dare find the red box now anyway; if we did, Cramer would be sure we had it all the time and never speak to us again. He’s disgusted and suspicious. They had Gebert down there, slapping him around and squealing and yelling at him. If you’re so sure violence is inferior technique, you should have seen that exhibition; it was wonderful. They say it works sometimes, but even if it does, how could you depend on anything you got that way? Not to mention that after you had done it a few times any decent garbage can would be ashamed to have you found in it. But Cramer did give me one little slice of bacon, the Lord knows why: in the past five years Mrs. Edwin Frost has paid Perren Gebert sixty grand. One thousand smackers per month. He won’t tell them what for. I don’t know if they’ve asked her or not. Does that fit in with the phenomena you’ve been having a feeling for?”

  Wolfe nodded. “Satisfactorily. Of course I had not known what the amount was.”

  “Oh. You hadn’t. Are you telling me that you knew she is paying him?”

  “Not at all. I merely surmised it. Naturally she is paying him; the man has to live or at least he thinks so. Was he bludgeoned into confessing it?”

  “No. They screwed it out of his bank.”

  “I see. Detective work. Mr. Cramer needs a mirror to make sure he has a nose on his face.”

  “I give in.” I compressed my lips and shook my head. “You’re the pink of the pinks. You’re the without which nothing.” I stood up and shook down my pants legs. “I can think of only one improvement that might be made in this place; we could put an electric chair in the front room and do our own burning. I’m going to tell Fritz that I’ll dine in the kitchen, because I’ll have to be leaving around eight-thirty to represent you at the funeral services.”

  “That’s a pity.” He meant it. “Need you actually go?”

  “I will go. It’ll look better. Somebody around here ought to do something.”

  Chapter 15

  At that hour, 8:50 p.m., parking spaces were few and far between on 73rd Street. I finally found one about half a block east of the address of the Belford Memorial Chapel, and backed into it. I thought there was something familiar about the license number of the car just ahead, and sure enough, after I got out and took a look, I saw that it was Perren Gebert’s convertible. It was spic and span, having had a cleaning since its venture into the wilds of Putnam County. I handed it to Gebert for a strong rebound, since he had evidently recovered enough in three hours to put in an appearance at a social function.

  I walked to the portal of the chapel and entered, and was in a square anteroom of paneled marble. A middle-aged man in black clothes approached and bowed to me. He appeared to be under the influence of a chronic but aristocratic melancholy. He indicated a door at his right by extending his forearm in that direction with his elbow fastened to his hip, and murmured at me:

  “Good evening, sir. The chapel is that way. Or …”

  “Or what?”

  He coughed delicately. “Since the deceased had no family, a few of his intimate friends are gathering in the private parlor …”

  “Oh. I represent the executor of the estate. I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I should think, sir, in that case, perhaps the parlor …”

  “Okay. Where?”

  “This way.” He turned to his left, opened a door, and bowed me through.

  I stepped into thick soft carpet. The room was elegant, with subdued lights, upholstered divans and chairs, and a smell similar to a high-class barber shop. On a chair over in a corner was Helen Frost, looking pale and concentrated and beautiful in a dark gray dress and a little black hat. Standing protectively in front of her was Llewellyn. Perren Gebert was seated on a divan at the right. Two women, one of whom I recognized as having been at the candy-sampling session, were on chairs across the room. I nodded at the ortho-cousins and they nodded back, and aimed one at Gebert and got his, and picked a chair at the left. There was a murmur coming from where Llewellyn bent over Helen. Gebert’s clothes looked neater than his face, with its swollen eyes and its general air of having been exposed to a bad spell of weather.

  I sat and considered Wolfe’s phrase: dreary and hushed obeisance to the grisly terror. The door opened and Dudley Frost came in. I was closest to the door. He looked around, passing me by without any pretense of recognition, saw the two women and called to them “How do you do?” so loud that they jumped, sent a curt nod in Gebert’s direction and crossed toward the corner where the cousins were:

  “Ahead of time, by Gad I am! Almost never happens! Helen, my dear, where the deuce is your mother? I phoned three times—good God! I forgot the flowers after all! When I thought of it, it was too late to send them, so I decided to bring them with me—”

  “All right, Dad. It’s all right. There’s plenty of flowers …”

  Maybe still dreary, but no longer hushed. I wondered how they managed with him during the minute of memorial silence on Armistice Day. I had thought of three possible methods when the door opened again and Mrs. Frost entered. Her brother-in-law came to meet her with ejaculations. She looked pale too, but certainly not as much as Helen, and apparently had on a black evening gown under a black wrap, with a black satin piepan for a hat. There was no sag to her as she more or less disregarded Dudley, nodded at Gebert, greeted the two women, and went across to her daughter and nephew.

  I sat and took it in.

  Suddenly a newcomer appeared, so silently through some other door that I didn’t hear him do it. It was another aristocrat, fatter than the one in the anteroom but just as melancholy. He advanced a few steps and bowed:

  “If you will come in now, please.”

  We all moved. I stood back and let the others go ahead. Lew seemed to be thinking that Helen should have his arm, and she seemed to think not. I followed along behind with the throttle wide open on the decorum.

  The chapel was dimly lighted too. Our escort whispered something to Mrs. Frost, and she shook her head and led the way to seats. There were forty or fifty people there on chairs. A glance showed me several faces I had seen before; among others, Collinger the lawyer, and a couple of dicks in the back row. I stepped around to the rear because I saw the door to the anteroom was there. The coffin, dead black with chromium handles, with flowers all around it and on top, was on a platform up front. In a couple of minutes a door at the far end opened and a guy came out and stood by the coffin and peered around at us. He was in the uniform of his profession and he had a wide mouth and a look of comfortable assurance by no means flippant. After a decent amount of peering he began to talk.

  For a professional I suppose he was okay. I had had enough long before he was through, because with me a little
unction goes a long way. If I had to be slid up to heaven on soft soap, I’d just as soon you’d forget it and let me find my natural level. But I’m speaking only for myself; if you like it I hope you get it.

  My seat at the rear permitted me to beat it as soon as I heard the amen. I was the first one out. For having admitted me to the private parlor I offered the aristocrat in the anteroom two bits, which I suppose he took out of noblesse oblige, and sought the sidewalk. Some cur had edged in and parked within three inches of the roadster’s rear bumper, and I had to do a lot of squirming to get out without scraping the fender of Gebert’s convertible. Then I zoomed to Central Park West and headed downtown.

  It was nearly ten-thirty when I got home. A glance in at the office door showed me that Wolfe was in his chair with his eyes closed and an awful grimace on his face, listening to the “Pearls of Wisdom Hour” on the radio. In the kitchen Fritz sat at the little table I ate breakfast on, playing solitaire, with his slippers off and his toes hooked over the rungs of another chair. As I poured a glass of milk from a bottle I got from the refrigerator, he asked me:

  “How was it? Nice funeral?”

  I reproached him. “You ought to be ashamed. I guess all Frenchmen are sardonic.”

  “I am not a French! I’m a Swiss.”

  “So you say. You read a French newspaper.”

  I took a first sip from the glass, carried it into the office, got into my chair, and looked at Wolfe. His grimace appeared even more distorted than when I had glanced in on my way by. I let him go on suffering a while, then took pity on him and went to the radio and turned it off and came back to my chair. I sipped at my milk and watched him. By degrees his face relaxed, and finally I saw his eyelids flicker, and then they came open a little. He heaved a sigh that went clear to the bottom.