The Red Box

by Rex Stout

  I was as nervous as a congressman on election day. I had been made acquainted with the high spots on Wolfe’s program. It was all well and good for him to get up these tricky charades as far as he himself was concerned, because he didn’t have any nerves, and he was too conceited to suffer any painful apprehension of failure, but I was made of different stuff and I didn’t like the feeling it gave me. True, he had stated just before we went in to lunch that we had a hazardous and disagreeable task before us, but he didn’t seriously mean it; he was merely calling my attention to the fact that he was preparing to put over a whizz.

  I admitted the visitors, helped get hats and topcoats disposed of in the hall, and led them to the office. Wolfe, seated behind his desk, nodded around at them. I had already arranged chairs, and now allotted them: Helen the closest to Wolfe, with Cramer at her left and Llewellyn next to Cramer; Uncle Dudley not far from me, so I could reach him and gag him if necessary, and Mrs. Frost the other side of Dudley, in the big leather chair which was usually beside the big globe. None of them looked very festive. Lew looked as if he had the pop-eye and his face had a gray tinge, I suppose from the nitrobenzene he had got too close to. Mrs. Frost wasn’t doing any sagging, but looked pale in black clothes. Helen, in a dark brown suit with a hat to match, twisted her fingers together as soon as she sat down and put her eyes on Wolfe, and stayed that way. Dudley looked at everybody and squirmed. Wolfe had murmured to the inspector:

  “Your man, Mr. Cramer. If he would wait in the kitchen?”

  Cramer grunted. “He’s all right. He won’t bite anybody.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “We won’t need him. The kitchen would be better for him.”

  Cramer looked as if he’d like to argue, but called it off with a shrug. He turned: “Go on out to the kitchen, Stebbins. I’ll yell if I want you.”

  Purley, with a sour glance at me, turned and went. Wolfe waited until the door had closed behind him before he spoke, looking around at them:

  “And here we are. Though I am aware that you came at Mr. Cramer’s invitation, nevertheless I thank you for coming. It was desirable to have you all here, though nothing will be expected of you—”

  Dudley Frost blurted, “We came because we had to! You know that! What else could we do, with the attitude the police are taking?”

  “Mr. Frost. Please—”

  “There’s no please to it! I just want to say, it’s a good thing nothing will be expected of us, because you won’t get it! In view of the ridiculous attitude of the police, we refuse to submit to any further questioning unless we have a lawyer present. I’ve told Inspector Cramer that! I, personally, decline to say a word! Not a word!”

  Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “On the chance that you mean that, Mr. Frost, I promise not to press you; and we now have another good reason for admitting no lawyers. I was saying: nothing will be expected of you save to listen to an explanation. There will be no questioning. I prefer to do the talking myself, and I have plenty to say. —By the way, Archie, I may as well have that thing handy.”

  That was the cue for the first high spot. For me it wasn’t a speaking part, but I had the business. I arose and went to the safe and got out Saul’s package and put it on the desk in front of Wolfe; but the wrapping paper had been removed before lunch. What I put there was an old red leather box, faded and scuffed and scarred, about ten inches long and four wide and two deep. On one side were the backbones of two gilt hinges for the lid, and on the other a small gilt escutcheon with a keyhole. Wolfe barely glanced at it, and pushed it to one side. I sat down again and picked up my notebook.

  There was some stirring, but no comments. They all stared at the box, except Helen Frost; she stuck to Wolfe. Cramer was looking wary and thoughtful, with his eyes glued on the box.

  Wolfe spoke with sudden sharpness: “Archie. We can dispense with notes. Most of the words will be mine, and I shall not forget them. Please take your gun and keep it in your hand. If it appears to be needed, use it. We don’t want anyone squirting nitrobenzene around here—that will do, Mr. Frost! I say stop it! I remind you that a woman and two men have been murdered! Stay in your chair!”

  Dudley Frost actually subsided. It may have been partly on account of my automatic which I had got from the drawer and now held in my hand resting on my knee. The sight of a loaded gun out in the open always has an effect on a guy, no matter who he is. I observed that Cramer had shoved his chair back a few inches and was looking even warier than before, with a scowl on his brow.

  Wolfe said, “This, of course, is melodrama. All murder is melodrama, because the real tragedy is not death but the condition which induces it. However.” He leaned back in his chair and aimed his half-closed eyes at our client. “I wish to address myself, Miss Frost, primarily to you. Partly through professional vanity. I wish to demonstrate to you that engaging the services of a good detective means much more than hiring someone to pry up floorboards and dig up flower beds trying to find a red box. I wish to show you that before I ever saw this box or its contents, I knew the central facts of this case; I knew who had killed Mr. McNair, and why. I am going to shock you, but I can’t help that.”

  He signed. “I shall be brief. First of all, I shall no longer call you Miss Frost, but Miss McNair. Your name is Glenna McNair, and you were born on April 2nd, 1915.”

  I got a glimpse of the others from the corner of my eye, enough to see Helen sitting rigid and Lew starting from his chair and Dudley staring with his mouth open, but my chief interest was Mrs. Frost. She looked paler than she had when she came in, but she didn’t bat an eye. Of course the display of the red box had prepared her for it. She spoke, cutting through a couple of male ejaculations, cool and curt:

  “Mr. Wolfe. I think my brother-in-law is right. This sort of nonsense makes it a case for lawyers.”

  Wolfe matched her tone: “I think not, Mrs. Frost. If so, there will be plenty of time for them. For the present, you will stay in that chair until the nonsense is finished.”

  Helen Frost said in a dry even tone, “But then Uncle Boyd was my father. He was my father. All the time. How? Tell me how?” Lew was out of his chair, with a hand on her shoulder, staring at his Aunt Callie. Dudley was making sounds.

  Wolfe said, “Please. Sit down, Mr. Frost. Yes, Miss McNair, he was your father all the time. Mrs. Frost thinks that I did not learn that until this red box was found, but she is wrong. I was definitely convinced of it on Thursday morning, when you told me that in the event of your death before reaching twenty-one all of Edwin Frost’s fortune would go to his brother and nephew. When I considered that, in combination with other points that had presented themselves, the picture was complete. Of course, the first thing that brought this possibility to my mind was the fact of Mr. McNair’s unaccountable desire to have you wear diamonds. What special virtue did a diamond have on you—since he seemed not otherwise fond of them? Could it be this, that the diamond is the birthstone for April? I noted that possibility.”

  Llewellyn muttered, “Good God. I said—I told McNair once—”

  “Please, Mr. Frost. Another little point: Mr. McNair told me Wednesday evening that his wife died, but not that his daughter did. He said he ‘lost’ his daughter. That of course is a common euphemism for death, but why had he not employed it for his wife also? A man may either be direct or euphemistic, but not often both in the same sentence. He said his parents died. Twice he said his wife died. But not his daughter; he said he lost her.”

  Glenna McNair’s lips were moving. She muttered, “But how? How? How did he lose me …”

  “Yes, Miss McNair. Patience. There were various other little points, things you told me about your father and yourself; I don’t need to repeat them to you. Your dream about the orange, for instance. A subconscious memory dream? It must have been. I have told you enough, I hope, to show you that I did not need the red box to tell me who you are and who killed Mr. McNair and Mr. Gebert and why. Anyway, I shan’t further coddle my vanity at your expense. Y
ou want to know how. That is simple. I’ll give you the main facts— Mrs. Frost! Sit down!”

  I don’t know whether Wolfe regarded my automatic mostly as stage property or not, but I didn’t. Mrs. Edwin Frost had stood up, and she had a fair-sized black leather handbag she was clutching. I’ll admit it was unlikely she would be lugging an atomizer loaded with nitrobenzene into Wolfe’s office, to have it found if she was searched, but that wasn’t a thing to take a chance on. I thought I’d better butt in for the sake of an understanding. I did so:

  “I ought to tell you, Mrs. Frost, if you don’t like this gun pointed at you, give me that bag or lay it on the floor.”

  She ignored me, looking at Wolfe. She said with calm indignation, “I can’t be compelled to listen to this rubbish.” I saw a little flash back in her eyes from the fire inside. “I am going. Helen! Come.”

  She moved toward the door. I moved after her. Cramer was on his feet and got in front of her before I did. He blocked her way but didn’t touch her. “Wait, Mrs. Frost. Just a minute.” He looked at Wolfe. “What have you got? I’m not playing this blind.”

  “I’ve got enough, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe was crisp. “I’m not a fool. Take that bag from her and keep her in here or you’ll eternally regret it.”

  Cramer didn’t hesitate more than half a second. That’s one thing I’ve always liked about him, he never fiddle-faddles much. He put a hand on her shoulder. She stepped back, away from it, and stiffened. He snapped, “Give me the bag and sit down. That’s no great hardship. You’ll have all the chance for a comeback you want.”

  He reached for it and took it. I noticed that at that juncture she didn’t appeal to her masculine relatives; I don’t imagine she was very strong on appeals. She wasn’t doing any quivering, either. She gave Cramer the straight hard eye:

  “You keep me here by force. Do you?”

  “Well …” Cramer shrugged. “We think you’ll stay for a while. Just till we get through.”

  She walked back and sat down. Glenna McNair sent her one swift glance, and then looked back at Wolfe. The men weren’t looking at her.

  Wolfe said testily, “These interruptions will help no one. Certainly not you, Mrs. Frost; nothing can help you now.” He looked at our client. “You want to know how. In 1916 Mrs. Frost went with her baby daughter Helen, then only a year old, to the east coast of Spain. There, a year later, her daughter died. Under the terms of her deceased husband’s will, Helen’s death meant that the entire fortune went to Dudley and Llewellyn Frost. Mrs. Frost did not like that, and she made a plan. It was wartime, and the confusion all over Europe made it possible to carry it out. Her old friend Boyden McNair had a baby daughter almost the same age as Helen, just a month apart, and his wife was dead and he was penniless, with no means of making a livelihood. Mrs. Frost bought his daughter from him, explaining that the child would be better off that way anyhow. Inquiry is now being made in Cartagena regarding a manipulation of the record of deaths in the year 1917. The idea was, of course, to spread the report that Glenna McNair died and Helen Frost lived.

  “Immediately Mrs. Frost took you, as Helen Frost, to Egypt, where there was little risk of your being seen by some traveler who had known you as a baby in Paris. When the war ended even Egypt was too hazardous, and she went on to the Far East. Not until you were nine years old did she chance your appearance in this part of the world, and even then she avoided France. You came to this continent from the west.”

  Wolfe stirred in his chair, and gave his eyes a new target. “I suppose it would be more polite, Mrs. Frost, from this point on, to address myself to you. I am going to speak of the two unavoidable difficulties your plan encountered—one from the very beginning. That was your young friend Perren Gebert. He knew all about it because he was there, and you had to pay for his silence. You even took him to Egypt with you, which was a wise precaution even if you didn’t like to have him around. As long as you paid him he represented no serious danger, because he was a man who knew how to hold his tongue. Then a cloud sailed into your sky, about ten years ago, when Boyden McNair, who had made a success in London and regained his self-respect, came to New York. He wanted to be near the daughter he had lost, and I have no doubt that he made a nuisance of himself. He kept to the essentials of the bargain he had made with you in 1917, because he was a scrupulous man, but he made annoying little pecks at you. He insisted on his right to make himself a good friend of his daughter. I presume that it was around this time that you acquired, probably on a trip to Europe, certain chemicals which you began to fear might some day be needed.”

  Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. She sat straight and motionless, her eyes level at him, the lips of her proud mouth perhaps a little tighter than ordinary. He went on, “And sure enough, the need arose. It was a double emergency. Mr. Gebert conceived the idea of marrying the heiress before she came of age, and insisted on the help of your influence and authority. What was worse, Mr. McNair began to get his scruples mixed up. He did not tell me the precise nature of the demands he made, but I believe I can guess them. He wanted to buy his daughter back again. Didn’t he? He had made even a greater success in New York than in London, and so had plenty of money. True, he was still bound by the agreement he had made with you in 1917, but I suspect he had succeeded in persuading himself that there was a higher obligation, both to his paternal emotions and to Glenna herself. No doubt he was outraged by Mr. Gebert’s impudent aspiration to marry Glenna and by your seeming acquiescence.

  “You were certainly up against it, I can see that. After all your ingenuity and devotion and vigilance, and twenty years of control of a handsome income. With Mr. Gebert insisting on having her for a wife, and Mr. McNair demanding her for a daughter, and both of them threatening you daily with exposure, the surprising thing is that you found time for the deliberate cunning you employed. It is easy to see why you took Mr. McNair first. If you had killed Gebert, McNair would have known the truth of it no matter what your precautions, and would have acted at once. So your first effort was the poisoned candy for McNair, with the poison in the Jordan almonds, which you knew he was fond of. He escaped that; it killed an innocent young woman instead. He knew of course what it meant. Here I permit myself another surmise: my guess is that Mr. McNair, being a sentimental man, decided to reclaim his daughter on her real twenty-first birthday, April second. But knowing your resourcefulness, and fearing that you might somehow get him before then, he made certain arrangements in his will and in an interview with me. The latter, alas, was not completed; your second attempt, the imitation aspirin tablets, intervened. And just in the nick of time! Just when he was on the verge—Miss McNair! I beg you …”

  Glenna McNair disregarded him. I suppose she didn’t hear him. She was on her feet, turned away from him, facing the woman with the straight back and proud mouth whom for so many years she had called mother. She took three steps toward her. Cramer was up too, beside her; and Lew Frost was there with a hand on her arm. With a convulsive movement she shook his hand off without looking at him; she was staring at Mrs. Frost. A little quiver ran over her, then she stood still and said in a half-choked voice:

  “He was my father, and you killed him. You killed my father. Oh!” The quiver again, and she stopped for it. “You … you woman!”

  Llewellyn sputtered at Wolfe, “This is enough for her—good God, you shouldn’t have let her be here—I’ll take her home—”

  Wolfe said curtly, “She has no home. None this side of Scotland. Miss McNair, I beg you. Sit down. You and I are doing a job. Aren’t we? Let’s finish it. Let’s do it right, for your father’s sake. Come.”

  She quivered once more, shook off Lew’s hand again, and then turned and got to her chair and sat down. She looked at Wolfe: “All right. I don’t want anybody to touch me. But it’s all over, isn’t it?”

  Wolfe shook his head. “Not quite. We’ll go on to the end.” He straightened out a finger to aim it at Mrs. Frost. “You, madam, have a little more to hear. Having got r
id of Mr. McNair, you may even have had the idea that you could stop there. But that was bad calculation, unworthy of you, for naturally Mr. Gebert knew what had happened and began at once to put pressure on you. He was even foolhardy about it, for that was his humor; he told Mr. Goodwin that you had murdered Mr. McNair. He presumed, I suppose, that Mr. Goodwin did not know French, and did not know that calida, your name, is a Latin word meaning ‘ardently.’ No doubt he meant merely to startle you. He did indeed startle you, with such success that you killed him the next day. I have not yet congratulated you on the technique of that effort, but I assure you—”

  “Please!” It was Mrs. Frost. We all looked at her. She had her chin up, her eyes at Wolfe, and didn’t seem ready to do any quivering. “Need I listen to your … need I listen to that?” Her head pivoted for the eyes to aim at Cramer. “You are a police inspector. Do you realize what this man is saying to me? Are you responsible for it? Are you … am I charged with anything?”

  Cramer said in a heavy official tone, “It looks like you’re apt to be. Frankly, you’ll stay right here until I have a chance to look over some evidence. I can tell you now, formally, don’t say anything you don’t want used against you.”

  “I have no intention of saying anything.” She stopped, and I saw that her teeth had a hold on her lower lip. But her voice was still good when she went on, “There is nothing to say to such a fable. In fact, I …” She stopped again. Her head pivoted again, for Wolfe. “If there is evidence for such a story about my daughter, it is forged. Haven’t I a right to see it?”

  Wolfe’s eyes were slits. He murmured, “You spoke of a lawyer. I believe a lawyer has a legal method for such a request. I see no occasion for that delay.” He put his hand on the red box. “I see no reason why—”

  Cramer was on his feet again, and at the desk. He was brisk and he meant business: “This has gone far enough. I want that box. I’ll take a look at it myself—”