by Rex Stout
Wolfe emptied his glass of beer, arose from his chair, and began fingering the darts, sorting out the yellow ones.
He looked at me. “I suppose this is foolhardy,” he murmured, “with this bullet-wound, to start my blood pumping.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “You ought to be in bed. They may have to amputate.”
“Indeed.” He frowned at me. “Of course, you wouldn’t know much about it. As far as my memory serves, you have never been shot by a high-calibre revolver at close range.”
“The lord help me.” I threw up my hands. “Is that going to be the tune? Are you actually going to have the nerve to brag about that little scratch? Now, if Hombert’s foot hadn’t jostled his chair and he had hit what he aimed at …”
“But he didn’t.” Wolfe moved to the fifteen-foot mark. He looked me over. “Archie. If you would care to join me at this …”
I shook my head positively. “Nothing doing. You’ll keep beefing about your bullet-wound, and anyway I can’t afford it. You’ll probably be luckier than ever.”
He put a dignified stare on me. “A dime a game.”
“No.”
“A nickel.”
“No. Not even for matches.”
He stood silent, and after a minute of that heaved a deep sigh. “Your salary is raised ten dollars a week, beginning last Monday.”
I lifted the brows. “Fifteen.”
“Ten is enough.”
I shook my head. “Fifteen.”
He sighed again. “Confound you! All right. Fifteen.”
I arose and went to the desk to get the red darts.
THE
RED
BOX
Introduction
How many novels will you read this year that were published in 1937?
The odds are, not many.
But Rex Stout’s The Red Box is a marvelous exception and with good reason. The fourth book in the immortal Nero Wolfe series, The Red Box is quintessential Stout. Every element so long adored by faithful fans is there, the brownstone on Thirty-fifth Street; Wolfe’s monumental girth, which is exceeded only by his towering intellect; the ten thousand orchids (Archie keeps the records updated) in the glassed-over rooms on the roof (the orchids’ caretaker, Theo Horstmann, sleeps up there in a small den); the quick wit and ready cynicism of good-looking, blunt-talking Archie Goodwin; the unmatched epicurean delights (on the heavy side, only good eaters invited) of chef Fritz Brenner; the great man’s collection of beer bottle caps.
And therein lies much of the magic of this series, the creation of a world that readers come to know as well as the insides of their own households, from the yellow couch and double-width cherry desk in Wolfe’s office-cum-living room to the climate-and-temperature-controlled plant rooms where Wolfe spends from nine to eleven and four to six every day.
Readers often are curious as to how much of the author can be found in a book’s hero. In the case of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe, the lack of correlation is perhaps more striking. Stout was tall, slender, scraggly bearded; Wolfe packed a seventh of a ton into a stocky five foot eleven inches. Stout radiated energy; Wolfe avoided physical exertion as if it were deleterious to his health. Stout enjoyed good food, but was quite willing to enjoy common fare; Wolfe was a gourmand who would rather skip a meal than eat junk food. Stout had a wide-ranging interest in the political life of his country; Wolfe was almost apolitical.
But what they had in common and the quality that accounts for the greatest charm of the Nero Wolfe series is a love of language. Stout used language with great precision and with great pleasure. Wolfe was surely his alter ego in this glorious pursuit.
As all Wolfe and Goodwin aficionados know, Wolfe’s idea of heaven was life uninterrupted in his brownstone with the orderly progression of his day from plant room to meal to plant room. It was Archie who alternately bullied and cajoled the great man into taking cases, which Wolfe did only because he knew he had to earn enough money to maintain their life-style.
The Red Box is a shining example of Wolfe and Archie at their most entertaining and intriguing, and the banter between the great detective and his unquenchable sidekick will delight Stout fans.
The Red Box provides one of the few instances in the long history recorded by Archie (more than forty books) when Wolfe does indeed depart from the cozy confines of his brownstone, much to Wolfe’s disgruntlement. Archie achieves this rare state of affairs through a clever ploy that takes advantage of Wolfe’s orchidmania.
The sortie to the clothing enterprise on Fifty-second Street provides perspicacious Wolfe with the only ambiguity among the recorded statements on the murder of a model.
Wolfe is faced first with a seemingly insoluble crime—who was really the intended victim? When he correctly identifies the murderer’s true objective and has within his grasp the opportunity to divine the perpetrator, murder once again intervenes—this time in Wolfe’s own office, both an infuriating and ultimately tactless mistake by the murderer.
The cast of suspects includes:
—A gorgeous, rich model who knows too much about the candy.
—The caretaker of an estate who talks so much and so fast no one can get a word in edgewise.
—A self-possessed widow who certainly earned the ire of her husband.
—Wolfe’s first client, who can’t seem to make up his mind what he wants.
—An expatriate without visible means of support who seems to live quite comfortably.
Wolfe is frustrated because he decides early on who did the killing, but sees no way of bringing the suspect to justice. Wolfe solves this problem—with some artful legerdemain—when he unmasks a clever and calculating killer in the comfort and convenience of his lair.
Archie Goodwin is in top form, sassing police, suspects, and clients (as Archie remarks, this case “is just one damned client after another”).
Readers will delight in the intricacy of the plot, the repartee between Wolfe and his man-about-town, Archie, and they may be quite particular in their choice of candies should a box without provenance be offered.
—Carolyn G. Hart
Chapter 1
Wolfe looked at our visitor with his eyes wide open—a sign, with him, either of indifference or of irritation. In this case it was obvious that he was irritated.
“I repeat, Mr. Frost, it is useless,” he declared. “I never leave my home on business. No man’s pertinacity can coerce me. I told you that five days ago. Good day, sir.”
Llewellyn Frost blinked, but made no move to acknowledge the dismissal. On the contrary, he settled back in his chair.
He nodded patiently. “I know, I humored you last Wednesday, Mr. Wolfe, because there was another possibility that seemed worth trying. But it was no good. Now there’s no other way. You’ll have to go up there. You can forget your build-up as an eccentric genius for once—anyhow, an exception will do it good. The flaw that heightens the perfection. The stutter that accents the eloquence. Good Lord, it’s only twenty blocks, Fifty-second between Fifth and Madison. A taxi will take us there in eight minutes.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe stirred in his chair; he was boiling. “How old are you, Mr. Frost?”
“Me? Twenty-nine.”
“Hardly young enough to justify your childish effrontery. So. You humored me! You speak of my build-up! And you undertake to stampede me into a frantic dash through the maelstrom of the city’s traffic—in a taxicab! Sir, I would not enter a taxicab for a chance to solve the Sphinx’s deepest riddle with all the Nile’s cargo as my reward!” He sank his voice to an outraged murmur. “Good God. A taxicab.”
I grinned a bravo at him, twirling my pencil as I sat at my desk, eight feet from his. Having worked for Nero Wolfe for nine years, there were a few points I wasn’t skeptical about any more. For instance: That he was the best private detective north of the South Pole. That he was convinced that outdoor air was apt to clog the lungs. That it short-circuited his nervous system to be jiggled and jostled. That he would have s
tarved to death if anything had happened to Fritz Brenner, on account of his firm belief that no one’s cooking but Fritz’s was fit to eat. There were other points too, of a different sort, but I’ll pass them up since Nero Wolfe will probably read this.
Young Mr. Frost quietly stared at him. “You’re having a grand time, Mr. Wolfe. Aren’t you?” Frost nodded. “Sure you are. A girl has been murdered. Another one—maybe more—is in danger. You offer yourself as an expert in these matters, don’t you? That part’s all right, there’s no question but that you’re an expert. And a girl’s been murdered, and others are in great and immediate peril, and you rant like Booth and Barrett about a taxicab in a maelstrom. I appreciate good acting; I ought to, since I’m in show business. But in your case I should think there would be times when a decent regard for human suffering and misfortune would make you wipe off the make-up. And if you’re really playing it straight, that only makes it worse. If, rather than undergo a little personal inconvenience—”
“No good, Mr. Frost.” Wolfe was slowly shaking his head. “Do you expect to bully me into a defense of my conduct? Nonsense. If a girl has been murdered, there are the police. Others are in peril? They have my sympathy, but they hold no option on my professional services. I cannot chase perils away with a wave of my hand, and I will not ride in a taxicab. I will not ride in anything, even my own car with Mr. Goodwin driving, except to meet my personal contingencies. You observe my bulk. I am not immovable, but my flesh has a constitutional reluctance to sudden, violent or sustained displacement. You spoke of ‘decent regard.’ How about a decent regard for the privacy of my dwelling? I use this room as an office, but this house is my home. Good day, sir.”
The young man flushed, but did not move. “You won’t go?” he demanded.
“I will not.”
“Twenty blocks, eight minutes, your own car.”
“Confound it, no.”
Frost frowned at him. He muttered to himself, “They don’t come any stubborner.” He reached to his inside coat pocket and pulled out some papers, selected one and unfolded it and glanced at it, and returned the others. He looked at Wolfe:
“I’ve spent most of two days getting this thing signed. Now, wait a minute, hold your horses. When Molly Lauck was poisoned, a week ago today, it looked phony from the beginning. By Wednesday, two days later, it was plain that the cops were running around in circles, and I came to you. I know about you, I know you’re the one and only. As you know, I tried to get McNair and the others down here to your office and they wouldn’t come, and I tried to get you up there and you wouldn’t go, and I invited you to go to hell. That was five days ago. I’ve paid another detective three hundred dollars for a lot of nothing, and the cops from the inspector down are about as good as Fanny Brice would be for Juliet. Anyhow, it’s a tough one, and I doubt if anyone could crack it but you. I decided that Saturday, and during the weekend I covered a lot of territory.” He pushed the paper at Wolfe. “What do you say to that?”
Wolfe took it and read it. I saw his eyes go slowly half-shut, and knew that whatever it was, its effect on his irritation was pronounced. He glanced over it again, looked at Llewellyn Frost through slits, and then extended the paper toward me. I got up to take it. It was typewritten on a sheet of good bond, plain, and was dated New York City, March 28, 1936:
To MR. NERO WOLFE:
At the request of Llewellyn Frost, we, the undersigned, beg you and urge you to investigate the death of Molly Lauck, who was poisoned on March 23 at the office of Boyden McNair Incorporated on 52nd Street, New York. We entreat you to visit McNair’s office for that purpose.
We respectfully remind you that once each year you leave your home to attend the Metropolitan Orchid Show, and we suggest that the present urgency, while not as great to you personally, appears to us to warrant an equal sacrifice of your comfort and convenience.
With high esteem,
WINOLD GLUECKNER
CUYLER DITSON
T. M. O’GORMAN
RAYMOND PLEHN
CHAS. E. SHANKS
CHRISTOPHER BAMFORD
I handed the document back to Wolfe and sat down and grinned at him. He folded it and slipped it under the block of petrified wood which he used for a paperweight. Frost said:
“That was the best I could think of, to get you. I had to have you. This thing has to be ripped open. I got Del Pritchard up there and he was lost. I had to get you somehow. Will you come?”
Wolfe’s forefinger was doing a little circle on the arm of his chair. “Why the devil,” he demanded, “did they sign that thing?”
“Because I asked them to. I explained. I told them that no one but you could solve it and you had to be persuaded. I told them that besides money and food the only thing you were interested in was orchids, and that there was nobody who could exert any influence on you but them, the best orchid-growers in America. I had letters of introduction to them. I did it right. You notice I restricted my list to the very best. Will you come?”
Wolfe sighed. “Alec Martin has forty thousand plants at Rutherford. He wouldn’t sign it, eh?”
“He would if I’d gone after him. Glueckner told me that you regard Martin as tricky and an inferior grower. Will you come?”
“Humbug.” Wolfe sighed again. “An infernal imposition.” He wiggled a finger at the young man. “Look here. You seem to be prepared to stop at nothing. You interrupt these expert and worthy men at their tasks to get them to sign this idiotic paper. You badger me. Why?”
“Because I want you to solve this case.”
“Why me?”
“Because no one else can. Wait till you see—”
“Yes. Thank you. But why your overwhelming interest in the case? The murdered girl—what was she to you?”
“Nothing.” Frost hesitated. He went on, “She was nothing to me. I knew her—an acquaintance. But the danger—damn it, let me tell you about it. The way it happened—”
“Please, Mr. Frost.” Wolfe was crisp. “Permit me. If the murdered girl was nothing to you, what standing will there be for an investigator engaged by you? If you could not persuade Mr. McNair and the others to come to me, it would be futile for me to go to them.”
“No, it wouldn’t. I’ll explain that—”
“Very well. Another point. I charge high fees.”
The young man flushed. “I know you do.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Look, Mr. Wolfe. I’ve thrown away a lot of my father’s money since I put on long pants. A good gob of it in the past two years, producing shows, and they were all flops. But now I’ve got a hit. It opened two weeks ago, and it’s a ten weeks buy. Bullets for Breakfast. I’ll have plenty of cash to pay your fee. If only you’ll find out where the hell that poison came from—and help me find a way.…”
He stopped. Wolfe prompted him, “Yes, sir? A way—”
Frost frowned. “A way to get my cousin out of that murderous hole. My ortho-cousin, the daughter of my father’s brother.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe surveyed him. “Are you an anthropologist?”
“No.” Frost flushed again. “I told you, I’m in show business. I can pay your fee—within reason, or even without reason. But we ought to have an understanding about that. Of course the amount of the fee is up to you, but my idea would be to split it, half to find out where that candy came from, and the other half for getting my cousin Helen away from that place. She’s as stubborn as you are, and you’ll probably have to earn the first half of the fee in order to earn the second, but I don’t care if you don’t. If you get her out of there without clearing up Molly Lauck’s death, half the fee is yours anyhow. But Helen won’t scare, that won’t work, and she has some kind of a damn fool idea about loyalty to this McNair, Boyden McNair. Uncle Boyd, she calls him. She’s known him all her life. He’s an old friend of Aunt Callie’s, Helen’s mother. Then there’s this dope, Gebert—but I’d better start at the beginning and sketch it—hey! You going now?”
Wolfe had pushed his cha
ir back and elevated himself to his feet. He moved around the end of his desk with his customary steady and not ungraceful deliberation.
“Keep your seat, Mr. Frost. It is four o’clock, and I now spend two hours with my plants upstairs. Mr. Goodwin will take the details of the poisoning of Miss Molly Lauck—and of your family complications if they seem pertinent. For the fourth time, I believe it is, good day, sir.” He headed for the door.
Frost jumped up, sputtering. “But you’re coming uptown—”
Wolfe halted and ponderously turned. “Confound you, you know perfectly well I am! But I’ll tell you this, if Alec Martin’s signature had been on that outlandish paper I would have thrown it in the wastebasket. He splits bulbs. Splits them! —Archie. We shall meet Mr. Frost at the McNair place tomorrow morning at ten minutes past eleven.”
He turned and went, disregarding the client’s protest at the delay. Through the open office door I heard, from the hall, the grunt of the elevator as he stepped in it, and the bang of its door.
Llewellyn Frost turned to me, and the color in his face may have been from gratification at his success, or from indignation at its postponement. I looked him over as a client—his wavy light brown hair brushed back, his wide-open brown eyes that left the matter of intelligence to a guess, his big nose and broad jaw which made his face too heavy even for his six feet.
“Anyhow, I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Goodwin.” He sat down. “You were clever about it, too, keeping that Martin out of it. It was a big favor you did me, and I assure you I won’t forget—”
“Wrong number.” I waved him off. “I told you at the time, I keep all my favors for myself. I suggested that round robin only to try to drum up some business, and for a scientific experiment to find out how many ergs it would take to jostle him loose. We haven’t had a case that was worth anything for nearly three months.” I got hold of a notebook and pencil, and swiveled around and pulled my desk-leaf out. “And by the way, Mr. Frost, don’t you forget that you thought of that round robin yourself. I’m not supposed to think.”
