by Rex Stout
She nodded again. “He … he always closes up.”
“And visits the cemetery?”
“Oh, no. His wife died in Europe, in Paris. Mr. McNair is a Scotsman. He only came to this country about twelve years ago, a little after mother and I came.”
“Then you spent part of your childhood in Europe?”
“Most of it. The first eight years. I was born in Paris, but my father and mother were both Americans.” She tilted up her chin. “I’m an American girl.”
“You look it.” Fritz brought more beer, and Wolfe poured some. “And after twenty years Mr. McNair still shuts up shop on April second in memory of his wife. A steadfast man. Of course, he lost his daughter also—when she was two, I believe you said—which completed his loss. Still he goes on dressing women … well. Then you won’t be there tomorrow.”
“No, but I’ll be with Mr. McNair. I … do that for him. He asked it a long time ago, and mother let me, and I always do it. I’m almost exactly the same age his daughter was. Of course I don’t remember her, I was too young.”
“So you spend that day with him as a vicar for his daughter.” Wolfe shivered. “His mourning day. Ghoulish. And he puts diamonds on you. However … you are aware, of course, that your cousin, Mr. Llewellyn Frost, wants you to quit your job. Aren’t you?”
“Perhaps I am. But that isn’t even any of my business, is it? It’s his.”
“Certainly. Hence mine, since he is my client. Do you forget that he hired me?”
“I do not.” She sounded scornful. “But I can assure you that I am not going to discuss my cousin Lew with you. He means well. I know that.”
“But you don’t like the fuss.” Wolfe sighed. The foam had gone from his beer, and he tipped a little more in the glass, lifted it, and drank. I sat and tapped with my pencil on my notebook and looked at Miss Frost’s ankles and the hint of shapeliness ascending therefrom. I wasn’t exactly bored, but I was beginning to get anxious, wondering if the relapse germ was still working on Wolfe’s nerve centers. Not only was he not getting anywhere with this hard-working heiress, it didn’t sound to me as if he was half trying. Remembering the exhibitions I had seen him put on with others—for instance, Nyura Pronn in the Diplomacy Club business—I was beginning to harbor a suspicion that he was only killing time. At anything like his top form, he should have had this poor little rich girl herded into a corner long ago. But here he was …
I was diverted by the doorbell buzz and the sound of Fritz’s footsteps in the hall going to answer it. The idea popped into my head that Mr. Dudley Frost, not liking the way I had hung up on him, might be dropping around to get his nose straightened, and in a sort of negligent way I got solider in my chair, because I knew Wolfe was in no mood to be wafted away again by that verbal cyclone, and I damn well wasn’t going to pass out any more of the Old Corcoran.
But it wasn’t the cyclone, it was only the breeze, his son. Our client. Fritz came in and announced him, and at Wolfe’s nod went back and brought him in. He wasn’t alone. He ushered in ahead of him a plump little duck about his own age, with a round pink face and quick smart eyes. Lew Frost escorted this specimen forward, then dropped it and went to his cousin.
“Helen! You shouldn’t have done this—”
“Now, Lew, for heaven’s sake, why did you come here? Anyway, it’s your fault that I had to come.” She saw the plump one. “You too, Bennie?” She looked mad and grim. “Are you armed?”
Lew Frost turned to Wolfe, looking every inch a football player. “What the hell are you trying to pull? Do you think you can get away with this kind of stuff? How would you like it if I pulled you out of that chair—”
His plump friend grasped his arm, with authority. He was snappy: “None of that, Lew. Calm down. Introduce me.”
Our client controlled himself with an effort. “But, Ben … all right. That’s Nero Wolfe.” He glared at Wolfe. “This is Mr. Benjamin Leach, my attorney. Try some tricks on him.”
Wolfe inclined his head. “How do you do, Mr. Leach. I don’t know any tricks, Mr. Frost. Anyway, aren’t you getting things a little complicated? First you hire me to do a job for you, and now, judging from your attitude, you have hired Mr. Leach to circumvent me. If you keep on with that—”
“Not to circumvent you.” The lawyer sounded friendly and smooth. “You see, Mr. Wolfe, I’m an old friend of Lew’s. He’s a little hot-headed. He has told me something about this business … the, er, unusual circumstances, and I just thought it would be all right if he and I were present at any conversations you may have with Miss Frost. In fact, it would have been quite proper if you had arranged for us to be here from the beginning.” He smiled pleasantly. “Isn’t that so? Two of you and two of us?”
Wolfe had on a grimace. “You speak, sir, as if we were hostile armies drawn up for battle. Of course that’s natural, since bad blood is for lawyers what a bad tooth is for a dentist. I mean nothing invidious; detectives live on trouble too. But they don’t stir it up where there is none—at least, I don’t. I don’t ask you to sit down, because I don’t want you here. I fancy that on that point we shall have to consult—yes, Fritz?”
Fritz had knocked and entered, and now walked across to the desk with his company gait, bearing the pewter tray. He bent at the waist and extended it.
Wolfe picked up the card and looked at it. “Still not the right one. Tell him … no. Show him in.”
Fritz bowed and departed. The lawyer wheeled to face the door and Llewellyn turned his head, but Miss Frost just sat. The newcomer entered, and at sight of his thin nose and slick hair and dark darting eyes I squelched a grin and muttered to myself, “Still more fuss.”
I stood up. “Over here, Mr. Gebert.”
Lew Frost took a step and busted out at him, “You? What the hell do you want here?”
Wolfe spoke sharply, “Mr. Frost! This is my office!”
The lawyer took hold of our client—his too, of course—and held on. Perren Gebert paid no attention to either of them. He went past them before he stopped to incline his torso in Wolfe’s direction. “Mr. Wolfe? How do you do? Permit me.” He turned and bowed again, at Helen Frost, with a different technique. “So there you are! How are you? You’ve been crying! Forgive me, I have no tact, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. How are you? All right?”
“Certainly I’m all right! For heaven’s sake, Perren, why did you come?”
“I came to take you home.” Gebert turned and shot the dark eyes at Wolfe. “Permit me, sir. I came to escort Miss Frost home.”
“Indeed,” Wolfe murmured. “Officially? Forcibly? In spite of anything?”
“Well …” Gebert smiled. “Semi-officially. How shall I say it.… Miss Frost is almost my fiancée.”
“Perren! That isn’t true! I’ve told you not to say that!”
“I said ‘almost,’ Helen.” He raised his palms to deprecate himself. “I put in the ‘almost,’ and I permit myself to say it only in hope—”
“Well, don’t say it again. Why did you come?”
Gebert got in another bow. “The truth is, your mother suggested it.”
“Oh. She did.” Miss Frost glanced around at all her protectors. She looked plenty exasperated. “I suppose she suggested it to you too, Lew. And you, Bennie?”
“Now, Helen.” The lawyer sounded persuasive. “Don’t start on me. I came here because when Lew told me about it, it seemed the best thing to do. —Be quiet, Lew! It seems to me that if we just discuss this thing quietly …”
The telephone rang, and I got back in my chair for it. Leach went on talking, spreading oil. As soon as I learned who it was on the phone I got discreet. I pronounced no names and kept my words down. It appeared to me likely that this time it was the right one. I asked him to hold the wire a minute, and choked the transmitter, and wrote on a piece of paper, McN wants to pay us a call, and handed it across to Wolfe.
Wolfe glanced at it and stuck it in his pocket and said softly, “Thank you, Archie. That’s m
ore like it. Tell Mr. Brown to telephone again in fifteen minutes.”
I had trouble with that. McNair was urgent and wasn’t going to be put off. The others had stopped talking. I made it reassuring but firm, and finally managed it. I hung up and told Wolfe:
“Okay.”
He was making preparations to rise. He shoved his chair back, got his hands on its arms for levers, and up came the mountain. He stood and distributed a glance and put on his crispest tone:
“Gentlemen. It is nearly four o’clock and I must leave you. —No, permit me. Miss Frost has kindly accepted my invitation to come to my plant rooms and see my orchids. She is … she and I have concluded a little agreement. I may say that I am not an ogre and I resent your silly invasion of my premises. You gentlemen are leaving now, and certainly she is free to accompany you if she chooses to do that. —Miss Frost?”
She stood up. Her lips were compressed, but she opened them to say, “I’ll look at the orchids.”
They all began yapping at once. I got up and prepared for traffic duty in case of a jam. Llewellyn broke loose from his lawyer and started toward her, ready to throw her behind his saddle and gallop off. She gave them a good brave stare:
“For heaven’s sake, shut up! Don’t you think I’m old enough to take care of myself? Lew, stop that!”
She started off with Wolfe. All they could do was take it and look foolish. The lawyer friend pulled at his little pink nose. Perren Gebert stuck his hands in his pockets and stood straight. Llewellyn strode to the door, after the orchid lovers had passed through, and all we could see was his fine strong back. The sound of the elevator door closing came from the hall, and the whirr of its ascending.
I announced, “That’ll be all for the present, and I don’t like scenes. They get on my nerves.”
Lew Frost whirled and told me, “Go to hell.”
I grinned at him. “I can’t plug you, because you’re our client. But you might as well beat it. I’ve got work to do.”
The plump one said, “Come on, Lew, we’ll go to my office.”
Perren Gebert was already on the move. Llewellyn stood aside and glared him full of holes as he passed. Then Leach went and nudged his friend along. I tripped by to open the front door for them; Llewellyn was continuing with remarks, but I disdained them. He and his attorney went down the stoop to the sidewalk and headed east; Gebert had climbed into a neat little convertible which he had parked back of the roadster and was stepping on the starter. I shut the door and went back in.
I switched on the house phone for the plant room and pressed the button. In about twenty seconds Wolfe answered, and I told him:
“It’s quiet and peaceful down here now. No fuss at all.”
His murmur came at me: “Good. Miss Frost is in the middle room, enjoying the orchids … reasonably well. When Mr. McNair phones, tell him six o’clock. If he insists on coming earlier, let him, and keep him. Let me know when he is there, and have the office door closed. She left her vanity case on my desk. Send Fritz up with it.”
“Okay.”
I switched off and settled to wait for McNair’s call, reflecting on the relative pulling power of beauty in distress and two million iron men and how it probably depended on whether you were the romantic type or not.
Chapter 8
Two hours later, at six o’clock, I sat at my desk pounding the typewriter with emphasis and a burst of speed, copying off the opening pages of one of Hoehn’s catalogues. The radio was turned on, loud, for the band of the Hotel Portland Surf Room. Together the radio and I made quite a din. Boyden McNair, with his right elbow on his knee and his bent head resting on the hand which covered his eyes, sat near Wolfe’s desk in the dunce’s chair, yclept that by me on the day that District Attorney Anderson of Westchester sat in it while Wolfe made a dunce of him.
McNair had been there nearly an hour. He had done a lot of sputtering on the phone and had refused to wait until six o’clock, and had finally appeared a little after five, done some sputtering, and then settled down because there wasn’t anything else to do. He had his bottle of aspirin along in his pocket and had already washed a couple of them down, me furnishing the water and also offering phenacetin tablets as an improvement, without any sale. He wouldn’t take a drink, though he certainly looked as if he needed one.
The six o’clock radio and typewriter din was for the purpose of covering any sound of voices that might come from the hall as Nero Wolfe escorted his guest, Miss Frost, from the elevator to the front door and let her out to the taxi which Fritz had ordered from the kitchen phone. Of course I couldn’t hear anything either, so I kept glancing at the office door without letting my fingers stop, and at length it opened and Wolfe entered. Observing the mise en scène, he winked at me with his right eye and steered for his desk. He got across and deposited in his chair before the visitor knew he was there. I arose and turned off the radio and quiet descended on us. McNair’s head jerked up. He saw Wolfe, blinked, stood up and looked around.
“Where’s Miss Frost?” he demanded.
Wolfe said, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. McNair. Miss Frost has gone home.”
“What?” McNair gaped at him. “Gone home? I don’t believe it. Who took her? Gebert and Lew Frost were here …”
“They were indeed.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I entreat you, sir. This room has been filled with idiots this afternoon, and I would enjoy some sanity for a change. I am not a liar. I put Miss Frost into a cab not ten minutes ago, and she was going straight home.”
“Ten minutes … but I was here! Right here in this chair! You knew I wanted to see her! What kind of a trick—”
“I know you wanted to see her. But I didn’t want you to, and she is perfectly safe if she gets through the traffic. I do not intend that you shall see Miss Frost until I’ve had a talk with you. It was a trick, yes, but I’ve a right to play tricks. What about your own tricks? What about the outright lies you have been telling the police since the day Molly Lauck was murdered? Well, sir? Answer me!”
McNair started twice to speak, but didn’t. He looked at Wolfe. He sat down. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and then put it back again without using it. Sweat showed on his forehead.
Finally he said, in a thin cool voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you know.” Wolfe pinned him down with his eyes. “I’m talking about the box of poisoned candy. I know how Miss Frost became aware of its contents. I know that you have known from the beginning, and that you have deliberately withheld vital information from the police in a murder case. Don’t be an idiot, Mr. McNair. I have a statement signed by Helen Frost; there was nothing else for her to do. If I told the police what I know you would be locked up. For the present I don’t tell them, because I wish to earn a fee, and if you were locked up I couldn’t get at you. I pay you the compliment of assuming that you have some brains. If you poisoned that candy, I advise you to say nothing, leave here at once, and beware of me; if you didn’t, talk to the point, and there will be no dodging the truth.” Wolfe leaned back and murmured, “I dislike ultimatums, even my own. But this has gone far enough.”
McNair sat motionless. Then I saw a shiver in his left shoulder, a quick little spasm, and the fingers of his left hand, on the arm of his chair, began twitching. He looked down at them, and reached over with his other hand and gripped and twisted them, and the shoulder had another spasm, and I saw the muscles jerking in the side of his neck. His nerves were certainly shot. His eyes moved around and fell on the empty glass standing on the edge of Wolfe’s desk, and he turned to me and asked as if it were a big favor:
“Could I have a little more water?”
I took the glass and went and filled it and brought it back, and when he didn’t lift his hand to take it I put it down on the desk again. He paid no attention to it.
He muttered aloud, but to no one in particular. “I’ve got to make up my own mind. I thought I had, but I didn’t expec
t this.”
Wolfe said, “If you were a clever man you’d have done that before the unexpected forced you.”
McNair took out his handkerchief and this time wiped off the sweat. He said quietly, “Good God, I’m not clever. I’m the most complete fool that was ever born. I’ve ruined my whole life.” His shoulder twitched again. “It wouldn’t do any good to tell the police what you know, Mr. Wolfe. I didn’t poison that candy.”
Wolfe said, “Go on.”
McNair nodded. “I’ll go on. I don’t blame Helen for telling you about it, after the way you trapped her yesterday morning. I can imagine what she was up against here today, but I don’t hold that against you either. I’ve got beyond all the ordinary resentments, they don’t mean anything. You notice I’m not even trying to find out what Helen told you. I know if she told you anything she told you the truth.”
He lifted his head to get Wolfe straighter in the eye. “I didn’t poison the candy. When I went upstairs to my office about twelve o’clock that day, to get away from the crowd for a few minutes, the box was there on my desk. I opened it and looked in it, but didn’t take any because I had a devil of a headache. When Helen came in a little later I offered her some, but thank God she didn’t take any either, because there were no caramels in it. When I went back downstairs I left it on my desk, and Molly must have seen it there later, and took it. She … liked to play pranks.”
He stopped and wiped his brow again. Wolfe asked:
“What did you do with the paper and twine the box was wrapped with?”
“There wasn’t any. It wasn’t wrapped.”
“Who put it on your desk?”
“I don’t know. Twenty-five or thirty people had been in and out of there before 11:30, looking at some Crenuit models I didn’t want to show publicly.”
“Who do you think put it there?”
“I haven’t any idea about it.”
“Who do you think might want to kill you?”
“No one would want to kill me. That’s why I’m sure it was meant for someone else and was left there by mistake. Anyway, there’s no more reason to suppose—”
