Red Box, The nwo-4

by Rex Stout

  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 Fifteen

  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 onto 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 grey 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 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 have 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 aristo
crat in the ante-room 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.

  I said, “All right, you richly deserve it. What does it mean? Not more than twelve steps altogether. As soon as that hooey started, you could get out of your chair and walk fifteen feet to it and back again makes thirty, and you'd be out of your misery. Or if you honestly believe that would be overdoing, you could get one of those remote control things-”

  “I wouldn't, Archie.” He was in his patient mood. “I really wouldn't. You are perfectly aware that I have enough enterprise to turn off the radio; you have seen me do it; the exercise is good for me. I purposely dial the station which will later develop into the Pearls of Wisdom, and I deliberately bear it. It's discipline. It fortifies me to put up with ordinary inanities for days. I gladly confess that after listening to the Pearls of Wisdom your conversation is an intellectual and esthetic delight. It's the tops.” He grimaced. “That's what a

  Pearl of Wisdom just said that cultured interests are. He said they are the tops.” He grimaced again. “Great heavens, I'm thirsty.” He jerked himself up and leaned forward to press the button for beer.

  But it was a little while before he got it. An instant after he pressed the button the doorbell rang, which meant that Fritz would have to attend to that chore first. Since it was nearly eleven o'clock and no one was expected, my heart began to beat, as it always does when we're on a case with any kick to it and any little surprise turns up. As a matter of fact, I got proof that I had fallen for Wolfe's showmanship again, for I had a sudden conviction that Saul

  Panzer was going to walk in with the red box under his arm.

  Then I heard a voice in the hall that didn't belong to Saul. The door opened and swung around and Fritz stepped back to admit the visitor, and Helen Frost walked in. At the look on her face I hopped up and went over and put a hand on her arm, thinking she was about ready to flop.

  She shook her head and I dropped the hand. She walked toward Wolfe's desk and stopped. Wolfe said:

  “How do you do, Miss Frost? Sit down.” Sharply: “Archie, put her in a chair.”

  I got her arm again and eased her over and got a chair behind her, and she sank into it. She looked at me and said, “Thank you.” She looked at Wolfe: “Something awful has happened. I didn't want to go home and I…I came here. I'm afraid. I have been all along, really, but…I'm afraid now. Perren is dead. Just now, up on 73rd Street. He died on the sidewalk.”

  “Indeed. Mr. Gebert.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Breathe, Miss Frost. In any event, you need to breathe. – Archie, get a little brandy.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Our client shook her head. “I don't want any brandy. I don't think I could swallow.” She was querulous and shaky. “I tell you…I'm afraid!”

  “Yes.” Wolfe had sat up and got his eyes open. “I heard you. If you don't pull yourself together, with brandy or without, you'll have hysterics, and that will be no help to all. Do you want some ammonia? Do you want to lie down? Do you want to talk? Can you talk?”

  “Yes.” She put the fingertips of both hands to her temples and caressed them delicately-her forehead, then the temples again. “I can talk. I won't have hysterics.”

  “Good for you. You say Mr. Gebert died on the sidewalk on 73rd Street. What killed him?”

  1 don't know.” She was sitting up straight, with her hands clasped in her lap.

  “He was getting in his car and he jumped back, and he came running down the sidewalk toward us…and he fell, and then Lew told me he was dead-”

  “Wait a minute. Please. It will be better to do this neatly. I presume it happened after you left the chapel where the services were held. Did all of you leave together? Your mother and uncle and cousin and Mr. Gebert?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Perren offered to drive mother and me home, but I said I would rather walk, and my uncle said he wanted to have a talk with mother, so they were going to take a taxi. We were all going slow along the sidewalk, deciding that-”

  I put in, “East? Toward Gebert's car?”

  “Yes. I didn't know then…I didn't know where his car was, but he left us and my uncle and mother and I stood there while Lew stepped into the street to stop a taxi, and I happened to be looking in the direction Perren had gone, and so was my uncle, and we saw him stop and open the door of his car…and then he jumped back and stood a second, and then he yelled and began running toward us…but he only got about halfway when he fell down, and he tried to roll…he tried…”

  Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Less vividly, Miss Frost. You've lived through it once, don't try to do so again. Just tell us about it; it's history. He fell, he tried to roll, he stopped. People ran to succor him. Did you? Your mother?”

  “No. My mother held my arm. My uncle ran to him, and a man that was there, and I called to Lew and he came and ran there too. Then mother told me to stay where I was, and she walked to them, and other people began to come. I stood there, and in about a minute Lew came to me and said they thought Perren was dead and told me to get a taxi and go home and they would stay. The taxi he had stopped was standing there and he put me in it, but after it started I didn't want to go home and I told the driver to come here. I…I thought perhaps…”

  “You couldn't be expected to think. You were in no condition for it.” Wolfe leaned back. “So. You don't know what Mr. Gebert died of.”

  “No. There was no sound…no anything…”

  “Do you know whether he ate or drank anything at the chapel?”

  Her head jerked up. She swallowed. “No, I'm sure he didn't.”

  “No matter.” Wolfe sighed. “That will be learned. You say that after Mr. Gebert jumped back from his car he yelled. Did he yell anything in particular?”

  “Yes…he did. My mother's name. Like calling for help.”

  One of Wolfe's brows went up. “I trust he yelled it ardently. Forgive me for permitting myself a playful remark; Mr. Gebert would understand it, were he here. So he yelled 'Calida.' More than once?”

  “Yes, several times. If you mean…my mother's name…”

  “I meant nothing really. I was talking nonsense. It appears that, so far as you know, Mr. Gebert may have died of a heart attack or a clot on the brain or acute misanthropy. But I believe you said it made you afraid. What of?”

  She looked at him, opened her mouth, and closed it again. She stammered. “That's why…that's what…” and stopped. Her hands unclasped and fluttered up, and down again. She took another try at it: “I told you…I've been afraid…”

  “Very well.” Wolfe showed her a palm. “You needn't do that. I unde
rstand. You mean that for some time you have been apprehensive of something malign in the relations of those closest and dearest to you. Naturally the death of Mr. McNair made it worse. Was it because-but forgive me. I am indulging one of my vices at a bad time-bad for you. I would not hesitate to torment you if it served our end, but it is useless now. Nothing more is needed. Did you intend to marry Mr.

  Gebert?”

  “No. I never did.”

  “Did you have affection for him?”

  “No. I told you…I didn't really like him.”

  “Good. Then once the temporary shock is past you can be objective about it. Mr.

  Gebert had very little to recommend him, either as a sapient being or as a biological specimen. The truth is that his death simplifies our task a little, and I feel no regret and shall pretend to none. Still his murder will be avenged, because we can't help ourselves. I assure you, Miss Frost, I am not trying to mystify you. But since I am not yet ready to tell you everything, I suppose it would be best to tell you nothing, so I'll confine myself, for this evening, to one piece of advice. Of course you have friends-for instance, that

  Miss Mitchell who attempted loyalty to you on Tuesday morning. Go there, now, without informing anyone, and spend the night. Mr. Goodwin can drive you.

  Tomorrow-”

  “No.” She was shaking her head. 1 won't do that. What you said…about Perren's murder. He was murdered.

  Wasn't he?”

  “Certainly. He died ardently. I repeat that because I like it. If you make a conjecture from it, all the better as preparation for you. I do not advise your spending the night with a friend on account of any danger to yourself, for there is none. In fact, there is no danger left for anyone, except as I embody it. But you must know that if you go home you won't get much sleep. The police will be clamoring for minutiae; they are probably bullying your family at this moment, and it would only be common sense to save yourself from that catechism. Tomorrow morning I could inform you of developments.”