The Red Box

by Rex Stout

  “Yeah.” I grinned at him; if he was getting sore there was hope. “I’m beneath yours and you’re beneath mine. At that, it may be one of those cases where nothing but routine will do it. For instance, one of Cramer’s hirelings may turn the trick by trailing a sale of potassium cyanide.”

  “Bah.” Wolfe upturned a whole palm; he was next door to a frenzy. “Mr. Cramer does not even know who the murderer is. As for the poison, it was probably bought years ago, possibly not in this country. We have to deal not only with adroitness, but also with forethought.”

  “So I suspected. You’re telling me that you do know who the murderer is. Huh?”

  “Archie.” He wiggled a finger at me. “I dislike mystification and never practice it for diversion. But I shall load you with no burdens that will strain your powers. You have no gift for guile. Certainly I know who the murderer is, but what good does that do me? I am in no better boat than Mr. Cramer. By the way, he telephoned last evening a few minutes after you left. In a very ugly mood. He seemed to think we should have told him of the existence of Glennanne instead of leaving him to discover it for himself from an item among Mr. McNair’s papers; and he hotly resented Saul’s holding it against beleaguerment. I presume he will cool off now that you have made him a gift of Mr. Gebert.”

  I nodded. “And I presume I would look silly if he squeezed enough sap out of Gebert to make the case jell.”

  “Never. No fear, Archie. Mr. Gebert is not likely, under any probable pressure, to surrender the only hold on the cliff of existence he has managed to cling to. It would have been useless to bring him here; he has his profit and loss calculated. —Yes, Fritz? Ah, the soufflé chose to ignore the clock? At once, certainly.”

  He gripped the edge of the desk to push back his chair.

  We did not ignore the soufflé.

  My lunch was interrupted once, by a phone call from Helen Frost. Ordinarily Wolfe flatly prohibited my disturbing a meal to go to the phone, letting it be handled by Fritz on the kitchen extension, but there were exceptions he permitted. One was a female client. So I went to the office and took it, not with any overflow of gaiety, for all morning I had been thinking that we might get word from her any minute that the deal was off. Up there alone with her mother, there was no telling what she might be talked into. But all she wanted was to ask about Perren Gebert. She said that her mother had phoned the Chesebrough at breakfast time and had learned that Gebert had not been there for the night, and after phoning and fussing all morning, she had finally been informed by the police that Gebert was being detained at headquarters, and they had told her mother something about Gebert being held on information furnished by Mr. Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office, and what about it?

  I told her, “It’s all right. We caught him trying to get in a window out at Glennanne, and the cops are asking him what for. Just a natural sensible question. After a while he’ll either answer it or he won’t, and they’ll either turn him loose or keep him. It’s all right.”

  “But they won’t …” She sounded harassed. “You see, I told you, it’s true there are things about him I don’t like, but he is an old friend of mother’s and mine too. They won’t do anything to him, will they? I can’t understand what he was doing at Glennanne, trying to get in. He hasn’t been there … I don’t think he ever was there … you know he and Uncle Boyd didn’t like each other. I don’t understand it. But they can’t do anything to him just for trying to open a window. Can they?”

  “They can and they can’t. They can sort of annoy him. That won’t hurt him much.”

  “It’s terrible.” The shiver was in her voice. “It’s terrible! And I thought I was hard-boiled. I guess I am, but … anyway, I want you and Mr. Wolfe to go on. Go right on. Only I thought I might ask you—Perren is really mother’s oldest friend—if you could go down there and see where he is and what they’re doing … I know the police are very friendly with you …”

  “Sure.” I made a face at the phone. “Down to headquarters? Surest thing you know. Bless your heart, I’d be glad to. It won’t take me long to finish my lunch, and I’ll take it on the jump. Then I’ll phone you and let you know.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. Thank you ever so much. If I’m not at home mother will be. I … I’m going out to buy some flowers …”

  “Okay. I’ll phone you.”

  I went back to the dining room and resumed with my tools and told Wolfe about it. He was provoked, as always when business intruded itself on a meal. I took my time eating, on to the coffee and through it, because I knew if I hurried and didn’t chew properly it would upset Wolfe’s digestion. It didn’t break his heart if I was caught out in the field at feeding time and had to grab what I could get, but if I once started a meal at that table I had to complete it like a gentleman. Also, I wasn’t champing at the bit for an errand I didn’t fancy.

  It was after two when I went to the garage for the roadster, and there I got another irritation when I found that the washing and polishing job had been done by a guy with one eye.

  Downtown, on Centre Street, I parked at the triangle, and went in and took the elevator. I walked down the upstairs corridor as if I owned it, entered the anteroom of Cramer’s office as cocky as they come, and told the hulk at the desk:

  “Tell the inspector, Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office.”

  I stood up for ten minutes, and then was nodded in. I was hoping somewhat that Cramer would be out and my dealings would be with Burke, not on account of my natural timidity, but because I knew it would be better for everyone concerned if Cramer had a little more time to cool off before resuming social intercourse with us. But he was there at his desk when I entered, and to my surprise he didn’t get up and take a bite at my ear. He snarled a little:

  “So it’s you. You walk right in here. Burke made a remark about you this morning. He said that if you ever wanted a rubdown you ought to get Smoky to do it for you. Smoky is the little guy with a bum leg that polishes the brass railings downstairs at the entrance.”

  I said, “I guess I’ll sit down.”

  “I guess you will. Go ahead. Want my chair?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “What do you want?”

  I shook my head at him wistfully. “I’ll be doggoned, Inspector, if you’re not a hard man to please. We do our best to help you find that red box, and you resent it. We catch a dangerous character trying to make an illegal entry, and hand him over to you, and you resent that. If we wrap this case up and present you with it, I suppose you’ll charge us as accessories. You may remember that in that Rubber Band affair—”

  “Yeah, I know. Past favors have been appreciated. I’m busy. What do you want?”

  “Well …” I tilted my head back so as to look down on him. “I represent the executor of Mr. McNair’s estate. I came to invite Mr. Perren Gebert to attend the funeral services at the Belford Memorial Chapel at nine o’clock this evening. If you would kindly direct me to his room?”

  Cramer gave me a nasty look. Then he heaved a deep sigh, reached in his pocket for a cigar, bit off the end and lit it. He puffed at it and got it established in the corner of his mouth. Abruptly he demanded:

  “What have you got on Gebert?”

  “Nothing. Not even passing a red light. Nothing at all.”

  “Did you come here to see him? What does Wolfe want you to ask him?”

  “Nothing. As Tammany is my judge. Wolfe says he’s just clinging to the cliff of existence or something like that and he wouldn’t let him in the house.”

  “Then what the devil do you want with him?”

  “Nothing. I’m just keeping my word. I promised somebody I would come down here and ask you how he is and what his future prospects are. So help me, that’s on the level.”

  “Maybe I believe you. Do you want to look at him?”

  “Not especially. I would just as soon.”

  “You can.” He pressed a button in a row. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to have you. This case is open a
nd shut, open for the newspapers and shut for me. If you’ve got any curiosity about anything that you think Gebert might satisfy, go ahead and take your turn. They’ve been working on him since seven o’clock this morning. Eight hours. They can’t even make him mad.”

  A sergeant with oversize shoulders had entered and was standing there. Cramer told him: “This man’s name is Goodwin. Take him down to Room Five and tell Sturgis to let him help if he wants to.” He turned to me. “Drop in again before you leave. I may want to ask you something.”

  “Okay. I’ll have something thought up to tell you.”

  I followed the sergeant out to the corridor and down it to the elevator. We stayed in for a flight below the ground floor, and he led me the length of a dim hall and around a corner, and finally stopped at a door which may have had a figure 5 on it but if so I couldn’t see it. He opened the door and we went in and he closed the door again. He crossed to where a guy sat on a chair mopping his neck with a handkerchief, said something to him, and turned and went out again.

  It was a medium-sized room, nearly bare. A few plain wooden chairs were along one wall. A bigger one with arms was near the middle of the room, and Perren Gebert was sitting in it, with a light flooding his face from a floor lamp with a big reflector in front of him. Standing closer in front of him was a wiry-looking man in his shirt sleeves with little fox ears and a Yonkers haircut. The guy on the chair that the sergeant had spoken to was in his shirt sleeves too, and so was Gebert. When I got close enough to the light so that Gebert could see me and recognize me, he half started up, and said in a funny hoarse tone:

  “Goodwin! Ah, Goodwin—”

  The wiry cop reached out and slapped him a good one on the left side of his neck, and then with his other hand on his right ear. Gebert quivered and sank back. “Sit down there, will you?” the cop said plaintively. The other cop, still holding his handkerchief in his hand, got up and walked over to me:

  “Goodwin? My name’s Sturgis. Who are you from, Buzzy’s squad?”

  I shook my head. “Private agency. We’re on the case and we’re supposed to be hot.”

  “Oh. Private, huh? Well … the inspector sent you down. You want a job?”

  “Not just this minute. You gentlemen go ahead. I’ll listen and see if I can think of something.”

  I stepped a pace closer to Gebert and looked him over. He was reddened up a good deal and kind of blotchy, but I couldn’t see any real marks. He had no necktie on and his shirt was torn on the shoulder and there was dried sweat on him. His eyes were bloodshot from blinking at the strong light and probably from having them slapped open when he closed them. I asked him:

  “When you said my name just now, did you want to tell me something?”

  He shook his head and made a hoarse grunt. I turned and told Sturgis: “He can’t tell you anything if he can’t talk. Maybe you ought to give him some water.”

  Sturgis snorted. “He could talk if he wanted to. We gave him water when he passed out a couple of hours ago. There’s only one thing in God’s world wrong with him. He’s contrary. You want to try him?”

  “Later maybe.” I crossed to the row of chairs by the wall and sat down. Sturgis stood and thoughtfully wiped his neck. The wiry cop leaned forward to get closer to Gebert’s face and asked him in a wounded tone:

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  No response, no movement.

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  Again, nothing.

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  Gebert shook his head faintly. The cop roared at him in indignation, “Don’t shake your head at me! Understand? What did she pay you that money for?”

  Gebert sat still. The cop hauled off and gave him a couple more slaps, rocking his head, and then another pair.

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  That went on for a while. It appeared to me doubtful that any progress was going to be made. I felt sorry for the poor dumb cops, seeing that they didn’t have brains enough to realize that they were just gradually putting him to sleep and that in another three or four hours he wouldn’t be worth fooling with. Of course he would be as good as new in the morning, but they couldn’t go on with that for weeks, even if he was a foreigner and couldn’t vote. That was the practical viewpoint, and though the ethics of it was none of my business, I admit I had my prejudices. I can bulldog a man myself, if he has it coming to him, but I prefer to do it on his home grounds, and I certainly don’t want any help.

  Apparently they had abandoned all the side issues which had been tried on him earlier in the day, and were concentrating on a few main points. After twenty minutes or more consumed on what she had paid him the money for, the wiry cop suddenly shifted to another one, what had he been after at Glennanne the night before. Gebert mumbled something to that, and got slapped for it. Then he made no reply to it and got slapped again. The cop was about on the mental level of a woodchuck; he had no variety, no change of pace, no nothing but a pair of palms and they must have been getting tender. He stuck to Glennanne for over half an hour, while I sat and smoked cigarettes and got more and more disgusted, then turned away and crossed to his colleague and muttered wearily:

  “Take him a while, I’m going to the can.”

  Sturgis asked me if I wanted to try, and I declined again with thanks. In fact, I was about ready to leave, but thought I might as well get a brief line on Sturgis’ technique. He stuck his handkerchief in his hip pocket, walked over to Gebert and exploded at him:

  “What did she pay you that money for?”

  I gritted my teeth to keep from throwing a chair at the sap. But he did show some variation; he was more of a pusher than a slapper. The gesture he worked most was to put his paw on Gebert’s ear and administer a few short snappy shoves and then put his other paw on the other ear and even it up. Sometimes he took him full face and shoved straight back and then ended with a pat.

  The wiry cop had come back and sat down beside me and was telling me how much bran he ate. I had decided I had had my money’s worth and was taking a last puff on a cigarette, when the door opened and the sergeant entered—the one who had brought me down. He walked over and looked at Gebert the way a cook looks at a kettle to see if it has started to boil. Sturgis stepped back and pulled out his handkerchief and started to wipe. The sergeant turned to him:

  “Orders from the inspector. Fix him up and brush him off and take him to the north door and wait there for me. The inspector wants him out of here in five minutes. Got a cup?”

  Sturgis went and opened the door of a cupboard and came back with a white enameled cup. The sergeant poured into it from a bottle and returned the bottle to his pocket. “Let him have that. Can he navigate all right?”

  Sturgis said he could. The sergeant turned to me: “Will you go up to the inspector’s office, Goodwin? I’ve got an errand on the main floor.”

  He went on out and I followed him without saying anything. There was no one there I wanted to exchange telephone numbers with.

  I took the elevator back upstairs. I had to wait quite a while in Cramer’s anteroom. Apparently he was having a party in there, for three dicks came out, and a little later a captain in uniform, and still later a skinny guy with grey hair whom I recognized for Deputy Commissioner Alloway. Then I was allowed the gangway. Cramer was sitting there looking sour and chewing a cigar that had gone out.

  “Sit down, son. You didn’t get a chance to show us how downstairs. Huh? And we didn’t show you much either. There was a good man working on Gebert for four hours this morning, a good clever man. He couldn’t start a crack. So we gave up the cleverness and tried something else.”

  “Oh, that’s it.” I grinned at him. “That’s what those guys are, something else. It describes them all right. And now you’re turning him loose?”

  “We are.” Cramer frowned. “A lawyer was beginning to heat things up, I suppose hired by Mrs. Frost. He got a habeas corpus a little wh
ile ago, and I couldn’t see that Gebert was worth fighting for, and anyway, I doubt if we could have held him. Also the French consul started stirring around. Gebert’s a French citizen. Of course we’re putting a shadow on him, and what good will that do? When a man like that has got knowledge about a crime there ought to be some way of tapping him the way you do a maple tree, and draw it out of him. Huh?”

  I nodded. “Sure, that’d be all right. It would be better than …” I shrugged. “Never mind. Any news from the boys at Glennanne?”

  “No.” Cramer clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back into them, chewed his cigar, and scowled at me. “You know, I hate to say this to you. But it’s what I think. I wouldn’t like to see you get hurt, but it might have been more sensible if we had had you down in Room Five all day instead of that Gebert.”

  “Me?” I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. After all I’ve done for you.”

  “Oh, don’t kid me. I’m tired, I’m not in a mood for it. I’ve been thinking. I know how Wolfe works. I don’t pretend I could do it, but I know how he does it. I admit he never yet has finished up on the wrong side, but you only have to break an egg once. It’s just possible that in this case he has got his feet tangled up. He’s working for the Frosts.”

  “He’s working for a Frost.”

  “Sure, and that’s funny too. First he said Lew hired him, and then the daughter. I never knew him to shift clients like that before. Has it got anything to do with the fact that the fortune belongs to the daughter, but that it has been controlled by Lew’s father for twenty years? And Lew’s father, Dudley Frost, is a great one for keeping things to himself. We put it up to him that we’re investigating a murder case and asked him to let us check the assets of the estate because there might be a connection that would be helpful. We asked him to cooperate. He told us to go chase ourselves. Frisbie up at the D.A.’s office tried to get at it through court action, but apparently there’s no loophole. Now why did Wolfe all of a sudden quit Lew and transfer his affections to the other side of the family?”