Strictly speaking, that wasn’t my job. I know pretty well what my field is. Aside from my primary function as the thorn in the seat of Wolfe’s chair to keep him from going to sleep and waking up only for meals, I’m chiefly cut out for two things: to jump and grab something before the other guy can get his paws on it, and to collect pieces of the puzzle for Wolfe to work on. This expedition to 65th Street was neither of those. I don’t pretend to be strong on nuances. Fundamentally I’m the direct type, and that’s why I can never be a really fine detective. Although I keep it down as much as I can, so it won’t interfere with my work, I always have an inclination in a case of murder to march up to all the possible suspects, one after the other, and look them in the eye and ask them, “Did you put that poison in the aspirin bottle?” and just keep that up until one of them says, “Yes.” As I say, I keep it down, but I have to fight it.
The Frost apartment on 65th Street wasn’t as gaudy as I had expected, in view of my intimate knowledge of the Frost finances. It was a bit shiny, with one side of the entrance hall solid with mirrors, even the door to the closet where I hung my hat, and, in the living room, chairs and little tables with chromium chassis, a lot of red stuff around in upholsteries and drapes, a metal grille in front of the fireplace, which apparently wasn’t used, and oil paintings in modern silver frames.
Anyway, it certainly was cheerfuller than the people that were in it. Dudley Frost was in a big chair at one side, with a table at his elbow holding a whiskey bottle, a water carafe, and a couple of glasses. Perren Gebert stood near a window at the other end, with his back to the room and his hands in his pockets. As we entered he turned, and Helen’s mother walked toward us, with a little lift to her brow as she saw me.
“Oh,” she said. To her daughter: “You’ve brought...”
Helen nodded firmly. “Yes, mother.” She was holding her chin a little higher than natural, to keep the spunk going. “You — all of you have met Mr. Goodwin. Yesterday morning at... that candy business with the police. I’ve engaged Nero Wolfe to investigate Uncle Boyd’s death, and Mr. Goodwin works for him—”
Dudley Frost bawled from his chair, “Lew! Come here! Damn it, what kind of nonsense—”
Llewellyn hurried over there to stem it. Perren Gebert had approached us and was smiling at me:
“Ah! The fellow that doesn’t like scenes. You remember I told you, Calida?” He transferred the smile to Miss Frost. “My dear Helen! You’ve engaged Mr. Wolfe? Are you one of the Erinyes? Alecto? Megaera? Tisiphone? Where’s your snaky hair? So one can really buy anything with money, even vengeance?”
Mrs. Frost murmured at him, “Stop it, Perren.”
“I’m not buying vengeance.” Helen colored a little. “I told you this morning, Perren, you’re being especially hateful. You’d better not make me cry again, or I’ll... well, don’t. Yes, I’ve engaged Mr. Wolfe, and Mr. Goodwin has come here and he wants to talk to you.”
“To me?” Perren shrugged. “About Boyd? If you ask it, he may, but I warn him not to expect much. The police have been here most of the day, and I’ve realized how little I really knew about Boyd, though I’ve known him more than twenty years.”
I said, “I stopped expecting long ago. Anything you tell me will be velvet. — I’m supposed to talk to you, too, Mrs. Frost. And your brother-in-law. I have to take notes, and it gives me a cramp to write standing up...”
She nodded at me, and turned. “Over here, I think.” She started toward Dudley Frost’s side of the room, and I joined her. Her straight back was graceful, and she was unquestionably streamlined for her age. Llewellyn started carrying chairs, and Gebert came up with one. As we got seated and I pulled out my notebook and pencil, I noticed that Helen still had to keep her chin up, but her mother didn’t. Mrs. Frost was saying:
“I hope you understand this, Mr. Goodwin. This is a terrible thing, an awful thing, and we were all very old friends of Mr. McNair’s, and we don’t enjoy talking about it. I knew him all my life, from childhood.”
I said, “Yeah. You’re Scotch?”
She nodded. “My name was Buchan.”
“So McNair told us.” I jerked my eyes up quick from my notebook, which was my habit against the handicap of not being able to keep a steely gaze on the victim. But she wasn’t recoiling in dismay; she was just nodding again.
“Yes. I gathered from what the policemen said that Boyden had told Mr. Wolfe a good deal of his early life. Of course you have the advantage of knowing what it was he had to say to Mr. Wolfe. I knew, naturally, that Boyden was not well... his nerves...”
Gebert put in, “He was what you call a wreck. He was in a very bad condition. That is why I told the police, they will find it was suicide.”
“The man was crazy!” This was a croak from Dudley Frost. “I’ve told you what he did yesterday! He instructed his lawyer to demand an accounting on Edwin’s estate! On what grounds? On the ground that he is Helen’s godfather? Absolutely fantastic and illegal! I always thought he was crazy—”
That started a general rumpus. Mrs. Frost expostulated with some spirit, Llewellyn with respectful irritation, and Helen with a nervous outburst. Perren Gebert looked around at them, nodded at me as if he and I shared an entertaining secret, and got out a cigarette. I didn’t try to put it all down, but just surveyed the scene and listened. Dudley Frost was surrendering no ground:
“... crazy as a loon! Why shouldn’t he commit suicide? Helen, my dear, I adore you, you know damned well I do, but I refuse to assume respect for your liking for that nincompoop merely because he is no longer alive! He had no use for me and I had none for him! So what’s the use pretending about it? As far as your dragging this man in here is concerned—”
“Dad! Now, Dad! Cut it out—”
Perren Gebert said to no one, “And half a bottle gone.” Mrs. Frost, sitting with her lips tight and patient, glanced at him. I leaned forward to get closer to Dudley Frost and practically yelled at him:
“What is it? Where does it hurt?”
He jerked back and glared at me. “Where does what hurt?”
I grinned. “Nothing. I just wanted to see if you could hear. I gather you would just as soon I’d go. The best way to manage that, for all of you, is to let me ask a few foolish questions, and you answer them briefly and maybe honestly.”
“We’ve already answered them. All the foolish questions there are. We’ve been doing that all day. All because that nincompoop McNair—”
“Okay. I’ve already got it down that he was a nincompoop. You’ve made remarks about suicide. What reason did McNair have for killing himself?”
“How the devil do I know?”
“Then you can’t think one up offhand?”
“I don’t have to think one up. The man was crazy. I’ve always said so. I said so over twenty years ago, in Paris, when he used to paint rows of eggs strung on wires and call it The Cosmos.”
Helen started to burst, “Uncle Boyd was never—” She was seated at my right, and I reached and tapped her sleeve with the tips of my fingers and told her, “Swallow it. You can’t crack every nut in the bag.” I turned to Perren Gebert:
“You mentioned suicide first. What reason did McNair have for killing himself?”
Gebert shrugged. “A specific reason? I don’t know. He was very bad in his nerves.”
“Yeah. He had a headache. How about you, Mrs. Frost? Have you got a reason?”
She looked at me. You couldn’t take that woman’s eyes casually; you had to make an effort. She said, “You make your question a little provocative. Don’t you? If you mean, do I know a concrete motive for Boyden to commit suicide, I don’t.”
“Do you think he did?”
She frowned. “I don’t know what to think. If I think of suicide, it is only because I knew him quite intimately, and it is even more difficult to believe that there was anyone who... that someone killed him.”
I started to sigh, then realized that I was imitating Nero Wolfe, and choked it off. I looked around at them. “Of course, you all know that McNair died in Nero Wolfe’s office. You know that Wolfe and I were there, and naturally we know what he had been telling us about and how he was feeling. I don’t know how carefully the police are with their conclusions, but Mr. Wolfe is very snooty about his. He has already made one or two about this case, and the first one is that McNair didn’t kill himself. Suicide is out. So if you have any idea that that theory will be found acceptable, either now or eventually, obliterate it. Guess again.”
Perren Gebert extended a long arm to crush his cigarette in a tray. “For my part,” he said, “I don’t feel compelled to guess. I made one to be charitable. Suppose you tell us why it wasn’t suicide.”
Mrs. Frost said quietly, “I asked you to sit down in my house, Mr. Goodwin, because my daughter brought you. But I wonder if you know when you are being offensive? We... I have no theory to advance...”
Dudley Frost started to croak: “Take no notice of him, Calida. Disregard him. I refuse to speak to him.” He reached for the whiskey bottle.
I said, “If you ask me, I could be even more offensive and still hope to make the grade to heaven.” I got Mrs. Frost’s eyes again. “For instance, I might remark on your phony la-de-da about asking me to sit down in your house. It isn’t your house, it’s your daughter’s, unless she gave it to you—” There was a gasp at my right from the client, and Mrs. Frost’s mouth opened, but I went on ahead of the rush:
“Just to show you how offensive I can be if I work at it. What kind of ninnies do you think we are? Even the cops aren’t as thick as you seem to believe. It’s time you folks pinched yourselves and woke up. Boyden McNair gets bumped off, and Helen Frost here happens to have enough regard for him to want to know who did it, and enough gumption to get the right man for the job, and enough jack to pay him. She’s your daughter and niece and cousin and almost fiancée. She brings me here. I already know enough to be aware that you’ve got vital information which you don’t intend to cough up, and you know I know it. And look at the kindergarten stuff you hand me! McNair had a headache, so he went to Nero Wolfe’s office to poison himself! You might at least have the politeness to tell me straight that you refuse to discuss the matter because you don’t intend to get involved if you can help it, then we can proceed with the involving.” I pointed my pencil at Perren Gebert’s long thin nose. “For instance, you! Did you know that Dudley Frost might tell us where the red box is?”
I concentrated on Gebert, but Mrs. Frost was off line only a little to the left of him, so I was having a glimpse of her too. Gebert fell for it absolutely. His head jerked around to look at Dudley Frost and then back at me. Mrs. Frost jerked too, first at Gebert, then back into steadiness. Dudley Frost was sputtering at me:
“What’s that? What red box? That idiotic thing in McNair’s will? Damn you, are you crazy too? Do you dare—”
I grinned at him. “Hold it. I just said you might. Yeah, the thing McNair left to Wolfe in his will. Have you got it?”
He turned to his son and growled, “I refuse to speak to him.”
“Okay. But the truth is, I’m a friend of yours. I’m tipping you off. Did you know that there’s a way for the District Attorney to force an accounting from you of your brother’s estate? And did you ever hear of a search warrant? I suppose when the cops went with one to your apartment this afternoon to look for the red box, there was a maid there to let them in. Didn’t she phone you? And of course in looking for the box they would have occasion to glance at anything that might be around. Or maybe they didn’t get there yet; they may be on the way now. And don’t go blaming your maid, she can’t help it—”
Dudley Frost had scrambled to his feet. “They wouldn’t — that would be an outrage—”
“Sure it would. I’m not saying they’ve done it, I’m just telling you, in a case of murder they’ll do anything—”
Dudley Frost had started across the room. “Come on, Lew — by Gad, we’ll see—”
“But, Dad, I don’t—”
“Come on, I say! Are you my son?” He had turned at the far end of the room. “Thank you for the refreshment, Calida, let me know if there is anything I can do. Lew, damn it, come on! Helen, my dear, you are a fool, I’ve always said so. Lew!”
Llewellyn stopped to murmur something to Helen, nodded to his aunt, ignored Gebert, and hurried after his father to assist in the defense of their castle. There were rumblings from the entrance hall, and then the door opening and closing.
Mrs. Frost stood up and looked down at her daughter. She spoke to her quietly: “This is frightful, Helen. That this should come... and just now, just when you will soon be a woman and ready for your life as you want it. I know what Boyd was to you, and he was a great deal to me, too. Just now you’re holding things against me that time will make you forget... you’re remembering that I thought it wise to temper the affection you had for him. I thought it best; you were a girl, and girls should look to youth. Helen, my dear child...”
She bent down and touched her daughter’s shoulder, touched her hair and straightened up again. “You have strong impulses, like your father, and sometimes you don’t quite manage them. I don’t agree with Perren when he sneers at you for trying to buy vengeance. Perren loves to sneer; it’s his favorite pose; he would call it being sardonic... but you know him. I think the impulse that led you to hire this detective was a generous one. Certainly I have every reason to know that you are generous.” Her voice stayed low, but it got more of a ring in it, a music of metal. “I’m your mother, and I don’t believe you really want to bring people here who tell me that I refuse to discuss... this matter... because I don’t intend to get involved. I’m sorry I was brusque with you today on the telephone, but my nerves were on edge. Policemen were here, and you were away, just making more trouble for us to no good purpose. Really... really, don’t you see that? Cheap insults and bullying for your own family won’t help any. I think you’ve learned, in twenty-one years, that you can depend on me, and I’d like to feel that I can depend on you too...”
Helen Frost stood up. Seeing her face, with no color in it and her mouth twisted, it looked shaky to me, and I considered butting in, but decided to keep my trap shut. She stood straight, with her hands, fists, hanging at her sides, and her eyes were dark with trouble but held level at Mrs. Frost, which was why I didn’t speak. Gebert took a couple of steps toward her and stopped.
She said, “You can depend on me, Mother. But so can Uncle Boyd. That’s all right, isn’t it? Oh, isn’t it?” She looked at me and said in a funny tone like a child, “Don’t insult my mother, Mr. Goodwin.” Then she turned abruptly and ran out on us, skipped the shebang. She left by a door on the right, not toward the hall, and closed it behind her.
Perren Gebert shrugged his shoulders and thrust his hands into his pockets, then pulled one out to rub the side of his thin nose with his forefinger. Mrs. Frost, with a couple of teeth clamped on her lower lip, looked at him and then back at the door where her daughter had gone.
I said brightly, “I don’t think she fired me. I didn’t understand it that way. What do you think?”
Gebert showed me a thin smile. “You leave now. No?”
“Maybe.” I still had my notebook open in my hand. “But you folks might as well understand that we mean business. We’re not just having fun, we do this for a living. I don’t believe you can talk her out of it. This place belongs to her. I’m willing to have a showdown right now; say we go to her bedroom or wherever she went, and ask if I’m kicked out.” I directed my gaze at Mrs. Frost. “Or have a little chat right here. You know, they might find that red box at Dudley Frost’s, at that. How would that set with you?”
She said, “Stupid senseless tricks.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. Even Steven. If you bounced me, Inspector Cramer would send me right back here with a man if Wolfe asked him to, and you’re in no position to ritz the cops, because they’re sensitive and they would only get suspicious. At present they’re not actually suspicious, they just think you’re hiding something because people like you don’t want any publicity except in society columns and cigarette ads. For instance, they believe you know where the red box is. You know, of course, it’s Nero Wolfe’s property; McNair left it to him. We really would like to have it, just for curiosity.”
Gebert, after listening to me politely, cocked his head at Mrs. Frost. He smiled at her: “You see, Calida, this fellow really believes we could tell him something. He’s perfectly sincere about it. The police, too. The only way to get rid of them is to humor them. Why not tell them something?” He waved a hand inclusively. “All sorts of things.”
She looked at him without approval. “This is nothing to be playful about. Certainly not your kind of playfulness.”
He lifted his brows. “I don’t mean to be playful. They want information about Boyd, and unquestionably we have it, quantities of it.” He looked at me. “You do shorthand in that book? Good. Put this down: McNair was an inveterate eater of snails, and he preferred Calvados to cognac. His wife died in childbirth because he was insisting on being an artist and was too poor and incompetent to provide proper care for her. — What, Calida? But the fellow wants facts! — Edwin Frost once paid McNair two thousand francs — at that time four hundred dollars — for one of his pictures, and the next day traded it to a flower girl for a violet — not a bunch, a violet. McNair named his daughter Glenna because it means valley, and she came out of the valley of death, since her mother died at her birth — just a morsel of Calvinistic merriment. A light-hearted man, Boyd was! Mrs. Frost here was his oldest friend and she once rescued him from despair and penury; yet, when he became the foremost living designer and manufacturer of women’s woolen garments, he invariably charged her top prices for everything she bought. And he never—”
“Perren! Stop it!”
“My dear Calida! Stop when I’ve just started? Give the fellow what he wants and he’ll let us alone. It’s a pity we can’t give him his red box; Boyd really should have told us about that. But I realize that his chief interest is in Boyd’s death, not his life. I can be helpful on that too. Knowing so well how Boyd lived, surely I should know how he died. As a matter of fact, when I heard of his death last evening, I was reminded of a quotation from Norboisin — the girl Denise gasps it as she expires: ‘ Au moins, je meurs ardemment! ’ Might not Boyd have used those very words, Calida? Of course, with Denise the adverb applied to herself, whereas with Boyd it would have been meant for the agent—”
“Perren!” It was not a protest this time, but a command. Mrs. Frost’s tone and look together refrigerated him into silence. She surveyed him: “You are a babbling fool. Would you make a jest of it? No one but a fool jests at death.”
Gebert made her a little bow. “Except his own, perhaps, Calida. To keep up appearances.”
“You may. I am Scotch, too, like Boyd. It is no joke to me.” She turned her head and let me have her eyes again. “You may as well go. As you say, this is my daughter’s house; we do not put you out. But my daughter is still a minor — and anyway, we cannot help you. I have nothing whatever to say, beyond what I have told the police. If you enjoy Mr. Gebert’s vaudeville I can leave you with him.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t like it much.” I stuck my notebook in my pocket. “Anyhow, I’ve got an appointment downtown, to squeeze blood out of a stone, which will be a cinch. It’s just possible Mr. Wolfe will phone to invite you to his office for a chat. Have you anything on for this evening?”
She froze me. “Mr. Wolfe’s taking advantage of my daughter’s emotional impulse is abominable. I don’t wish to see him. If he should come here—”
“Don’t let that worry you.” I grinned at her. “He’s done all his traveling for this season and then some. But I expect I’ll be seeing you again.” I started off, and after a few steps turned. “By the way, if I were you I wouldn’t make much of a point of persuading your daughter to fire us. It would just make Mr. Wolfe suspicious, and that turns him into a fiend. I can’t handle him when he’s like that.”
It didn’t look as if even that one was going to cause her to burst into sobs, so I beat it. In the entrance hall I tried to open up the wrong mirror, then found the right one and got my hat. The etiquette seemed to be turned off, so I let myself out and steered for the elevator.
I had to flag a taxi to take me home, because I had ridden up with our client and her cousin, not caring to leave them alone together at that juncture.
It was after six o’clock when I got there. I went to the kitchen first and commandeered a glass of milk, took a couple of sniffs at the goulash steaming gently on the simmer plate, and told Fritz it didn’t smell much like freshly butchered kid to me. I slid out when he brandished a skimming spoon.
Wolfe was at his desk with a book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by Lawrence, which he had already read twice, and I knew what mood he was in when I saw that the tray and glass were on his desk but no empty bottle. It was one of his most childish tricks, every now and then, especially when he was ahead of his quota more than usual, to drop the bottle into the wastebasket as soon as he emptied it, and if I was in the office he did it when I wasn’t looking. It was that sort of thing that kept me skeptical about the fundamental condition of his brain, and that particular trick was all the more foolish because he was unquestionably on the square with the bottle caps; he faithfully put every single one in the drawer; I know that, because I’ve checked up on him time and time again. When he was ahead on quota he made some belittling remark about statistics with each cap he dropped in, but he never tried to get away with one.
I tossed my notebook on my desk and sat down and sipped at the milk. There was no use trying to explode him off of that book. But after a while he picked up the thin strip of ebony he used for a bookmark, inserted it, closed the book, laid it down, and reached out and rang for beer. Then he leaned back and admitted I was alive.
“Pleasant afternoon, Archie?”
I grunted. “That was one hell of a tea. Dudley Frost was the only one who had any, and he wasn’t inclined to divvy so I sent him home. I only got one real hot piece of news, that no one but a fool jests at death. How does that strike you?”
Wolfe grimaced. “Tell me about it.”
I read it to him from the notebook, filling in the gaps from memory, though I didn’t need much because I’ve condensed my symbols until I can take down the Constitution of the United States on the back of an old envelope, which might be a good place for it. Wolfe’s beer arrived, and met its fate. Except for time out for swallowing, he listened, as usual, settled back comfortably with his eyes closed.
I tossed the notebook to the back of my desk, swiveled, and pulled the bottom drawer out and got my feet up. “That’s the crop. That one’s in the bag. What shall I start on now?”
Wolfe opened his eyes. “Your French is not even ludicrous. We’ll return to that. Why did you frighten Mr. Frost away by talk of a search warrant? Is there a subtlety there too deep for me?”
“No, just momentum. I asked him that question about the red box to get a line on the other two, and as I went along it occurred to me it might be fun to find out if he had anything at home he didn’t want anyone to see, and anyway what good was he? I got rid of him.”
“Oh. I was about to credit you with superior finesse. It would have been that, to get him away on the chance that there might be a remark, a glance, a gesture, not to be expected in his presence. In fact, that is exactly what happened. I congratulate you anyhow. As for Mr. Frost — everyone has something at home they don’t want anyone to see; that is one of the functions of a home, to provide a spot to keep such things. — And you say they haven’t the red box and don’t know where it is.”
“I offer that opinion. The look Gebert shot at Frost when I hinted Frost had it, and the look Mrs. Frost gave Gebert, as I told you. It’s a cinch that what they think is in the box means something important to them. It’s a good guess that they haven’t got it and don’t know where it is, or they wouldn’t have been so quick on the trigger when I hinted that. As for Frost, God knows. That’s the advantage a guy has that always explodes no matter what you say, there’s no symptomatic nuances for an observer like me.”
“You? Ha! I am impressed. I confess I am surprised that Mrs. Frost didn’t find a pretext as soon as you entered, to take her daughter to some other room. Is the woman immune to trepidation? Even common curiosity...”
I shook my head. “If it’s common, she hasn’t got it. That dame has got a steel spine, a governor on her main artery that prevents acceleration, and a patent air-cooling system for her brain. If you wanted to prove she murdered anyone you’d have to see her do it and be sure to have a camera along.”
“Dear me.” Wolfe came forward in his chair to pour beer. “Then we must find another culprit, which may be a nuisance.” He watched the foam subside. “Take your book and look at your notes on Mr. Gebert’s vaudeville. Where he quoted Norboisin; read that sentence.”
“You’d like some more fun with my French?”
“No, indeed; it isn’t fun. Since your shorthand is phonetic, do as well as you can with your symbols. I think I know the quotation, but I want to be sure. It has been years since I read Norboisin, and I haven’t his books.”
I read the whole paragraph, beginning “My dear Calida.” I took the French on high and sailed right through it, ludicrous or not, having had three lessons in it altogether: one from Fritz in 1930, and two from a girl I met once when we were working on a forgery case.
“Want to hear it again?”
“No, thanks.” Wolfe’s lips were pushing in and out. “And Mrs. Frost calls it babbling. It would have been instructive to be there, for the tone and the eyes. Mr. Gebert was indeed sardonic, to tell you in so many words who killed Mr. McNair. Was it a lie, to be provoking? Or the truth, to display his own alertness? Or a conjecture, for a little subtlety of his own? I think, the second. I do indeed. It runs with my surmises, but he could not know that. And granted that we know the murderer, what the devil is to be done about it? Probably no amount of patience would suffice. If Mr. Cramer gets his hands on the red box and decides to act without me, he is apt to lose the spark entirely and leave both of us with fuel that will not ignite.” He drank his beer, put the glass down, and wiped his lips. “Archie. We need that confounded box.”
“Yeah. I’ll go get it in just a minute. First, just to humor me, exactly when did Gebert tell us who killed McNair? You wouldn’t by any chance be talking just to hear yourself?”
“Of course not. Isn’t it obvious? But I forget — you don’t know French. Ardemment means ardently. The quotation translates, ‘At least, I die ardently.’ ”
“Really?” I elevated the brows. “The hell you say.”
“Yes. And therefore — but I forget again. You don’t know Latin. Do you?”
“Not intimately. I’m shy on Chinese too.” I aimed a Bronx cheer in a sort of general direction. “Maybe we ought to turn this case over to the Heinemann School of Languages. Did Gebert’s quotation fix us up on evidence too, or do we have to dig that out for ourselves?”
I overplayed it. Wolfe compressed his lips and eyed me without favor. He leaned back. “Some day, Archie, I shall be constrained... but no. I cannot remake the universe, and must therefore put up with this one. What is, is, including you.” He sighed. “Let the Latin go. Information for your records: this afternoon I telephoned Mr. Hitchcock in London; expect it on the bill. I asked him to send a man to Scotland for a talk with Mr. McNair’s sister, and to instruct his agent, either in Barcelona or in Madrid, to examine certain records in the town of Cartagena. That means an expenditure of several hundred dollars. There has been no further report from Saul Panzer. We need that red box. It was already apparent to me who killed Mr. McNair, and why, before Mr. Gebert permitted himself the amusement of informing you; he really didn’t help us any, and of course he didn’t intend to. But what is known is not necessarily demonstrable. Pfui! To sit here and wait upon the result of a game of hide-and-seek, when all the difficulties have in fact been surmounted! Please type out a note of that statement of Mr. Gebert’s while it is fresh; conceivably it will be needed.”
He picked up his book again, got his elbows on the arms of his chair, opened to his page, and was gone.
He read until dinnertime, but even Seven Pillars of Wisdom did not restrain his promptness in responding to Fritz’s summons to table. During the meal he kindly explained to me the chief reason for Lawrence’s amazing success in keeping the Arabian tribes together for the great revolt. It was because Lawrence’s personal attitude toward women was the same as the classic and traditional Arabian attitude. The central fact about any man, in respect to his activities as a social animal, is his attitude toward women; hence the Arabs felt that essentially Lawrence was one of them, and so accepted him. His native ability for leadership and finesse did the rest. A romantic they would not have understood, a puritan they would have rudely ignored, a sentimentalist they would have laughed at, but the contemptuous realist Lawrence, with his false humility and his fierce secret pride, they took to their bosoms. The goulash was as good as any Fritz had ever made.
It was after nine o’clock when we finished with coffee and went back to the office. Wolfe resumed with his book. I got at my desk with the plant records. I figured that after an hour or so of digestion and this peaceful family scene I would make an effort to extract a little Latin lesson out of Wolfe, and find out whether Gebert really had said anything or if perchance Wolfe was only practicing some fee-faw-fum, but an interruption came before I had even decided on a method of attack. At nine-thirty the phone rang.
I reached for it. “Hello, this is the office of Nero Wolfe.”
“Archie? Fred. I’m talking from Brewster. Better put Mr. Wolfe on.”
I told him to hold it and turned to Wolfe. “Fred calling from Brewster. Fifteen cents a minute.”
At that, he stopped to put in his bookmark. Then he got his receiver up, and I told Fred to proceed, and opened my notebook.
“Mr. Wolfe? Fred Durkin. Saul sent me to the village to phone. We haven’t found any red box, but there’s been a little surprise at that place. We finished with the house, covered every inch, and started outdoors. It’s the worst time of year for it, because when it thaws in the spring it’s the muddiest time of the year. After it got dark we were working with flashlights, and we saw the lights of a car coming down the road and Saul had us put our lights out. It’s a narrow dirt road and you can’t go fast. The car turned in at the gate and stopped on the driveway. We had put the sedan in the garage. The lights went out and the engine stopped and a man got out. There was only one of him, so we kept still, behind some bushes. He went to a window and turned a flashlight on it and started trying to open it, and Orrie and I stepped out between him and the car, and Saul went toward him and asked him why he didn’t go in the door. He took it cool, he said he forgot his key, then he said he didn’t know he’d be interrupting anyone and started off. Saul stopped him and said he’d better come in first and have a drink and a little talk. They guy laughed and said he would and they went in, and Orrie and I went in after them, and we turned on the lights and sat down. The guy’s name is Gebert, G-E-B-E-R-T, a tall slender dark guy with a thin nose—”
“Yeah, I know him. What did he say?”
“Not a hell of a lot of anything. He talks but he don’t say anything. He says this McNair was a friend of his, and there’s some things belonging to him in the place, and he thought he might as well drive out and get them. He ain’t scared and he ain’t easy. He’s a great smiler.”
“Yeah, I know. Where is he now?”
“Why, he’s out there. Saul and Orrie have got him. Saul sent me to ask what you want us to do with him—”
“Turn him loose. What else can you do? Unless you’re hungry and want to make soup of him. Saul won’t get anywhere with that bird. You can’t keep him—”
“The hell we can’t keep him. I ain’t through, wait till I tell you. We had been in there with that Gebert ten or fifteen minutes, when there was a noise out front and I hopped out to take a look. It was two cars, and they stopped by the gate. They piled out and came in the yard after me, and by God if they didn’t pull guns. You might have thought I was Dillinger. I saw state troopers’ uniforms. I let out a yell to warn Saul to lock the door and then I met the attack. I was surrounded by who do you think? Rowcliff, that mutt of a lieutenant from the Homicide Squad, and three other dicks, and two troopers, and a little runt with spectacles that told me he was an assistant district attorney of Putnam County. Huh? Was I surrounded?”
“Yes. At last. Did they shoot you?”
“Sure, but I caught the bullets and tossed them back. Well, it seems that what they came for was to look for that red box. They went to the door and wanted in. Saul left Orrie there inside the door and went to a window and talked to them through the glass. Of course he asked to see a search warrant and they didn’t have any. There was some gab back and forth, then the troopers announced they were going in after Saul because he was trespassing, and he held the paper that Mr. Wolfe signed up against the window and they put a flashlight on it. There was more talk, and then Saul told me to drive to the village and phone you, and Rowcliff said nothing doing until he searched me for the red box, and I told him if he touched me I’d skin him and hang him up to dry. But I couldn’t get the sedan out because Gebert’s car was in the driveway and the others blocked the road at the gate, so we declared a truce and Rowcliff took his car and we both came to Brewster in it. It’s only about three miles. We left the rest of the gang sitting there on the porch. I’m in a booth in a restaurant and Rowcliff’s down the street in a drug store phoning headquarters. I’ve got a notion to grab his car and go back without him.”
“Okay. Damn good idea. Does he know Gebert’s there?”
“No. If Gebert’s shy about cops, of course he don’t want to leave. What do we do? Toss him out? Let the cops in? We can’t go out and dig, all we can do is sit there and watch Gebert smile, and it’s as cold as an Englishman’s heart and we haven’t got a fire. Good God, you ought to hear those troopers talk, I guess out there in the wilds they catch bears and lions with their hands and eat ’em raw.”
“Hold it.” I turned to Wolfe. “I suppose I go for a drive?”
He shuddered. I presume he calculated that there must be at least a thousand jolts between 35th Street and Brewster, and ten thousand cars to meet and pass. The lurking dangers of the night. He nodded at me.
I told Fred, “Go on back. Keep Gebert, and don’t let them in. I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”