Rex Stout - The Red Box

I said mildly, “We have to be there at two o’clock, so we haven’t much time. Really, Miss Frost, it would be much more human if you’d get something to eat and let me do the same, while I explain. I’m not something revolting, like a radio crooner or an agent for the Liberty League.”

“I... I’m not hungry. I can see you’re funny. A month ago I would have thought you were a scream.”

I nodded. “I’m a knockout.” I beckoned to a waitress and consulted the card. “What will you have, Miss Frost?”

She ordered some kind of goo, and hot tea, and I favored the pork and beans, with a glass of milk.

With the waitress gone, I said, “There are lots of ways I could do this. I could scare you. Don’t think I couldn’t. Or I could try to persuade you that since your cousin is our client, and since Nero Wolfe is as square with a client as you would be with your twin if you had one, it’s to your own interest to go and see him. But there’s a better reason for your going than either of those. Ordinary decency. Whether Wolfe was right or wrong about what you said yesterday at McNair’s doesn’t matter. The point is that we’ve kept it to ourselves. You saw this morning what terms we’re on with the police; they had me handling that test for them. But have they been ragging you on what you said yesterday? They have not. On the other hand, are you going to have to discuss it with someone — sooner or later? You’re darned tooting you are, there’s no way out of it. Who do you want to discuss it with? If you take my advice, Nero Wolfe, and the sooner the better. Don’t forget that Miss Mitchell heard you say it too, and although she may be a good friend of yours—”

“Please don’t talk any more.” She was looking at her fork, which she was sliding back and forth on the tablecloth, and I saw how tight her fingers gripped it. I sat back and looked somewhere else.

The waitress came and began depositing food in front of us. Helen Frost waited until she was through, and gone, and then said more to herself than to me, “I can’t eat.”

“You ought to.” I didn’t pick up my tools. “You always ought to eat. Try it, anyhow. I’ve already eaten, I was only keeping you company.” I fished for a dime and a nickel and laid them on the table. “My car is parked on 52nd, halfway to Park Avenue, on the downtown side. I’ll expect you there at a quarter to two.”

She didn’t say anything. I beat it and found the waitress and got my check from her, paid at the desk, and went out. Across the street and down a little I found a drug store with a lunch counter, entered, and consumed two ham sandwiches and a couple of glasses of milk. I wondered what they would do with the beans, whether they would put them back in the pot, and thought it would be a crime to waste them. I didn’t wonder much about Helen Frost, because it looked to me like a pipe, all sealed up. There wasn’t anything else for her to do.

There wasn’t. She came up to me at ten minutes to two, as I stood on the sidewalk alongside the roadster. I opened the door and she got in, and I climbed in and stepped on the starter.

As we rolled off I asked her, “Did you eat anything?”

She nodded. “A little. I telephoned Mrs. Lamont and told her where I’m going and said I’d be back at three o’clock.”

“Uh-huh. You may make it.”

I drove cocky because I felt cocky. I had her on the way and the sandwiches hadn’t been greasy and it wasn’t two o’clock yet; and even down in the mouth and with rings under her eyes, she was the kind of riding companion that makes it reasonable to put the top down so the public can see what you’ve got with you. Being a lover of beauty, I permitted myself occasional glances at her profile, and observed that her chin was even better from that angle than from the front. Of course there was an off chance that she was a murderess, but you can’t have everything.

We made it at one minute past two. When I ushered her into the office there was no one there, and I left her there in a chair, fearing the worst. But it was okay. Wolfe was in the dining-room with his coffee cup emptied, doing his post-prandial beaming at space. I stood on the threshold and said:

“I trust the fritters were terrible. Miss Frost regrets being one minute late for her appointment. We got to chatting over a delicious lunch, and the time just flew.”

“She’s here? The devil.” The beam changed to a frown as he made preparations to rise. “Don’t suppose for a moment that I am beguiled. I don’t really like this.”

I preceded him to open the office door. He moved across to his desk more deliberately even than usual, circled around Miss Frost in her chair, and before he lowered himself, inclined his head toward her without saying anything. She leveled her brown eyes at him, and I could see that by gum she was holding the fort and she was going to go on holding it. I got at ease in my chair with my notebook, not trying to camouflage it.

Wolfe asked her politely, “You wished to see me, Miss Frost?”

Her eyes bulged a little. She said indignantly, “I? You sent that man to bring me here.”

“Ah, so I did.” Wolfe sighed. “Now that you are here, have you anything in particular to say to me?”

She opened her mouth and shut it again, and then said simply, “No.”

Wolfe heaved another sigh. He leaned back in his chair and made a movement to clasp his hands on his front middle, then remembered that it was too soon after lunch and let them drop on the arms of his chair. With half-shut eyes he sat comfortable, motionless.

At length he murmured at her, “How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty-one in May.”

“Indeed. What day in May?”

“The seventh.”

“I understand that you call Mr. McNair ‘Uncle Boyd.’ Your cousin told me that. Is he your uncle?”

“Why, no. Of course not. I just call him that.”

“Have you known him a long while?”

“All my life. He is an old friend of my mother’s.”

“You would know his preferences then. In candy, for instance. What kind does he prefer?”

She lost color, but she was pretty good with her eyes and voice. She didn’t bat a lash. “I... I don’t know. Really. I couldn’t say...”

“Come, Miss Frost.” Wolfe kept his tone easy. “I am not asking you to divulge some esoteric secret guarded by you alone. On this sort of detail many people may be consulted — any of Mr. McNair’s intimates, many of his acquaintances, the servants at his home, the shops where he buys candy if he does buy it. If, for example, he happens to prefer Jordan almonds, those persons could tell me. I happen at the moment to be consulting you. Is there any reason why you should try to conceal this point?”

“Of course not.” She hadn’t got her color back. “I don’t need to conceal anything.” She swallowed. “Mr. McNair does like Jordan almonds, that’s perfectly true.” Suddenly the color did appear, a spot on her cheek that showed how quick her blood was. “But I didn’t come here to talk about the kinds of candy that people like. I came here to tell you that you were entirely wrong about what I said yesterday.”

“Then you do have something in particular to say to me.”

“Certainly I have.” She was warming up. “That was just a trick and you know it. I didn’t want my mother and my uncle to come down here, but my cousin Lew lost his head as usual, he’s always getting scared about me anyhow, as if I didn’t have brains enough to take care of myself. You merely tricked me into saying something — I don’t know what — that gave you a chance to pretend—”

“But, Miss Frost.” Wolfe had a palm up at her. “Your cousin Lew is perfectly correct. I mean, about your brains. — No, permit me! Let me save time. I won’t repeat verbatim what was said yesterday; you know as well as I do. I shall merely assert that the words you said, and the way you said them, make it apodictical that you knew the contents of that particular box of candy before Miss Mitchell removed the lid.”