Rex Stout - The Red Box

“I understand, sir.” Wolfe sounded impatient. “You knew that Molly Lauck was enamored of Mr. Perren Gebert. You knew that Mr. Gebert wanted to marry your cousin Helen, and you thought that Mr. McNair favored that idea. You were more than ready to suspect that the genesis of the poisoned candy was that eroto-matrimonial tangle, since you were vitally concerned in it because you wished to marry your cousin yourself.”

Llewellyn stared at him. “Where did you get that idea?” His face began to get red, and he sputtered, “Me marry her? You’re crazy! What kind of a damn fool—”

“Please don’t do that.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “You should know that detectives do sometimes detect — at least some of them do. I don’t say that you intended to marry your cousin, merely that you wanted to. I knew that early in our conversation last Monday afternoon, when you told me that she is your ortho-cousin. There was no reason why so abstruse and unusual a term should have been in the forefront of your mind, as it obviously was, unless you had been so preoccupied with the idea of marrying your cousin, and so concerned as to the custom and propriety of marriage between first cousins, that you had gone into it exhaustively. It was evident that canon law and the Levitical decrees had not been enough for you; you had even ventured into anthropology. Or possibly that had not been enough for someone else — herself, her mother, your father...”

Lew Frost blurted, his face still red, “You didn’t detect that. She told you. Yesterday... did she tell you?”

Wolfe shook his head. “No, sir. I did detect it. Among other things. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that when you called here three days ago you were fairly well convinced that either Mr. McNair or Mr. Gebert had killed Molly Lauck. Certainly you were in no condition to discriminate between nonsense and likelihood.”

“I know I wasn’t. But I wasn’t convinced of... anything.” Llewellyn chewed at his lip. “Now, of course, I’m up a tree. This McNair business is terrible. The newspapers have started it up all over again. The police have been after us this morning — us Frosts — as if we... as if we knew something about it. And of course Helen is all cut up. She wanted to go to see McNair’s body this morning, and had to be told that she couldn’t because they were doing a post mortem, and that was pleasant. Then she wanted to come to see you, and finally I drove her down here. I came in first because I didn’t know who might be in here. She’s out front in my car. May I bring her in?”

Wolfe grimaced. “There’s nothing I can do for her, at this moment. I suspect she’s in no condition—”

“She wants to see you.”

Wolfe lifted his shoulders an inch, and dropped them. “Get her.”

Lew Frost rose and strode out. I went along to manipulate the door. Parked at the curb was a gray coupe, and from it emerged Helen Frost. Llewellyn escorted her up the stoop and into the hall, and I must say she didn’t bear much resemblance to a goddess. Her eyes were puffed up and her nose was blotchy and she looked sick. Her ortho-cousin led her on to the office, and I followed them in. She gave Wolfe a nod and seated herself in the dunce’s chair, then looked at Llewellyn, at me, and at Wolfe, as if she wasn’t sure she knew us.

She looked at the floor, and up again. “It was right here,” she said in a dead tone. “Wasn’t it? Right here.”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, Miss Frost. But if that is what you came here for, to shudder at the spot where your best friend died, that won’t help us any.” He straightened up a little. “This is a detective bureau, not a nursery for morbidity. Yes, he died here. He swallowed the poison sitting in that chair; he staggered to his feet and tried to keep himself upright by putting his fists on my desk; he collapsed to the floor in a convulsion and died; if he were still there you could reach down and touch him without moving from your chair.”

Helen was staring at him and not breathing; Llewellyn protested: “For God’s sake, Wolfe, do you think—”

Wolfe showed him a palm. “I think I had to sit here and watch Mr. McNair being murdered in my office. — Archie. Your notebook, please. Yesterday I told Miss Frost it was time something was said to her. What did I say then? Read it.”

I got the book and flipped back the pages and found it and read it out:

... In your conceit, you are assuming, for your youth and inexperience, a terrific responsibility. Molly Lauck died nine days ago, probably through bungling of someone’s effort to kill another person. During all that time you have possessed knowledge which, handled with competence and dispatch, might do something much more important than wreak vengeance; it might save a life, and it is even possible that the life would be one worth saving. What do you—

“That will do.” Wolfe turned to her. “That, mademoiselle, was a courteous and reasonable appeal. I do not often appeal to anyone like that; I am too conceited. I did appeal to you, without success. If it is painful to you to be reminded that your best friend died yesterday, in agony, on the spot now occupied by your chair, do you think it was agreeable to me to sit here and watch him do it?” He shifted abruptly to Llewellyn. “And you, sir, who engaged me to solve a problem and then proceeded to hamper me as soon as I made the first step — now you are quick on the trigger to resent it if I do not show tenderness and consideration for your cousin’s remorse and grief. I know none because I have none. If I offer anything for sale in this office that is worth buying, it certainly is not a warm heart and maudlin sympathy for the distress of spoiled obtuse children.” He turned to Helen. “Yesterday, in your pride, you asked for nothing and offered nothing. What information you gave was forced from you by a threat. What did you come for today? What do you want?”

Llewellyn had risen and moved to her chair. He was holding himself in. “Come on, Helen,” he entreated her. “Come on, get out of here...”

She reached up and touched his sleeve, and shook her head without looking at him. “Sit down, Lew,” she told him. “Please. I deserve it.” There was a spot of color on the cheek I could see.

“No. Come on.”

She shook her head again. “I’m going to stay.”

“I’m not.” He shot out his chin in Wolfe’s direction. “Look here, I apologized to you. All right, I owed you that. But now I want to say... that thing I signed here Tuesday... I’m giving you notice I’m done with that. I’m not paying you ten thousand dollars, because I haven’t got it and you haven’t earned it. I can pay a reasonable amount whenever you send a bill. The deal’s off.”

Wolfe nodded and murmured, “I expected that, of course. The suspicions you hired me to substantiate have evaporated. The threat of molestation of your cousin, caused by her admission that she had seen the box of candy, no longer exists. Half of your purpose is accomplished, since your cousin will not work any more — at least, not at Mr. McNair’s. As for the other half, to continue the investigation of the murder of Molly Lauck would mean of necessity an inquiry into Mr. McNair’s death also, and that might easily result in something highly distasteful to a Frost. That’s the logic of it, for you, perfectly correct; and if I expected to collect even a fair fraction of my fee I shall probably have to sue you for it.” He sighed, and leaned back. “And you stampeded me to 52nd Street with that confounded letter. Good day, sir. I don’t blame you; but I shall certainly send you a bill for ten thousand dollars. I know what you are thinking: that you won’t be sued because I won’t go to a courtroom to testify. You are correct; but I shall certainly send you a bill.”