Rex Stout - The Red Box

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 while 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?”

“He didn’t. It was what you might call a forced sale.”

“Yeah? Maybe. I’d like to see Nero Wolfe forced into anything. I noticed it happened right after McNair was croaked. All right; Wolfe had got hold of some kind of positive information. Where did he get it from? From that red box. You see, I’m not trying to play foxy, I’m just telling you. His stunt at Glennanne was a cover. Your play with Gebert was a part of it too. And I warn you and I warn Wolfe: don’t think I’m too dumb to find out eventually what was in that red box, because I’m not.”

I shook my head sadly. “You’re all wet, inspector. Honest to God, you’re dripping. If you’ve quit looking for the red box let us know, and we’ll take a shot at it.”

“I haven’t given it up. I’m making all the motions. I don’t say Wolfe is deliberately covering a murderer, he’d have to get more than his feet tangled before he’d be fool enough to do that, but I do say he’s withholding valuable evidence that I want. I don’t pretend to know why; I don’t pretend to know one damn thing about this lousy case. But I do think it’s in the Frost family, because for one thing we haven’t been able to uncover any other connection of McNair’s that offers any line at all. We don’t get anything from his sister in Scotland. Nothing in McNair’s papers. Nothing from Paris. No trail on the poison. My only definite theory about the Frosts is something I dug up from an old family enemy, some old scandal about Edwin Frost disinheriting his wife because he didn’t like her ideas about friendship with a Frenchman, and forcing her to sign away her dower rights by threatening to divorce her. Well, Gebert’s a Frenchman, but McNair wasn’t, and then what? It looks as if we’re licked, huh? Remember what I said Tuesday in Wolfe’s office? But Wolfe is absolutely not a damned fool, and he ought to know better than to try to sit on a lid which sooner or later can be pried off. Will you take him a message from me?”