Rex Stout - The Red Box

It was the humor I was in that made me not any too hospitable when, around ten o’clock, Fritz brought me the card of a visitor and I saw it was Mathias R. Frisbie. I told Fritz to show him in. I had heard of this Frisbie, an Assistant District Attorney, but had never seen him. I observed, when he entered, that I hadn’t missed much. He was the window-dummy type — high collar, clothes pressed very nice, and embalmed stiff and cold. The only thing you could tell from his eyes was that his self-esteem almost hurt him.

He told me he wanted to see Nero Wolfe. I told him that Mr. Wolfe would be engaged, as always in the morning, until eleven o’clock. He said it was urgent and important business and he required to see him at once. I grinned at him:

“Wait here a minute.”

I moseyed up three flights of stairs to the plant rooms and found Wolfe with Theodore, experimenting with a new method of pollenizing for hybrid seeds. He nodded to admit I was there.

I said, “The drastic action is downstairs. Name of Frisbie. The guy that handled the Clara Fox larceny for Muir, remember? He wishes you to drop everything immediately and hurry down.”

Wolfe didn’t speak. I waited half a minute and then asked pleasantly, “Shall I tell him you’re stricken dumb?”

Wolfe grunted. He said without turning, “And you were glad to see him. Even an Assistant District Attorney, and even that one. Don’t deny it. It gave you an excuse to pester me. Very well, you’ve pestered me. Go.”

“No message?”

“None. Go.”

I ambled back downstairs. I thought Frisbie might like to have a few moments to himself, so I stopped in the kitchen for a little chat with Fritz regarding the prospects for lunch and other interesting topics. When I wandered into the office Frisbie was sitting down, frowning, with his elbows on the arms of his chair and his fingertips all meeting each other, properly matched.

I said, “Oh, yes. Mr. Frisbie. Since you say you must talk with Mr. Wolfe himself, can I get you a book or something? The morning paper? He will be down at eleven.”

Frisbie’s fingertips parted. He demanded, “He’s here, isn’t he?”

“Certainly. He’s never anywhere else.”

“Then — I won’t wait an hour. I was warned to expect this. I won’t tolerate it.”

I shrugged. “Okay. I’ll make it as easy as I can for you. Do you want to look at the morning paper while you’re not tolerating it?”

He stood up. “Look here. This is insufferable. Time and time again this man Wolfe has had the effrontery to obstruct the operations of our office. Mr. Skinner sent me here—”

“I’ll bet he did. He wouldn’t come again himself, after his last experience—”

“He sent me, and I certainly don’t intend to sit here until eleven o’clock. Owing to an excess of leniency with which Wolfe has too often been treated by certain officials, he apparently regards himself as above the law. No one can flout the processes of justice — no one!” The high color had got higher. “Boyden McNair was murdered three days ago right in this office, and there is every reason to believe that Wolfe knows more about it than he has told. He should have been brought to see the District Attorney at once — but no, he has not even been properly questioned! Now another man has been killed, and again there is good reason to believe that Wolfe has withheld information which might have prevented it. I have made a great concession to him by coming here at all, and I want to see him at once. At once!”

I nodded. “Sure, I know you want to see him, but keep your shirt on. Let’s make it a hypothetical question. If I say you’ll have to wait until eleven o’clock, then what?”

He glared. “I won’t wait. I’ll go to my office and I’ll have him served. And I’ll see that his license is revoked! He thinks his friend Morley can save him, but he can’t get away with this kind of crooked underhanded—”

I smacked him one. I probably wouldn’t have, except for the bad humor I was in anyway. It was by no means a wallop, merely a pat with the palm at the side of his puss, but it tilted him a little. He went back a step and began to tremble, and stood there with his arms at his sides and his fists doubled up.

I said, “They’re no good hanging there at your knees. Put ’em up and I’ll slap you again.”

He was too mad to pronounce properly. He sputtered, “You’ll re — regret this. You’ll—”

I said, “Shut up and get out of here before you make me mad. You talk of revoking licenses! I know what’s eating you, you’ve got delusions of grandeur, and you’ve been trying to hog a grandstand play ever since they gave you a desk and a chair down there. I know all about you. I know why Skinner sent you, he wanted to give you a chance to make a monkey of yourself, and you didn’t even have gump enough to know it. The next time you shoot off your mouth about Nero Wolfe being crooked and underhanded I won’t slap you in private, I’ll do it with an audience. Git!”

In a way I suppose it was all right, and of course it was the only thing to do under the circumstances, but there was no deep satisfaction in it. He turned and walked out, and after I had heard the front door close behind him I went and sat down at my desk and yawned and scratched my head and kicked over the wastebasket. It had been a fleeting pleasure to smack him and read him out, but now that it was over there was an inclination inside of me to feel righteous, and that made me glum and in a worse temper than before. I hate to feel righteous, because it makes me uncomfortable and I want to kick something.

I picked up the wastebasket and returned the litter to it piece by piece. I took out the plant records and opened them and put them back again, went to the front room and looked out of the window onto 35th Street and came back, answered a phone call from Ferguson’s Market which I relayed to Fritz, and finally got myself propped on my coccyx again with the book on toxicology. I was still fighting with that when Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock.

He progressed to his desk and sat down, and went through his usual motions with the pen, the mail, the vase of orchids, the button to subpoena beer. Fritz came with the tray, and Wolfe opened and poured and drank and wiped his lips. Then he leaned back and sighed. He was relaxing after his strenuous activities among the flower pots.

I said, “Frisbie got obnoxious and I touched him on the cheek with my hand. He is going to revoke your license and serve you with different kinds of papers and maybe throw you into a vat of lye.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe opened his eyes at me. “Was he going to revoke the license before you hit him or afterward?”

“Before. Afterward he didn’t talk much.”

Wolfe shuddered. “I trust your discretion, Archie, but sometimes I feel that I am trusting the discretion of an avalanche. Was there no recourse but to batter him?”

“I didn’t batter him. I didn’t even tap him. It was just a gesture of annoyance. I’m in an ugly mood.”

“I know you are. I don’t blame you. This case has been tedious and disagreeable from the beginning. Something seems to have happened to Saul. We have a job ahead of us. It will end, I think, as disagreeably as it began, but we shall do it in style if we can, and with finality — ah! There, I hope, is Saul now.”

The doorbell had rung. But again, as on the evening before, it wasn’t Saul. This time it was Inspector Cramer.

Fritz ushered him in and he lumbered across. He looked as if he was about due for dry dock, with puffs under his eyes, his graying hair straggly, and his shoulders not as erect and military as an inspector’s ought to be. Wolfe greeted him:

“Good morning, sir. Sit down. Will you have some beer?”