Rex Stout - Red Box, The

I announced, “That'll be all for the present, and I don't like scenes. They get on my nerves.”

Lew Frost whirled and told me, “Go to hell.”

I grinned at him. “I can't plug you, because you're our client. But you might as well beat it. I've got work to do.”

The plump one said, “Come on, Lew, well go to my office.”

Perren Gebert was already on the move. Llewellyn stood aside and glared him full of holes as he passed. Then Leach went and nudged his friend along. I tripped by to open the front door for them; Llewellyn was continuing with remarks, but I disdained them. He and his attorney went down the stoop to the sidewalk and headed east; Gebert had climbed into a neat little convertible which he had parked back of the roadster and was stepping on the starter. I shut the door and went back in.

I switched on the house phone for the plant room and pressed the button. In about twenty seconds Wolfe answered, and I told him:

“It's quiet and peaceful down here now. No fuss at all.”

His murmur came at me: “Good. Miss Frost is in the middle room, enjoying the orchids…reasonably well. When Mr. McNair phones, tell him six o'clock. If he insists on coming earlier, let him, and keep him. Let me know when he is there, and have the office door closed. She left her vanity case on my desk. Send Fritz up with it.”

“Okay.”

I switched off and settled to wait for McNair's call, reflecting on the relative pulling power of beauty in distress and two million iron men and how it probably depended on whether you were the romantic type or not

Chapter Eight

Two hours later, at six o'clock, I sat at my desk pounding the typewriter with emphasis and a burst of speed, copying off the opening pages of one of Hoehn's catalogues. The radio was turned on, loud, for the band of the Hotel Portland

Surf Room. Together the radio and I made quite a din. Boyden McNair, with his right elbow on his knee and his bent head resting on the hand which covered his eyes, sat near Wolfe's desk in the dunce's chair, yclept that by me on the day that District Attorney Anderson of Westchester sat in it while Wolfe made a dunce of him.

McNair had been there nearly an hour. He had done a lot of sputtering on the phone and had refused to wait until six o'clock, and had finally appeared a little after five, done some sputtering, and then settled down because there wasn't anything else to do. He had his bottle of aspirin along in his pocket and had already washed a couple of them down, me furnishing the water and also offering phenacetin tablets as an improvement, without any sale. He wouldn't take a drink, though he certainly looked as if he needed one.

The six o'clock radio and typewriter din was for the purpose of covering any sound of voices that might come from the hall as Nero Wolfe escorted his guest,

Miss Frost, from the elevator to the front door and let her out to the taxi which Fritz had ordered from the kitchen phone. Of course I couldn't hear anything either, so I kept glancing at the office door without letting my fingers stop, and at length it opened and Wolfe entered. Observing the mise en scиne, he winked at me with his right eye and steered for his desk. He got across and deposited in his chair before the visitor knew he was there. I arose and turned off the radio and quiet descended on us. McNair s head jerked up. He saw Wolfe, blinked, stood up and looked around.

“Where's Miss Frost?” he demanded.

Wolfe said, “I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. McNair. Miss Frost has gone home.”

“What?” McNair gaped at him. “Gone home? I don't believe it. Who took her?

Gebert and Lew Frost were here…”

“They were indeed.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I entreat you, sir. This room has been filled with idiots this afternoon, and I would enjoy some sanity for a change. I am not a liar. I put Miss Frost into a cab not ten minutes ago, and she was going straight home.”

“Ten minutes…but I was here! Right here in this chair! You knew I wanted to see her! What kind of a trick-”

“I know you wanted to see her. But I didn't want you to, and she is perfectly safe if she gets through the traffic. I do not intend that you shall see Miss

Frost until I've had a talk with you. It was a trick, yes, but I've a right to play tricks. What about your own tricks? What about the outright lies you have been telling the police since the day Molly Lauck was murdered? Well, sir?

Answer me!”

McNair started twice to speak, but didn't. He looked at Wolfe. He sat down. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and then put it back again without using it. Sweat showed on his forehead.

Finally he said, in a thin cool voice, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Of course you know.” Wolfe pinned him down with his eyes. “I'm talking about the box of poisoned candy. I know how Miss Frost became aware of its contents. I know that you have known from the beginning, and that you have deliberately withheld vital information from the police in a murder case. Don't be an idiot,

Mr. McNair. I have a statement signed by Helen Frost; there was nothing else for her to do. If I told the police what I know you would be locked up. For the present I don't tell them, because I wish to earn a fee, and if you were locked up I couldn't get at you. I pay you the compliment of assuming that you have some brains. If you poisoned that candy, I advise you to say nothing, leave here at once, and beware of me; if you didn't, talk to the point, and there will be no dodging the truth.” Wolfe leaned back and murmured, “I dislike ultimatums, even my own. But this has gone far enough.”

McNair sat motionless. Then I saw a shiver in his left shoulder, a quick little spasm, and the fingers of his left hand, on the arm of his chair, began twitching. He looked down at them, and reached over with his other hand and gripped and twisted them, and the shoulder had another spasm, and I saw the muscles jerking in the side of his neck. His nerves were certainly shot. His eyes moved around and fell on the empty glass standing on the edge of Wolfe's desk, and he turned to me and asked as if it were a big favor:

“Could I have a little more water?”

I took the glass and went and filled it and brought it back, and when he didn't lift his hand to take it I put it down on the desk again. He paid no attention to it.

He muttered aloud, but to no one in particular, “I've got to make up my own mind. I thought I had, but I didn't expect this.”

Wolfe said, “If you were a clever man you'd have done that before the unexpected forced you.”

McNair took out his handkerchief and this time wiped off the sweat. He said quietly, “Good God, I'm not clever. I'm the most complete fool that was ever born. I've ruined my whole life.” His shoulder twitched again. “It wouldn't do any good to tell the police what you know, Mr. Wolfe. I didn't poison that candy.”

Wolfe said, “Go on.”

McNair nodded. “I'll go on. I don't blame Helen for telling you about it, after the way you trapped her yesterday morning. I can imagine what she was up against here today, but I don't hold that against you either. I've got beyond all the ordinary resentments, they don't mean anything. You notice I'm not even trying to find out what Helen told you. I know if she told you anything she told you the truth.”