Rex Stout - Red Box, The

Perren went with us.”

“Good. I own a house in Egypt which I haven't seen for twenty years. It has

Rhages and Veramine tiles on the doorway. How long were you in Egypt?”

“About two years. In 1919, when I was four years old-of course mother has told me all this-three English people were killed in a riot in Cairo, and mother decided to leave. Perren went back to France. Mother and I went to Bombay, and later to Bali and Japan and Hawaii. My uncle, who was the trustee of my property, kept insisting that I should have an American education, and finally, in 1924 was nine years old then-we left Hawaii and came to New York. It was from that time on, really, that I knew Uncle Boyd, because of course I didn't remember him from Spain, since I had been only two years old.”

“He had his business in New York when you got here?”

“No. He has told me-he started designing for Wilmerding in London and was very successful and became a partner, and then he decided New York was better and came over here in 1925 and went in for himself. Of course he looked mother up first thing, and she was a little help to him on account of the people she knew, but he would have gone to the top anyway because he had great ability. He was very talented. Paris and London were beginning to copy him. You would never have thought, just being with him, talking with him…you would never have thought…”

She faltered, and stopped. Wolfe began to murmur something at her to steady her, but an interruption saved him the trouble. Fritz appeared to announce lunch.

Wolfe pushed back his chair:

“Your coat will be all right here, Miss Frost. Your hat? But permit me to insist, as a favor; to eat with a hat on, except in a railroad station, is barbarous. Thank you. Restaurant? I know nothing of restaurants; short of compulsion, I would not eat in one were Vatel himself the chef.”

Then, after we were seated at the table, when Fritz came to pass the relish platter, Wolfe performed the introduction according to his custom with guests who had not tasted that cooking before:

“Miss Frost, Mr. Frost, this is Mr. Brenner.”

Also according to custom, there was no shop talk during the meal. Llewellyn was fidgety, but he ate; and the fact appeared to be that our new client was hungry as the devil. Probably she had had no breakfast. Anyway, she gave the fricandeau a play which made Wolfe regard her with open approval. He carried the burden of the conversation, chiefly about Egypt, tiles, the uses of a camel's double lip, and the theory that England's colonizing genius was due to her repulsive climate, on account of which Britons with any sense and will power invariably decided to go somewhere else to work. It was two-thirty when the salad was finished, so we went back to the office and had Fritz serve coffee there.

Helen Frost telephoned her mother. Apparently there was considerable parental protest from the other end of the wire, for Helen sounded first persuasive, then irritated, and finally fairly sassy. During that performance Llewellyn sat and scowled at her, and I couldn't tell whether the scowl was for her or the opposition. It had no effect on our client either way, for she was sitting at my desk and didn't see it.

Wolfe started in on her again, resuming the Perren Gebert tune, but for the first half hour or so it was spotty because the telephone kept interrupting.

Johnny Keems called to say that he could leave the Pritchard job if we needed him, and I told him that we'd manage to struggle along somehow. Dudley Frost phoned to give his son hell, and Llewellyn took it calmly and announced that his cousin Helen needed him where he was, whereupon she kept a straight face but I smothered a snicker. Next came a ring from Fred Durkin, to say that they had arrived and taken possession of Glennanne, finding no one there, and had begun operations; the phone at the cottage was out of order, so Saul had sent Fred to the village to make that report. A man named Collinger phoned and insisted on speaking to Wolfe, and I listened in and took it down as usual; he was Boyden

McNair's lawyer, and wanted to know if Wolfe could call at his office right away for a conference regarding the will, and of course the bare idea set Wolfe's digestion back at least ten minutes. It was arranged that Collinger would come to 35th Street the following morning. Then, a little after three o'clock,

Inspector Cramer got us, and reported that his army was making uniform progress on all fronts: namely, none. No red box and no information about it; no hide or hair of motive anywhere; nothing among McNair's papers that could be stretched to imply murder; no line on a buyer of potassium cyanide; no anything.

Cramer sounded a little weary. “Here's a funny item, too,” he said in a wounded tone, “we can't find the young Frosts anywhere. Your client, Lew, isn't at his home or his office in the Portland Theatre or anywhere else, and Helen, the daughter, isn't around either. Her mother says she went out around eleven o'clock, but she doesn't know where, and I've learned that Helen was closer to

McNair than anyone else, very close friends, so she's our best chance on the red box. Then what's she doing running around town, with McNair just croaked?

There's just a chance that something's got too hot for them and they've faded.

Lew was up at the Frost apartment on 65th Street and they went out together.

We're trying to trail-”

“Mr. Cramer. Please. I've mumbled at you twice. Miss Helen Frost and Mr.

Llewellyn Frost are in my office; I'm conversing with them. They had lunch-”

“Huh? They're there now?”

“Yes. They got here this morning shortly after you left.”

“I'll be damned.” Cramer shrilled a little. “What are you trying to do, lick off some cream for yourself? I want to see them. Ask them to come down-or wait, let me talk to her. Put her on.”

“Now, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe cleared his throat. “I do not lick cream; and this man and woman came to see me unannounced and unexpected. I am perfectly willing that you should talk with her, but there is no point-”

“What do you mean, willing? What's that, humor? Why the devil shouldn't you be willing?”

“I should. But it is appropriate to mention it, since Miss Frost is my client, and is therefore under my-”

“Your client? Since when?” Cramer was boiling. “What kind of a shenanigan is this? You told me Lew Frost hired you!”

“So he did. But that-er-we have changed that. I have-speaking as a horse-I have changed riders in the middle of the stream. I am working for Miss Frost. I was about to say, there is no point in a duplication of effort. She has had a bad shock and is under a strain. You may question her if you wish, but I have done so and am not through with her, and there is little likelihood that her interests will conflict with yours in the end. She is as anxious to find Mr.

McNair's murderer as you are; that is what she hired me for. I may tell you this: neither she nor her cousin has any knowledge of the red box. They have never seen it or heard of it.”

“The devil.” There was a pause on the wire. “I want to see her and have a talk with her.”

Wolfe sighed. “In that infernal den? She is tired, she has nothing to say that can help you, she is worth two million dollars, and she will be old enough to vote before next fall. Why don't you call at her home after dinner this evening?