Rex Stout - Red Box, The

Norboisin; read that sentence.”

“You'd like some more fun with my French?”

“No, indeed; it isn't fun. Since your shorthand is phonetic, do as well as you can with your symbols. I think I know the quotation, but I want to be sure. It has been years since I read Norboisin, and I haven't his books.”

I read the whole paragraph, beginning “My dear Calida.” I took the French on high and sailed right through it, ludicrous or not, having had three lessons in it altogether: one from Fritz in 1930, and two from a girl I met once when we were working on a forgery case.

“Want to hear it again?”

“No, thanks.” Wolfe's lips were pushing in and out. “And Mrs. Frost calls it babbling. It would have been instructive to be there, for the tone and the eyes.

Mr. Gebert was indeed sardonic, to tell you in so many words who killed Mr.

McNair. Was it a lie, to be provoking? Or the truth, to display his own alertness? Or a conjecture, for a little subtlety of his own? I think, the second. I do indeed. It runs with my surmises, but he could not know that. And granted that we know the murderer, what the devil is to be done about it?

Probably no amount of patience would suffice. If Mr. Cramer gets his hands on the red box and decides to act without me, he is apt to lose the spark entirely and leave both of us with fuel that will not ignite.” He drank his beer, put the glass down, and wiped his lips. “Archie. We need that confounded box.”

“Yeah. I'll go get it in just a minute. First, just to humor me, exactly when did Gebert tell us who killed McNair? You wouldn't by any chance be talking just to hear yourself?”

“Of course not. Isn't it obvious? But I forget-you don't know French. Ardemment means ardently. The quotation translates, ‘At least, I die ardently.’”

“Really?” I elevated the brows. “The hell you say.”

“Yes. And therefore-but I forget again. You don't know Latin. Do you?”

“Not intimately. I'm shy on Chinese too.” I aimed a Bronx cheer in a sort of general direction. “Maybe we ought to turn this case over to the Heinemann

School of Languages. Did Gebert's quotation fix us up on evidence too, or do we have to dig that out for ourselves?”

I overplayed it. Wolfe compressed his lips and eyed me without favor. He leaned back. “Some day, Archie, I shall be constrained…but no. I cannot remake the universe, and must therefore put up with this one. What is, is, including you.”

He sighed. “Let the Latin go. Information for your records: this afternoon I telephoned Mr. Hitchcock in London; expect it on the bill. I asked him to send a man to Scotland for a talk with Mr. McNair's sister, and to instruct his agent, either in Barcelona or in Madrid, to examine certain records in the town of

Cartagena. That means an expenditure of several hundred dollars. There has been no further report from Saul Panzer. We need that red box. It was already apparent to me who killed Mr. NcNair, and why, before Mr. Gebert permitted himself the amusement of informing you; he really didn't help us any, and of course he didn't intend to. But what is known is not necessarily demonstrable.

Pfui! To sit here and wait upon the result of a game of hide-and-seek, when all the difficulties have in fact been surmounted! Please type out a note of that statement of Mr. Gebert's while it is fresh; conceivably it will be needed.”

He picked up his book again, got his elbows on the arms of his chair, opened to his page, and was gone.

He read until dinnertime, but even Seven Pillars of Wisdom did not restrain his promptness in responding to Fritz's summons to table. During the meal he kindly explained to me the chief reason for Lawrence's amazing success in keeping the

Arabian tribes together for the great revolt. It was because Lawrence's personal attitude toward women was the same as the classic and traditional Arabian attitude. The central fact about any man, in respect to his activities as a social animal, is his attitude toward women; hence the Arabs felt that essentially Lawrence was one of them, and so accepted him. His native ability for leadership and finesse did the rest. A romantic they would not have understood, a puritan they would have rudely ignored, a sentimentalist they would have laughed at, but the contemptuous realist Lawrence, with his false humility and his fierce secret pride, they took to their bosoms. The goulash was as good as any Fritz had ever made.

It was after nine o'clock when we finished with coffee and went back to the office. Wolfe resumed with his book. I got at my desk with the plant records. I figured that after an hour or so of digestion and this peaceful family scene I would make an effort to extract a little Latin lesson out of Wolfe, and find out whether Gebert really had said anything or if perchance Wolfe was only practicing some fee-faw-fum, but an interruption came before I had even decided on a method of attack. At nine-thirty the phone rang.

I reached for it. “Hello, this is the office of Nero Wolfe.”

“Archie? Fred. I'm talking from Brewster. Better put Mr. Wolfe on.”

I told him to hold it and turned to Wolfe. “Fred calling from Brewster. Fifteen cents a minute.”

At that, he stopped to put in his bookmark. Then he got his receiver up, and I told Fred to proceed, and opened my notebook.

“Mr. Wolfe? Fred Durkin. Saul sent me to the village to phone. We haven't found any red box, but there's been a little surprise at that place. We finished with the house, covered every inch, and started outdoors. It's the worst time of year for it, because when it thaws in the spring it's the muddiest time of the year.

After it got dark we were working with flashlights, and we saw the lights of a car coming down the road and Saul had us put our lights out. It's a narrow dirt road and you can't go fast. The car turned in at the gate and stopped on the driveway. We had put the sedan in the garage. The lights went out and the engine stopped and a man got out. There was only one of him, so we kept still, behind some bushes. He went to a window and turned a flashlight on it and started trying to open it, and Orrie and I stepped out between him and the car, and Saul went toward him and asked him why he didn't go in the door. He took it cool, he said he forgot his key, then he said he didn't know he'd be interrupting anyone and started off. Saul stopped him and said he'd better come in first and have a drink and a little talk. The guy laughed and said he would and they went in, and

Orrie and I went in after them, and we turned on the lights and sat down. The guy's name is Gebert, G-E-B-E-R-T, a tall slender dark guy with a thin nose-”

“Yeah, I know him. What did he say?”

“Not a hell of a lot of anything. He talks but he don't say anything. He says this McNair was a friend of his, and there's some things belonging to him in the place, and he thought he might as well drive out and get them. He ain't scared and he ain't easy. He's a great smiler.”

“Yeah, I know. Where is he now?”

“Why, he's out there. Saul and Orrie have got him. Saul sent me to ask what you want us to do with him-”

“Turn him loose. What else can you do? Unless you're hungry and want to make soup of him. Saul won't get anywhere with that bird. You can't keep him-”