Rex Stout - Red Box, The

“I ought to tell you, Mrs. Frost, if you don't like this gun pointed at you, give me that bag or lay it on the floor.”

She ignored me, looking at Wolfe. She said with calm indignation, “I can't be compelled to listen to this rubbish.” I saw a little flash back in her eyes from the fire inside. I am going. Helenl Come.”

She moved toward the door. I moved after her. Cramer was on his feet and got in front of her before I did. He blocked her way but didn't touch her. “Wait, Mrs.

Frost. Just a minute.” He looked at Wolfe. “What have you got? I'm not playing this blind.”

“I've got enough, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe was crisp. “I'm not a fool. Take that bag from her and keep her in here or you'll eternally regret it.”

Cramer didn't hesitate more than half a second. That's one thing I've always liked about him, he never fiddle-faddles much. He put a hand on her shoulder.

She stepped back, away from it, and stiffened. He snapped, “Give me the bag and sit down. That's no great hardship. You'll have all the chance for a comeback you want.”

He reached for it and took it. I noticed that at that juncture she didn't appeal to her masculine relatives; I don't imagine she was very strong on appeals. She wasn't doing any quivering, either. She gave Cramer the straight hard eye:

“You keep me here by force. Do you?”

“Well…” Cramer shrugged. “We think you'll stay for a while. Just till we get through.”

She walked back and sat down. Glenna McNair sent her one swift glance, and then looked back at Wolfe. The men weren't looking at her.

Wolfe said testily, “These interruptions will help no one. Certainly not you,

Mrs. Frost; nothing can help you now.” He looked at our client. “You want to know how. In 1916 Mrs. Frost went with her baby daughter Helen, then only a year old, to the east coast of Spain. There, a year later, her daughter died. Under the terms of her deceased husband's will, Helen's death meant that the entire fortune went to Dudley and Llewellyn Frost. Mrs. Frost did not like that, and she made a plan. It was wartime, and the confusion all over Europe made it possible to carry it out. Her old friend Boyden McNair had a baby daughter almost the same age as Helen, just a month apart, and his wife was dead and he was penniless, with no means of making a livelihood. Mrs. Frost bought his daughter from him, explaining that the child would be better off that way anyhow. Inquiry is now being made in Cartagena regarding a manipulation of the record of deaths in the year 1917. The idea was, of course, to spread the report that Glenna McNair died and Helen Frost lived.

“Immediately Mrs. Frost took you, as Helen Frost, to Egypt, where there was little risk of your being seen by some traveler who had known you as a baby in

Paris. When the war ended even Egypt was too hazardous, and she went on to the

Far East. Not until you were nine years old did she chance your appearance in this part of the world, and even then she avoided France. You came to this continent from the west.”

Wolfe stirred in his chair, and gave his eyes a new target. “I suppose it would be more polite, Mrs. Frost, from this point on, to address myself to you. I am going to speak of the two unavoidable difficulties your plan encountered-one from the very beginning. That was your young friend Perren Gebert. He knew all about it because he was there, and you had to pay for his silence. You even took him to Egypt with you, which was a wise precaution even if you didn't like to have him around. As long as you paid him he represented no serious danger, because he was a man who knew how to hold his tongue. Then a cloud sailed into your sky, about ten years ago, when Boyden McNair, who had made a success in

London and regained his self-respect, came to New York. He wanted to be near the daughter he had lost, and I have no doubt that he made a nuisance of himself. He kept to the essentials of the bargain he had made with you in 1917, because he was a scrupulous man, but he made annoying little pecks at you. He insisted on his right to make himself a good friend of his daughter. I presume that it was around this time that you acquired, probably on a trip to Europe, certain chemicals which you began to fear might some day be needed.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. She sat straight and motionless, her eyes level at him, the lips of her proud mouth perhaps a little tighter than ordinary. He went on, “And sure enough, the need arose. It was a double emergency. Mr. Gebert conceived the idea of marrying the heiress before she came of age, and insisted on the help of your influence and authority. What was worse, Mr. McNair began to get bis scruples mixed up. He did not tell me the precise nature of the demands he made, but I believe I can guess them. He wanted to buy his daughter back again. Didn't he? He had made even a greater success in New York than in London, and so had plenty of money. True, he was still bound by the agreement he had made with you in 1917, but I suspect he had succeeded in persuading himself that there was a higher obligation, both to his own paternal emotions and to Glenna herself. No doubt he was outraged by Mr. Gebert's impudent aspiration to marry

Glenna and by your seeming acquiescence.

“You were certainly up against it, I can see that. After all your ingenuity and devotion and vigilance, and twenty years of control of a handsome income. With

Mr. Gebert insisting on having her for a wife, and Mr. McNair demanding her for a daughter, and both of them threatening you daily with exposure, the surprising thing is that you found time for the deliberate cunning you employed. It is easy to see why you took Mr. McNair first. If you had killed Gebert, McNair would have known the truth of it no matter what your precautions, and would have acted at once. So your first effort was the poisoned candy for McNair, with the poison in the Jordan almonds, which you knew he was fond of. He escaped that; it killed an innocent young woman instead. He knew of course what it meant. Here I permit myself another surmise: my guess is that Mr. McNair, being a sentimental man, decided to reclaim his daughter on her real twenty-first birthday, April 2nd.

But knowing your resourcefulness, and fearing that you might somehow get him before then, he made certain arrangements in his will and in an interview with me. The latter, alas, was not completed; your second attempt, the imitation aspirin tablets, intervened. And just in the nick of time! Just when he was on the verge-Miss McNair! I beg you…”

Glenna McNair disregarded him. I suppose she didn't hear him. She was on her feet, turned away from him, facing the woman with the straight back and proud mouth whom for so many years she had called mother. She took three steps toward her. Cramer was up too, beside her; and Lew Frost was there with a hand on her arm. With a convulsive movement she shook his hand off without looking at him; she was staring at Mrs. Frost. A little quiver ran over her, then she stood still and said in a half-choked voice:

“He was my father, and you killed him. You killed my father. Oh!” The quiver again, and she stopped for it. “You…you woman!”

Llewellyn sputtered at Wolfe, “This is enough for her-good God, you shouldn't have let her be here-I'll take her home-”

Wolfe said curtly, “She has no home. None this side of Scotland. Miss McNair, I beg you. Sit down. You and I are doing a job. Aren't we? Let's finish it. Let's do it right, for your father's sake. Come.”