The Red Box Read online

  “Go to hell. I use what I’ve got, and you know damn well I’m a good cop. But after these eight days, I don’t even know for sure whether Molly Lauck was killed by poison that was intended for someone else. What if the Frost girl and the Mitchell girl did it together? You couldn’t beat it for a set-up, and maybe they’re that clever. Knowing Molly Lauck liked to play jokes, maybe they planted it for her to swipe, or maybe they just gave it to her and then told their story. But why? That’s another item, I can’t find anyone who had any reason at all to want to kill her. It seems she was mellow in the pump about this Perren Gebert and he couldn’t see her, but there’s no evidence that she was making herself a nuisance to him.”

  Wolfe murmured, “Mellow where?”

  I put in, “Okay, boss. Soft-hearted.”

  “Gebert was there that day, too.” Cramer went on, “but I can’t get anywhere with him on that. There hasn’t been another single nibble on motive, if the stuff was intended for Molly Lauck. In my opinion, it wasn’t. It looks like she really did swipe it. And the minute you take that theory, what have you got? You’ve got the ocean. There were over a hundred people there that day, and it might have been intended for any one of them, and any of them might have brought it. You can see what a swell lay-out that is. We’ve traced over three hundred sales of two-pound boxes of Bailey’s Royal Medley, and among that bunch of humans that was there at the show we’ve uncovered enough grudges and jealousies and bad blood and biliousness to account for twenty murders. What do we do with it now? We file it.”

  He stopped and chewed savagely on his cigar. I grinned at him: “Did you come here to inspect our filing system, Inspector? It’s a beaut.”

  He growled at me, “Who asked you anything? I came here because I’m licked. What do you think of that? Did you ever hear me say that before? And no one else.” He turned to Wolfe. “When I heard you were up there today, of course I didn’t know for who or what, but I thought to myself, now the fur’s going to fly. Then I thought I might as well drop in and you might give me a piece as a souvenir. I’ll take anything I can get. This is one of those cases that can’t cool off, because the damn newspapers keep the heat turned on indefinitely, and I don’t mean only the tabloids. Molly Lauck was young and beautiful. Half of the dames that were there at the show that day are in the Social Register. H. R. Cragg was there himself, with his wife, and so on. The two girls that saw her die are also young and beautiful. They won’t let it cool off, and every time I go into the Commissioner’s office he beats the arm of his chair. You’ve seen him do that right here in your own office.”

  Wolfe nodded. “Mr. Hombert is a disagreeable noise. I’m sorry I have nothing for you, Mr. Cramer, I really am.”

  “Yeah, I am too. But you can do this, anyhow: give me a push. Even if it’s in the wrong direction and you know it.”

  “Well … let’s see.” Wolfe leaned back with his eyes half closed. “You are blocked on motive. You can find none as to Miss Lauck, and too many in other directions. You can’t trace the purchase either of the candy or the poison. In fact, you have traced or found nothing whatever, and you are without a starting-point. But you do really have one; have you used it?”

  Cramer stared. “Have I used what?”

  “The one thing that is indubitably connected with the murder. The box of candy. What have you done about that?”

  “I’ve had it analyzed, of course.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Cramer tapped ashes into the tray. “There’s not much to tell. It was a two-pound box that’s on sale pretty well all over town, at druggists and branch stores, put up by Bailey of Philadelphia, selling at a dollar sixty. They call it Royal Medley, and there’s a mixture in it, fruits, nuts, chocolates, and so on. Before I turned it over to the chemist I got Bailey’s factory on the phone and asked if all Royal Medley boxes were uniform. They said yes, they were packed strictly to a list, and they read the list to me. Then for a check I sent out for a couple of boxes of Royal Medley and spread them out and compared them with the list. Okay. By doing the same with the box Molly Lauck ate from, I found that three pieces were gone from it: candied pineapple, a candied plum, and a Jordan almond. That agreed with the Mitchell girl’s story.”

  Wolfe nodded. “Fruits, nuts, chocolates—were there any caramels?”

  “Caramels?” Cramer stared at him. “Why caramels?”

  “No reason. I used to like them.”

  Cramer grunted. “Don’t try to kid me. Anyhow, there aren’t any caramels in a Bailey’s Royal Medley. That’s too bad, huh?”

  “Perhaps. It certainly decreases the interest, for me. By the way, these details regarding the candy—have they been published? Has anyone been told?”

  “No. I’m telling you. I hope you can keep a secret. It’s the only one we’ve got.”

  “Excellent. And the chemist?”

  “Sure, excellent, and what has it got me? The chemist found that there was nothing wrong with any of the candy left in the box, except four Jordan almonds in the top layer. The top layer of a Royal Medley box has five Jordan almonds in it, and Molly Lauck had eaten one. Each of the four had more than six grains of potassium cyanide in it.”

  “Indeed. Only the almonds were poisoned.”

  “Yeah, it’s easy to see why they were picked. Potassium cyanide smells and tastes like almonds, only more so. The chemist said they would taste strong, but not enough to scare you off if you liked almonds. You know Jordan almonds? They’re covered with hard candy of different colors. Holes had been bored in them, or picked in, and filled with the cyanide, and then coated over again so that you’d hardly notice it unless you looked for it.” Cramer hunched up his shoulders and dropped them again. “You say the box of candy was a starting-point? Well, I started, and where am I? I’m sitting here in your office telling you I’m licked, with that damn Goodwin pup there grinning at me.”

  “Don’t mind Mr. Goodwin. Archie, don’t badger him! But, Mr. Cramer, you didn’t start; you merely made the preparations for starting. It may not be too late. If, for instance …”

  Wolfe, leaning back, closed his eyes, and I saw the almost imperceptible movements of his lips—out and in, a pause, and out and in again. Then again …

  Cramer looked at me and lifted his brows. I nodded and told him. “Sure, it’ll be a miracle, wait and see.”

  Wolfe muttered, “Shut up, Archie.”

  Cramer glared at me and I winked at him. Then we just sat. If it had gone on long I would have had to leave the room for a bust, because Cramer was funny. He sat cramped, afraid to make a movement so as not to disturb Wolfe’s genius working; he wouldn’t even knock the ashes off his cigar. I’ll say he was licked. He kept glaring at me to show he was doing something.

  Finally Wolfe stirred, opened his eyes, and spoke. “Mr. Cramer. This is just an invitation to luck. Can you meet Mr. Goodwin at nine o’clock tomorrow morning at Mr. McNair’s place, and have with you five boxes of that Royal Medley?”

  “Sure. Then what?”

  “Well … try this. Your notebook, Archie?”

  I flipped to a fresh page.

  Three hours later, after dinner, at ten o’clock that night, I went over to Broadway and hunted up a box of Bailey’s Royal Medley, and sat in the office until midnight with my desk covered with pieces of candy, memorizing a code.

  Chapter 6

  At three minutes to nine the following morning, Wednesday, as I rolled the roadster to a stop on 52nd Street, in a nice open space evidently kept free by special police orders, I was feeling a little sorry for Nero Wolfe. He loved to stage a good scene and get an audience sitting on the edge of their chairs, and here was this one, his own idea, taking place a good mile from his plant rooms and his oversized chair. But, stepping onto the sidewalk in front of Boyden McNair Incorporated, I merely shrugged my shoulders and thought to myself, Well-a-day, you fat son-of-a-gun, you can’t be a homebody and see the world too.

  I walked across to the entrance, where
the uniformed McNair doorman was standing alongside a chunky guy with a round red face and a hat too small for him pushed back on his forehead. As I reached for the door this latter moved to block me.

  He put an arm out. “Excuse me, sir. Are you here by request? Your name, please?” He brought into view a piece of paper with a typewritten list on it.

  I gazed down my nose at him. “Look here, my man. It was I who made the requests.”

  He squinted at me. “Yeah? Sure. The inspector says, nothing for you boys here. Beat it.”

  Naturally I would have been sore anyhow at being taken for a reporter, but what made it worse was that I had taken the trouble to put on my suit of quiet brown with a faint tan stripe, a light tan shirt, a green challis four-in-hand and my dark green soft-brim hat. I said to him:

  “You’re blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other. Did you ever hear that one before? I’m Archie Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office.” I took out a card and stuck it at him.

  He looked at it. “Okay. They’re expecting you upstairs.”

  Inside was another dick, standing over by the elevator, and no one else around. This one I knew: Slim Foltz. We exchanged polite greetings, and I got in the elevator and went up.

  Cramer had done pretty well. Chairs had been gathered from all over, and about fifty people, mostly women but a few men, were sitting there in the big room up front. There was a lot of buzz and chatter. Four or five dicks, city fellers, were in a group in a corner where the booths began. Across the room Inspector Cramer stood talking to Boyden McNair, and I walked over there.

  Cramer nodded. “Just a minute, Goodwin.” He went on with McNair, and pretty soon turned to me. “We got a pretty good crowd, huh? Sixty-two promised to come, and there’s forty-one here. Not so bad.”

  “All the employees here?”

  “All but the doorman. Do we want him?”

  “Yeah, make it unanimous. Which booth?”

  “Third on the left. Do you know Captain Dixon? I picked him for it.”

  “I used to know him.” I walked down the corridor, counting three, and opened the door and went in. The room was a little bigger than the one we had used the day before. Sitting behind the table was a little squirt with a bald head and big ears and eyes like an eagle. There were pads of paper and pencils arranged neatly in front of him, and at one side was a stack of five boxes of Bailey’s Royal Medley. I told him he was Captain Dixon and I was Archie Goodwin, and it was a nice morning. He looked at me by moving his eyes without disturbing his head, known as conservation of energy, and made a noise something between a hoot-owl and a bullfrog. I left him and went back to the front room.

  McNair had gone around back of the crowd and found a chair. Cramer met me and said, “I don’t think we’ll wait for any more. They’re going to get restless as it is.”

  “Okay, shoot.” I went over and propped myself against the wall, facing the audience. They were all ages and sizes and shapes, and were about what you might expect. There are very few women who can afford to pay 300 bucks for a spring suit, and why do they have to be the kind you might as well wrap in an old piece of burlap for all the good it does? Nearly always. Among the exceptions present that morning was Mrs. Edwin Frost, who was sitting with her straight back in the front row, and with her were the two goddesses, one on each side. Llewellyn Frost and his father were directly behind them. I also noted a red-haired woman with creamy skin and eyes like stars, but later, during the test, I learned that her name was Countess von Rantz-Deichen of Prague, so I never tried to follow it up.

  Cramer had faced the bunch and was telling them about it:

  “… First I want to thank Mr. McNair for closing his store this morning and permitting it to be used for this purpose. We appreciate his cooperation, and we realize that he is as anxious as we are to get to the bottom of this … this sad affair. Next I want to thank all of you for coming. It is a real pleasure and encouragement to know that there are so many good citizens ready to do their share in a … a sad affair like this. None of you had to come, of course. You are merely doing your duty—that is, you are helping out when it is needed. I thank you in the name of the Police Commissioner, Mr. Hombert, and the District Attorney, Mr. Skinner.”

  I wanted to tell him, “Don’t stop there, what about the Mayor and the Borough Presidents and the Board of Aldermen and the Department of Plant and Structures …”

  He was going on: “I hope that none of you will be offended or irritated at the simple experiment we are going to try. It wasn’t possible for us to explain it to each of you on the telephone, and I won’t make a general explanation now. I suppose some of you will regard it as absurd, and in the case of most of you, and possibly all of you, it will be, but I hope you’ll just take it and let it go at that. Then you can tell your friends how dumb the police are, and we’ll all be satisfied. But I can assure you we’re not doing this just for fun or to try to annoy somebody, but as a serious part of our effort to get to the bottom of this sad affair.

  “Now this is all there is to it. I’m going to ask you to go one at a time down that corridor to the third door on the left. I’ve organized it to take as little time as possible; that’s why we asked you to write your name twice, on two different pieces of paper, when you came in. Captain Dixon and Mr. Goodwin will be in that room, and I’ll be there with them. We’ll ask you a question, and that’s all. When you come out you are requested to leave the building, or stay here by the corridor if you want to wait for someone, without speaking to those who have not yet been in the booth. Some of you, those who go in last, will have to be patient. I want to thank you again for your cooperation in this … this sad affair.”

  Cramer took a breath of relief, wheeled, and called out toward the bunch of dicks: “All right, Rowcliff, we might as well start with the front row.”

  “Mr. Inspector!” Cramer turned again. A woman with a big head and no shoulders had arisen in the middle of the audience and stuck her chin forward. “I want to say, Mr. Inspector, that we are under no compulsion to answer any question you may think fit to ask. I am a member of the Better Citizens’ League, and I came here to make sure that—”

  Cramer put up a hand at her. “Okay, madam. No compulsion at all—”

  “Very well. It should be understood by all that citizenship has its privileges as well as its duties—”

  Two or three snickered. Cramer tossed me a glance, and I joined him and followed him down the corridor and into the room. Captain Dixon didn’t bother to move even his eyes this time, probably having enough of us already in his line of vision to make a good guess at our identity. Cramer grunted and sat down on one of the silk affairs against the partition.

  “Now that we’re ready to start,” he growled, “I think it’s the bunk.”

  Captain Dixon made a noise something between a pigeon and a sow with young. I had decided to wear out the ankles so as to see better. I removed the four top Royal Medleys from the stack and put them on the floor under the table, out of sight, and picked up the other one.

  “As arranged?” I asked Cramer. “Am I to say it?”

  He nodded. The door opened, and one of the dicks ushered in a middle-aged woman with a streamlined hat on the side of her head, and lips and fingernails the color of the first coat of paint they put on an iron bridge. She stopped and looked around without much curiosity. I put out a hand at her.

  “The papers, please?”

  She handed me the slips of paper, and I gave one to Captain Dixon and kept the other. “Now, Mrs. Ballin, please do what I ask, naturally, as you would under ordinary circumstances, without any hesitation or nervousness—”

  She smiled at me. “I’m not nervous.”

  “Good.” I took the cover from the box and held it out to her. “Take a piece of candy.”

  Her shoulders lifted daintily, and fell. “I very seldom eat candy.”

  “We don’t want you to eat it. Just take it. Please.”

  She reached in without looking
and snared a chocolate cream and held it up in her fingers and looked at me. I said, “Okay. Put it back, please. That’s all. Thank you. Good day, Mrs. Ballin.”

  She glanced around at us, said, “Dear me,” in a tone of mild and friendly astonishment, and went.

  I bent to the table and marked an X on a corner of her paper, and the figure 6 beneath her name. Cramer growled, “Wolfe said three pieces.”

  “Yeah. He said to use our judgment too. In my judgment, if that dame was mixed up in anything, even Nero Wolfe would never find it out. What did you think of her, Captain?”

  Dixon made a noise something between a hartebeest and a three-toed sloth. The door opened and in came a tall slender woman in a tight-fitting long black coat and a silver fox that must have had giantism. She kept her lips tight and gazed at us with deepest concentrated eyes. I took her slips and gave one to Dixon.

  “Now, Miss Claymore, please do what I ask, naturally, as you would under ordinary circumstances, without any hesitation or nervousness. Will you?”

  She shrank back a little, but nodded. I extended the box.

  “Take a piece of candy.”

  “Oh!” she gasped. She goggled at the candy. “That’s the box …” She shuddered, backed off, held her clenched fist against her mouth, and let out a fairly good shriek.

  I said icily, “Thank you. Good day, madam. All right, officer.”

  The dick touched her arm and turned her for the door. I observed, bending to mark her slip, “That scream was just shop talk. That’s Beth Claymore, and she’s as phony on the stage as she is off. Did you see her in The Price of Folly?”

  Cramer said calmly, “It’s a goddam joke.” Dixon made a noise. The door opened and another woman came in.

  We went through with it, and it took nearly two hours. The employees were saved till the last. What with one thing and another, some of the customers took three pieces, some two or one, and a few none at all. When the first box began to show signs of wear I began with a fresh one from the reserve. Dixon made a few more noises, but confined himself mostly to making notations on his slips, and I went ahead with mine.