The Red Box Page 7

  There were a few ructions, but nothing serious. Helen Frost came in pale and stayed pale, and wasn’t having any candy. Thelma Mitchell glared at me and took three pieces of candied fruit, with her teeth clinched on her lower lip. Dudley Frost said it was nonsense and started an argument with Cramer and had to be suggested out by the dick. Llewellyn said nothing and made three different selections. Helen’s mother picked out a thin narrow chocolate, a Jordan almond, and a gum drop, and wiped her fingers delicately on her handkerchief after she put them back. One customer that interested me because I had heard a few things about him was a bird in a morning coat with the shoulders padded. He looked about forty but might have been a little older, and had a thin nose, slick hair, and dark eyes that never stopped moving. His slip said Perren Gebert. He hesitated a second about having refreshment, then smiled to show he didn’t mind humoring us, and took at random.

  The employees came last, and last of all was Boyden McNair himself. After I had finished with him, Inspector Cramer stood up.

  “Thank you, Mr. McNair. You’ve done us a big favor. We’ll be out of here now in two minutes, and you can open up.”

  “Did you … get anywhere?” McNair was wiping his face with his handkerchief. “I don’t know what all this is going to do to my business. It’s terrible.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled it out again. “I’ve got a headache. I’m going to the office and get some aspirin. I ought to go home, or go to a hospital. Did you … what kind of a trick was this?”

  “This in here?” Cramer got out a cigar. “Oh, this was just psychology. I’ll let you know later if we got anything out of it.”

  “Yes. Now I’ve got to go out there and see those women … well, let me know.” He turned and went.

  I left with Cramer, and Captain Dixon trailing behind. While we were leaving the establishment, with his men to gather up and straggling customers and the help around, he kept himself calm and dignified, but as soon as we were out on the sidewalk he turned loose on me and let me have it. I was surprised at how bitter he was, and then, as he went on getting warmer, I realized that he was just showing how high an opinion he had of Nero Wolfe. As soon as he gave me a chance I told him:

  “Nuts, Inspector. You thought Wolfe was a magician, and just because he told us to do this someone was going to flop on their knees and claw at your pants and pull an I-done-it. Have patience. I’ll go home and tell Wolfe about it, and you talk ’em over with Captain Dixon—that is, if he can talk—”

  Cramer grunted. “I should have had more sense. If that fat rhinoceros is kidding me, I’ll make him eat his license and then he won’t have any.”

  I had climbed in the roadster. “He’s not kidding you. Wait and see. Give him a chance.” I slipped in the gear and rolled away.

  Little did I suspect what was waiting for me at West 35th Street. I got there about half past eleven, thinking that Wolfe would have been down from the plant rooms for half an hour and therefore I would catch him in good humor with his third bottle of beer, which was so much to the good, since I was not exactly the bearer of glad tidings. After parking in front and depositing my hat in the hall, I went to the office, and found to my surprise that it was empty. I sought the bathroom, but it was empty too. I proceeded to the kitchen to inquire of Fritz, and as soon as I crossed the threshold I stopped and my heart sank to my feet and kept on right through the floor.

  Wolfe sat at the kitchen table with a pencil in his hand and sheets of paper scattered around. Fritz stood across from him, with the gleam in his eye that I knew only too well. Neither paid any attention to the noise I had made entering. Wolfe was saying:

  “… but we cannot get good peafowl. Archie could try that place on Long Island, but it is probably hopeless. A peafowl’s breast flesh will not be sweet and tender and properly developed unless it is well protected from all alarms, especially from the air, to prevent nervousness, and Long Island is full of airplanes. The goose for this evening, with the stuffing as arranged, will be quite satisfactory. The kid will be ideal for tomorrow. We can phone Mr. Salzenback at once to butcher one, and Archie can drive to Garfield for it in the morning. You can proceed with the preliminaries for the sauce. Friday is a problem. If we try the peafowl we shall merely be inviting catastrophe. Squabs will do for tidbits, but the chief difficulty remains. Fritz, I’ll tell you. Let us try a new tack entirely. Do you know shish kabab? I have had it in Turkey. Marinate thin slices of tender lamb for several hours in red wine and spices. Here, I’ll put it down: thyme, mace, peppercorns, garlic—”

  I stood and took it in. It looked hopeless. There was no question but that it was the beginning of a major relapse. He hadn’t had one for a long while, and it might last a week or more, and while that spell was on him you might as well try to talk business to a lamp post as to Nero Wolfe. When we were engaged on a case, I never liked to go out and leave him alone with Fritz, for this very reason. If only I had got home an hour earlier! It looked now as if it had gone too far to stop it. And this was one of the times when it seemed easy to guess what had brought it on: he hadn’t really expected anything from the mess he had cooked up for Cramer and me, and he was covering up.

  I gritted my teeth and walked over to the table. Wolfe went on talking, and Fritz didn’t look at me. I said, “What’s this, you going to start a restaurant?” No attention. I said, “I’ve got a report to make. Forty-five people ate candy out of those boxes, and they all died in agony. Cramer is dead. H. R. Cragg is dead. The goddesses are dead. I’m sick.”

  “Shut up, Archie. Is the car in front? Fritz will need a few things right away.”

  I knew if the delivery of supplies once started there wouldn’t be a chance. I also knew that coaxing wouldn’t do it, and bullying wouldn’t do it. I was desperate, and I ran over Wolfe’s weaknesses in my mind and picked one.

  I butted in. “Listen. This cockeyed feast you’re headed for, I know I can’t stop it. I’ve tried that before. Okay—”

  Wolfe said to Fritz, “But not the pimento. If you can find any of those yellow anguino peppers down on Sullivan Street—”

  I didn’t dare touch him, but I leaned down close to him. I bawled at him, “And what am I to tell Miss Frost when she comes here at two o’clock? I am empowered to make appointments, am I not? She is a lady, is she not? Of course, if common courtesy is overboard too—”

  Wolfe stopped himself, pressed his lips together, and turned his head. He looked me in the eye. After a moment he asked quietly, “Who? What Miss Frost?”

  “Miss Helen Frost. Daughter of Mrs. Edwin Frost, cousin of our client, Mr. Llewellyn Frost, niece of Mr. Dudley Frost. Remember?”

  “I don’t believe it. This is trickery. Birdlime.”

  “Sure.” I straightened up. “This is close to the limit. Very well. When she comes I’ll tell her I exceeded my authority in venturing to make an appointment. —I won’t be in for lunch, Fritz.” I wheeled and strode out, to the office, and sat down at my desk and pulled the slips of paper from my pocket, wondering if it would work, and trying to decide what I would do if it did. I fooled with the slips pretending to arrange them, not breathing much so I could listen.

  It was at least two minutes before I heard anything from the kitchen, and then it was Wolfe sliding back his chair. Next his footsteps approaching. I kept busy with the papers, and so didn’t actually see him as he entered the office, crossed to his desk, and got lowered into his seat. I continued with my work.

  Finally he said, in the sweet tone that made me want to kick him, “So I am to change all my plans at the whim of a young woman who, to begin with, is a liar. Or at the least, postpone them.” He suddenly exploded ferociously, “Mr. Goodwin! Are you conscious?”

  I said without looking up, “No.”

  Silence. After a while I heard him sigh. “All right, Archie.” He had controlled himself back to his normal tone. “Tell me about it.”

  It was up to me. It was the first time I had ever stopped a relapse after it had got as
far as the menu stage, but it looked as if it might turn out to be something like curing a headache by chopping off my head. I had to go through with it, and the only way that occurred to me was to take a slender thread that had dangled in front of me up at McNair’s that morning, and try to sell it to Wolfe for a steel cable.

  “Well,” I said, and swiveled. “We went and did it.”

  “Go on.”

  He had half-shut eyes on me. I knew he suspected me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had my number right then. But he wasn’t starting back for the kitchen.

  “It was pretty close to a washout.” I picked up the slips. “Cramer’s as sore as a boil on your nose. Of course, he didn’t know I was keeping track of the kind of candy they picked; he thought we were just looking for a giveaway in their actions, and naturally that was a flop. A third of them were scared and half of them were nervous and some got mad and a few were just casual. That’s all there was to that. According to instructions, I watched their fingers while Cramer and Dixon looked at their faces, and put down symbols for their selections.” I flipped the slips. “Seven of them took Jordan almonds. One of them took two.”

  Wolfe reached out and rang for beer. “And?”

  “And so I put it down that way. I’ll tell you. I’m not slick enough for that sort of thing. You know it and I know it. Who is? It’s a waste of time to say you are, on account of inertia. Nevertheless, I am slicker than glue. Six of those people who took Jordan almonds, on account of their expressions and who they are and the way they did it—I don’t think it meant anything. But the seventh one—I don’t know. It’s true he’s going to have a nervous breakdown, he told you that himself. He was taken by surprise at the request to have a piece of candy, just as all the rest were. Cramer handled it right; he had men there to see that no one knew what was going on before they got inside the room. And Mr. Boyden McNair acted funny. When I stuck the box at him and asked him to take a piece he drew back a little, but lots of others did that. Then he pulled himself up and reached and looked in, and his fingers went straight to a Jordan almond and then jerked away, and he took a chocolate. I asked him quick to take another without giving him a chance to get it decided, and this time he touched two other pieces first and then took a Jordan almond, a white one. The third try he went straight to a gum drop and took it.”

  Fritz had come with beer for Wolfe and a scowl for me, and Wolfe had opened a bottle and was pouring. He murmured, “It was you who saw it, Archie. Your conclusion?”

  I tossed the slips onto my desk. “My conclusion is that McNair was Jordan almond-conscious. You know, the way a workingman like me is class-conscious or a guzzler like you is beer-conscious. I’ll admit it’s vague, but you sent me up there to see if any of that bunch would betray an idea that Jordan almonds are different from any other candy, and either Boyden McNair did just that or I’ve got the soul of a male stenographer. And I don’t even use all my fingers.”

  “Mr. McNair. Indeed.” Wolfe had emptied one and was leaning back. “Miss Helen Frost, according to her cousin, our client, calls him Uncle Boyd. Did you know that I am an uncle, Archie?”

  He knew perfectly well that I knew it, since I typed the monthly letters to Belgrade for him, but of course he wasn’t expecting an answer. He had shut his eyes and became motionless. His brain may have been working, but so was mine; I had to figure out some plausible way of getting out of there to hop in the roadster and run up to 52nd Street and kidnap Helen Frost. I wasn’t worrying about the McNair thing. It was the one nibble I had got uptown, and I really thought there was a good chance that we might hook a fish from it; besides, I had given it to Wolfe straight and now it was up to him. But the two o’clock appointment I had mentioned, God help me …

  I got an idea. I knew that with Wolfe’s eyes shut for his genius to work, he was often beyond the reach of external stimuli. Several times I had even kicked over my wastebasket without getting a flicker from him. I sat and watched him a while, saw him breathing and that was all, and finally decided to risk it. I drew my feet in under me and lifted myself out of my chair without making it creak. I kept my eyes on Wolfe. Three short steps on the rubber tile took me to the first rug, and on that silence was a cinch. I tiptoed it, holding my breath, accelerating gradually as I approached the door. I made the threshold—a step in the hall—another—

  Thunder rolled from the office behind me: “Mr. Goodwin!”

  I had a notion to dash on out, snaring my hat on the fly, but an instant’s reflection showed that would have been disastrous. He would have relapsed again during my absence, out of pure damn meanness. I turned and went back in.

  He roared, “Where were you going?”

  I tried to grin at him. “Nowhere. Just upstairs a minute.”

  “And why the furtive stealth?”

  “I … why … egad, sir, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Indeed. You egad me, do you?” He straightened up in his chair. “Not disturb me? Ha! What else have you done but that during the past eight years? Who is it that violently disrupts any private plans which I may venture, on rare occasions, to undertake?” He wiggled a whole hand at me. “You were not going upstairs. You were going to sneak out of this house and rush through the city streets in a desperate endeavor to conceal the chicanery you practiced on me. You were going to try to get Helen Frost and bring her here. Did you think I was not aware of your mendacity, there in the kitchen? Have I not told you that your powers of dissimulation are wretched? Very well. I have three things to say to you. The first is a reminder: we are to have rice fritters with black currant jam, and endive with tarragon, for lunch. The second is a piece of information: you will not have time to lunch here. The third is an instruction: you are to proceed to the McNair establishment, get Miss Frost, and have her at this office by two o’clock. Doubtless you will find opportunity to get a greasy sandwich somewhere. By the time you arrive here with Miss Frost I shall have finished with the fritters and endive.”

  I said, “Okay. I heard every word. The Frost girl has a stubborn eye. Have I got a free hand? Strangle her? Wrap her up?”

  “But, Mr. Goodwin.” It was a tone he seldom used; I would call it a sarcastic whine. “She has an appointment here for two o’clock. Surely there should be no difficulty. If only common courtesy—”

  I beat it to the hall for my hat.

  Chapter 7

  On the way uptown in the roadster I reflected that there was one obvious lever to use on Helen Frost to pry her in the direction I wanted her; and I’m a great one for the obvious, because it saves a lot of fiddling around. I decided to use it.

  The only parking space I could find was a block away, and I walked from there to the McNair entrance. The uniformed doorman stood grinning at a woman across the street who was trying to feed sugar to a mounted cop’s horse. I went up to him:

  “Remember me? I was here this morning.”

  Being accosted by a gentleman, he started to straighten up to be genteel, then recollected that I was connected with the police, so he relaxed.

  “Sure I remember. You’re the one that passed out the candy.”

  “Right. Attention, please. I want to speak to Miss Helen Frost privately, but I don’t want to make any more fuss in there. Has she gone to lunch yet?”

  “No. She doesn’t go until one’ o’clock.”

  “Is she inside?”

  “Sure.” He glanced at his watch. “She won’t go for nearly half an hour.”

  “Okay.” I nodded thanks and moseyed off. I had a notion to hunt up some oats for a gobble, but decided it would be better to stick around. I lit a cigarette and strolled to the corner of Fifth Avenue, and across the street, and back toward Madison a ways. Apparently the public was still interested in the place where the beautiful model was poisoned, for I noticed people slowing up and looking at the McNair entrance as they passed by, and now and then some stopped. The mounted cop was hanging around. I went on sauntering in the neighborhood, not getting far away.r />
  At five minutes after one she came out, alone, and headed east. I tripped along, and crossed the street, and got behind her. A little before she got to Madison I snapped out:

  “Miss Frost!”

  She whirled on a dime. I took off my hat.

  “Remember me? My name’s Archie Goodwin. I’d like to have a few words—”

  “This is outrageous!” She turned and started off.

  She was quite a sketch. As independent as a hog on ice. I took a hop, skip and jump, and planted the frame square in front of her. “Listen. You’re more childish even than your cousin Lew. I merely need, in performance of my duty, to ask you a couple of questions. You’re on your way to get something to eat. I’m hungry and have to eat myself sooner or later. I can’t invite you to lunch, because I wouldn’t be allowed to put it on my expense account, but I can sit at a table with you for four minutes and then go elsewhere to eat if that is your desire. I am a self-made man, and am a roughneck but not rowdy. I graduated from high school at the age of seventeen and only a few months ago I gave two dollars to the Red Cross.”

  On account of my firm aggressive talk people were looking at us, and she knew it. She said, “I eat at Moreland’s, around the corner on Madison. You can ask your questions there.”

  One trick in. Moreland’s was one of those dumps where they slice roast beef as thin as paper and specialize in vegetable plates. I let Helen Frost find a table, and trailed along and slid into a chair opposite her after she had sat down.

  She looked at me and said, “Well?”

  I said, “The waitress will hover. Order your lunch.”

  “I can order later. What do you want?”

  A sketch all right. But I stayed pleasant. “I want to take you to 918 West 35th Street for a conversation with Nero Wolfe.”

  She stared at me. “That’s ridiculous. What for?”

  I said mildly, “We have to be there at two o’clock, so we haven’t much time. Really, Miss Frost, it would be much more human if you’d get something to eat and let me do the same, while I explain. I’m not something revolting, like a radio crooner or an agent for the Liberty League.”