The Red Box (13 page)

Wolfe said, “Sit back in your chair, Mr. McNair. No? You’ll work yourself into a fit. Then let what come? Death?”

“Anything.”

Wolfe shook his head. “A bad state of mind. But apparently your mind has practically ceased to function. You are incoherent. Of course you have now made completely untenable your position in regard to the poisoned candy. Obviously—”

McNair broke in, “I’ve named you. Will you do it?”

“Permit me, please.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Obviously you know who poisoned the candy, and you know it was meant for you. You are obsessed with fear that this unfriendly person will proceed to kill you in spite of the fatal bungling of that effort. Possibly others are in danger also; yet, instead of permitting someone with a little wit to handle the affair by giving him your confidence, you sit there and drivel and boast to me of your stubbornness. More than that, you have the gall to request me to agree to undertake a commission although I am completely ignorant of its nature and have no idea how much I shall get for it. Pfui!—No, permit me. Either all this is true, or you are yourself a murderer and are attempting so elaborate a gullery that it is no wonder you have a headache. You ask, will I do it. If you mean, will I
agree to do an unknown job for an unknown wage, certainly not.”

McNair still had his hold of the edge of the desk, and kept it there while Wolfe poured beer. He said, “That’s all right. I don’t mind your talking like that. I expected it. I know that’s the kind of a man you are, and that’s all right. I don’t expect you to agree to do an unknown job. I’m going to tell you about it, that’s what I came here for. But I’d feel easier … if you’d just say … you’ll do it if there’s nothing wrong with it … if you’d just say that …”

“Why should I?” Wolfe was impatient. “There is no great urgency; you have plenty of time; I do not dine until eight o’clock. You need not fear your nemesis is in ambush for you in this room; death will not stalk you here. Go on and tell me about it. But let me advise you: it will be taken down, and will need your signature.”

“No.” McNair got energetic and positive. “I don’t want it written down. And I don’t want this man here.”

“Then I don’t want to hear it.” Wolfe pointed a thumb at me. “This is Mr. Goodwin, my confidential assistant. Whatever opinion you have formed of me includes him of necessity. His discretion is the twin of his valor.”

McNair looked at me. “He’s young. I don’t know him.”

“As you please.” Wolfe shrugged. “I shan’t try to persuade you.”

“I know. You know you don’t have to. You know I can’t help myself, I’m in a corner. But it must not be written down.”

“On that I’ll concede something.” Wolfe had got
himself patient again. “Mr. Goodwin can record it, and then, if it is so decided, it can be destroyed.”

McNair had abandoned his clutch on the desk. He looked from Wolfe to me and back again and, seeing the look in his eyes, if it hadn’t been during business hours—Nero Wolfe’s business hours—I would have felt sorry for him. He certainly was in no condition to put over a bargain with Nero Wolfe. He slid back on his seat and clasped his hands together, then after a moment separated them and took hold of the arms of the chair. He looked back and forth at us again.

He said abruptly, “You’ll have to know about me or you wouldn’t believe what I did. I was born in 1885 in Camfirth, Scotland. My folks had a little money. I wasn’t much in school and was never very healthy, nothing really wrong, just craichy. I thought I could draw, and when I was twenty-two I went to Paris to study art. I loved it and worked at it, but never really did anything, just enough to keep me in Paris wasting the little money my parents had. When they died a little later my sister and I had nothing, but I’ll come to that.” He stopped and put his hands up to his temples and pressed and rubbed. “My head’s going to bust.”

“Take it easy,” Wolfe murmured. “You’ll feel better pretty soon. You’re probably telling me something you should have told somebody years ago.”

“No,” McNair said bitterly. “Something that should never have happened. And I can’t tell it now, not all of it, but I can tell enough. Maybe I’m really crazy, maybe I’ve lost my balance, maybe I’m just destroying all that I’ve safeguarded for so many years of suffering, I don’t know. Anyhow, I can’t help it, I’ve got to leave you the red box, and you would know then.

“Of course I knew lots of people in Paris. One I
knew was an American girl named Anne Crandall, and I married her in 1913 and we had a baby girl. I lost both of them. My wife died the day the baby was born, April second, 1915, and I lost my daughter two years later.” McNair stopped, looking at Wolfe, and demanded fiercely, “Did you ever have a baby daughter?”

Wolfe merely shook his head. McNair went on, “Some other people I knew were two wealthy American brothers, the Frosts, Edwin and Dudley. They were around Paris most of the time. There was also a girl there I had known all my life, in Scotland, named Calida Buchan. She was after art too, and got about as much of it as I did. Edwin Frost married her a few months after I married Anne, though it looked for a while as if his older brother Dudley was going to get her. I think he would have, if he hadn’t been off drinking one night.”

McNair halted and pressed at his temples again. I asked him, “Phenacetin?”

He shook his head. “These help a little.” He got the aspirin bottle from his pocket, jiggled a couple of tablets onto his palm, tossed them in his mouth, took the glass of water and gulped. He said to Wolfe, “You’re right. I’m going to feel better after this is over. I’ve been carrying too big a load of remorse and for too many years.”

Wolfe nodded. “And Dudley Frost went off drinking …”

“Yes. But that wasn’t important. Anyway, Edwin and Calida were married. Soon after that Dudley returned to America, where his son was. His wife had died like mine, in childbirth, some six years before. I don’t think he went back to France until more than three years later, when America entered the war.
Edwin was dead; he had entered the British aviation corps and got killed in 1916. By that time I wasn’t in Paris any more. They wouldn’t take me in the army on account of my health. I didn’t have any money. I had gone down to Spain with my baby daughter—”

He stopped, and I looked up from my notebook. He was bending over a little, with both hands, the fingers spread out, pressed against his belly, and his face was enough to tell you that something had suddenly happened that was a lot worse than a headache.

I heard Wolfe’s voice like a whip: “Archie! Get him!”

I jumped up and across and reached for him. But I missed him, because he suddenly went into a spasm, a convulsion all over his body, and shot up out of his chair and stood there swaying.

He let out a scream: “Christ Jesus!” He put his hands, the fists doubled up, on Wolfe’s desk, and tried to push himself back up straight. He screamed again, “Oh, Christ!” Then another convulsion went over him and he gasped at Wolfe: “The red box—the number—God, let me tell him!” He let out a moan that came from his guts and went down.

I had hold of him, but I let him go to the floor because he was out. I knelt by him, and saw Wolfe’s shoes appear beyond him. I said, “Still breathing. No. I don’t think so. I think he’s gone.”

Wolfe said, “Get Doctor Vollmer. Get Mr. Cramer. First let me have that bottle from his pocket.”

As I moved for the phone I heard a mutter behind me, “I was wrong. Death did stalk him here. I’m an imbecile.”

L
ate the following morning, Thursday, April 2nd, I sat at my desk and folded checks and put them in envelopes as Wolfe signed them and passed them over to me. The March bills were being paid. He had come down from the plant rooms punctually at eleven, and we were improving our time as we awaited a promised visit from Inspector Cramer.

McNair had been dead when Doc Vollmer got there from his home only a block away, and still dead when Cramer and a couple of dicks arrived. An assistant medical examiner had come and done routine, and the remains had been carted away for a post mortem. Wolfe had told Cramer everything perfectly straight, without holding out on him, but had refused his request for a typed copy of my notes on the session with McNair. The aspirin bottle, which had originally held fifty tablets and still contained fourteen, was turned over to the inspector. Toward the end with Cramer, after eight o’clock, Wolfe got a little short with him, because it was past dinnertime. I had formerly thought that his inclination to eat when the time came in spite of hell and homicide was just another detail of his build-up for eccentricity, but it wasn’t; he was just
hungry. Not to mention that it was Fritz Brenner’s cuisine that was waiting for him.

I had made my usual diplomatic advances to Wolfe Wednesday evening after dinner, and again this morning when he got down from the plant rooms, but all I had got was a few assorted rebuffs. I hadn’t pressed him much, because I saw it was a case where a little thoughtless enthusiasm might easily project me out of bounds. He was about as touchy as I had ever seen him. A neat and complete murder had had its finale right in his own office, in front of his eyes, less than ten minutes after he had grandly assured the victim that nemesis was verboten on those premises. So I wasn’t surprised he wasn’t inclined to talk, and I made no effort to sink the spurs in him. All right, I thought, go ahead and be taciturn, you’re in it up to your neck now anyway, and you’ll have to stop treading water and head for a shore sooner or later.

Inspector Cramer arrived as I inserted the last check in its envelope. Fritz ushered him in. He looked busy but not too harassed; in fact, he tipped me a wink as he sat down, knocked ashes from his cigar, returned it to the corner of his mouth and started off conversationally.

“You know, Wolfe, I was just thinking on the way up here, this time I’ve got a brand new excuse for coming to see you. I’ve been here for a lot of different reasons, to try to pry something loose from you, to find out if you were harboring a suspect, to charge you with obstructing justice, and so on and so on, but this is the first time I’ve ever had the excuse that it’s the scene of the crime. In fact, I’m sitting right on it. Wasn’t he in this chair? Huh?”

I told Wolfe consolingly, “It’s all right, boss. That’s just humor. The light touch.”

“I hear it.” Wolfe was grim. “I have merited even Mr. Cramer’s humor. You may exhaust your supply, sir.” It had eaten into him even worse than I thought.

“Oh, I’ve got more.” Cramer chuckled. “You know Lanzetta of the D.A.’s office? Hates your epidermis ever since that Fairmount business three years ago? He phoned the Commissioner this morning to warn him there was a chance you were putting over a fast one. The Commissioner told me about it, and I told him you’re rapid all right, but not faster than light.” Cramer chuckled again, removed his cigar, and slipped his briefcase from the desk onto his knees and unclasped it. He grunted. “Well. Here’s this murder. I’ve got to get back before lunch. You had any inspiration?”

“No.” Wolfe remained grim. “I’ve almost had indigestion.” He wiggled a finger at the briefcase. “Have you papers of Mr. McNair’s?”

Cramer shook his head. “This is just a lot of junk. There may be one or two items worth something. I’ve followed up your line, that it’s sure to be hooked up with the Frosts, on account of the way McNair started his story to you. The Frosts and this fellow Gebert are being investigated from every angle, up, down, and across. But there’s two other bare possibilities I don’t like to lose sight of. First, suicide. Second, this woman, this Countess von Rantz-Deichen, that’s been after McNair lately. There’s a chance—”

“Tommyrot!” Wolfe was explosive. “Excuse me, Mr. Cramer. I am in no mood for fantasy. Get on.”

“Okay.” Cramer grunted. “Sore, huh? Okay. Fantasy. Notwithstanding, I’ll leave two men on the Countess.” He was shuffling through the papers from the briefcase. “First for the bottle of aspirin. There were fourteen tablets in it. Twelve of them were
perfectly all right. The other two consisted of potassium cyanide tablets, approximately five grains each, with a thin coating of aspirin on the outside, apparently put on as a dry dust and carefully tapped down all over. The chemist says the coating was put on skillfully and thoroughly, so there would have been no cyanide taste for the few seconds before the tablet was swallowed. There was no cyanide smell, the bitter almond smell, in the bottle, but of course it was bone dry.”

Wolfe muttered, “And yet you talk of suicide.”

“I said bare possibility. Okay, forget it. The preliminary on the autopsy says cyanide of potassium, but they can’t tell whether the tablets he took were loaded or not, because that stuff evaporates fast as soon as it’s moist. I don’t suppose he’s worrying much about whether it was one or two tablets, so I’m not either. Next, who put the phonies in with the aspirins? Or anyway, who had a chance to? I’ve had three good men on that, and they’re still on it. The answer so far is, most anyone. For the past week and more McNair has been taking aspirin the way a chicken takes corn. There has been a bottle either on his desk or in a drawer all the time. There’s none there now, so when he went out yesterday he must have stuck it in his pocket. Thirty-six are gone from that fifty, and if you figure he took twelve a day that would mean that bottle has been in use three days, and in that time dozens of people have been in and out of his office where the bottle was kept. Of course all the Frosts have, and this Gebert. By the way—” Cramer thumbed to find a paper and stopped at one—“what’s a camal … camallot doo something in French?”

Wolfe nodded. “
Camelot du roi
. A member of a Parisian royalist political gang.”

“Oh. Gebert used to be one. I cabled Paris last night and had one back this morning. Gebert was one of those. He has been around New York now over three years, and we’re after him. The preliminary reports I’ve had are vague. N.V.M.S. Paris says so too.”

Wolfe lifted a brow. “N.V.M.S.”

I told him, “Police gibberish. No visible means of subsistence. Bonton for bum.”

Wolfe sighed. Cramer went on, “We’re doing all the routine. Fingerprints on the bottle, on the drawers of McNair’s desk and so on. Purchases of potassium cyanide—”