The Red Box (21 page)

Rowcliff growled, “All right, get out, we’ll move
the damn thing.” He muttered at the cossack. “You might as well. This bird’s never been tamed yet.”

The trooper opened the door. “Get out.”

“You going to move it?”

“Why the hell shouldn’t I move it? Get out.”

I descended and climbed back in the roaster. The trooper started his car and eased it ahead, into the road, and off again beyond the entrance. My lights were on him. I put my gear in, circled through the gate onto the driveway, stopped back of a car there which I recognized for the convertible Gebert had parked in front of Wolfe’s house the day before, and got out and started for the porch. There was a mob there sitting along the edge of it. One of them got smart and turned on a flash and spotted it on my face as I approached. Rowcliff and the trooper came up and stood at the foot of the steps.

I demanded, “Who’s in charge of this gang? I know you’re not, Rowcliff, we’re outside the city limits. Who’s got any right to be here on private property?”

They looked at each other. The trooper stuck out his chin at me, and asked, “Have you?”

“You’re darned tooting I have. You’ve seen a paper signed by the executor of the estate that owns this. I’ve got another one in my pocket. Well, come on, who’s in charge? Who’s responsible for this outrage?”

There was a cackle from the porch, a shadow in the corner. “I’ve got a right to be here, ain’t I, Archie?”

I peered at it. “Oh, hi, Fred. What are you doing out here in the cold?”

He ambled toward me. “We didn’t want to open the door, because this bunch of highbinders might take a notion—”

I snorted. “Where would they get it from? —All right, nobody’s in charge, is that it? Fred, call Saul—”

“I’ll take the responsibility!” A little squirt had popped up and I saw his spectacles. He squealed, “I’m the Assistant District Attorney of this county! We have a legal right—”

I did some towering over him. “You have a legal right to go home and go to bed. Have you got a warrant or a subpoena or even a cigarette paper?”

“No, there wasn’t time—”

“Then shut up.” I turned to Rowcliff and the trooper. “You think I’m being tough? Not at all, I’m just indignant and I have a right to be. You’ve got a nerve, to come to a private house in the middle of the night and expect to go through it, without any evidence that there has ever been anything or anyone criminal in it. What do you want, the red box? It’s Nero Wolfe’s property, and if it’s in there I’ll get it and put it in my pocket and walk out with it, and don’t try to play tag with me, because I’m sensitive about coming in contact with people.” I brushed past them and mounted the porch, crossed to the door and rapped on it:

“Come here, Fred. Saul!”

I heard his voice from inside: “Hello, Archie! Okay?”

“Sure, okay. Open the door! Stand by, Fred.”

The gang had stood up and edged toward us a little. I heard the lock turning; the door swung open and a lane of light ribboned the porch; Saul stood on the threshold with Orrie back of him. Fred and I were there too. I faced the throng:

“I hereby order you to leave these premises. All of you. In other words, beat it. Now do as you damn please, but its on the record that you’re here illegally, for future reference. We resent your scuffing up the
porch, but if you try coming in the house we’ll resent that a lot worse. Back up, Saul. Come on, Fred.”

We went in. Saul closed the door and locked it. I looked around. knowing that the joint belonged to McNair, I halfway expected to see some more decorators’ delights, but it was rustic. Nice big chairs and seats with cushions and a big heavy wooden table, and a blaze crackling in a wide fireplace at one end. I turned to Fred Durkin:

“You darned liar. You said there was no fire.”

He grinned, rubbing his hands in front of it. “I didn’t think Mr. Wolfe ought to think we was too comfortable.”

“He wouldn’t mind. He doesn’t like hardship, even for you.” I looked around again and spoke to Saul in a lower tone. “Where’s what you’ve got with you?”

He nodded at a door. “In the other room. No light in there.”

“You didn’t find the box?”

“No sign of it. All cubic inches accounted for.”

Since it was Saul, that settled it. I asked him, “Is there another door?”

“One at the back. We’ve got it propped.”

“Okay. You and Fred stay here. Orrie, come with me.”

He lumbered over and I led him into the other room. After I closed the door behind us it was good and dark, but there were two dim rectangles for windows, and after a few seconds I made out an outline in a chair. I said to Orrie, “Sing.”

He grumbled, “What the hell, I’m too hungry to sing.”

“Sing anyway. If one of them happens to glue his ear to a window I want him to hear something. Sing ‘Git Along, Little Dogie.’ ”

“I can’t sing in the dark—”

“Damn it, will you sing?”

He cleared his throat and started it up. Orrie had a pretty good voice. I went close to the outline in the chair and said to it:

“I’m Archie Goodwin. You know me.”

“Certainly.” Gebert’s voice sounded purely conversational. “You’re the fellow who doesn’t like scenes.”

“Right. That’s why I’m out here when I ought to be in bed. Why are you out here?”

“I drove out to get my umbrella which I left here last fall.”

“Oh. You did. Did you find it?”

“No. Someone must have taken it.”

“That’s too bad. Listen to me a minute. Out on the porch is an army of state police and New York detectives and a Putnam County prosecutor. How would you like to have to tell them about your umbrella?”

I saw the outline of his shoulders move with his shrug. “If it would amuse them. I hardly suppose they know where it is.”

“I see. You’re fancy free, huh? Not a care in the world. In that case, what are you doing sitting in here alone in the dark? —A little louder, Orrie.”

Gebert shrugged again. “Your colleague—the little chap with the big nose—asked me to come in here. He was very courteous to me when I was trying a window because I had no key.”

“so you wanted to be courteous to him. That was darned swell of you. Then it’s okay if I let the cops in and tell them we found you trying to break in?”

“I’m really indifferent about it.” I couldn’t see his smile but I knew he was wearing it. “Really. I wasn’t breaking in, I was only trying a window.”

I straightened up, disgusted. He wasn’t giving me anything at all to bargain with, and even if it was a bluff I guessed that he was sardonic enough to go right through with it. Orrie stopped, and I grunted at him to carry on. The conditions were bad for negotiation. I leaned over him again:

“Look here, Gebert. We’ve got your number—Nero Wolfe has—but we’re willing to give you a chance. It’s midnight. What’s wrong with this: I’ll let the cops in and tell them they can look for the red box all they want to. I happen to know they won’t find it. You are one of my colleagues. Your name’s Jerry. We’ll leave my other colleagues here and you and I will get in my car and go back to New York, and you can sleep in Wolfe’s house—there’s a good bed in the room above mine. The advantage of that is that you’ll be there in the morning to have a talk with Wolfe. That strikes me as a good program.”

I could see him shaking his head. “I live at the Chesebrough. Thanks for your invitation, but I prefer to sleep in my own bed.”

“I’m asking you, will you come?”

“To Mr. Wolfe’s house to sleep? No.”

“All right. You’re crazy. Surely you’ve got brains enough to realize that you’re going to have to have a talk with somebody about your driving sixty miles to go through a window to get an umbrella. Knowing Wolfe, and knowing the police, I merely advise you to talk with him instead of them. I’ve not trying to shatter your aplomb, I like it, I think it’s attractive, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand here and beg you all night. In a couple of minutes I’ll begin to get impatient.”

Gebert shrugged again. “I confess I don’t like the police. I leave here with you incognito. Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Very well. I’ll go.”

“To Wolfe’s for the night?”

“I tell you so.”

“Good for you. Don’t worry about your car; Saul will take care of it. Your name’s Jerry. Act tough and ignorant, like me or any other detective. —Okay, Orrie, choke it. Come on. Come on, Jerry.”

I opened the door to the lighted room and they followed me in. I collected Saul and Fred and briefly explained the strategy, and when Saul objected to letting the cops in I agreed with him without an argument. Our trio was supposed to resume operations in the morning, and in the meantime they had to have some shut-eye. It was settled that no one was to be permitted to enter, and excavations by strangers outdoors were barred. They were to send Fred to the village to get grub, and to phone the office, in the morning.

I went to a window and pushed my nose against the glass and saw that the party was still gathered about the steps. At a nod from me Saul unlocked the door and swung it open, and Gebert and I passed through to the porch. In our rear, Saul and Fred and Orrie occupied the doorsill. We clattered to the edge:

“Lieutenant Rowcliff? Oh, there you are. Jerry Martin and I are going back to town. I’m leaving three men here, and they still prefer privacy. They need some sleep and so do you. Just as a favor, I’ll tell you straight that Jerry and I haven’t got the red box on us, so there’s nothing to gnash your teeth about. —Okay, Saul, lock up, and one of you stay awake.” The door shut, leaving the porch in the dark again, and I turned. “Come on, Jerry. If anyone jostles you, stick a hatpin in him.”

But the instant the door had closed someone had got smart and clicked on a flashlight and aimed it at Gebert’s face. I had his elbow to urge him along, but there was a stir in front of us and a growl: “Now you don’t need to run.” A big guy was standing in front of Gebert and holding the light on him. He growled again. “Look here, Lieutenant, look at this Jerry. Jerry hell. This is that guy that was at Frost’s apartment when I was up there this morning with the inspector. His name’s Gebert, a friend of Mrs. Frost’s.”

I snickered. “I don’t know you, mister, but you must be cross-eyed. The country air maybe. Come on, Jerry.”

No go. Rowcliff and two other dicks and the pair of troopers all barred the way, and Rowcliff sang at me, “Back up, Goodwin. You’ve heard of Bill Northrup and you know how cross-eyed he is. No mistake, Bill?”

“Not a chance. It’s Gebert.”

“You don’t say. Keep the light on him. How about it, Mr. Gebert? What do you mean by trying to fool Mr. Goodwin and telling him your name’s Jerry Martin? Huh?”

I kept my trap shut. Through a bad piece of luck I was getting a kick on the shin, and there was nothing to do but take it. And I had to hand it to Gebert; with that light right in his face and that bunch of gorillas all sticking their chins at him, he smiled as if they were asking him whether he took milk or lemon.

He said, “I wouldn’t try to fool Mr. Goodwin. Indeed not. Anyway, how could I? He knows me.”

“Oh, he does. Then I can discuss the Jerry Martin idea with him. But you might tell me what you’re doing out here at the McNair place. They found you here, huh?”

“Found me?” Gebert looked urbane but a little annoyed. “Of course not. They brought me. At their request I came to show them where I thought McNair might have concealed the red box they are looking for. But no; it wasn’t there. Then you arrived. Then Mr. Goodwin arrived. He thought it would be pleasanter if you did not know I had come to help them, and he suggested I should be Mr. Jerry Martin. I saw no reason not to oblige him.”

Rowcliff grunted. “But you didn’t see fit to mention this place to Inspector Cramer this morning when he asked if you had any idea where the red box might be. Did you?”

Gebert had a cute reply for that too, and for several more questions, but I didn’t listen to them with much interest. I was busy taking a trial balance. I shied off because Gebert was being a little too slick. Of course he figured that I would let his story slide because I wanted to save him for Nero Wolfe, but it began to look to me as if he wasn’t worth the price. It wasn’t an attack of qualms; I would just as soon kick dust in the eyes of the entire Police Department from Commissioner Hombert up in anything that resembled a worthy cause; but it appeared more than doubtful whether Wolfe would be able to squeeze any profit out of Gebert anyhow, and if he couldn’t, we would just be giving Cramer another reason to get good and sore without anything to console us for it. I knew I was taking a big risk, for if Gebert had murdered McNair there was a fair chance that they would screw it out of him at headquarters, and there would be our case up the flue; but I wasn’t like Wolfe, I was handicapped by not knowing whether Gebert was guilty. While I was making these calculations I was listening with one ear to Gebert smearing it on
Rowcliff, and he did a neat job of it; he had smoothed it down to a point where he and I could have got in a car and driven off without even being fingerprinted.

“See that you’re home in the morning,” Rowcliff was growling at him. “The inspector may want to see you. If you go out leave word where.” He turned to me, and you could have distilled vinegar from his breath. “You’re so full of lousy tricks, I’ll bet when you’re alone you play ’em on yourself. The inspector will let you know what he thinks of this one. I’d hate to tell you what I think of it.”

I grinned at him, his face in the dark. “And here I am all ready with another one. I’ve been standing here listening to Gebert reel it off just to see how slick he is. He could slide on a cheese grater. You’d better take him to headquarters and give him a bed.”

“Yeah? What for? You through with him?”

“Naw, I haven’t even started. A little before nine o’clock this evening he got here in his car. Not knowing there was anyone here because the lights were out, he tried to pry open a window to get in. When Saul Panzer asked him what he wanted, he said he left his umbrella here last fall and drove out to get it. Maybe it’s in your lost and found room at headquarters; you’d better take him there to look and see. Material witness would do it.”