I trust the afternoon has not been wasted; I suppose you feel that it has. I don’t think so. May I leave it that way for the present? I thank you for your indulgence. And while we continue to mark tune, waiting for that confounded box to be found, I have a little favor to ask. Could you take Mr. Goodwin home to tea with you?” Llewellyn’s scowl, which had been turned on for the past hour, deepened. Helen Frost glanced at me and then back at Wolfe.
“Why,” she said, “I suppose…if you want…” “I do want. I presume it would be possible to have Mr, Gebert there?” She nodded. “He’s there now. Or he was when I phoned mother. Of course…you know…mother doesn’t approve…” “I’m aware of that. She thinks you’re poking a stick in a hornets nest. But the fact is the police are the hornets; you’ve avoided them, and she hasn’t. Mr.
Goodwin is a discreet and wholesome man and not without acuity. I want him to talk with Mr. Gebert, and with your mother too if she will permit it. You will soon be of age, Miss Frost; you have chosen to attempt a difficult and possibly dangerous project; surely you can prevail on your family and close friends for some consideration. If they are ignorant of any circumstance regarding Mr.
McNair’s death, all the more should they be ready to establish that point and help us to stumble on a path that will lead us away from ignorance. So if you would invite Mr, Goodwin for a cup of tea…” Llewellyn said sourly, “I think Dad’s there, too, he was going to stay till we got back. It’ll just be a big stew—if it’s Gebert you want, why can’t we send him down here? He’ll do anything Helen tells him to.” “Because for two hours I shall be engaged with my plants. Wolfe looked at the clock again, and got up from his chair. Our client was biting her lip. She quit that, and looked at me. “Will you have tea with us, Mr. Goodwin?” I nodded. “Yeah. Much obliged.” Wolfe, moving toward the door, said to her, “It is a pleasure to earn a fee from a client like you. You can come to a yes or no without first encircling the globe. I hope and believe that when we are finished you will have nothing to regret.” He moved on, and turned at the threshold. “By the way, Archie, if you will just get that package from your room before you leave. Put it on my bed.” He went on to the elevator. I arose and told my prospective hostess I would be back in a minute, left the office and hopped up the stairs. I didn’t stop at the second floor, where my room was, but kept going to the top, and got there almost as soon as the elevator did with the load it had. At the door to the plant rooms Wolfe stood, awaiting me.
“One idea,” he murmured, “is to observe the reactions of the others upon the cousins’ return from our office before there has been an opportunity for the exchange of information. Another is to get an accurate opinion as to whether any of them has ever seen the red box or has possession of it now. The third is a general assault on reticence.” “Okay. How candid are we?” “Reasonably so. Bear in mind that with all three there, the chances are many to one that you will be talking to the murderer, so the candor will be one-sided.
You, of course, will be expecting cooperation.” “Sure, I always do, because I’m wholesome.” I ran back downstairs and found that our client had on her hat and coat and gloves and her cousin was standing beside her, looking grave but a little doubtful.
I grinned at them. “Come on, children.”
CHAPTER Twelve
Strictly speaking, that wasn’t my job. I know pretty well what my field is.
Aside from my primary function as the thorn in the seat of Wolfe’s chair to keep him from going to sleep and waking up only for meals, I’m chiefly cut out for two things: to jump and grab something before the other guy can get his paws on it, and to collect pieces of the puzzle for Wolfe to work on. This expedition to 65th Street was neither of those. I don’t pretend to be strong on nuances.
Fundamentally I’m the direct type, and that’s why I can never be a really fine detective. Although I keep it down as much as I can, so it won’t interfere with my work, I always have an inclination in a case of murder to march up to all the possible suspects, one after the other, and look them in the eye and ask them, “Did you put that poison in the aspirin bottle?” and just keep that up until one of them says, “Yes.” As I say, I keep it down, but I have to fight it.
The Frost apartment on 65th Street wasn’t as gaudy as I had expected, in view of my intimate knowledge of the Frost finances. It was a bit shiny, with one side of the entrance hall solid with mirrors, even the door to the closet where I hung my hat, and, in the living room, chairs and little tables with chromium chassis, a lot of red stuff around in upholsteries and drapes, a metal grille in front of the fireplace, which apparently wasn’t used, and oil paintings in modern silver frames.
Anyway, it certainly was cheerfuller than the people that were in it. Dudley Frost was in a big chair at one side, with a table at his elbow holding a whiskey bottle, a water carafe, and a couple of glasses. Perren Gebert stood near a window at the other end, with his back to the room and his hands in his pockets. As we entered he turned, and Helen’s mother walked toward us, with a little lift to her brow as she saw me.
“Oh,” she said. To her daughter: “You’ve brought…” Helen nodded firmly. “Yes, mother.” She was holding her chin a little higher than natural, to keep the spunk going. “You—all of you have met Mr. Goodwin.
Yesterday morning at…that candy business with the police. I’ve engaged Nero Wolfe to investigate Uncle Boyd’s death, and Mr. Goodwin works for him—” Dudley Frost bawled from his chair, “Lew! Come here! Damn it, what kind of nonsense—” Llewellyn hurried over there to stem it Perren Gebert had approached us and was smiling at me: “Ah! The fellow that doesn’t like scenes. You remember I told you, Calida?” He transferred the smile to Miss Frost. “My dear Helen! You’ve engaged Mr. Wolfe?
Are you one of the Erinyes? Alecto? Megaera? Tisiphone? Where’s your snaky hair?
So one can really buy anything with money, even vengeance?” Mrs. Frost murmured at him, “Stop it, Perren.” “I’m not buying vengeance.” Helen colored a little. “I told you this morning, Perren, you’re being especially hateful. You’d better not make me cry again, or I’ll…well, don’t. Yes, I’ve engaged Mr. Wolfe, and Mr. Goodwin has come here and he wants to talk to you.” “To me?” Perren shrugged. “About Boyd? If you ask it, he may, but I warn him not to expect much. The police have been here most of the day, and I’ve realized how little I really knew about Boyd, though I’ve known him more than twenty years.” I said, “I stopped expecting long ago. Anything you tell me will be velvet. —I’m supposed to talk to you, too, Mrs. Frost. And your brother-in-law. I have to take notes, and it gives me a cramp to write standing up…” She nodded at me, and turned. “Over here, I think.” She started toward Dudley Frost’s side of the room, and I joined her. Her straight back was graceful, and she was unquestionably streamlined for her age. Llewellyn started carrying chairs, and Gebert came up with one. As we got seated and I pulled out my notebook and pencil, I noticed that Helen still had to keep her chin up, but her mother didn’t. Mrs. Frost was saying: “I hope you understand this, Mr. Goodwin. This is a terrible thing, an awful thing, and we were all very old friends of Mr. McNair’s, and we don’t enjoy talking about it. I knew him all my life, from childhood.” I said, “Yeah. You’re Scotch?” She nodded. “My name was Buchan.” “So McNair told us.” I jerked my eyes up quick from my notebook, which was my habit against the handicap of not being able to keep a steely gaze on the victim. But she wasn’t recoiling in dismay; she was just nodding again.
“Yes. I gathered from what the policemen said that Boyden had told Mr. Wolfe a good deal of his early life. Of course you have the advantage of knowing what it was he had to say to Mr. Wolfe. I knew, naturally, that Boyden was not well…his nerves…” Gebert put in, “He was what you call a wreck. He was in a very bad condition.