I’m not fool enough not to know what I’m doing. I’m tired and I’m worn out and I’m all in, but I know what I’m doing. You think you’ve forced me to admit something by getting Helen here and bullying her, but I would just as soon have admitted that to you anyhow. Then here’s another thing. I’ve just practically told you that part of my story about that box isn’t true, but that I’m going to stick to it. I didn’t need to do that, I could have told you the story and made you think I expected you to believe it. I did it because I didn’t want you to think I’m a bigger fool than I am. I wanted you to have as good an opinion of me as possible under the circumstances, because I want to ask you to do me a very important favor. I came here to see Helen, that’s true, and to see how…how she was, but I also came to ask this favor of you. I want you to accept a legacy in my will.” Wolfe didn’t surprise easily, but that got him. He stared. It got me too; it sounded offhand, as if McNair was actually going to try to bribe Nero Wolfe to turn off the heat, and that was such a novel idea that I began to admire him. I focused my lamps on him with renewed interest.
McNair went on, “What I want to leave you is a responsibility. A…a small article, and a responsibility. It’s astonishing that I have to ask this of you.
I’ve lived in New York for twelve years, and I realized the other day, when I had occasion to consider it, that I have not one friend I can trust. Oh, trust ordinarily, sure, several of them, but not trust with something vital, something more important than my life. But today at my lawyer’s I had to name such a person, and I named you. That’s astonishing, because I’ve only met you once, for a few minutes yesterday morning. But you seemed to me to be the kind of man that…that will be needed if I die. Last night and this morning I made some inquiries, and I think you are. It has to be a man with nerve, and one that can’t be made a fool of, and he has to be honest clear through. I don’t know anyone as good as that, and it had to be done today, so I decided to take a chance and name you.” McNair slid forward in his chair and put both hands on the edge of Wolfe’s desk, gripping it, and I saw the muscles in his neck moving again. “I made provision for you to get paid for it, and it will be a fair-sized estate, my business is in good shape, and I’ve been careful with investments. For you it will just be another job, but for me, if I’m dead, it will be of the most vital importance.
If I could only be sure…sure…Mr. Wolfe, that would let my spirit rest. I went to my lawyer’s office this afternoon and made my will over, and I named you. I left you…this job. I should have come to you first, but I didn’t want to take any chance of not having it down in black and white and signed. Of course I can’t leave it that, way without your consent. You’ve got to give it, then I’ll be all right.” His shoulder began to jerk, and he gripped the edge of the desk tighter. “Then let it come.” 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.