Cramer, with such an outfit as that, you should catch at least ten culprits for every crime committed.” “Yeah. We do.” Cramer looked around. “Oh, I guess I left my hat in the hall.
I’ll let you know when we find the box, since it’s your property. I may look into it first, just to make sure there’s no bombs in it. I’d hate like the devil to see Goodwin here get hurt. You going to do any exploring?” Wolfe shook his head. “With your army of terriers scratching at every hole?
There would be no room. I’m sorry, sir, for your disappointment here; if I knew where the red box was you would be the first to hear of it. I trust that we are still brothers-in-arms? That is to say, in this present affair?” “Absolutely. Pals.” “Good. Then I’ll make one little suggestion. See that the Frosts, all of them, are acquainted with the terms of Mr. McNair’s will immediately. You needn’t bother about Mr. Gebert; I surmise that if the Frosts know it he soon will. You are in a better position than I am to do this without trumpets.” “Right. Anything else?” “That’s all. Except that if you do find the box I wouldn’t advise you to tack its contents to your bulletin board. I imagine they will need to be handled with restraint and delicacy. The person who put those coated poison tablets in die bottle of aspirin is fairly ingenious.” “Uh-huh. Anything else?” “Just better luck elsewhere than you have had here.” “Thanks. I’ll need that all right.” He departed.
Wolfe rang for beer. I went to the kitchen for a glass of milk and came back to the office with it and stood by the window and started sipping. A glance at Wolfe had showed me that things were at a standstill, because he was sitting up with his eyes open, turning the pages of a Richardt folder which had come in the morning mail. I shrugged negligently. After I had finished the milk I sat at my desk and sealed the envelopes containing checks, and stamped them, went to the hall for my hat and moseyed out and down to the corner to drop them in a mailbox. When I got back again Wolfe was still having recess; he had taken a laeliocattleya luminosa aurea from the vase on his desk and was lifting the anthers to look at the pollinia with his glass. But at least he hadn’t started on the atlas. I sat down and observed: “It’s a nice balmy spring day outdoors. April second. McNair’s mourning day. You said yesterday it was ghoulish. Now he’s a ghoul himself.” Wolfe muttered indifferently, “He is not a ghoul.” “Then he’s inert matter.” “He is not inert matter. Unless he has been embalmed with uncommon thoroughness.
The activity of decomposition is tremendous.” “All right, then he’s a banquet. Anything you say. Might I inquire, have you turned the case over to Inspector Cramer? Should I go down and ask him for instructions?” No response. I waited a decent interval, then went on, ‘Take this red leather box, for instance. Say Cramer finds it and opens it and learns all the things it would be fun to know, and hitches up his horse and buggy and goes and gets the murderer, with evidence. There would go the first half of your fee from Llewellyn. The second half is already gone, since McNair is dead and of course that heiress won’t work there any more. It begins to look as if you not only had the discomfort of seeing McNair die right in front of you, you’re not even going to be able to send anyone a bill for it. You’ve taught me to be tough in money matters. Do you realize that Doc Vollmer will charge five bucks for the call he made here yesterday? You could have him send the bill to McNair’s estate, but you’d have the trouble and expense of handling it anyhow, since you’re the executor without remuneration. And by the way, what about that executor stuff?
Aren’t you supposed to bustle around and do something?” No response.
I said, “And besides, Cramer hasn’t really got any right to the red box at all.
Legally it’s yours. But if he gets hold of it he’ll plunder it, don’t think he won’t. Then of course you could have your lawyer write him a letter—” “Shut up, Archie.” Wolfe put down the glass. “You are talking twaddle. Or perhaps you aren’t; do you mean business? Would you go out with your pistol and shoot all the men in Mr. Cramer’s army? I see no other way to stop their search.
And then find the red box yourself?” I grinned at him condescendingly. “I wouldn’t do that, because I wouldn’t have to. If I was the kind of man you are, I would just sit calmly in my chair with my eyes shut, and use psychology on it. Like you did with Paul Chapin, remember?
First I would decide what the psychology of McNair was like, covering every point. Then I would say to myself, if my psychology was like that, and if I had a very important article like a red box to hide, where would I hide it? Then I would say to someone else, Archie, please go at once to such and such a place and get the red box and bring it here. That way you would get hold of it before any of Cramer’s men—” “That will do.” Wolfe was positive but unperturbed. “I’ll tolerate the goad, Archie, only when it is needed. In the present case I don’t need that, I need facts; but I refuse to waste your energies and mine in assembling a collection of them which may be completely useless once the red box is found. As for finding it, we’re obviously out of that, with Cramer’s terriers at every hole.” He got a little acid. “I choose to remind you of what my program contemplated yesterday: supervising the cooking of a goose. Not watching a man die of poison.
And yours for this morning: driving to Mr. Salzenbach’s place at Garfield for a freshly butchered kid. Not pestering me with inanities. And for this afternoon—yes, Fritz?” Fritz approached. “Mr. Llewellyn Frost to see you.” “The devil.” Wolfe sighed. “Nothing can be done now. Archie, if you-no. After all, he’s our client. Show him in.”
CHAPTER Ten
Apparently Llewellyn hadn’t come this time, as he had the day before, to pull fat men out of chairs. Nor did he have his lawyer along. He looked a little squashed, and amenable, and his necktie was crooked. He told both of us good morning as if he was counting on our agreeing with him and was in need of that support, and even thanked Wolfe for inviting him to sit down. Then he sat and glanced from one to the other of us as if It was an open question whether he could remember what it was he had come for.
Wolfe said, “You’ve had a shock, Mr. Frost. So have I: Mr. McNair sat in the chair you’re in now when he swallowed the poison.” Lew Frost nodded. “I know. He died right here.” “He did indeed. They say that three grains have been known to kill a man in thirty seconds. Mr. McNair took five, or ten. He had convulsions almost immediately, and died within a minute. I offer you condolence. Though you and he were not on the best of terms, still you had known hirn long. Hadn’t you?” Llewellyn nodded again. “I had known him about twelve years. We…we weren’t exactly on bad terms…” He halted, and considered. “Well, I suppose we were.
Not personal, though. I mean, I don’t think we disliked each other. The fact is, it was nothing but a misunderstanding. I’ve learned only this morning that I was wrong in the chief thing I had against him. I thought he wanted my cousin to marry that fellow Gebert, and now I’ve learned that he didn’t at all. He was dead against it.” Llewellyn considered again. “That…that made me think…I mean, I was all wrong about this. You see, when I came to see you Monday…and last week too…I thought I knew some things. I didn’t say anything about it to you, or Mr. Goodwin here when I was telling him, because I knew I was prejudiced. I didn’t want to accuse anyone. I Just wanted you to find out. And I want to say…I want to apologize. My cousin has told me she did see that box of candy, and how and where. It would have been better if she had told you all about it, I can see that. She can too. But the hell of it was I had my mind on another…another…I mean to say, I thought I knew something…” “I understand, sir.” Wolfe sounded impatient. “You knew that Molly Lauck was enamored of Mr. Perren Gebert. You knew that Mr. Gebert wanted to marry your cousin Helen, and you thought that Mr. McNair favored that idea. You were more than ready to suspect that the genesis of the poisoned candy was that eroto-matrimonial tangle, since you were vitally concerned in it because you wished to marry your cousin yourself.” Llewellyn stared at him. “Where did you get that idea?” His face began to get red, and he sputtered, “Me marry her? You’re crazy! What kind of a damn fool—” “Please don’t do that.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “You should know that detectives do sometimes detect—at least some of them do. I don’t say that you intended to marry your cousin, merely that you wanted to. I knew that early, in our conversation last Monday afternoon, when you told me that she is your ortho-cousin. There was no reason why so abstruse and unusual a term should have been in the forefront of your mind, as it obviously was, unless you had been so preoccupied with the idea of marrying your cousin, and so concerned as to the custom and propriety of marriage between first cousins, that you had gone into it exhaustively. It was evident that canon law and the Levitical degrees had not been enough for you; you had even ventured into anthropology. Or possibly that had not been enough for someone else—herself, her mother, your father…” Lew Frost blurted, his face still red, “You didn’t detect that She told you.