The Red Box

Chapter 15

At that hour, 8:50 p.m., parking spaces were few and far between on 73rd Street. I finally found one about half a block east of the address of the Belford Memorial Chapel, and backed into it. I thought there was something familiar about the license number of the car just ahead, and sure enough, after I got out and took a look, I saw that it was Perren Gebert’s convertible. It was spic and span, having had a cleaning since its venture into the wilds of Putnam County. I handed it to Gebert for a strong rebound, since he had evidently recovered enough in three hours to put in an appearance at a social function.

I walked to the portal of the chapel and entered, and was in a square anteroom of paneled marble. A middle-aged man in black clothes approached and bowed to me. He appeared to be under the influence of a chronic but aristocratic melancholy. He indicated a door at his right by extending his forearm in that direction with his elbow fastened to his hip, and murmured at me:

“Good evening, sir. The chapel is that way. Or...”

“Or what?”

He coughed delicately. “Since the deceased had no family, a few of his intimate friends are gathering in the private parlor...”

“Oh. I represent the executor of the estate. I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I should think, sir, in that case, perhaps the parlor...”

“Okay. Where?”

“This way.” He turned to his left, opened a door, and bowed me through.

I stepped into thick soft carpet. The room was elegant, with subdued lights, upholstered divans and chairs, and a smell similar to a high-class barber shop. On a chair over in a corner was Helen Frost, looking pale and concentrated and beautiful in a dark gray dress and a little black hat. Standing protectively in front of her was Llewellyn. Perren Gebert was seated on a divan at the right. Two women, one of whom I recognized as having been at the candy-sampling session, were on chairs across the room. I nodded at the ortho-cousins and they nodded back, and aimed one at Gebert and got his, and picked a chair at the left. There was a murmur coming from where Llewellyn bent over Helen. Gebert’s clothes looked neater than his face, with its swollen eyes and its general air of having been exposed to a bad spell of weather.

I sat and considered Wolfe’s phrase: dreary and hushed obeisance to the grisly terror. The door opened and Dudley Frost came in. I was closest to the door. He looked around, passing me by without any pretense of recognition, saw the two women and called to them “How do you do?” so loud that they jumped, sent a curt nod in Gebert’s direction and crossed toward the corner where the cousins were:

“Ahead of time, by Gad I am! Almost never happens! Helen, my dear, where the deuce is your mother? I phoned three times — good God! I forgot the flowers after all! When I thought of it, it was too late to send them, so I decided to bring them with me—”

“All right, Dad. It’s all right. There’s plenty of flowers...”

Maybe still dreary, but no longer hushed. I wondered how they managed with him during the minute of memorial silence on Armistice Day. I had thought of three possible methods when the door opened again and Mrs. Frost entered. Her brother-in-law came to meet her with ejaculations. She looked pale too, but certainly not as much as Helen, and apparently had on a black evening gown under a black wrap, with a black satin piepan for a hat. There was no sag to her as she more or less disregarded Dudley, nodded at Gebert, greeted the two women, and went across to her daughter and nephew.

I sat and took it in.

Suddenly a newcomer appeared, so silently through some other door that I didn’t hear him do it. It was another aristocrat, fatter than the one in the anteroom but just as melancholy. He advanced a few steps and bowed:

“If you will come in now, please.”

We all moved. I stood back and let the others go ahead. Lew seemed to be thinking that Helen should have his arm, and she seemed to think not. I followed along behind with the throttle wide open on the decorum.

The chapel was dimly lighted too. Our escort whispered something to Mrs. Frost, and she shook her head and led the way to seats. There were forty or fifty people there on chairs. A glance showed me several faces I had seen before; among others, Collinger the lawyer, and a couple of dicks in the back row. I stepped around to the rear because I saw the door to the anteroom was there. The coffin, dead black with chromium handles, with flowers all around it and on top, was on a platform up front. In a couple of minutes a door at the far end opened and a guy came out and stood by the coffin and peered around at us. He was in the uniform of his profession and he had a wide mouth and a look of comfortable assurance by no means flippant. After a decent amount of peering he began to talk.

For a professional I suppose he was okay. I had had enough long before he was through, because with me a little unction goes a long way. If I had to be slid up to heaven on soft soap, I’d just as soon you’d forget it and let me find my natural level. But I’m speaking only for myself; if you like it I hope you get it.

My seat at the rear permitted me to beat it as soon as I heard the amen. I was the first one out. For having admitted me to the private parlor I offered the aristocrat in the anteroom two bits, which I suppose he took out of noblesse oblige, and sought the sidewalk. Some cur had edged in and parked within three inches of the roadster’s rear bumper, and I had to do a lot of squirming to get out without scraping the fender of Gebert’s convertible. Then I zoomed to Central Park West and headed downtown.

It was nearly ten-thirty when I got home. A glance in at the office door showed me that Wolfe was in his chair with his eyes closed and an awful grimace on his face, listening to the “Pearls of Wisdom Hour” on the radio. In the kitchen Fritz sat at the little table I ate breakfast on, playing solitaire, with his slippers off and his toes hooked over the rungs of another chair. As I poured a glass of milk from a bottle I got from the refrigerator, he asked me:

“How was it? Nice funeral?”

I reproached him. “You ought to be ashamed. I guess all Frenchmen are sardonic.”

“I am not a French! I’m a Swiss.”

“So you say. You read a French newspaper.”

I took a first sip from the glass, carried it into the office, got into my chair, and looked at Wolfe. His grimace appeared even more distorted than when I had glanced in on my way by. I let him go on suffering a while, then took pity on him and went to the radio and turned it off and came back to my chair. I sipped at my milk and watched him. By degrees his face relaxed, and finally I saw his eyelids flicker, and then they came open a little. He heaved a sigh that went clear to the bottom.

I said, “All right, you richly deserve it. What does it mean? Not more than twelve steps altogether. As soon as that hooey started, you could get out of your chair and walk fifteen feet to it and back again makes thirty, and you’d be out of your misery. Or if you honestly believe that would be overdoing, you could get one of those remote control things—”

“I wouldn’t, Archie.” He was in his patient mood. “I really wouldn’t. You are perfectly aware that I have enough enterprise to turn off the radio; you have seen me do it; the exercise is good for me. I purposely dial the station which will later develop into the “Pearls of Wisdom,” and I deliberately bear it. It’s discipline. It fortifies me to put up with ordinary inanities for days. I gladly confess that after listening to the “Pearls of Wisdom” your conversation is an intellectual and esthetic delight. It’s the tops.” He grimaced. “That’s what a Pearl of Wisdom just said that cultured interests are. He said they are the tops.” He grimaced again. “Great heavens, I’m thirsty.” He jerked himself up and leaned forward to press the button for beer.

But it was a little while before he got it. An instant after he pressed the button the doorbell rang, which meant that Fritz would have to attend to that chore first. Since it was nearly eleven o’clock and no one was expected, my heart began to beat, as it always does when we’re on a case with any kick to it and any little surprise turns up. As a matter of fact, I got proof that I had fallen for Wolfe’s showmanship again, for I had a sudden conviction that Saul Panzer was going to walk in with the red box under his arm.

Then I heard a voice in the hall that didn’t belong to Saul. The door opened and swung around and Fritz stepped back to admit the visitor, and Helen Frost walked in. At the look on her face I hopped up and went over and put a hand on her arm, thinking she was about ready to flop.

She shook her head and I dropped the hand. She walked toward Wolfe’s desk and stopped. Wolfe said:

“How do you do, Miss Frost? Sit down.” Sharply: “Archie, put her in a chair.”

I got her arm again and eased her over and got a chair behind her, and she sank into it. She looked at me and said, “Thank you.” She looked at Wolfe: “Something awful has happened. I didn’t want to go home and I... I came here. I’m afraid. I have been all along, really, but... I’m afraid now. Perren is dead. Just now, up on 73rd Street. He died on the sidewalk.”

“Indeed. Mr. Gebert.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Breathe, Miss Frost. In any event, you need to breathe. — Archie, get a little brandy.”