The Red Box

Chapter 4

That conference was a lulu. On several occasions I have run through pages of my notebook where I took it down, just for the entertainment. Dudley Frost was one of the very few people who have sat in that office and talked Nero Wolfe to a frazzle. Of course, he did it more by volume than by vigor, but he did it.

It was after three when they got there. Fritz ushered them in. Calida Frost, Helen’s mother, Lew’s Aunt Callie — though I suppose it would be more genteel to introduce her as Mrs. Edwin Frost, since I never got to be cronies with her — she came first, and sure enough, she was the medium-sized woman with the straight back and proud mouth. She was good-looking and well made, with deep but direct eyes of an off color, something like the reddish brown of dark beer, and you wouldn’t have thought she was old enough to be the mother of a grownup goddess. Dudley Frost, Lew’s father, weighed two hundred pounds, from size rather than fat. He had gray hair and a trimmed gray moustache. Some rude collision had pushed his nose slightly off center, but only a close observer like me would have noticed it. He had on a beautiful gray pin-stripe suit and sported a red flower in his lapel.

Llewelyn went to the office door and brought them across and introduced them. Dudley Frost rumbled at Wolfe, “How do you do.” He gave me one too. “How do you do.” I was getting chairs under them. He turned to our client: “What’s all this, now? What’s the trouble, son? Look out, Calida, your bag’s going to fall. What’s up here, Mr. Wolfe? I was hoping to get in some bridge this afternoon. What’s the difficulty? My son has explained to me — and to Mrs. Frost — my sister-in-law — we thought it best for him to come straight down here—”

Llewellyn blurted at him, “Mr. Wolfe wants ten thousand dollars.”

He cackled. “God bless me, so do I. Though I’ve seen the time — but that’s past.” He gazed at Wolfe and in a change of pace ran all his words together: “What do you want ten thousand dollars for, Mr. Wolfe?”

Wolfe looked grim, seeing already that he was up against it. He said in one of his deeper tones, “To deposit in my bank account.”

“Ha! Good. Damn good and I asked for it. Strictly speaking, that was the only proper reply to my question. I should have said, let me see, for what reason do you expect to get ten thousand dollars from anyone, and from whom do you expect it? I hope not from me, for I haven’t got it. My son has explained to us that he engaged you tenta — tentatively for a certain kind of job in a fit of foolishness. My son is a donkey, but surely you don’t expect him to give you ten thousand dollars merely because he’s a donkey? I hope not, for he hasn’t got it either. Nor has my sister-in-law — have you, Calida? What do you think, Calida? Shall I go on with this? Do you think I’m getting anywhere?”

Mrs. Edwin Frost was looking at Wolfe, and didn’t bother to turn to her brother-in-law. She said in a low pleasant tone, “I think the most important thing is to explain to Mr. Wolfe that he jumped to a wrong conclusion about what Helen said.” She smiled at Wolfe. “My daughter Helen. But first, since Lew thought it necessary for us to come down here, perhaps we should hear what Mr. Wolfe has to say.”

Wolfe aimed his half-shut eyes at her. “Very little, madam. Your nephew commissioned me to perform an inquiry, and persuaded me to take an unprecedented step which was highly distasteful to me. I no sooner began it than he informed me it was a flop and asked me how much he owed me. I told him, and on account of the unusual circumstances demanded immediate cash payment. In a panic, he telephone his father.”

Her brow was wrinkled. “You asked for ten thousand dollars?”

Wolfe inclined his head, and raised it.

“But, Mr. Wolfe.” She hesitated. “Of course I am not familiar with your business” — she smiled at him — “or is it a profession? But surely that is a remarkable sum. Is that your usual rate?”

“Now see here.” Dudley Frost had been squirming in his chair. “After all, this thing is simple. There are just certain points. In the first place, the thing was purely tentative. It must have been tentative, because how could Mr. Wolfe tell what he might or might not be able to find out until he had gone up there and looked things over? In the second place, figure Mr. Wolfe’s time at twenty dollars an hour, and Lew owes him forty dollars. I’ve paid good lawyers less than that. In the third place, there’s no sense in talking about ten thousand dollars, because we haven’t got it.” He leaned forward and put a paw on the desk. “That’s being frank with you, Mr. Wolfe. My sister-in-law hasn’t got a cent, no one knows that better than I do. Her daughter — my niece — has got all that’s left of my father’s fortune. We’re a pauper family, except for Helen. My son here seems to think he has got something started, but he has thought that before. I doubt if you could collect, but of course the only way to settle that is a lawsuit. Then it would drag along, and eventually you’d compromise on it—”

Our client had called at him several times — “Dad!... Dad!” in an effort to stop him, but with no success. Now Llewellyn reached across and gripped his father’s knee. “Listen to me a minute, will you? If you’d give me a chance — Mr. Wolfe isn’t letting it drag along! Inspector Cramer is coming here at six o’clock to compare notes with him. About this.”

“Well? You don’t need to crush my leg to a pulp. Who the deuce is Inspector Cramer?”

“You know very well who he is. Head of the Homicide Bureau.”

“Oh, that chap. How do you know he’s coming here? Who said he was?”

“He telephoned. Just before I phoned you. That’s why I asked you and Aunt Callie to come down here.”

I saw the glint in Dudley Frost’s eye, as swift as it was, and wondered if Wolfe caught it too. It disappeared as fast as it came. He asked his son, “Who talked to Inspector Cramer? You?”

I put in, brusque, “No. Me.”

“Ah.” Dudley Frost smiled at me broadly, with understanding; he transferred it to Wolfe, and then back to me again. “You seem to have gone to a good deal of trouble around here. Of course I can see that that was the best way to get your threat in, to arrange for a call with my son in your office. But the point is—”

Wolfe snapped, “Put him out, Archie.”

I laid the pencil and notebook on the desk and got up. Llewellyn arose and stood like a pigeon. I noticed that all his aunt did was lift one brow a little.

Dudley Frost laughed. “Now, Mr. Wolfe. Sit down boys.” He goggled at Wolfe. “God bless me, I don’t blame you for trying to make an impression. Quite a natural—”

“Mr. Frost.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Your suggestion that I need to fake a phone call to impress your son is highly offensive. Retract it, or go.”

Frost laughed again. “Well, let’s say you did it to impress me.”

“That, sir, is worse.”

“Then my sister-in-law. Are you impressed, Calida? I must admit I am. This is what it looks like. Mr. Wolfe wants ten thousand dollars. If he doesn’t get it he intends to see Inspector Cramer — where and when doesn’t matter — and tell him that Helen has said she saw that box of candy before Molly Lauck did. Of course Helen didn’t tell him that, but that won’t keep the police from tormenting her, and possibly the rest of us, and it might even get into the papers. In my position as the trustee of Helen’s property, my responsibility is as great as yours, Calida, though she is your daughter.” He turned to goggle at his son. “It’s your fault, Lew. Absolutely. You offered this man Wolfe his opportunity. Haven’t you time and time again—”

Wolfe leaned far forward in his chair and reached until the tip of his finger hovered delicately within an inch of the brown tweed of Mrs. Frost’s coat. He appealed to her: “Please. Stop him.”

She shrugged her shoulders. Her brother-in-law was going right on. Then abruptly she rose from her chair, stepped around behind the others, and approached me. She came close enough to ask quietly, “Have you any good Irish whiskey?”

“Sure,” I said. “Is that it?”

She nodded. “Straight. Double. With plain water.”

I went to the cabinet and found the bottle of Old Corcoran. I made it plenty double, got a glass of water, put them on a tray stand, and took it over and deposited it beside the orator’s chair. He looked at it and then at me.

“What the deuce is it? What? Where’s the bottle?” He lifted it to his off-center nose and sniffed. “Oh! Well.” His eyes circled the group. “Won’t anyone join me? Calida? Lew?” He sniffed the Irish again. “No? To the Frosts, dead and alive, God bless ’em!” He neither sipped it nor tossed it off, but drank it like milk. He lifted the glass of water and took a dainty sip, about half a teaspoonful, put it down again, leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully caressed his moustache with the tip of his finger. Wolfe was watching him like a hawk.

Mrs. Frost asked quietly, “What is that about Inspector Cramer?”

Wolfe shifted to her. “Nothing, madam, beyond what your nephew has told you.”

“He is coming here to consult with you?”

“So he said.”

“Regarding the... the death of Miss Lauck?”

“So he said.”

“Isn’t that...” She hesitated. “Is it usual for you to confer with the police about the affairs of your clients?”

“It is usual for me to confer with anyone who might have useful information.” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “Let’s see if we can’t cut across, Mrs. Frost. It is ten minutes to four. I permit nothing to interfere with my custom of spending the hours from four to six with my plants upstairs.” As your brother-in-law said with amazing coherence, this thing is simple. I do not deliver an ultimatum to Mr. Llewellyn Frost, I merely offer him an alternative. Either he can pay me at once the amount I would have charged him for completing his commission — he knew before he came here that I ask high fees for my services — and dismiss me, or he can expect me to pursue the investigation to a conclusion and send him a bill. Of course it will be much more difficult for me if his own family tries to obstruct—”

Mrs. Frost shook her head. “We have no wish to obstruct,” she said gently. “But it is apparent that you have misconstrued a remark my daughter Helen made while you were questioning her, and we... naturally, we are concerned about that. And then... if you are about to confer with the police, surely it would be desirable for you to understand.”

“I understand, Mrs. Frost.” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “You would like to be assured that I shall not inform Inspector Cramer of my misconstruction of your daughter’s remark. I’m sorry, I can’t commit myself on that, unless I am either dismissed from the case now with payment in full, or am assured by Mr. Llewellyn Frost — and, under the circumstances, by you and your brother-in-law also — that I am to continue the investigation for which I was engaged. I may add, you people are quite unreasonably alarmed, which is to be expected with persons of your station in society. It is highly unlikely that your daughter has any guilty connection with the murder of Miss Lauck; and if by chance she possesses an important bit of information which discretion has caused her to conceal, the sooner she discloses it the better, before the police do somehow get wind of it.”

Mrs. Frost was frowning. “My daughter has no information whatever.”

“Without offense — I would need to ask her about that myself.”

“And you... wish to be permitted to continue. If you are not, you intend to tell Inspector Cramer—”

“I have not said what I intend.”

“But you wish to continue.”

Wolfe nodded. “Either that, or my fee now.”

“Listen, Calida. I’ve been sitting here thinking.” It was Dudley Frost. He sat up straight. I saw Wolfe get his hands on the arms of his chair. Frost was going on: “Why don’t we get Helen down here? This man Wolfe is throwing a bluff. If we’re not careful we’ll find ourselves coughing up ten thousand dollars of Helen’s money, and since I’m responsible for it, it’s up to me to prevent it. Lew says he’ll have it next week, but I’ve heard that before. A trustee is under the most sacred obligation to preserve the property under his care, and it couldn’t be paid out of surplus income because you don’t have any surplus. The only way is to call this fellow’s bluff—”

I was about ready to go to the cabinet for some more Irish, since apparently the previous serving had all been assimilated, when I saw it wouldn’t be necessary. Wolfe shoved back his chair and got up, moved around and stopped in front of Llewellyn, and spoke loud enough to penetrate the Dudley Frost noise:

“I must go. Thank God. You can tell Mr. Goodwin your decision.” He started his progress to the door, and didn’t halt when Dudley Frost called at him:

“Now here! You can’t run away like that! All right, all right, sir! All right!” His target gone, he turned to his sister-in-law: “Didn’t I say, Calida, we’d call his bluff? See that? All it needs in a case like this—”

Mrs. Frost hadn’t bothered to turn in her chair to witness Wolfe’s departure. Llewellyn had reached across for another grip on his father’s knee and was expostulating: “Now, Dad, cut it out — now listen a minute—”

I stood up and said, “If you folks want to talk this over, I’ll leave you alone a while.”

Mrs. Frost shook her head. “Thank you, I don’t believe it will be necessary.” She turned to her nephew and sounded crisp: “Lew, you started this. It looks as if you’ll have to continue it.”

Llewellyn answered her, and his father joined in, but I paid no attention as I got at my desk and stuck a sheet of paper in the typewriter. I dated it at the top and tapped it off.

I whirled it out of the machine, laid it on a corner of Wolfe’s desk, and handed Llewellyn my pen. He bent over the paper to read it. His father jumped up and pulled at him.

“Don’t sign that! What is it? Let me see it! Don’t sign anything at all—”

Llewellyn surrendered it to him, and he read it through twice, with a frown. Mrs. Frost stretched out a hand for it, and ran over it at a glance. She looked at me.

“I don’t believe my nephew will have to sign anything...”

“I believe he will.” I was about as fed up as Wolfe had been. “One thing you people don’t seem to realize, if Mr. Wolfe should feel himself relieved of his obligation to his client and tells Inspector Cramer his angle on that break of Miss Frost’s, there won’t be any argument about it. When Cramer has been working on a popular murder case for a week without getting anywhere, he gets so tough he swallows cigars whole. Of course he won’t use a piece of hose on Miss Frost, but he’ll have her brought to headquarters and snarl at her all night. You wouldn’t want—”

“All right.” Dudley Frost had his frown on me. “My son is willing for Wolfe to continue. I’ve thought all along that’s the best way to handle it. But he won’t sign this. He won’t sign anything—”

“Yes, he will.” I took the paper from Calida Frost and put it on the desk again. “What do you think?” I threw up my hands. “Holy heaven! You’re three and I’m one. That’s no good in case of bad memories. What is there to it, anyhow? It says ‘until further notice.’ Mr. Wolfe said you could tell me your decision. Well, I’ve got to have a record of it or so help me, I’ll have a talk with Inspector Cramer myself.”

Lew Frost looked at his aunt and his father, and then at me. “It certainly is one sweet mess.” He grimaced in disgust. “If I had ten thousand dollars this minute, I swear to God...”

I said, “Look out, that pen drips sometimes. Go ahead and sign it.”

While the other two frowned at him, he bent over the paper and scrawled his name.