I remind you that a woman and two men have been murdered!
Stay in your chair!”
Dudley Frost actually subsided.
It may have been partly on account of my automatic which I had got from the drawer and now held in my hand resting on my knee.
The sight of a loaded gun out in the open always has an effect on a guy, no matter who he is.
I observed that Cramer had shoved his chair back a few inches and was looking even warier than before, with a scowl on his brow.
Wolfe said,
“This, of course, is melodrama.
All murder is melodrama, because the real tragedy is not death but the condition which induces it.
However.” He leaned back in his chair and aimed his half-closed eyes at our client. “I wish to address myself, Miss Frost, primarily to you.
Partly through professional vanity. I wish to demonstrate to you that engaging the services of a good detective means much more than hiring someone to pry up floorboards and dig up flower beds trying to find a red box.
I wish to show you that before I ever saw this box or its contents, I knew the central facts of this case; I knew who had killed Mr. McNair, and why.
I am going to shock you, but I can't help that.”
He sighed.
“I shall be brief. First of all, I shall no longer call you Miss Frost, but Miss McNair.
Your name is Glenna McNair, and you were born on April 2nd, 1915.”
I got a glimpse of the others from the corner of my eye, enough to see Helen sitting rigid and Lew starting from his chair and Dudley staring with his mouth open, but my chief interest was Mrs. Frost.
She looked paler than she had when she came in, but she didn't bat an eye.
Of course the display of the red box had prepared her for it.
She spoke, cutting through a couple of male ejaculations, cool and curt:
“Mr. Wolfe. I think my brother-in-law is right.
This sort of nonsense makes it a case for lawyers.”
Wolfe matched her tone:
“I think not, Mrs. Frost.
If so, there will be plenty of time for them. For the present, you will stay in that chair until the nonsense is finished.”
Helen Frost said in a dry even tone,
“But then Uncle Boyd was my father. He was my father. All the time. How? Tell me how?”
Lew was out of his chair, with a hand on her shoulder, staring at his Aunt Gallic.
Dudley was making sounds.
Wolfe said,
“Please. Sit down, Mr. Frost. Yes, Miss Mc- Nair, he was your father all the time. Mrs. Frost thinks that I did not learn that until this red box was found, but she is wrong.
I was first definitely convinced of it on Thursday morning, when you told me that in the event of your death before reaching twenty-one all of Edwin Frost's fortune would go to his brother and nephew.
When I considered that, in combination with other points that had presented themselves, the picture was complete.
Of course, the first thing that brought this possibility to my mind was the fact of Mr. McNair's unaccountable desire to have you wear diamonds.
What special virtue did a diamond have on you-since he seemed not otherwise fond of them?
Could it be this, that the diamond is the birthstone for April?
I noted that possibility.”
Llewellyn muttered,
“Good God. I said-I told McNair once-”
“Please, Mr. Frost.
Another little point: Mr. McNair told me Wednesday evening that his wife died, but not that his daughter did. He said he 'lost' his daughter. That of course is a common euphemism for death, but why had he not employed it for his wife also? A man may either be direct or euphemistic, but not often both in the same sentence. He said his parents died. Twice he said his wife died. But not his daughter; he said he lost her.”
Glenna McNair's lips were moving.
She muttered,
“But how?
How?
How did he lose me…”
“Yes, Miss McNair. Patience.
There were various other little points, things you told me about your father and yourself; I don't need to repeat them to you. Your dream about the orange, for instance.
A subconscious memory dream?
It must have been. I have told you enough, I hope, to show you that I did not need the red box to tell me who you are and who killed Mr. McNair and Mr. Gebert and why. Anyway, I shan't further coddle my vanity at your expense.