“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.
Yesterday…did she tell you?”
Wolfe shook his head.
“No, sir.
I did detect it.
Among other things.
It wouldn't surprise me to know that when you called here three days ago you were fairly well convinced that either Mr McNair or Mr. Gebert had killed Molly J-.auck.
Certainly you were in no condition to discriminate between nonsense and likelihood.”
“I know I wasn't.
But I wasn't convinced of…anything.” Llewellyn chewed at his lip. “Now, of course, I'm up a tree.
This McNair business is terrible.
The newspapers have started it up all over again.
The police have been after us this morning-us Frosts-as if we…as if we knew something about it.
And of course Helen is all cut up.
She wanted to go to see McNair's body this morning, and had to be told that she couldn't because they were doing a post mortem, and that was pleasant.
Then she wanted to come to see you, and finally I drove her down here.
I came in first because I didn't know who might be in here.
She's out front in my car.
May I bring her in?”
Wolfe grimaced.
“There's nothing I can do for her, at this moment.
I suspect she's in no condition-”
“She wants to see you.”
Wolfe lifted his shoulders an inch, and dropped them.
“Get her.”
Lew Frost arose and strode out.
I went along to manipulate the door.
Parked at the curb was a gray coupe, and from it emerged Helen Frost.
Llewellyn escorted her up the stoop and into the hall, and I must say she didn't bear much resemblance to a goddess.
Her eyes were puffed up and her nose was blotchy and she looked sick.
Her ortho-cousin led her on to the office, and I followed them in.
She gave Wolfe a nod and seated herself in the dunce's chair, then looked at Llewellyn, at me, and at Wolfe, as if she wasn't sure she knew us.
She looked at the floor, and up again.
“It was right here,” she said in a dead tone. “Wasn't it? Right here.”
Wolfe nodded.
“Yes, Miss Frost. But if that is what you came here for, to shudder at the spot where your best friend died, that won't help us any.” He straightened up a little.
“This is a detective bureau, not a nursery for morbidity.
Yes, he died here.
He swallowed the poison sitting in that chair; he staggered to his feet and tried to keep himself upright by putting his fists on my desk; he collapsed to the floor in a convulsion and died; if he were still there you could reach down and touch him without moving from your chair.”
Helen was staring at him and not breathing; Llewellyn protested:
“For God's sake, Wolfe, do you think-”
Wolfe showed him a palm.
“I think I had to sit here and watch Mr. McNair being murdered in my office. – Archie. Your notebook, please.
Yesterday I told Miss Frost it was time something was said to her.