Then, a little after three o'clock, Inspector Cramer got us, and reported that his army was making uniform progress on all fronts: namely, none.
No red box and no information about it; no hide or hair of motive anywhere; nothing among McNair's papers that could be stretched to imply murder; no line on a buyer of potassium cyanide; no anything. Cramer sounded a little weary.
“Here's a funny item, too,” he said in a wounded tone, “we can't find the young Frosts anywhere. Your client, Lew, isn't at his home or his office in the Portland Theatre or anywhere else, and Helen, the daughter, isn't around either.
Her mother says she went out around eleven o'clock, but she doesn't know where, and I've learned that Helen was closer to McNair than anyone else, very close friends, so she's our best chance on the red box.
Then what's she doing running around town, with McNair just croaked?
There's just a chance that something's got too hot for them and they've faded.
Lew was up at the Frost apartment on 65th Street and they went out together.
We're trying to trail-”
“Mr. Cramer.
Please.
I've mumbled at you twice.
Miss Helen Frost and Mr. Llewellyn Frost are in my office; I'm conversing with them.
They had lunch-”
“Huh?
They're there now?”
“Yes.
They got here this morning shortly after you left.”
“I'll be damned.” Cramer shrilled a little. “What are you trying to do, lick off some cream for yourself?
I want to see them.
Ask them to come down-or wait, let me talk to her.
Put her on.”
“Now, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe cleared his throat. “I do not lick cream; and this man and woman came to see me unannounced and unexpected.
I am perfectly willing that you should talk with her, but there is no point-”
“What do you mean, willing?
What's that, humor?
Why the devil shouldn't you be willing?”
“I should.
But it is appropriate to mention it, since Miss Frost is my client, and is therefore under my-”
“Your client?
Since when?”
Cramer was boiling. “What kind of a shenanigan is this?
You told me Lew Frost hired you!”
“So he did.
But that-er-we have changed that.
I have-speaking as a horse-I have changed riders in the middle of the stream.
I am working for Miss Frost.
I was about to say, there is no point in a duplication of effort.
She has had a bad shock and is under a strain.
You may question her if you wish, but I have done so and am not through with her, and there is little likelihood that her interests will conflict with yours in the end.
She is as anxious to find Mr. McNair's murderer as you are; that is what she hired me for.
I may tell you this: neither she nor her cousin has any knowledge of the red box.
They have never seen it or heard of it.”
“The devil.” There was a pause on the wire. “I want to see her and have a talk with her.”
Wolfe sighed.
“In that infernal den?
She is tired, she has nothing to say that can help you, she is worth two million dollars, and she will be old enough to vote before next fall.
Why don't you call at her home after dinner this evening?
Or send one of your lieutenants?”
“Because I-Oh, the hell with it.
I ought to know better than to argue with you.