I told Wolfe consolingly, “It's all right, boss. That's just humor. The light touch.”
“I hear it.” Wolfe was grim. “I have merited even Mr. Cramer's humor. You may exhaust your supply, sir.” It had eaten into him even worse than I thought.
“Oh, I've got more.” Cramer chuckled. “You know Lanzetta of the D.A.'s office?
Hates your epidermis ever since that Fairmount business three years ago? He phoned the Commissioner this morning to warn him there was a chance you were putting over a fast one. The Commissioner told me about it, and I told him you're rapid all right, but not faster than light.” Cramer chuckled again, removed his cigar, and slipped his briefcase from the desk onto his knees and unclasped it. He grunted. “Well. Here's this murder. I've got to get back before lunch. You had any inspiration?”
“No.” Wolfe remained grim. “I've almost had indigestion.” He wiggled a finger at the briefcase. “Have you papers of Mr. McNair's?”
Cramer shook his head. “This is just a lot of junk. There may be one or two items worth something. I've followed up your line, that it's sure to be hooked up with the Frosts, on account of the way McNair started his story to you. The
Frosts and this fellow Gebert are being investigated from every angle, up, down and across. But there's two other bare possibilities I don't like to lose sight of. First, suicide. Second, this woman, this Countess von Rantz-Deichen, that's been after McNair lately. There's a chance-”
“Tommyrot!” Wolfe was explosive. “Excuse me, Mr. Cramer. I am in no mood for fantasy. Get on.”
“Okay.” Cramer grunted. “Sore, huh? Okay. Fantasy. Notwithstanding, I'll leave two men on the Countess.” He was shuffling through papers from the briefcase.
“First for the bottle of aspirin. There were fourteen tablets in it. Twelve of them were perfectly all right. The other two consisted of potassium cyanide tablets, approximately five grains each, with a thin coating of aspirin on the outside, apparently put on as a dry dust and carefully tapped down all over. The chemist says the coating was put on skillfully and thoroughly, so there would have been no cyanide taste for the few seconds before the tablet was swallowed.
There was no cyanide smell, the bitter almond smell, in the bottle, but of course it was bone dry.”
Wolfe muttered, “And yet you talk of suicide.”
“I said bare possibility. Okay, forget it. The preliminary on the autopsy says cyanide of potassium, but they can't tell whether the tablets he took were loaded or not, because that stuff evaporates fast as soon as it's moist. I don't suppose he's worrying much about whether it was one or two tablets, so I'm not either. Next, who put the phonies in with the aspirins? Or anyway, who had a chance to? I've had three good men on that, and they're still on it. The answer so far is, most anyone. For the past week and more McNair has been taking aspirin the way a chicken takes corn. There has been a bottle either on his desk or in a drawer all the time. There's none there now, so when he went out yesterday he must have stuck it in his pocket. Thirty-six are gone from that fifty, and if you figure he took twelve a day that would mean that bottle has been in use three days, and in that time dozens of people have been in and out of his office where the bottle was kept. Of course all the Frosts have, and this
Gebert. By the way-” Cramer thumbed to find a paper and stopped at one-”what's a carnal…camallot doo something in French?”
Wolfe nodded. “Camelot du roi. A member of a Parisian royalist political gang.”
“Oh. Gebert used to be one. I cabled Paris last night and had one back this morning. Gebert was one of those. He has been around New York now over three years, and we're after him. The preliminary reports I've had are vague. N.V.M.S.
Paris says so too.”
Wolfe lifted a brow. “N.V.M.S.”
I told him, “Police gibberish. No visible means of subsistence. Bonton for bum.”
Wolfe sighed. Cramer went on, “We're doing all the routine. Fingerprints on the bottle, on the drawers of McNair's desk and so on. Purchases of potassium cyanide-”
Wolfe stopped him: “I know. Pfui. Not for this murderer, Mr. Cramer. You'll have to do better than routine.”
“Sure I will. Or you will.” Cramer discarded his cigar and got into his pocket for a new one. “But I'm just telling you. We've discovered one or two things.
For instance, yesterday afternoon McNair asked his lawyer if there was any way of finding out whether Dudley Frost, as trustee of the property of his niece, had squandered any of it, and he told the lawyer to do that in a hurry. He said that when Edwin Frost died twenty years ago he cut off his wife without a cent and left everything to his daughter Helen, and made his brother Dudley the trustee under such condition that no one, not even Helen, could demand an accounting of Dudley, and Dudley has never made any accounting. According to
McNair. We're on that too. Do you get anywhere with it? If Dudley Frost is short a million or so as trustee, what good does it do him to bump off McNair?”
“I couldn't say. Will you have some beer?”
“No thanks.” Cramer got his cigar lit and his teeth sunk in it. He puffed it just short of a conflagration. “Well, we may get somewhere on that.” He thumbed at the papers again. “Next is an item that you ought to find interesting. It happens that McNair's lawyer is a guy that can be approached, within reason, and after your tip last night I was after him early this morning. He gave me that dope on Dudley Frost, and he admitted McNair made a will yesterday. In fact, after I explained to him how serious murder is, he let me see it and copy it.
McNair gave it to you straight. He named you all right.”
“Without my consent.” Wolfe was pouring beer. “Mr. McNair was not my client.”
Cramer grunted. “He is now. You wouldn't turn down a dead man, would you? He left a few little bequests, and the residuary estate to a sister, Isabel McNair, living in Scotland in a place called Camfirth. There's a mention of private instructions which he had given his sister regarding the estate.” Gramer turned a sheet over. “Then you begin to come in. Paragraph six names you as executor, without remuneration. The next paragraph reads:
7. To Nero Wolfe, of 918 West 35th Street, New York City, I bequeath my red leather box and its contents. I have informed him where it is to be found, and the contents are to be considered as his sole property, to be used by him at his will and his discretion. I direct that any bill he may render, for a reasonable amount, for services performed by him in this connection, shall be considered a just and proper debt of my estate, which shall be promptly paid.
“Well.” Cramer coughed up smoke. “He's your client now. Or he will be as soon as this is probated.”
Wolfe shook his head. “I did not consent. I offer two comments: first, note the appalling caution of the Scotch. When Mr. McNair wrote that he was in a frenzy of desperation, he was engaging me for a job so vital to him that it had to be done right or his spirit could not rest, and yet he inserted, for a reasonable amount.” Wolfe sighed. “Obviously, that too was necessary for the repose of his spirit. Second, he has left me a pig in a poke. Where is the red leather box?”