McNair still had his hold of the edge of the desk, and kept it there while Wolfe poured beer. He said, “That's all right. I don't mind your talking like that. I expected it. I know that's the kind of a man you are, and that's all right. I don't expect you to agree to do an unknown job. I'm going to tell you about it, that's what I came here for. But I'd feel easier…if you'd just say…you'll do it if there's nothing wrong with it…if you'd just say that…”
“Why should I?” Wolfe was impatient. “There is no great urgency; you have plenty of time; I do not dine until eight o'clock. You need not fear your nemesis is in ambush for you in this room; death will not stalk you here. Go on and tell me about it. But let me advise you: it will be taken down, and will need your signature.”
“No.” McNair got energetic and positive. “I don't want it written down. And I don't want this man here.”
“Then I don't want to hear it.” Wolfe pointed a thumb at me. “This is Mr.
Goodwin, my confidential assistant. Whatever opinion you have formed of me includes him of necessity. His discretion is the twin of his valor.”
McNair looked at me. “He's young. I don't know him.”
“As you please.” Wolfe shrugged. “I shan't try to persuade you.”
“I know. You know you don't have to. You know I can't help myself, I'm in a corner. But it must not be written down.”
“On that I'll concede something.” Wolfe had got himself patient again. “Mr.
Goodwin can record it, and then, if it is so decided, it can be destroyed.”
McNair had abandoned his clutch on the desk. He looked from Wolfe to me and back again and, seeing the look in his eyes, if it hadn't been during business hours-Nero Wolfe's business hours-I would have felt sorry for him. He certainly was in no condition to put over a bargain with Nero Wolfe. He slid back on his seat and clasped his hands together, then after a moment separated them and took hold of the arms of the chair. He looked back and forth at us again.
He said abruptly, “You'll have to know about me or you wouldn't believe what I did. I was born in 1885 in Camfirth, Scotland. My folks had a little money. I wasn't much in school and was never very healthy, nothing really wrong, just craichy. I thought I could draw, and when I was twenty-two I went to Paris to study art. I loved it and worked at it, but never really did anything, just enough to keep me in Paris wasting the little money my parents had. When they died a little later my sister and I had nothing, but I'll come to that.” He stopped and put his hands up to his temples and pressed and rubbed. “My head's going to bust.”
“Take it easy,” Wolfe murmured. “You'll feel better pretty soon. You're probably telling me something you should have told somebody years ago.”
“No,” McNair said bitterly. “Something that should never have happened. And I can't tell it now, not all of it, but I can tell enough. Maybe I'm really crazy, maybe I've lost my balance, maybe I'm just destroying all that I've safeguarded for so many years of suffering, I don't know. Anyhow, I can't help it, I've got to leave you the red box, and you would know then.
“Of course I knew lots of people in Paris. One I knew was an American girl named
Anne Crandall, and I married her in 1913 and we had a baby girl. I lost both of them. My wife died the day the baby was born, April second, 1915, and I lost my daughter two years later.” McNair stopped, looking at Wolfe, and demanded fiercely, “Did you ever have a baby daughter?”
Wolfe merely shook his head. McNair went on, “Some other people I knew were two wealthy American brothers, the Frosts, Edwin and Dudley. They were around Paris most of the time. There was also a girl there I had known all my life, in
Scotland, named Calida Buchan. She was after art too, and got about as much of it as I did. Edwin Frost married her a few months after I married Anne, though it looked for a while as if his older brother Dudley was going to get her. I think he would have, if he hadn't been off drinking one night.”
McNair halted and pressed at his temples again. I asked him, “Phenacetin?”
He shook his head. “These help a little.” He got the aspirin bottle from his pocket, jiggled a couple of tablets onto his palm, tossed them in his mouth, took the glass of water and gulped. He said to Wolfe, “You're right. I'm going to feel better after this is over. I've been carrying too big a load of remorse and for too many years.”
Wolfe nodded. “And Dudley Frost went off drinking…”
“Yes. But that wasn't important. Anyway, Edwin and Calida were married. Soon after that Dudley returned to America, where his son was. His wife had died like mine, in childbirth, some six years before. I don't think he went back to France until more than three years later, when America entered the war. Edwin was dead; he had entered the British aviation corps and got killed in 1916. By that time I wasn't in Paris any more. They wouldn't take me in the army on account of my health. I didn't have any money. I had gone down to Spain with my baby daughter-”
He stopped, and I looked up from my notebook. He was bending over a little, with both hands, the fingers spread out, pressed against his belly, and his face was enough to tell you that something had suddenly happened that was a lot worse than a headache.
I heard Wolfe's voice like a whip: “Archie! Get him!”
I jumped up and across and reached for him. But I missed him, because he suddenly went into a spasm, a convulsion all over his body, and shot up out of his chair and stood there swaying.
He let out a scream: “Christ Jesus!” He put his hands, the fists doubled up, on
Wolfe's desk, and tried to push himself back up straight. He screamed again,
“Oh, Christ!” Then another convulsion went over him and he gasped at Wolfe: “The red box-the number-God, let me tell him!” He let out a moan that came from his guts and went down.
I had hold of him, but I let him go to the floor because he was out. I knelt by him, and saw Wolfe's shoes appear beyond him. I said, “Still breathing. No. I don't think so. I think he's gone.”
