a client of mine to appear there. Let us hope that Mr. Cramer's search for the red box will keep him entertained.”
Llewellyn put in, “In my opinion, that's the only thing to do anyway, wait till it's found. All this hash of ancient history -if you were as careful to protect your client from your own annoyance as you are-”
“I remind you, sir, you are here by sufferance. Your cousin has the sense, when she hires an expert, to permit him his hocus-pocus. – What were we saying, Miss
Frost? Oh, yes. You were telling me that Mr. Gebert came to New York in 1931.
You were then sixteen years old. You say that he is forty-four, so he was then thirty-nine, not an advanced age. I presume he called upon your mother at once, as an old friend?”
She nodded. “Yes. We knew he was coming; he had written. Of course I didn't remember him; I hadn't seen him since I was four years old.”
“Of course not. Did he perhaps come on a political mission? I understand that he was a member of the camelots du roi.”
“I don't think so. I'm sure he didn't-but that's silly, certainly I can't be sure. But I think not.”
“At any rate, as far as you know, he doesn't work, and you don't like that.”
“I don't Iike that in anyone.”
“Remarkable sentiment for an heiress. However. If Mr. Gebert should marry you, that would be a job for him. Let us abandon him to that slim hope for his redemption. It is getting on for four o'clock, when I must leave you. I need to ask you about a sentence you left unfinished yesterday, shortly after I made my unsuccessful appeal to you. You told me that your father died when you were only a few months old, and that therefore you had never had a father, and then you said, That is,' and stopped. I prodded you, but you said it was nothing, and we let it go at that. It may in fact be nothing, but I would like to have it-whatever was ready for your tongue. Do you remember?”
She nodded. “It really was nothing. Just something foolish.”
“Let me have it. I've told you, we're combing a meadow for a mustard seed.”
“But this was nothing at all. Just a dream, a childish dream I had once. Then I had it several times after that, always the same. A dream about myself…”
“Tell me.”
“Well…the first time I had it I was about six years old, in Bali. I've wondered since if anything had happened that day to make me have such a dream, but I couldn't remember anything. I dreamed I was a baby, not an infant but big enough to walk and run, around two I imagine, and on a chair, on a napkin, there was an orange that had been peeled and divided into sections. I took a section of the orange and ate it, then took another one and turned to a man sitting there on a bench, and handed it to him, and I said plainly, ‘For daddy.’ It was my voice, only it was a baby talking. Then I ate another section, and then took another one and said ‘For daddy’ again, and kept on that way till it was all gone. I woke up from the dream trembling and began to cry. Mother was sleeping in another bed-it was on a screened veranda-and she came to me and asked what was the matter, and I said, ‘I'm crying because I feel so good.’ I never did tell her what the dream was. I had it quite a few times after that-I think the last time was when I was about eleven years old, here in New York. I always cried when I had it.”
Wolfe asked, “What did the man look like?”
She shook her head. “That's why it was just foolish. It wasn't a man, it just looked like a man. There was one photograph of my father which mother had kept, but I couldn't tell if it looked like him in the dream. It just…I just simply called it daddy.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe's lips pushed out and in. At length he observed, “Possibly remarkable, on account of the specific picture. Did you eat sections of orange when you were young?”
“I suppose so. I've always liked oranges.”
“Well. No telling. Possibly, as you say, nothing at all. You mentioned a photograph of your father. Your mother had kept only one?”
“Yes. She kept that for me.”
“None for herself?”
“No.” A pause, then Helen said quietly, “There's no secret about it. And it was perfectly natural. Mother was bitterly offended at the terms of father's will, and I think she had a right to be. They had a serious misunderstanding of some sort, I never knew what, about the time I was born, but no matter how serious it was…anyway, he left her nothing. Nothing whatever, not even a small income.”
Wolfe nodded. “So I understand. It was left in trust for you, with your uncle-your father's brother Dudley-as trustee. Have you ever read the will?”
“Once, a long while ago. Not long after we came to New York my uncle had me read it.”
“At the age of nine. But you waded through it. Good for you. I also understand that your uncle was invested with sole power and authority, without any right of oversight by you or anyone else. I believe the usual legal phrase is ‘absolute and uncontrolled discretion.’ So that, as a matter of fact, you do not know how much you will be worth on your twenty-first birthday; it may be millions and it may be nothing. You may be in debt. If any-”
Lew Frost got in. “What are you trying to insinuate? If you mean that my father-”
Wolfe snapped, “Don't do that! I insinuate nothing; I merely state the fact of my client's ignorance regarding her property. It may be augmented; it may be depleted; she doesn't know. Do you, Miss Frost?”
“No.” She was frowning. “I don't know. I know that for over twenty years the income has been paid in full, promptly every quarter. Really, Mr. Wolfe, I think we're getting-”
