I sat and took it in.
Suddenly a newcomer appeared, so silently through some other door that I didn't hear him do it. It was another aristocrat, fatter than the one in the anteroom but just as melancholy. He advanced a few steps and bowed:
“If you will come in now, please.”
We all moved. I stood back and let the others go ahead. Lew seemed to be thinking that Helen should have his arm, and she seemed to think not. I followed along behind with the throttle wide open on the decorum.
The chapel was dimly lighted too. Our escort whispered something to Mrs. Frost, and she shook her head and led the way to seats. There were forty or fifty people there on chairs. A glance showed me several faces I had seen before; among others, Collinger the lawyer, and a couple of dicks in the back row. I stepped around to the rear because I saw the door to the anteroom was there. The coffin, dead black with chromium handles, with flowers all around it and on top, was a platform up front. In a couple of minutes a door at the far end opened and a guy came out and stood by the coffin and peered around at us. He was in the uniform of his profession and he had a wide mouth and a look of comfortable assurance by no means flippant. After a decent amount of peering he began to talk.
For a professional I suppose he was okay. I had had enough long before he was through, because with me a little unction goes a long way. If I have to be slid up to heaven on soft soap, I'd just as soon you'd forget it and let me find my natural level. But I'm speaking only for myself; if you like it I hope you get it.
My seat at the rear permitted me to beat it as soon as I heard the amen. I was the first one out. For having admitted me to the private parlor I offered the aristocrat in the ante-room two bits, which I suppose he took out of noblesse oblige, and sought the sidewalk. Some cur had edged in and parked within three inches of the roadster's rear bumper, and I had to do a lot of squirming to get out without scraping the fender of Gebert's convertible. Then I zoomed to
Central Park West and headed downtown.
It was nearly ten-thirty when I got home. A glance in at the office door showed me that Wolfe was in his chair with his eyes closed and an awful grimace on his face, listening to the Pearls of Wisdom Hour on the radio. In the kitchen Fritz sat at the little table I ate breakfast on, playing solitaire, with his slippers off and his toes hooked over the rungs of another chair. As I poured a glass of milk from a bottle I got from the refrigerator, he asked me:
“How was it? Nice funeral?”
I reproached him. “You ought to be ashamed. I guess all Frenchmen are sardonic.”
“I am not a French! I'm a Swiss.”
“So you say. You read a French newspaper.”
I took a first sip from the glass, carried it into the office, got into my chair, and looked at Wolfe. His grimace appeared even more distorted than when I had glanced in on my way by. I let him go on suffering a while, then took pity on him and went to the radio and turned it off and came back to my chair. I sipped at my milk and watched him. By degrees his face relaxed, and finally I saw his eyelids flicker, and then they came open a little. He heaved a sigh that went clear to the bottom.
I said, “All right, you richly deserve it. What does it mean? Not more than twelve steps altogether. As soon as that hooey started, you could get out of your chair and walk fifteen feet to it and back again makes thirty, and you'd be out of your misery. Or if you honestly believe that would be overdoing, you could get one of those remote control things-”
“I wouldn't, Archie.” He was in his patient mood. “I really wouldn't. You are perfectly aware that I have enough enterprise to turn off the radio; you have seen me do it; the exercise is good for me. I purposely dial the station which will later develop into the Pearls of Wisdom, and I deliberately bear it. It's discipline. It fortifies me to put up with ordinary inanities for days. I gladly confess that after listening to the Pearls of Wisdom your conversation is an intellectual and esthetic delight. It's the tops.” He grimaced. “That's what a
Pearl of Wisdom just said that cultured interests are. He said they are the tops.” He grimaced again. “Great heavens, I'm thirsty.” He jerked himself up and leaned forward to press the button for beer.
But it was a little while before he got it. An instant after he pressed the button the doorbell rang, which meant that Fritz would have to attend to that chore first. Since it was nearly eleven o'clock and no one was expected, my heart began to beat, as it always does when we're on a case with any kick to it and any little surprise turns up. As a matter of fact, I got proof that I had fallen for Wolfe's showmanship again, for I had a sudden conviction that Saul
Panzer was going to walk in with the red box under his arm.
Then I heard a voice in the hall that didn't belong to Saul. The door opened and swung around and Fritz stepped back to admit the visitor, and Helen Frost walked in. At the look on her face I hopped up and went over and put a hand on her arm, thinking she was about ready to flop.
She shook her head and I dropped the hand. She walked toward Wolfe's desk and stopped. Wolfe said:
“How do you do, Miss Frost? Sit down.” Sharply: “Archie, put her in a chair.”
I got her arm again and eased her over and got a chair behind her, and she sank into it. She looked at me and said, “Thank you.” She looked at Wolfe: “Something awful has happened. I didn't want to go home and I…I came here. I'm afraid. I have been all along, really, but…I'm afraid now. Perren is dead. Just now, up on 73rd Street. He died on the sidewalk.”
“Indeed. Mr. Gebert.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Breathe, Miss Frost. In any event, you need to breathe. – Archie, get a little brandy.”
Chapter Sixteen
Our client shook her head. “I don't want any brandy. I don't think I could swallow.” She was querulous and shaky. “I tell you…I'm afraid!”
“Yes.” Wolfe had sat up and got his eyes open. “I heard you. If you don't pull yourself together, with brandy or without, you'll have hysterics, and that will be no help to all. Do you want some ammonia? Do you want to lie down? Do you want to talk? Can you talk?”
“Yes.” She put the fingertips of both hands to her temples and caressed them delicately-her forehead, then the temples again. “I can talk. I won't have hysterics.”
“Good for you. You say Mr. Gebert died on the sidewalk on 73rd Street. What killed him?”
1 don't know.” She was sitting up straight, with her hands clasped in her lap.
“He was getting in his car and he jumped back, and he came running down the sidewalk toward us…and he fell, and then Lew told me he was dead-”
“Wait a minute. Please. It will be better to do this neatly. I presume it happened after you left the chapel where the services were held. Did all of you leave together? Your mother and uncle and cousin and Mr. Gebert?”
She nodded. “Yes. Perren offered to drive mother and me home, but I said I would rather walk, and my uncle said he wanted to have a talk with mother, so they were going to take a taxi. We were all going slow along the sidewalk, deciding that-”