“You can phone them. I would advise Miss Frost to stay. At any moment we may hear that the box has been found, and that would mean a crisis. And to provide against the possibility that it will not be found, I shall need a great deal of information. Miss Frost?”
She nodded. “I’ll stay. I’m not hungry. I’ll stay. You’ll stay with me, Lew?”
He grumbled something at her, but stayed put. Wolfe told Fritz:
“The fricandeau should be ample. Add lettuce to the salad if the endive is short, and of course increase the oil. Chill a bottle of the ’28 Marcobrunner. As soon as you are ready.” He wiggled Fritz away with a finger, and settled back in his chair. “Now, Miss Frost. We are engaged in a joint enterprise. I need facts. I am going to ask you a lot of foolish questions. If one of them turns out to be wise or clever you will not know it, but let us hope that I will. Please do not waste time in expostulation. If I ask you whether your mother has recently sent you to the corner druggist for potassium cyanide tablets, just say no, and listen to the next one. I once solved a difficult case by learning from a young woman, after questioning her for five hours, that she had been handed a newspaper with a piece cut out. Your inalienable rights of privacy are temporarily suspended. Is that understood?”
“Yes.” She looked straight at him. “I don’t care. Of course I know you’re clever, I want you to be. I know how easily you caught me in a lie Tuesday morning. But you ought to know... you can’t catch me in one now, because I haven’t anything to lie about. I don’t see how anything I know can help you...”
“Possibly it can’t. We can only try. Let us first straighten out the present a little, and work back. I should inform you: Mr. McNair did tell me a few things yesterday before he was interrupted. I have a little background to start with. Now — for instance — what did Mr. Gebert mean yesterday when he said you were almost his fiancée?”
She compressed her lips, but then spoke right to it: “He didn’t mean anything, really. He has — several times he has asked me to marry him.”
“Have you encouraged him?”
“No.”
“Has anyone?”