“No one.”
“I see. It’s just blah. For a minute I thought you really knew — wait, who did you get a letter from, or a telegram or a cable or in short a communication?”
“No one.”
“And you sent Saul for the red box?”
“I did.”
“When will he be back?”
“I couldn’t say. I would guess, tomorrow... possibly the day after...”
“Uh-huh. Okay, if it’s only flummery. I might have known. You get me every time. We don’t dare find the red box now anyway; if we did, Cramer would be sure we had it all the time and never speak to us again. He’s disgusted and suspicious. They had Gebert down there, slapping him around and squealing and yelling at him. If you’re so sure violence is inferior technique, you should have seen that exhibition; it was wonderful. They say it works sometimes, but even if it does, how could you depend on anything you got that way? Not to mention that after you had done it a few times any decent garbage can would be ashamed to have you found in it. But Cramer did give me one little slice of bacon, the Lord knows why: in the past five years Mrs. Edwin Frost has paid Perren Gebert sixty grand. One thousand smackers per month. He won’t tell them what for. I don’t know if they’ve asked her or not. Does that fit in with the phenomena you’ve been having a feeling for?”
Wolfe nodded. “Satisfactorily. Of course I had not known what the amount was.”
“Oh. You hadn’t. Are you telling me that you knew she is paying him?”