Free The Red Box by Rex Stout

him:
    “You’re blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other. Did you ever hear that one before? I’m Archie Goodwin of Nero Wolfe’s office.” I took out a card and stuck it at him.
    He looked at it. “Okay. They’re expecting you upstairs.”
    Inside was another dick, standing over by the elevator, and no one else around. This one I knew: Slim Foltz. We exchanged polite greetings, and I got in the elevator and went up.
    Cramer had done pretty well. Chairs had been gathered from all over, and about fifty people, mostly women but a few men, were sitting there in the big room up front. There was a lot of buzz and chatter. Four or five dicks, city fellers, were in a group in a corner where the booths began. Across the room Inspector Cramer stood talking to Boyden McNair, and I walked over there.
    Cramer nodded. “Just a minute, Goodwin.” He went on with McNair, and pretty soon turned to me. “We got a pretty good crowd, huh? Sixty-two promised to come, and there’s forty-one here. Not so bad.”
    “All the employees here?”
    “All but the doorman. Do we want him?”
    “Yeah, make it unanimous. Which booth?”
    “Third on the left. Do you know Captain Dixon? I picked him for it.”
    “I used to know him.” I walked down the corridor, counting three, and opened the door and went in. The room was a little bigger than the one we had used the day before. Sitting behind the table was a little squirt with a bald head and big ears and eyes like an eagle. There were pads of paper and pencils arranged neatly in front of him, and at one side was a stack of five boxes of Bailey’s Royal Medley. I told him he was Captain Dixon and I was Archie Goodwin, and it was a nice morning. He looked at me by moving his eyes without disturbing his head, known as conservation of energy, and made a noise something between a hoot-owl and a bullfrog. I left him and went back to the front room.
    McNair had gone around back of the crowd and found a chair. Cramer met me and said, “I don’t think we’ll wait for any more. They’re going to get restless as it is.”
    “Okay, shoot.” I went over and propped myself against the wall, facing the audience. They were all ages and sizes and shapes, and were about what you might expect. There are very few women who can afford to pay 300 bucks for a spring suit, and why do they have to be the kind you might as well wrap in an old piece of burlap for all the good it does? Nearly always. Among the exceptions present that morning was Mrs. Edwin Frost, who was sitting with her straight back in the front row, and with her were the two goddesses, one on each side. Llewellyn Frost and his father were directly behind them. I also noted a red-haired woman with creamy skin and eyes like stars, but later, during the test, I learned that her name was Countess von Rantz-Deichen of Prague, so I never tried to follow it up.
    Cramer had faced the bunch and was telling them about it:
    “… First I want to thank Mr. McNair for closing his store this morning and permitting it to be used for this purpose. We appreciate his cooperation, and we realize that he is as anxious as we are to get to the bottom of this … this sad affair. Next I want to thank all of you for coming. It is a real pleasure and encouragement to know that there are so many good citizens ready to do their share in a … a sad affair like this. None of you had to come, of course. You are merely doing your duty—that is, you are helping out when it is needed. I thank you in the name of the Police Commissioner, Mr. Hombert, and the District Attorney, Mr. Skinner.”
    I wanted to tell him, “Don’t stop there, what about the Mayor and the Borough Presidents and the Board of Aldermen and the Department of Plant and Structures …”
    He was going on: “I hope that none of you will be offended or irritated at the simple experiment we are going to try. It wasn’t possible for us to explain it to each of you on the telephone, and I