The Silent Speaker (18 page)

Wolfe looked from one to the other. 'There's your little problem, Miss Gunther. Anything so simple, for example, as concealing it there in the BPR office is not even to be considered. Something far above that, something really fine, must be conceived. Your own apartment would be merely ridiculous; you show that you are quite aware of that by disposing of the other nine cylinders as you do. Perhaps the apartment of a friend or colleague you can trust'This is murder; this is of the utmost gravity and of ultimate importance; would you trust any other human being that far'You are ready now to leave, to go to your apartment first and then take a plane to New York. You will probably be in New York some days. Do you take the cylinder with you or leave it in Washington'If so, where'Where'Where?'

Wolfe flipped a hand. 'There's your question, gentlemen. Answer it the way Miss Gunther finally answered it, and your worries are ended.' He stood up. 'I am spending a thousand dollars a day trying to learn how Miss Gunther answered it.' He was multiplying by two and it wasn't his money he was spending, but at least it wasn't a barefaced lie. 'Come, Archie. I want to go home.'

They didn't want him to go, even then, which was the best demonstration to date of the pitiable condition they were in. They certainly were stymied, flummoxed, and stripped to the bone. Wolfe magnanimously accommodated them by composing a few more well-constructed sentences, properly furnished with subjects, predicates, and subordinate clauses, none of which meant a damn thing, and then marched from the room with me bringing up the rear. He had postponed his exit, I noticed, until after a clerk had entered to deliver some papers to Hombert's desk, which had occurred just as Wolfe was telling the P.C. and D.A. to shut their eyes and pretend they were Miss Gunther.

Driving back home he sat in the back seat, as usual, clutching the toggle, because of his theory that when-not if and when, just when-the car took a whim to dart aside and smash into some immovable object, your chances in back, hopeless as they were, were slightly better than in front. On the way down to Centre Street I had, on request, given him a sketch of my session with Nina Boone, and now, going home, I filled in the gaps. I couldn't tell whether it contained any morsel that he considered nutritious, because my back was to him and his face wasn't in my line of vision in the mirror, and also because the emotions that being in a moving vehicle aroused in him were too overwhelming to leave any room for minor reactions.

As Fritz let us in and we entered the hall and I attended to hat and coat disposal, Wolfe looked almost good-humored. He had beaten a rap and was home safe, and it was only six o'clock, time for beer. But Fritz spoiled it at once by telling us that we had a visitor waiting in the office. Wolfe scowled at him and demanded in a ferocious whisper:

'Who is it?'

'Mrs. Cheney Boone.'

'Good heavens. That hysterical gammer?'

Which was absolutely unfair. Mrs. Boone had been in the house just twice, both times under anything but tranquil circumstances, and I hadn't seen the faintest indication of hysteria.

I HAD MADE A close and prolonged study of Wolfe's attitude toward women. The basic fact about a woman that seemed to irritate him was that she was a woman; the long record showed not a single exception; but from there on the documentation was cockeyed. If woman as woman grated on him you would suppose that the most womany details would be the worst for him, but time and again I have known him to have a chair placed for a female so that his desk would not obstruct his view of her legs, and the answer can't be that his interest is professional and he reads character from legs, because the older and dumpier she is the less he cares where she sits. It is a very complex question and some day I'm going to take a whole chapter for it. Another little detail: he is much more sensitive to women's noses than he is to men's. I have never been able to detect that extremes or unorthodoxies in men's noses have any effect on him, but in women's they do. Above all he doesn't like a pug, or in fact a pronounced incurve anywhere along the bridge.

Mrs. Boone had a pug, and it was much too small for the surroundings. I saw him looking at it as he leaned back in his chair. So he told her in a gruff and inhospitable tone, barely not boorish:

'I have ten minutes to spare, madam.'

Entirely aside from the nose she looked terrible. She had had a go at her compact, but apparently with complete indifference to the result, and anyway it would have been a job for a make-up artist. She was simply all shot and her face had quit trying to do any pretending about it.

'Naturally,' she said, in a voice that was holding up much better than the face, 'you're wondering why I'm here.'

'Naturally,' Wolfe agreed.

'I mean why I came to see you, since you're on the other side. It's because I phoned my cousin this morning and he told me about you.'

'I am not,' Wolfe said curtly, 'on the other side or any side. I have undertaken to catch a murderer. Do I know your cousin?'

She nodded. 'General Carpenter. That was my maiden name. He is my first cousin. He's in a hospital after an operation, or he would have come to help me when my husband was killed. He told me not to believe anything you said but to do whatever you told me to do. He said that you have your own private set of rules, and that if you are working on a case of murder the only one that can really rely on you is the murderer. Since you know my cousin, you know what he meant. I'm used to him.'

She stopped, looked at me and back at Wolfe, and used her handkerchief on her lower lip and at the corners, which didn't improve things any. When her hand went back to her lap it was gripping the handkerchief as if it was afraid that someone was planning to snatch it.

'And?' Wolfe prompted her.

'So I came to see you to get some advice. Or maybe I ought to say make up my mind whether I want to ask your advice. I have to get some from somebody, and I don't know-' She looked at me again, returned to Wolfe, and made a gesture with the hand that wasn't guarding the handkerchief. 'Do I have to tell you why I prefer not to go to someone in the FBI or the police?'

'You are under no compulsion, madam, to tell me anything at all. You've already been talking three or four minutes.'

'I know. My cousin warned me that you would be incredibly rude.-Then I might as well come right out and say that I think I am responsible for the death of Phoebe Gunther.'

'That's an uncomfortable thought,' muttered Wolfe. 'Where did you get it?'

'That's what I want to tell you, and I suppose I'm really going to or I wouldn't have come here, but while I was sitting here waiting I got up to leave a dozen times and then sat down again. I don't know what to do and last night I thought I was going crazy. I always depended on my husband to make important decisions. I don't want to tell the police or the FBI because I may have committed some kind of a crime, I don't know. But it seems silly to tell you on account of the way my husband felt about the NIA, and of course I feel the same way about them, and you're working for them, you're on their side. I suppose I ought to go to a lawyer, and I know lots of lawyers, but there doesn't seem to be one I could tell this to. They all seem to do all the talking and I never understand what they're saying.'

That should have softened Wolfe up. He did get a little more receptive, taking the trouble to repeat that he wasn't on any side. 'For me,' he stated, 'this is not a private feud, whatever it may be for others. What was the crime you committed?'

'I don't know-if it was one.'

'What did you do?'

'I didn't do anything. That's the trouble. What happened was that Miss Gunther told me what she was doing and I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone and I didn't, and I have a feeling-'

She stopped. In a moment she went on, 'That isn't true, I haven't just got a feeling. I'm sure.'

'Sure of what?'

'I'm sure that if I had told the police what she told me she wouldn't have been killed. But I didn't tell, because she explained that what she was doing was helping the BPR and hurting the NIA, and that was what my husband would have wanted more than anything else.' The widow was staring at Wolfe's face as if she were trying to see inside. 'And she was perfectly correct. I'm still making up my mind whether to tell you about it. In spite of what you say, there's my husband's side and there's the other side, and you're working for the NIA. After I talked with my cousin I thought I'd come and see what you sounded like.'

'What do I sound like?'

'I don't know.' Her hand fluttered vaguely. 'I really don't know.'

Wolfe frowned at her in silence, then heaved a sigh and turned to me.

'Archie.'

'Yes, sir?'

'Your notebook. Take a letter. To be mailed this evening so it will be delivered in the morning. To the National Industrial Association, attention Mr. Frank Thomas Erskine.

'Gentlemen: The course events have taken obliges me to inform you that it will be impossible for me to continue to act in your behalf with regard to the investigation of the murders of Mr. Cheney Boone and Miss Phoebe Gunther. Therefore I enclose herewith my check for thirty thousand dollars, returning the retainer you have paid me and ending my association with you in this matter. Sincerely.'

I made the last scratch and looked at him. 'Do I draw the check?'

'Certainly. You can't enclose it if it hasn't been drawn.' Wolfe's eyes moved to the visitor. 'There, Mrs. Boone, that should have some effect on your reluctance. Even accepting your point of view, that I was on the other side, now I am not. What did Miss Gunther tell you she was doing?'

The widow was gazing at him. 'Thirty thousand dollars?' she asked incredulously.

'Yes.' Wolfe was smirking. 'A substantial sum.'

'But was that all the NIA was paying you'Just thirty thousand'I supposed it was twenty times that! They have hundreds of millions-billions!'

'It was only the retainer,' Wolfe said testily. The smirk was gone. 'Anyway, I am now a neutral. What did Miss Gunther tell you?'

'But now-but now you're not getting anything at all!' Mrs. Boone was utterly bewildered. 'My cousin told me that during the war you worked hard for the government for nothing, but that you charge private people outrageous prices. I ought to tell you-if you don't know-that I can't afford to pay you anything outrageous. I could-' she hesitated. 'I could give you a check for a hundred dollars.'

'I don't want a check.' Wolfe was exasperated. 'If I can't have a client in this case without being accused of taking sides in a sanguinary vendetta, I don't want a client. Confound it, what did Miss Gunther tell you?'

Mrs. Boone looked at me, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to find some sort of resemblance to her dead husband, he being gone and therefore no longer available for important decisions. I thought it might possibly help if I nodded at her reassuringly, so I did. Whether that broke the tie or not I don't know, but something did, for she spoke to Wolfe:

'She knew who killed my husband. My husband told her something that day when he gave her the leather case, and she knew from that, and also he had dictated something on one of those cylinders that told about it, so the cylinder was evidence, and she had it. She was keeping it and she intended to give it to the police, but she was waiting until the talk and the rumors and the public feeling had done as much damage as possible to the NIA. She told me about it because I went to her and told her I knew she wasn't telling the truth about that leather case, I knew she had had it with her at the table in the dining room, and I wasn't going to keep still about it any longer. She told me what she was doing so I wouldn't tell the police about the case.'

'When was that'What day?'

She thought a moment, the crease deepening in her forehead, and then shook her head uncertainly. 'The days,' she said. 'The days are all mixed up.'

'Of course they are, Mrs. Boone. It was Friday evening when you were here with the others the first time, when you almost spoke up about it and changed your mind. Was it before that, or after?'

'It was after. It was the next day.'

'Then it was Saturday. Another thing that will help you to place it, Saturday morning you received an envelope in the mail containing your wedding picture and automobile license. Do you remember that'It was the same day?'

She nodded with assurance. 'Yes, of course it was. Because I spoke of that, and she said she had written a letter to him-to the man who killed my husband- she knew my husband had always carried the wedding picture in the wallet that was missing-he had carried it for over twenty years-twenty-three years-'

The widow's voice got away from her. She gave it up and gulped, sat without trying to go on, and gulped again. If she lost control completely and started noises and tears there was no telling what Wolfe would do. He might even have tried to act human, which would have been an awful strain on all of us. So I told her gruffly:

'Okay, Mrs. Boone, take your time. Whenever you get ready, what did she write a letter to the murderer for'To tell him to send you the wedding picture?'

She nodded and got enough voice back to mumble, 'Yes.'

'Indeed,' Wolfe said to help out.

The widow nodded again. 'She told me that she knew I would want that picture, and she wrote him to say that she knew about him and he must send it to me.'

'What else did she write him?'

'I don't know. That's all she told me about it.'

'But she told you who he was.'

'No, she didn't.' Mrs. Boone halted again for a moment, still getting her voice back into place. 'She said she wouldn't tell me about that, because it would be too much to expect me not to show that I knew. She said I didn't need to worry about his not being punished, there would be no doubt about that, and besides it would be dangerous for me to know. That's where I now think I did wrong-that's why I said I'm responsible for her death. If it would have been dangerous for me it was dangerous for her, especially after she wrote him that letter. I should have made her tell the police about it, and if she wouldn't do it I should have broken my promise to her and told the police myself. Then she wouldn't have been killed. Anyway she said she thought she was breaking a law, withholding information and concealing evidence, so I have that on my mind too, helping her break a law.'

'You can stop worrying about that, at least,' Wolfe assured her. 'I mean the lawbreaking. That part of it's all right. Or it will be, as soon as you tell me, and I tell the police, where Miss Gunther put the cylinder.'

'But I can't. That's another thing. I don't know. She didn't tell me.'

Wolfe's eyes had popped wide open. 'Nonsense!' he said rudely. 'Of course she told you!'

'She did not. That's one reason I came to see you. She said I didn't need to worry about the man who killed my husband being punished. But if that's the only evidence& '

Wolfe's eyes had gone shut again. There was a long silence. Mrs. Boone looked at me, possibly still in search of a resemblance, but whatever she was looking for her expression gave no indication that she was finding it. Finally she spoke to Wolfe again:

'So you see why I need advice& '

His lids went up enough to make slits. In his place I would at least have been grateful for all the corroboration of the guesses I had made, but apparently he was too overcome by his failure to learn where the cylinder was.

'I regret, madam,' he said, without any noticeable tremor of regret or anything like it, 'that I can't be of any help to you. There is nothing I can do. All I can give you is what you said you came for, advice, and you are welcome to that. Mr. Goodwin will drive you back to your hotel. Arriving there, telephone the police immediately that you have information for them. When they come, tell them everything you have told me, and answer their questions as long as you can stand it. You need have no fear of being regarded as guilty of lawbreaking. I agree with you that if you had broken your promise to Miss Gunther she would probably not have been killed, but it was she who asked you for the promise, so the responsibility is hers. Besides, she can afford it; it is astonishing, the burden of responsibility that dead people can bear up under. Dismiss that from your mind too if you can.' He was on his feet. 'Good afternoon, madam.'

So I did get to drive a female Boone home from our office, though not Nina. Since it appeared that she had given us all she had and was therefore of no further immediate interest, I didn't even bother to discover whether anyone was on her tail and confined myself to the duties of a chauffeur. She didn't seem to care about conversing, which simplified matters. I delivered her safely at the Waldorf entrance and headed back downtown. Aside from the attention to driving, which was automatic, there was no point in trying to put my mind on my work, since I was being left out in the cold and therefore had no work, so I let it drift to Phoebe Gunther. I went back to the times I had been with her, how she had talked and acted, with my present knowledge of what she had been doing, and decided she had been utterly all right. I have an inclination to pick flaws, especially where young women are concerned, but on this occasion I didn't have the list started by the time I got back home.