Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 11

by The Silent Speaker

  “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.

  Wolfe was drinking beer, as I observed when I stepped inside the office door merely to tell him:

  “I’ll be upstairs. I always like to wash my hands after I’ve been with certain kinds of policemen, meaning Inspector Ash, and I’ve—”

  “Come in here. That letter and check. We’d better get that done.”

  I gawked. “What, to the NIA?”

  “Yes.”

  “My God, you don’t mean you’re actually going to send it?”

  “Certainly. Didn’t I tell that woman I would? Wasn’t it with that understanding that she told me things?”

  I sat down at my desk and regarded him piercingly. “This,” I said sternly, “is not being eccentric. This is plain loony. What about Operation Payroll? And where did you suddenly get a scruple? And anyway, she didn’t tell you the one thing you wanted to know.” I abruptly got respectful. “I regret to report, sir, that the checkbook is lost.”

  He grunted. “Draw the check and type the letter. At once.” He pointed to a stack of envelopes on his desk. “Then you can go through these reports from Mr. Bascom’s office. They just came by messenger.”

  “But with no client—shall I phone Bascom to call it off?”

  “Certainly not.”

  I went to the safe for the checkbook. As I filled out the stub I remarked, “Statistics show that forty-two and three-tenths per cent of all geniuses go crazy sooner or later.”

  He had no comment. He merely drank beer and sat. Now that I was to be permitted to know what Bascom’s men were doing, he wouldn’t even co-operate enough to slit open the envelopes. Whatever it was it must be good, since he evidently intended to go on paying for it with his own dough. I pounded the typewriter keys in a daze. When I put the check and letter before him to be signed I said plaintively:

  “Excuse me for mentioning it, but a century from Mrs. Boone would have helped. That seems to be more our speed. She said she could afford it.”

  He used the blotter. “You’d better take this to the post office. I suspect the evening collection from that box doesn’t get made sometimes.”

  So I had some more chauffeuring to do. It was only a ten-minute walk to the post office on Ninth Avenue and back, but I was in no mood for walking. I only like to walk when I can see some future ahead of me. Returning, I put the car in the garage, since the evening would obviously be a complete blank.

  Wolfe was still in the office, outwardly perfectly normal. He glanced at me, then at the clock, and back at me.

  “Sit down a moment, Archie. You’ll have plenty of time to wash before dinner. Dr. Vollmer is coming to see us later, and you need some instructions.”

  At least his mind was still functioning enough to send for a doctor.

  Chapter 31

  Doc Vollmer was due to arrive at ten o’clock. At five minutes to ten the stage was set, up in Wolfe’s bedroom. I was in Wolfe’s own chair by the reading lamp, with a magazine. Wolfe was in bed. Wolfe in bed was always a remarkable sight, accustomed to it as I was. First the low footboard, of streaky anselmo—yellowish with sweeping dark brown streaks—then the black silk coverlet, next the wide expanse of yellow pajama top, and last the flesh of the face. In my opinion Wolfe was quite aware that black and yellow are a flashy combination, and he used it deliberately just to prove that no matter how showy the scene was he could dominate it. I have often thought that I would like to see him try it with pink and green. The rest of the room—rugs and furniture and curtains—was okay, big and comfortable and all right to be in.

  Doc Vollmer, admitted downstairs by Fritz and knowing his way around the house, came up the one flight alone and walked into the room, the door standing open. He was carrying his toolbox. He had a round face and round ears, and two or three years had passed since he had given up any attempt to stand with his belly in and his chest out. I told him hello and shook hands, and then he went to the bedside with a friendly greeting and his hand extended.

  Wolfe twisted his neck to peer at the offered hand, grunted skeptically, and muttered, “No, thank you. What’s the ceiling on it? I don’t want any.”

  Standing at the footboard, I began hastily, “I should have explained—” but Wolfe broke in, thundering at Vollmer, “Do you want to pay two dollars a pound for butter? Fifty cents for shoestrings? A dollar for a bottle of beer? Twenty dollars for one orchid, one ordinary half-wilted Laeliocattleya? Well, confound it, answer me!” Then he quit thundering and started muttering.

  Vollmer lowered himself to the edge of a chair, put his toolbox on the floor, blinked several times at Wolfe, and then at me.

  I said, “I don’t know whether it’s the willies or what.”

  Wolfe said. “You accuse me of getting you here under false pretenses. You accuse me of wanting to borrow money from you. Just because I ask you to lend me five dollars until the
beginning of the next war, you accuse me!” He shook a warning finger in the direction of Vollmer’s round astonished face. “Let me tell you, sir, you will be next! I admit that I am finished; I am finally driven to this extremity. They have done for me; they have broken me; they are still after me.” His voice rose to thunder again. “And you, you incomparable fool, you think to escape! Archie tells me you are masquerading as a doctor. Bah! They’ll take your clothes off! They’ll examine every inch of your skin, as they did mine! They’ll find the mark!” He let his head fall back on the pillow, closed his eyes, and resumed muttering.

  Vollmer looked at me with a gleam in his eyes and inquired, “Who wrote his script for him?”

  Managing somehow to control the muscles around my mouth, I shook my head despairingly. “He’s been like this for several hours, ever since I brought him back home.”

  “Oh, he’s been out of the house?”

  “Yes. From three-fifteen till six o’clock. Under arrest.”

  Vollmer turned to Wolfe. “Well,” he said decisively. “The first thing is to get some nurses. Where’s the phone? Either that or take him to a hospital.”

  “That’s the ticket,” I agreed. “It’s urgent. We must act.”

  Wolfe’s eyes came open. “Nurses?” he asked contemptuously. “Pfui. Aren’t you a physician? Don’t you know a nervous breakdown when you see one?”

  “Yes,” Vollmer said emphatically.

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be—uh, typical.”

  “Faulty observation,” Wolfe snapped. “Or a defect in your training. Specifically, it’s a persecution complex.”

  “Who’s doing the persecuting?”

  Wolfe shut his eyes. “I feel it coming on again. Tell him, Archie.”

  I met Vollmer’s gaze. “Look, Doc, the situation is serious. As you know, he was investigating the Boone-Gunther murders for the NIA. The high command didn’t like the way Inspector Cramer was handling it and booted him, and replaced him with a baboon by the name of Ash.”