by Rex Stout
“Yes, sir,” I said cordially.
He frowned. “So are you, Archie. Neither of us has any right, henceforth, to pretend possession of the mental processes of an anthropoid. I include you because you heard what I said to Mr. Hombert and Mr. Skinner. You have read the reports from Mr. Bascom’s men. You know what’s going on. And by heaven, it hasn’t occurred to you that Miss Gunther was alone in this office for a good three minutes, nearer four or five, when you brought her here that evening! And it occurred to me only just now! Pfui! And I have dared for nearly thirty years to exercise my right to vote!” He snorted. “I have the brain of a mollusk!”
“Yeah.” I was staring at him. I remembered, of course, that when I had brought Phoebe that Friday night I had left her in the office and gone to the kitchen to get him. “So you think—”
“No. I am through pretending to think. This makes it untenable.—Fritz and Theodore, a young woman was in here alone four minutes. She had, in her pocket or her bag, an object she wanted to hide—a black cylinder three inches in diameter and six inches long. She didn’t know how much time she would have; someone might enter any moment. On the assumption that she hid it in this room, find it. Knowing the quality of her mind, I think it likely that she hid it in my desk. I’ll look there myself.”
He shoved his chair back and dived to pull open a bottom drawer. I was at my own desk, also opening drawers. Fritz asked me, “What do we do, divide it in sections?”
“Divide hell,” I told him over my shoulder. “Just start looking.”
Fritz went to the couch and began removing cushions. Theodore chose, for his first guess, the two vases on top of the filing cabinet which at that season contained pussy willows. There was no more conversation; we were too busy. I can’t give a detailed report of the part of the search conducted by Fritz and Theodore because I was too intent on my own part of it; all I had for them was occasional glances to see what they were covering; but I kept an eye on Wolfe because I shared his opinion of the quality of Phoebe’s mind and it would have been like her to pick Wolfe’s own desk for it provided she found a drawer which looked as if its contents were not often disturbed. But he drew a blank. As I was opening the back of the radio cabinet, he slid his chair back into position, got comfortable in it, muttered, “Confound that woman,” and surveyed us like a field commander directing his troops in action.
Fritz’s voice came, “Is this it, Mr. Wolfe?”
He was kneeling on the rug in front of the longest section of bookshelves, and stacked beside him were a dozen volumes of the bound Lindenia, with a big gap showing on the bottom shelf, which was only a few inches above the floor. He was extending a hand with an object in it at which one glance was enough.
“Ideal,” Wolfe said approvingly. “She was really extraordinary. Give it to Archie. Archie, roll that machine out. Theodore, I’ll be with you in the potting room possibly later today, certainly tomorrow morning at the usual hour. Fritz, I congratulate you; you tried the bottom shelf first, which was sensible.”
Fritz was beaming as he handed me the cylinder and turned to go, with Theodore following him.
“Well,” I remarked as I plugged the machine in and inserted the cylinder, “this may do it. Or it may not.”
“Start it,” Wolfe growled. He was tapping on an arm of his chair with a finger. “What’s the matter? Won’t it go?”
“Certainly it will go. Don’t hurry me. I’m nervous and I have the brain of a—I forget what. Mollusk.”
I flipped the switch and sat down. The voice of Cheney Boone came to our ears, unmistakably the same voice we had heard on the other ten cylinders. For five minutes neither of us moved a muscle. I stared at the grill of the loud-speaker attachment, and Wolfe leaned back with his eyes closed. When it came to the end I reached and turned the switch.
Wolfe sighed clear to the bottom, opened his eyes, and straightened up.
“Our literature needs some revision,” he declared.
“For example, ‘dead men tell no tales.’ Mr. Boone is dead. Mr. Boone is silent. But he speaks.”
“Yep.” I grinned at him. “The silent speaker. Science is wonderful, but I know one guy who won’t think so, goddam him. Shall I go get him?”
“No. We can arrange this, I think, by telephone. You have Mr. Cramer’s number?”
“Sure.”
“Good. But first get Saul. You’ll find him at Manhattan five, three-two-three-two.”
Chapter 34
BY TEN MINUTES TO four our guests had all arrived and were collected in the office. One of them was an old friend and enemy: Inspector Cramer. One was an ex-client: Don O’Neill. One was merely a recent acquaintance: Alger Kates. The fourth was a complete stranger: Henry A. Warder, Vice-President and Treasurer of O’Neill and Warder, Incorporated. Don O’Neill’s vice. Saul Panzer, who had retired to a chair over in the corner behind the globe, was of course not regarded as a guest but as one of the family.
Cramer was in the red leather chair, watching Wolfe like a hawk. O’Neill, entering and catching sight of his Vice-President, who had arrived before him, had immediately hit the ceiling, and then had just as immediately thought better of it, clamped his mouth shut, and congealed. The vice, Henry A. Warder, who was both broad and tall, built like a concrete buttress, looked as if he could use some buttressing himself. He was the only one whose demeanor suggested that smelling salts might be called for, being obviously scared silly. Alger Kates had not spoken a word to anyone, not a word, not even when I let him in. His basic attitude was that of a Sunday School teacher in a den of thieves.
Wolfe had clothes on for the first time since Wednesday evening. He sat and did a circle with his eyes, taking them in, and spoke:
“This is going to be disagreeable, gentlemen, for all three of you, so let’s make it as brief as we can. I’ll do my share. The quickest way is to begin by letting you listen to a Stenophone cylinder, but first I must tell you where I got it. It was found in this room an hour ago, behind the books”—he pointed—”on that bottom shelf. Miss Gunther placed it there, hid it there, when she came to see me Friday evening a week ago—a week ago last evening.”
“She wasn’t here,” O’Neill rasped. “She didn’t come.”
Wolfe regarded him without affection. “So you don’t want this to be brief.”
“You’re damn right I do! The briefer the better!”
“Then don’t interrupt. Naturally everything I’m saying is not only true but provable, or I wouldn’t be saying it. Miss Gunther came that evening, brought by Mr. Goodwin, after the others left, and happened to be alone in this room for several minutes. That I did not remember that sooner and search the room was inexcusable. It was an appalling failure of an intellect which has sometimes been known to function satisfactorily.
“However.” He made a brusque gesture. “That is between me and the universe. We shall now listen to that cylinder, which was dictated by Mr. Boone his last afternoon at his office in Washington. Do not, I beg you, interrupt it. Archie, turn it on.”
There were murmurs as I flipped the switch. Then Cheney Boone, the silent speaker, had the floor:
Miss Gunther, this is for no one but you and me. Make sure of that. One carbon only, for your locked file, and deliver the original to me.
I have just had a talk in a hotel room with Henry A. Warder, Vice-President and Treasurer of O’Neill and Warder. He is the man who has been trying to reach me through you and refusing to give his name. He finally got me directly, at home, and I made this appointment with him, for today, March 26th. He told me the following—
Warder catapulted out of his chair and started for the machine, screaming, “Stop it!”
It would be more in keeping with his size and appearance to say that he roared or blared, but it literally was a scream. Having anticipated some such demonstration, I had placed the machine at the end of my desk, only four feet from me, and therefore had no difficulty intercepting the attack. I planted myself in Warder’s line o
f approach, reached back of me to turn the switch, and spoke firmly:
“Nothing stirring. Back up and sit down.” From my coat pocket I produced an automatic and let it be seen. “All three of you are going to like it less and less as it goes along. If you get a simultaneous idea and try to act on it, I’ll wing you and it will be a pleasure.”
“That was under a pledge of confidence!” Warder was trembling from head to foot. “Boone promised—”
“Can it!” Cramer had left his chair and was beside Warder. He asked me, “They haven’t been gone over, have they?”
“They’re not gunmen,” Wolfe snapped. “They merely club people on the head—or one of them does.”
Cramer paid no attention to him. He started with Warder, gave him a quick but thorough frisking, motioned him back, and said to O’Neill, “Stand up.” O’Neill didn’t move. Cramer barked at him, “Do you want to get lifted?” O’Neill stood up and did some fancy breathing while Cramer’s expert hands went over him. When it was Alger Kates’s turn no pressure was required. He looked dazed but not even resentful. Cramer, through with him and empty-handed, moved across to the machine and stood with a hand resting on its frame. He growled at me:
“Go ahead, Goodwin.”
Not being a Stenophone expert and not wanting to damage the cylinder, I started it over at the beginning. Soon it was at the point where it had been interrupted:
He told me the following. Warder has known for several months that the president of his company, Don O’Neill, has been paying a member of the BPR staff for confidential information. He did not discover it by accident or any secret investigation. O’Neill has not only admitted it, but bragged about it, and Warder, as Treasurer, has been obliged to supply corporation funds for the purpose through a special account. He has done so under protest. I repeat that this is Warder’s story, but I am inclined to believe it as he tells it because he came to me voluntarily. It will have to be checked with the FBI to find out if they have had any lead in the direction of O’Neill and Warder and specifically Warder, but the FBI must not be given any hint of Warder’s communicating with me. I had to give him my pledge on that before he would say a word, and the pledge must be kept absolutely. I’ll talk this over with you tomorrow, but I have a hunch—you know how I have hunches—that I want to get it on a cylinder without delay.
Cramer made a little noise that was part snort and part sneeze, and three pairs of eyes went to him as if in irritation at his interfering with a fascinating performance. I didn’t mind so much because I had heard it before. What I was interested in was the audience.
Warder said that to his knowledge the payments began last September and that the total paid to date is sixteen thousand five hundred dollars. The reason he gave for coming to me is that he is a man of principle, so he put it, and he violently disapproves of bribery, especially bribery of government officials. He was not in a position to take a firm stand with O’Neill because O’Neill owns over sixty per cent of the corporation’s stock and Warder owns less than ten per cent, and O’Neill could and would throw him out. That can easily be checked. Warder was extremely nervous and apprehensive. My impression is that his story is straight, that his coming to me was the result of his conscience gnawing at him, but there is a chance that his real motive is to build a fire under O’Neill, for undisclosed reasons. He swore that his only purpose was to acquaint me with the facts so I can put a stop to it by getting rid of my corrupted subordinate, and that is substantiated by his exacting a pledge beforehand that makes it impossible for us to touch O’Neill in the matter.
This will be a surprise to you—I know it was to me—the man O’Neill has bought is Kates, Alger Kates. You know what I have thought of Kates, and, so far as I know, you have thought the same. Warder claims he doesn’t know exactly what O’Neill has got for his money, but that isn’t important. We know what Kates has been in a position to sell—as much as any man in the organization outside of the very top ranks—and our only safe assumption is that he has given it all to O’Neill and that O’Neill has passed it on to the whole rotten NIA gang. I don’t need to tell you how sick I am about it. For a miserable sixteen thousand dollars. I don’t think I would mind quite so much being betrayed by a first-class snake for something up in the millions, but this just makes me sick. I thought Kates was a modest little man with his heart in his work and in our objectives and purposes. I have no idea what he wanted the money for and I don’t care. I haven’t decided how to handle it. The best way would be to put the FBI on him and catch him with O’Neill, but I don’t know whether my pledge to Warder would permit that. I’ll think it over and we’ll discuss it tomorrow. If I were face to face with Kates right now I don’t think I could control myself. Actually I don’t ever want to see him again. This has gone pretty deep and if he entered this room now I think I’d get my fingers around his throat and choke him to death. You know me. That’s the way I talk.
The important thing is not Kates himself, but what this shows. It shows that it is simply insanity for me to put complete trust in anybody, anyone whatever except Dexter and you, and we must install a much better system of checks immediately. To some extent we can continue to let the FBI handle it, but we must reinforce that with a setup and personnel that will work directly under us. I want you to think it over for tomorrow’s discussion, to which no one will be invited but Dexter. The way it strikes me now, you’ll have to take this over and drop everything else. That will leave me in a hole, but this is vitally important. Think it over. I have to appear before the Senate Committee in the morning, so I’ll take this to New York and give it to you, and you can run it off while I’m up on the Hill, and we’ll get at it as early in the afternoon as possible.
The voice stopped and was replaced by a faint sizzling purr, and I reached to flip the switch.
There was complete dead silence.
Wolfe broke in. “What about it, Mr. Kates?” he asked in a tone of innocent curiosity. “When you entered that room, taking Mr. Boone material for his speech, and he found himself face to face with you, did he get his fingers around your throat and try to choke you?”
“No,” Kates squeaked. He sounded indignant, but that may have been only because squeaks often do.
O’Neill commanded him: “You keep out of this, Kates! Keep your mouth shut!”
Wolfe chuckled. “That’s marvelous, Mr. O’Neill. It really is. Almost verbatim. That first evening here you admonished him, word for word, ‘You can keep out of this, Kates! Sit down and shut up!’ It was not very intelligent of you, since it sounded precisely like a high-handed man ordering an employee around, as indeed it was. It led to my having a good man spend three days trying to find a link between you and Mr. Kates, but you had been too circumspect.” His eyes darted back to Kates. “I asked about Mr. Boone’s choking you because apparently he had it in mind, and also because it suggests a possible line for you—self-defense. A good lawyer might do something with it—but then of course there’s Miss Gunther. I doubt if a jury could be persuaded that she too tried to choke you, there on my stoop. By the way, there’s one detail I’m curious about. Miss Gunther told Mrs. Boone that she wrote a letter to the murderer, telling him that he must return that wedding picture. I don’t believe it. I don’t think Miss Gunther would have put anything like that in writing. I think she got the picture and the automobile license from you and mailed them to Mrs. Boone herself. Didn’t she?”
For reply Alger Kates put on one of the strangest performances I have ever seen, and I have seen plenty. He squeaked, and this time there was no question about the indignation, not at Wolfe but at Inspector Cramer. He was trembling with indignation, up on his feet, a retake in every way of the dramatic moment when he had accused Breslow of going beyond the bounds of common decency. He squeaked, “The police were utterly incompetent! They should have found out where that piece of pipe came from in a few hours! They never did! It came from a pile of rubbish in a basement hall in the building on Forty-first Street where
the NIA offices are!”
“For Christ’s sake,” Cramer rumbled. “Listen to him! He’s sore!”
“He’s a fool,” O’Neill said righteously, apparently addressing the Stenophone. “He’s a contemptible fool. I certainly never suspected him of murder.” He turned to look straight at Kates. “Good God, I never thought you were capable of that!”
“Neither did I,” Kates squeaked. He had stopped trembling and was standing straight, holding himself stiff. “Not before it happened. After it happened I understood myself better. I wasn’t as much of a fool as Phoebe was. She should have known it then, what I was capable of. I did. She wouldn’t even promise not to tell or to destroy that cylinder. She wouldn’t even promise!” He kept his unblinking eyes on O’Neill. “I should have killed you too, the same evening. I could have. You were afraid of me. You’re afraid of me right now! Neither of them was afraid of me, but you are! You say you never suspected me of murder when you knew all about it!”
O’Neill started a remark, but Cramer squelched him and asked Kates, “How did he know all about it?”
“I told him.” If Kates’s squeak was as painful to perform as it was to listen to he was certainly being hurt. “Or rather I didn’t have to tell him. He arranged to meet me—”
“That’s a lie,” O’Neill said coldly and precisely. “Now you’re lying.”
“Okay, let him finish it.” Cramer kept at Kates, “When was that?”
“The next day, Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon. We met that evening.”
“Where?”
“On Second Avenue between Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth. We talked there on the sidewalk. He gave me some money and told me that if anything happened, if I was arrested, he would furnish whatever I needed. He was afraid of me then. He kept watching me, watching my hands.”
“How long were you together?”