Рекс Стаут - The Silent Speaker

Wolfe fluttered a hand. “All that was mere phantom-chasing. What was needed was evidence — and all the time here it was, on that bookshelf in my office. That, I confess, is a bitter pill to swallow. Will you have some beer?”

“No, thanks, I guess I won’t.” Cramer seemed to be nervous or uneasy or something. He looked at the clock and slid to the edge of the chair. “I’ve got to be going. I just dropped in.” He elevated to his feet and shook his pants legs down. “I’ve got a hell of a busy day. I suppose you’ve heard that I’m back at my desk at Twentieth Street. Inspector Ash has been moved to Richmond. Staten Island.”

“Yes, sir. I congratulate you.”

“Much obliged. So with me back at the old stand you’ll have to continue to watch your step. Try pulling any fast ones and I’ll still be on your neck.”

“I wouldn’t dream of trying to pull a fast one.”

“Okay. Just so we understand each other.” Cramer started for the door. I called after him:

“Hey, your package!”

He said over his shoulder, barely halting. “Oh, I forgot, that’s for you, Wolfe, hope you like it,” and was on his way. Judging from the time it took him to get on out and slam the door behind him, he must have double-quicked.

I went over and lifted the package from the floor, put it on Wolfe’s desk, and tore the green paper off, exposing the contents to view. The pot was a glazed sickening green. The dirt was just dirt. The plant was in fair condition, but there were only two flowers on it. I stared at it in awe.

“By God,” I said when I could speak, “he brought you an orchid.”

“Brassocattleya thorntoni,” Wolfe purred. “Handsome.”

“Nuts,” I said realistically. “You’ve got a thousand better ones. Shall I throw it out?”

“Certainly not. Take it up to Theodore.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. “Archie. One of your most serious defects is that you have no sentiment.”

“No?” I grinned at him. “You’d be surprised. At this very moment one is almost choking me — namely, gratitude for our good luck at having Cramer back, obnoxious as he is. With Ash there life wouldn’t have been worth living.”

Wolfe snorted. “Luck!”

Sooner or later I had to make it plain to him that I was not a halfwit. I was waiting for a fitting moment, and it came that same day, Monday afternoon, about an hour after lunch, when we received a phone call from Frank Thomas Erskine. He was permitted to speak to Wolfe, and I listened in at my desk.

The gist of it was that a check for one hundred thousand dollars would be mailed to Wolfe that afternoon, which would seem to be enough gist for one little phone call. The rest was just trivial. The NIA deeply appreciated what Wolfe had done for it and was utterly unable to understand why he had returned its money. It was paying him the full amount of the reward at once, as offered in its advertisement, in advance of the fulfillment of the specified conditions, because of its gratitude and its confidence in him, and also because Kates’s signed confession made the fulfillment of the conditions inevitable. It would be glad to pay an additional amount for expenses incurred if Wolfe would say how much. It had discussed the matter with Inspector Cramer, and Cramer had disavowed any claim to any part of the reward and insisted that it all belonged to Wolfe.

It was a nice phone call.

Wolfe said to me with a smirk, “That’s satisfactory and businesslike. Paying the reward without delay.”

I leered at him. “Yeah? Little does Mr. Erskine know.”

“Little does he know what? What’s wrong now?”

I threw one knee over the other and settled back. The time had come. “There are,” I stated, “several ways of doing this. One would be to put a hunk of butter in your mouth and see if it melted. I prefer my way, which is just to tell you. Or I should say ask you, since I’ll put it in the form of questions, only I’ll supply the answers myself.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“No, the questions originate with me. Number one: when did you find the cylinder? Saturday afternoon, when you waddled in here in your pajamas, belittling your brains? Not a chance. You knew where it was all the time, at least for three or four days. You found it either Tuesday morning, while I was down at Cramer’s office being wrung out, or Wednesday while I was up having lunch with Nina Boone. I lean to Tuesday, but I admit it may have been Wednesday.”

“You shouldn’t,” Wolfe murmured, “leave things teetering like that.”

“Please don’t interrupt me. Number two: why, if you knew where the cylinder was, did you pester Mrs. Boone to tell you? Because you wanted to make sure she didn’t know. If she had known she might have told the cops before you decided to let loose, and the reward would have gone to her, or anyway not to you. And since Phoebe Gunther had told her a lot she might have told her that too. Also, it was part of your general plan to spread the impression that you didn’t know where the cylinder was and would give an arm and several teeth to find it.”

“That was actually the impression,” Wolfe murmured.

“It was indeed. I could back all this up with various miscellaneous items, for instance your sending for the Stenophone Wednesday morning, which is the chief reason I lean to Tuesday, but let’s go on to number three: what was the big idea? When you found the cylinder why didn’t you say so? Because you let your personal opinions interfere with your professional actions, which reminds me I must do some reading up on ethics. Because your opinion of the NIA coincides roughly with some other people’s, including my own, but that’s beside the point, and you knew the stink about the murders was raising cain with the NIA, and you wanted to prolong it as much as possible. To accomplish that you even went to the length of letting yourself be locked in your room for three days, but there I admit another factor enters, your love of art for art’s sake. You’ll do anything to put on a good show, provided you get top billing.”

“How long is this going on?”

“I’m about through. Number four, why did you drop the client and return the dough, is easy. There’s always a chance that you may change your mind some day and decide you want to go to heaven, and a plain unadulterated double cross would rule it out. So you couldn’t very well have kept the NIA’s money, and gone on having it for a client, while you were doing your damnedest to push it off a cliff. Here, however, is where I get cynical. What if no reward had been publicly offered? Would you have put on the show just the same? I express no opinion, but boy, I have one. Another thing about ethics — exactly what is the difference between having a client and taking a fee, and accepting a reward?”

“Nonsense. The reward was advertised to a hundred million people and the terms stated. It was to be paid to whoever earned it. I earned it.”

“Okay, I merely mention the point. I don’t question your going to heaven if you decide you want in. Incidentally, you are not absolutely watertight. If Saul Panzer was put under oath and asked what he did from Wednesday to Saturday, and he replied that he kept in touch with Henry A. Warder to make sure that Warder could be had when needed, and then if you were asked where you got the idea that you might need Henry A. Warder, mightn’t you have a little trouble shooting the answer? Not that it will happen, knowing Saul as I do. — Well. Let’s see. I guess that’s about all. I just wanted you to know that I resent your making contemptuous remarks about your brain.”

Wolfe grunted. There was a silence. Then his eyes opened half way and he rumbled: