Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

Wolfe put in, “Of course you phoned her back.”

“I couldn’t. She said she had no phone and was calling from a booth. This morning I received the envelope and the enclosure was-”

“This is Sunday,” Wolfe snapped.

“Damn it, I know it’s Sunday! It came special delivery. It contained a circular about price ceilings, and the enclosure. If it had been a weekday I would have communicated with the BPR office, but of course the office wasn’t open.” O’Neill gestured impatiently. “What does it matter what I would have done or what I thought? You know what I did do. Naturally, you know more about it than me, since you arranged the whole thing!”

“I see.” Wolfe put up a brow. “You think I arranged it?”

“No.” O’Neill leaned on the desk again. “I know you arranged it! What happened? Wasn’t Goodwin right there? I admit I was dumb when I came here Friday. I was afraid you had agreed to frame Boone’s murder on someone in the BPR, or at least someone outside the NIA. And already, you must have been, you were preparing to frame someone in the NIA! Me! No wonder you think I’m a nincompoop!”

He jerked erect, glared at Wolfe, turned to glare at me, went to the red leather chair and sat down, and said in a completely different voice, calm and controlled:

“But you’ll find that I’m not a nincompoop.”

“That point,” Wolfe said, frowning at him, “is relatively unimportant. The envelope you received this morning special delivery-have you got it with you?”

“No.”

“Where is it, at your home?”

“Yes.”

“Telephone and tell someone to bring it here.”

“No. I’m going to have some detective work done on that envelope and not by you.”

“Then you won’t hear what those cylinders have to say,” Wolfe explained patiently. “Must I keep repeating that?”

This time O’Neill didn’t try to argue. He used the phone on my desk, dialed, got his party, and told someone whom he called Honey to get the envelope as described from the top of his chiffonier and send it by messenger to Nero Wolfe’s office. I was surprised. I would have made it five to one that there was no such envelope, and it was still even money with me that it would be gone from the chiffonier because it must have dropped to the floor and the maid thought it was trash.

When O’Neill was back in the red leather chair Wolfe said, “You’re going to find it a little difficult to get anyone to believe that you suspect Mr. Goodwin and me of arranging this. For if that’s true, why didn’t you insist on going to the police? He wanted to.”

“He did not want to.” O’Neill was keeping calm. “He merely threatened to.”

“But the threat worked. Why did it work?”

“You know damn well why it worked. Because I wanted to hear what’s on those cylinders.”

“You did indeed. Up to five thousand dollars. Why?”

“Do I have to tell you why?”

“No. You don’t have to. You know how it stands.”

O’Neill gulped. He had probably swallowed “Go to hell” thirty times in thirty minutes. “Because I have reason to suppose, and so have you, that they are confidential dictation by Cheney Boone, and they may have something to do with what happened to him, and if so I want to know it.”

Wolfe shook his head reproachfully. “You’re inconsistent. Day before yesterday, sitting in that same chair, your attitude was that you of the NIA had nothing to do with it and it was none of your business. Another thing: you didn’t try to bribe Mr. Goodwin to let you hear the cylinders. You tried to bribe him to give you four hours alone with them. Were you trying to scoop all of us-the police, the FBI, and me?”

“Yes, I was, if you want to call it scoop. I didn’t trust you before, and now…”

Now, from his tone, we were something scraped off the under side of a bridge.

I could report it all, since it’s still in the notebook, but it isn’t worth it. Wolfe decided, apparently more to kill time than anything else, to put the microscope on the episode of the phone call from Dorothy Unger and the receipt of the envelope. He took O’Neill over it, back and forth and up and down, and O’Neill stayed with him, against his strongest instincts and inclinations, because he knew he had to if he wanted to hear those cylinders. I got so fed up with the repetitions that when the doorbell rang the interruption was welcome in more ways than one.

O’Neill sprang from his chair and came along to the front door. On the stoop was a middle-aged square-faced woman in a purple coat. He greeted her as Gretty, took the envelope she handed him, and thanked her.

Back in the office he let Wolfe and me handle it to look it over, but stayed close. It was a regulation BPR envelope, New York office, with his name and home address typed. Right in the corner, over the penalty clause, was a three-cent stamp, and a couple of inches to the left were five more three-cent stamps. Beneath them was printed by hand with a blue pencil: SPECIAL DELIVERY. Inside was a mimeographed BPR circular, dated March 27th, regarding price ceilings on a long list of copper and brass items.

When Wolfe handed it back to O’Neill and he stuck it in his pocket I remarked, “The post-office employees get more careless all the time. With that stamp in the corner canceled and the others not.”

“What?” O’Neill got it from his pocket and glared at it. “What of it?”

“Nothing,” Wolfe said shortly. “Mr. Goodwin likes to brag. It proves nothing.”

I saw no reason why I shouldn’t help to kill time, and I resent Wolfe’s habit of making personal remarks in front of strangers, especially when he’s an enemy, so I was opening my mouth to go on with it when the bell rang again. When I went to answer it O’Neill came along. You might have thought he was training for the job.

It was the Stenophone man. O’Neill did the honors, mentioning the president and apologizing for ruining his Sunday and so on, and I helped with the machine. It didn’t amount to much, for O’Neill had explained on the phone that we didn’t need a recorder. The chassis of the player had casters, and didn’t weigh over sixty pounds anyhow. The Stenophone man wheeled it into the office, and was introduced to Wolfe, and in less than five minutes had us all instructed. Then, since he didn’t seem disposed to linger, we let him go.

When I returned to the office after showing the visitor out, Wolfe sent me a certain type of glance to alert me and said:

“Now, Archie, if you’ll get Mr. O’Neill’s hat and coat, please. He is leaving.”

O’Neill stared at him a second and then laughed, or at least made a noise. It was the first downright ugly noise he had made.

Just to try him for size I took two quick steps toward him. He took three quick steps back. I stopped and grinned at him. He tried to look at both Wolfe and me at once.

“So that’s how it is,” he said, extremely ugly. “You think you can double-cross Don O’Neill. You’d better not.”

“Pfui.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I have given you no assurance that you would be permitted to hear these things. It would be manifestly improper to permit an official of the NIA to listen to confidential dictation of the Director of the BPR, even after the Director has been murdered. Besides, you’re inconsistent again. A while ago you said you didn’t trust me. That could only have been because you considered me untrustworthy. Now you profess to be shocked to find that I am untrustworthy. Utterly inconsistent.” The finger wiggled again. “Well, sir? Do you prefer to be self-propelled?”