Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

“Ed Erskine?” She was flabbergasted. “Ask me where Ed Erskine is?”

“That’s right.”

“I’d say he was out of his mind.”

“So would I. So that’s settled. Now before we hang up, to leave no loose ends hanging, maybe you’d better answer my own personally conducted question, about the dinner. How do you usually say no? Blunt? Or do you zigzag to avoid hurting people’s feelings?”

“Oh, I’m blunt.”

“All right, wait till I brace myself. Shoot.”

“I couldn’t go tonight, no matter how tricky you are. I’m eating here with my aunt in her room.”

“Then supper later. Or breakfast. Lunch. Lunch tomorrow at one?”

There was a pause. “What kind of a place is this Brazilian restaurant?”

“Okay, out of the way, and good food.”

“But… whenever I go on the street-”

“I know. That’s how it is. Leave by the Forty-ninth Street entrance. I’ll be there at the curb with a dark blue Wethersill sedan. I’ll be right there from twelve-fifty on. You can trust me to be there, but beyond that, remember, be on your guard.”

“I may be a little late.”

“I should hope so. You look perfectly normal to me. And please don’t, five or ten years from now, try to tell me that I said you look average. I didn’t say average, I said normal. See you tomorrow.”

As I pushed the phone back I had a notion that a gleam of self-congratulation might be visible in my eyes, so I didn’t turn immediately to face Wolfe but found papers on my desk that needed attention. After a moment he muttered:

“This evening would have been better.”

I counted ten. Then, still without turning, I said distinctly, “My dear sir, try getting her to meet you any time whatever, even at Tiffany’s to try things on.”

He chuckled. Before long he chuckled again. Finding that irritating, I went up to my room and kept busy until dinnertime, straightening up. Fritz and Charley hadn’t been able to get up that high on account of the condition of the rest of the house, and while the microscope experts had been neat and apparently respectable, I thought a spot inventory wouldn’t do any harm.

Toward the end of dinner, with the salad and cheese, a little controversy arose. I wanted to have our coffee there in the dining room and then go straight up to bed, and Wolfe, while admitting that he too needed sleep, wanted the coffee in the office as usual. He got arbitrary about it, and just as an object lesson I sat tight. He went to the office and I stayed in the dining room. When I was through I went to the kitchen and told Fritz:

“I’m sorry you had that extra trouble, serving coffee in two places, but he has got to learn how to compromise. You heard me offer to split the difference and drink it in the hall.”

“It was no trouble at all,” Fritz said graciously. “I understand, Archie. I understand why you’re being erratic. There goes the doorbell.”

It was a temptation to let the damn thing ring. I needed sleep. So did Wolfe, and all I had to do was flip the switch there on the kitchen wall to stop the bell ringing. But I didn’t flip it. I said to Fritz, “Justice. The public weal. Duty, goddam it,” and went to the front and pulled the door open.

Chapter 25

THE GUY STANDING THERE said, “Good evening. I would like to see Mr. Wolfe.”

I had never seen him before. He was around fifty, medium-sized, with thin straight lips and the kind of eyes that play poker for blood. The first tenth of a second I thought he was one of Bascom’s men, and then saw that his clothes ruled that out. They were quiet and conservative and must have had at least three try-ons. I told him:

“I’ll see if he’s in. Your name, please?”

“John Smith.”

“Oh. What do you want to see him about, Mr. Jones?”

“Private and urgent business.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I can to him, yes.”

“Good. Sit down and read a magazine.”

I shut the door on him, clear shut, and went to the office and told Wolfe:

“Mr. John Smith, which he must have got out of a book, looks like a banker who would gladly lend you a dime on a cupful of diamonds. I left him on the stoop, but don’t worry about him being insulted because he has no feelings. Please don’t ask me to find out what he wants because it might take hours.”

Wolfe grunted. “What is your opinion?”

“None at all. I am not being permitted to know where we’re at. The natural impulse is to kick him off the stoop. I’ll say this for him, he’s not an errand boy.”

“Bring him in.”

I did so. In spite of his obnoxious qualities and of his keeping us up, I put him in the red leather chair because that had him facing both of us. He was not a lounger. He sat up straight, with his fingers intertwined in his lap, and told Wolfe:

“I gave the name of John Smith because my name is of no significance. I am merely an errand boy.”

Starting off by contradicting me. He went on:

“This is a confidential matter and I must speak with you privately.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Mr. Goodwin is my confidential assistant. His ears are mine. Go ahead.”

“No.” Smith’s tone implied, and that settles it. “I have to be alone with you.”

“Bah.” Wolfe pointed to a picture of the Washington Monument, on the wall fifteen feet to his left. “Do you see that picture? It is actually a perforated panel. If Mr. Goodwin is sent from the room he will go to an alcove around a corner of the hall, across from the kitchen door, open the panel on that side, invisible to us, and watch us and listen to us. The objection to that is that he would be standing up. He might as well stay here sitting down.”

Without batting an eye, Smith stood up. “Then you and I will go to the hall.”

“No we won’t.-Archie. Mr. Smith wants his hat and coat.”

I arose and moved. When I was halfway across the room Smith sat down again. I whirled, returned to my base, and did likewise.

“Well, sir?” Wolfe demanded.

“We have somebody,” Smith said, in what was apparently the only tone he ever used, “for the Boone and Gunther murders.”

“We? Somebody?”

Smith untangled his fingers, raised a hand to scratch the side of his nose, dropped the hand, and retwined the fingers. “Of course,” he said, “death is always a tragedy. It causes grief and suffering and often hardship. That cannot be avoided. But in this case, the deaths of these two people, it has already caused widespread injury to many thousands of innocent persons and created a situation that amounts to gross injustice. As you know, as we all know, there are elements in this country that seek to undermine the very foundations of our society. Death is serving them- has served them well. The very backbone of our free democratic system-composed of our most public-spirited citizens, our outstanding businessmen who keep things going for us-is in great and real peril. The source of that peril was an event-now two events-which may have resulted either from the merest chance or from deep and calculated malice. From the standpoint of the common welfare those two events were in themselves unimportant. But overwhelmingly-”