Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

“What’s the program now?”

Quayle twisted around. “We’ve got another paper. Which we’ll show when the time comes. The kind of law that opens all doors from the mightiest to the humblest.”

“To be shown when? Three-thirty?”

“Go suck a pickle.”

“Aw, tell him,” the colleague growled. “What do you expect to get out of it, fame?”

“He’s witty,” Quayle said petulantly. He twisted back to me. “At three-thirty we phone in again for the word.”

“That’s more like it,” I declared approvingly. “And what happens if I emerge with a large object resembling Nero Wolfe and wedge him into my car and drive off? Do you flash your first paper and interfere?”

“No. We follow you if it’s straight to Centre Street. If you try detouring by way of Yonkers that’s different.”

“Okay. I’m accepting your word of honor. If you forget what you said and try to grab him I’ll complain to the Board of Health. He’s sick.”

“What with?”

“Sitzenlust. Chronic. The opposite of wanderlust. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize a human life, would you?”

“Yes.”

Satisfied, I closed the door and returned to the office and told Wolfe, “All set. In spite of our having outriders I’m game either for Centre Street or for a dash for Canada, however you feel. You can tell me after we’re in the car.”

He started to get erect, his lips compressed tighter than ever.

Chapter 29

YOU ARE NOT AN attorney,” Inspector Ash declared in an insulting tone, though the statement was certainly not an insult in itself. “Nothing that has been said or written to you by anyone whatever has the status of a privileged communication.”

It was not a convention as I had expected. Besides Wolfe and me the only ones present were Ash, Police Commissioner Hombert, and District Attorney Skinner, which left Hombert’s spacious and well-furnished corner office looking practically uninhabited, even considering that Wolfe counted for three. At least he was not undergoing downright physical hardship, since there had been found available a chair large enough to accommodate his beam without excessive squeezing.

But he was conceding nothing. “That remark,” he told Ash in his most objectionable tone, “is childish. Suppose I have been told something that I don’t want you to know about. Would I admit the fact and then refuse to tell you about it on the ground that it was a privileged communication? Pfui! Suppose you kept after me. I would simply tell you a string of lies and then what?”

Ash was smiling. His plastic eyes had the effect of reflecting all the light that came at them from the four big windows, as if their surfaces could neither absorb light nor give it out.

“The trouble with you, Wolfe,” he said curtly, “is that you’ve been spoiled by my predecessor, Inspector Cramer. He didn’t know how to handle you. You had him buffaloed. With me in charge you’ll see a big difference. A month from now or a year from now you may still have a license and you may not. It depends on how you behave.” He tapped his chest with his forefinger. “You know me. You may remember how far you got with that Boeddiker case over in Queens.”

“I never started. I quit. And your abominable handling gave the prosecutor insufficient evidence to convict a murderer whose guilt was manifest. Mr. Ash, you are both a numskull and a hooligan.”

“So you’re going to try it on me.” Ash was still smiling. “Maybe I won’t give you even a month. I don’t see why-”

“That will do for that,” Hombert broke in.

“Yes, sir,” Ash said respectfully. “I only wanted-”

“I don’t give a damn what you only wanted. We’re in one hell of a fix, and that’s all I’m interested in. If you want to ride Wolfe on this case go as far as you like, but save the rest till later. It was your idea that Wolfe was holding out and it was time to put the screws on him. Go ahead. I’m all for that.”

“Yes, sir.” Ash had quit smiling to look stern. “I only know this, that in every case I’ve ever heard of where Wolfe horned in and got within smelling distance of money he has always managed to get something that no one else gets, and he always hangs onto it until it suits his convenience to let go.”

“You’re quite correct, Inspector,” District Attorney Skinner said dryly. “You might add that when he does let go the result is usually disastrous for some lawbreaker.”

“Yes?” Ash demanded. “And is that a reason for letting him call the tune for the Police Department and your office?”

“I would like to ask,” Wolfe put in, “if I was hauled down here to listen to a discussion of my own career and character. This babbling is frivolous.”

Ash was getting stirred up. He glared. “You were hauled down here,” he rasped, “to tell us what you know, and everything you know, about these crimes. You say I’m a numskull. I don’t say you’re a numskull, far from it, here’s my opinion of you in one short sentence. I wouldn’t be surprised if you know something that gives you a good clear idea of who it was that killed Cheney Boone and the Gunther woman.”

“Certainly I do. So do you.”

They made movements and noises. I grinned around at them, nonchalant, to convey the impression that there was nothing to get excited about, because I had the conviction that Wolfe was overplaying it beyond all reason just to get even with them and it might have undesirable consequences. His romantic nature often led him to excesses like that, and once he got started it was hard to stop him, the stopping being one of my functions. Before their exclamations and head-jerkings were finished I stepped in.

“He doesn’t mean,” I explained hastily, “that we’ve got the murderer down in our car. There are details to be attended to.”

Hombert’s and Skinner’s movements had been limited to minor muscular reactions, but Ash had left his chair and strode masterfully to within two feet of Wolfe, where he stopped short to gaze down at him. He stood with his hands behind his back, which was effective in a way, but it would have been an improvement if he had remembered that in the classic Napoleon stance the arms are folded.

“You either mean it,” he said like a menace, “or you don’t. If it’s a bluff you’ll eat it. It is isn’t, for once in your life you’re going to be opened up.” His bony head swiveled to Hombert. “Let me take him, sir. Here in your office it might be embarrassing.”

“Imbecile,” Wolfe muttered. “Hopeless imbecile.” He applied the levers and got himself to his feet. “I had reluctantly accepted the necessity of a long and fruitless discussion of a singularly difficult problem, but this is farcical. Take me home, Archie.”

“No you don’t,” Ash said, even more a menace. He reached and gripped Wolfe’s arm. “You’re under arrest, my man. This time you-”

I was aware that Wolfe could move without delay when he had to, and, knowing what his attitude was toward anybody’s hand touching him, I had prepared myself for motion when I saw Ash grab his arm, but the speed and precision with which he slapped Ash on the side of his jaw were a real surprise, not only to me but to Ash himself. Ash didn’t even know it was coming until it was there, a healthy open-palm smack with a satisfactory sound effect. Simultaneously Ash’s eyes glittered and his left fist started, and I propelled myself up and forward. The emergency was too split-second to permit anything fancy, so I simply inserted myself in between, and Ash’s left collided with my right shoulder before it had any momentum to speak of. With great presence of mind I didn’t even bend an elbow, merely staying there as a barrier; but Wolfe, who claims constantly to detest a hubbub, said through his teeth: