Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

“You are under no compulsion, madam, to tell me anything at all. You’ve already been talking three or four minutes.”

“I know. My cousin warned me that you would be incredibly rude.-Then I might as well come right out and say that I think I am responsible for the death of Phoebe Gunther.”

“That’s an uncomfortable thought,” muttered Wolfe. “Where did you get it?”

“That’s what I want to tell you, and I suppose I’m really going to or I wouldn’t have come here, but while I was sitting here waiting I got up to leave a dozen times and then sat down again. I don’t know what to do and last night I thought I was going crazy. I always depended on my husband to make important decisions. I don’t want to tell the police or the FBI because I may have committed some kind of a crime, I don’t know. But it seems silly to tell you on account of the way my husband felt about the NIA, and of course I feel the same way about them, and you’re working for them, you’re on their side. I suppose I ought to go to a lawyer, and I know lots of lawyers, but there doesn’t seem to be one I could tell this to. They all seem to do all the talking and I never understand what they’re saying.”

That should have softened Wolfe up. He did get a little more receptive, taking the trouble to repeat that he wasn’t on any side. “For me,” he stated, “this is not a private feud, whatever it may be for others. What was the crime you committed?”

“I don’t know-if it was one.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. That’s the trouble. What happened was that Miss Gunther told me what she was doing and I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone and I didn’t, and I have a feeling-”

She stopped. In a moment she went on, “That isn’t true, I haven’t just got a feeling. I’m sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“I’m sure that if I had told the police what she told me she wouldn’t have been killed. But I didn’t tell, because she explained that what she was doing was helping the BPR and hurting the NIA, and that was what my husband would have wanted more than anything else.” The widow was staring at Wolfe’s face as if she were trying to see inside. “And she was perfectly correct. I’m still making up my mind whether to tell you about it. In spite of what you say, there’s my husband’s side and there’s the other side, and you’re working for the NIA. After I talked with my cousin I thought I’d come and see what you sounded like.”

“What do I sound like?”

“I don’t know.” Her hand fluttered vaguely. “I really don’t know.”

Wolfe frowned at her in silence, then heaved a sigh and turned to me.

“Archie.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Your notebook. Take a letter. To be mailed this evening so it will be delivered in the morning. To the National Industrial Association, attention Mr. Frank Thomas Erskine.

“Gentlemen: The course events have taken obliges me to inform you that it will be impossible for me to continue to act in your behalf with regard to the investigation of the murders of Mr. Cheney Boone and Miss Phoebe Gunther. Therefore I enclose herewith my check for thirty thousand dollars, returning the retainer you have paid me and ending my association with you in this matter. Sincerely.”

I made the last scratch and looked at him. “Do I draw the check?”

“Certainly. You can’t enclose it if it hasn’t been drawn.” Wolfe’s eyes moved to the visitor. “There, Mrs. Boone, that should have some effect on your reluctance. Even accepting your point of view, that I was on the other side, now I am not. What did Miss Gunther tell you she was doing?”

The widow was gazing at him. “Thirty thousand dollars?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.” Wolfe was smirking. “A substantial sum.”

“But was that all the NIA was paying you? Just thirty thousand? I supposed it was twenty times that! They have hundreds of millions-billions!”

“It was only the retainer,” Wolfe said testily. The smirk was gone. “Anyway, I am now a neutral. What did Miss Gunther tell you?”

“But now-but now you’re not getting anything at all!” Mrs. Boone was utterly bewildered. “My cousin told me that during the war you worked hard for the government for nothing, but that you charge private people outrageous prices. I ought to tell you-if you don’t know-that I can’t afford to pay you anything outrageous. I could-” she hesitated. “I could give you a check for a hundred dollars.”

“I don’t want a check.” Wolfe was exasperated. “If I can’t have a client in this case without being accused of taking sides in a sanguinary vendetta, I don’t want a client. Confound it, what did Miss Gunther tell you?”

Mrs. Boone looked at me, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to find some sort of resemblance to her dead husband, he being gone and therefore no longer available for important decisions. I thought it might possibly help if I nodded at her reassuringly, so I did. Whether that broke the tie or not I don’t know, but something did, for she spoke to Wolfe:

“She knew who killed my husband. My husband told her something that day when he gave her the leather case, and she knew from that, and also he had dictated something on one of those cylinders that told about it, so the cylinder was evidence, and she had it. She was keeping it and she intended to give it to the police, but she was waiting until the talk and the rumors and the public feeling had done as much damage as possible to the NIA. She told me about it because I went to her and told her I knew she wasn’t telling the truth about that leather case, I knew she had had it with her at the table in the dining room, and I wasn’t going to keep still about it any longer. She told me what she was doing so I wouldn’t tell the police about the case.”

“When was that? What day?”

She thought a moment, the crease deepening in her forehead, and then shook her head uncertainly. “The days,” she said. “The days are all mixed up.”

“Of course they are, Mrs. Boone. It was Friday evening when you were here with the others the first time, when you almost spoke up about it and changed your mind. Was it before that, or after?”

“It was after. It was the next day.”

“Then it was Saturday. Another thing that will help you to place it, Saturday morning you received an envelope in the mail containing your wedding picture and automobile license. Do you remember that? It was the same day?”

She nodded with assurance. “Yes, of course it was. Because I spoke of that, and she said she had written a letter to him-to the man who killed my husband- she knew my husband had always carried the wedding picture in the wallet that was missing-he had carried it for over twenty years-twenty-three years-”

The widow’s voice got away from her. She gave it up and gulped, sat without trying to go on, and gulped again. If she lost control completely and started noises and tears there was no telling what Wolfe would do. He might even have tried to act human, which would have been an awful strain on all of us. So I told her gruffly:

“Okay, Mrs. Boone, take your time. Whenever you get ready, what did she write a letter to the murderer for? To tell him to send you the wedding picture?”