Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

“For Christ’s sake,” Cramer rumbled. “Listen to him! He’s sore!”

“He’s a fool,” O’Neill said righteously, apparently addressing the Stenophone. “He’s a contemptible fool. I certainly never suspected him of murder.” He turned to look straight at Kates. “Good God, I never thought you were capable of that!”

“Neither did I,” Kates squeaked. He had stopped trembling and was standing straight, holding himself stiff. “Not before it happened. After it happened I understood myself better. I wasn’t as much of a fool as Phoebe was. She should have known it then, what I was capable of. I did. She wouldn’t even promise not to tell or to destroy that cylinder. She wouldn’t even promise!” He kept his unblinking eyes on O’Neill. “I should have killed you too, the same evening. I could have. You were afraid of me. You’re afraid of me right now! Neither of them was afraid of me, but you are! You say you never suspected me of murder when you knew all about it!”

O’Neill started a remark, but Cramer squelched him and asked Kates, “How did he know all about it?”

“I told him.” If Kates’s squeak was as painful to perform as it was to listen to he was certainly being hurt. “Or rather I didn’t have to tell him. He arranged to meet me-”

“That’s a lie,” O’Neill said coldly and precisely. “Now you’re lying.”

“Okay, let him finish it.” Cramer kept at Kates, “When was that?”

“The next day, Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon. We met that evening.”

“Where?”

“On Second Avenue between Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth. We talked there on the sidewalk. He gave me some money and told me that if anything happened, if I was arrested, he would furnish whatever I needed. He was afraid of me then. He kept watching me, watching my hands.”

“How long were you together?”

“Ten minutes. My estimate would be ten minutes.”

“What time was it?”

“Ten o’clock. We were to meet at ten o’clock and I was on time, but he was late about fifteen minutes because he said he had to make sure he wasn’t being followed. I don’t think an intelligent man should have any trouble about that.”

Wolfe broke in. “Mr. Cramer. Isn’t this a waste of time? You’re going to have to go all over it again downtown, with a stenographer. He seems to be ready to co-operate.”

“He is ready,” O’Neill put in, “to get himself electrocuted and to make all the trouble he can for other people with his damn lies.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that if I were you.” Wolfe regarded O’Neill with a glint in his eyes. “He is at least more of a philosopher than you are. Bad as he is, he has the grace to accept the inevitable with a show of decorum. You, on the contrary, try to wiggle. From the glances you have been directing at Mr. Warder, I suspect you have no clear idea of where you’re at. You should be making up with him. You’re going to need him to look after the business while you’re away.”

“I’m seeing this through. I’m not going away.”

“Oh, but you are. You’re going to jail. At least that seems-” Wolfe turned abruptly to the Vice-President. “What about it, Mr. Warder? Are you going to try to discredit this message from the dead? Are you going to repudiate or distort your interview with Mr. Boone and have a jury vote you a liar? Or are you going to show that you have some sense?”

Warder no longer looked scared, and when he spoke he showed no inclination to scream. “I am going,” he said in a firm and virtuous voice, “to tell the truth.”

“Did Mr. Boone tell the truth on that cylinder?”

“Yes. He did.”

Wolfe’s eyes flashed back to O’Neill. “There you are, sir. Bribery is a felony. You’re going to need Mr. Warder. The other matter, complicity in murder as an accessory after the fact-that all depends, mostly on your lawyer. From here on the lawyers take over. – Mr. Cramer. Get them out of here, won’t you? I’m tired of looking at them.” He shifted to me. “Archie, pack up that cylinder. Mr. Cramer will want to take it along.”

Cramer, moving, addressed me: “Hold it, Goodwin, while I use the phone,” so I sat facing the audience, with the automatic in my hand in case someone had an attack of nerves, while he dialed his number and conversed. I was interested to hear that his objective was not the Homicide Squad office, where Ash had been installed, nor even the Chief Inspector, but Hombert himself. Cramer did occasionally show signs of having more brain than a mollusk.

“Commissioner Hombert? Inspector Cramer. Yes, sir. No, I’m calling from Nero Wolfe’s office. No, sir, I’m not trying to horn in, but if you’ll let me… Yes, sir, I’m quite aware it would be a breach of discipline, but if you’d just listen a minute- certainly I’m here with Wolfe, I didn’t break in, and I’ve got the man, I’ve got the evidence, and I’ve got a confession. That’s exactly what I’m telling you, and I’m neither drunk nor crazy. Send-wait a minute, hold it.”

Wolfe was making frantic gestures.

“Tell him,” Wolfe commanded, “to keep that confounded doctor away from here.”

Cramer resumed. “All right, Commissioner. Send up-oh, nothing, just Wolfe raving something about a doctor. Were you sending him a doctor? He don’t need one and in my opinion never will. Send three cars and six men to Wolfe’s address. No, I don’t, but I’m bringing three of them down. You’ll see when I get there. Yes, sir, I’m telling you, the case is finished, all sewed up and no gaps worth mentioning. Sure, I’ll bring them straight to you…”

He hung up.

“You won’t have to put handcuffs on me, will you?” Alger Kates squeaked.

“I want to phone my lawyer,” O’Neill said in a frozen voice.

Warder just sat.

Chapter 35

SKIPPING A THOUSAND OR so minor details over the weekend, such as the eminent neurologist Green-no one having bothered to stop him- showing up promptly at a quarter to six, only a few minutes after Cramer had left with his catch, and being informed, in spite of his court order, that the deal was off, I bounce to Monday morning. Wolfe, coming down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock, knew that he would have a visitor, Cramer having phoned for an appointment, and when he entered the office the Inspector was there in the red leather chair. Beside him on the floor was a misshapen object covered with green florist’s paper which he had refused to let me relieve him of. After greetings had been exchanged and Wolfe had got himself comfortable, Cramer said he supposed that Wolfe had seen in the paper that Kates had signed a full and detailed confession to both murders.

Wolfe nodded. “A foolish and inadequate man, that Mr. Kates. But not intellectually to be despised. One item of his performance might even be called brilliant.”

“Sure. I would say more than one. Do you mean his leaving that scarf in his own pocket instead of slipping it into somebody else’s?”

“Yes, sir. That was noteworthy.”

“He’s noteworthy all right,” Cramer agreed. “In fact he’s in a class by himself. There was one thing he wouldn’t talk about or sign any statement about, and what do you suppose it was, something that would help put him in the chair? Nope. We couldn’t get anything out of him about what he wanted the money for, and when we asked if it was his wife, trips to Florida and so forth, he stuck his chin out and said as if we was worms, ‘We’ll leave my wife out of this, you will not mention my wife again.’ She got here yesterday afternoon and he won’t see her. I think he thinks she’s too holy to be dragged in.”