The Silent Speaker (17 page)

'Not at all,' Wolfe contradicted him.

'But damn it, of course!'

'No.' Wolfe sighed. 'You're missing the whole point. What has been the outstanding fact about this case for a whole week now'What was its peculiar characteristic'This, that the public, the people, had immediately brought the case to trial as usual, without even waiting for an arrest, and instead of the customary prolonged disagreement and dissension regarding various suspects, they reached an immediate verdict. Almost unanimously they convicted-this was the peculiar fact-not an individual, but an organization. The verdict was that the National Industrial Association had murdered Cheney Boone. Now what if you were Miss Gunther and knew who had killed Boone'No matter how you knew, that's another question; the point is that you knew. I think she did know. Let's suppose she knew it was young Mr. Erskine. Would she have exposed him'No. She was devoted to the interests of her own organization, the BPR. She saw the rising tide of resentment and indignation against the NIA, constantly increasing in force and intensity. She saw that it might result, if sustained long enough, in completely discrediting the NIA and its purposes, policies, and objectives. She was intelligent enough to calculate that if an individual, no matter who, were arrested for the murder with good evidence, most of the resentment against the NIA would be diverted away from it as an organization.'

Wolfe sighed again. 'What would she do'If she had evidence that pointed to Mr. Erskine, or to anyone else, she would suppress it; but she wouldn't destroy it, for she wouldn't want the murderer eventually to escape his punishment. She would put it where it wouldn't be found, but where she could retrieve it and produce it when the time came, when the NIA had been sufficiently damaged. It is not even necessary to assume loyalty to the BPR as her dominating motive. Suppose it was personal devotion to Mr. Boone and a desire to avenge him. The best possible revenge, the perfect revenge, would be to use his death and the manner of it for the discomfiture and the destruction of the organization which had hated him and tried to thwart him. In my opinion Miss Gunther was capable of that. She was a remarkable young woman. But she made the mistake of permitting the murderer to learn that she knew who he was, how is still another question, and that she paid for.'

Wolfe raised his hand and let it fall. 'However, note this. Her own death served her purpose too. In the past two days the wave of anger against the NIA has increased tremendously. It is going deep into the feeling of the people, and soon it will be impossible to dredge it out again. She was a remarkable woman. No, Mr. Skinner, Miss Gunther's knowing the identity of the murderer would not eliminate my clients. Besides, no man is my client, and no men are. My checks come from the National Industrial Association, which, having no soul, could not possibly commit a murder.'

Wolfe cocked an eye at Hombert. 'Speaking of checks. You have seen the NIA advertisement offering a reward of one hundred thousand dollars. You might let your men know that whoever finds the missing cylinder will get that reward.'

'Yes?' Hombert was skeptical. 'You're as bad as Cramer. What makes you so damn sure about that cylinder'Have you got it in your pocket?'

'No. If I had!'

'What makes you so sure about it?'

'Well. I can't put it in a sentence.'

'We've got all the time there is.'

'Didn't Mr. Cramer explain it to you?'

'Forget Cramer. He's out of it.'

'Which is nothing to your credit, sir.' Wolfe rearranged his pressures and angles, shifting the mass to get the center of gravity exactly right for maximum comfort. An unaccustomed chair always presented him with a complicated engineering problem. 'You really want me to go into this?'

'Yes.'

'Mr. Skinner?'

'Yes.'

'All right, I will.' Wolfe closed his eyes. 'It was apparent from the beginning that Miss Gunther was lying about the leather case. Mr. Cramer knew that, of course. Four people stated that they saw her leaving the reception room with it, people who couldn't possibly have been aware, at the time, that its contents had anything to do with the murder-unless they were all involved in a murder conspiracy, which is preposterous-and therefore had no valid reason for mendacity. Also, Mrs. Boone was barely able to stop herself short of accusing Miss Gunther of falsehood, and Mrs. Boone was at the same table with her in the ballroom. So Miss Gunther was lying. You see that.'

'Keep right on,' Skinner growled.

'I intend to. Why did she lie about the case and pretend that it had disappeared'Obviously because she didn't want the text of the cylinders, one or more of them, to become known. Why didn't she'Not merely because it contained confidential BPR information or intent. Such a text, as she knew, could safely have been entrusted to FBI ears, but she audaciously and jauntily suppressed it. She did that because something in it pointed definitely and unmistakably to the murderer of Mr. Boone. She-'

'No,' Hombert objected. 'That's out. She lied about the case before she could have known that. She told us Wednesday morning, the morning after Boone was killed, about leaving the case on the window sill in the reception room, before she had had an opportunity to listen to what was on the cylinders. So she couldn't have known that.'

'Yes she could.'

'She could tell what was on those cylinders without having access to a Stenophone machine?'

'Certainly. At least one of them. Mr. Boone told her what was on it when he gave her the leather case Tuesday evening, in the room there where he was soon to die. She lied about that too; naturally she had to. She lied about it to me, most convincingly, in my office Friday evening. I should have warned her then that she was being foolhardy to the point of imprudence, but I didn't. I would have wasted my breath. Caution with respect to personal peril was not in her makeup-as the event proved. If it had been, she would not have permitted a man whom she knew to be capable of murder get close to her, alone, on the stoop of my house.'

Wolfe shook his head, his eyes still closed. 'She was really extraordinary. It would be interesting to know where she concealed the case, containing the cylinders, up to Thursday afternoon. It would have been too risky to hide it in Mr. Kates's apartment, which might have been searched by the police at any moment. Possibly she checked it in the Grand Central parcel room, though that seems a little banal for her. At any rate, she had it with her in her suitcase when she went to Washington Thursday afternoon, with Mr. Dexter and with your permission.'

'Cramer's permission,' Hombert grumbled.

Wolfe ignored it. 'I would like to emphasize,' he said with his voice up a little, 'that none of this is conjecture except unimportant details of chronology and method. In Washington Miss Gunther went to her office, listened to the cylinders, and learned which one bore the message that Mr. Boone had told her about. Doubtless she wanted to know exactly what it said, but also she wanted to simplify her problem. It isn't easy to conceal an object the size of that case from an army of expert searchers. She wanted to reduce it to one little cylinder. Another thing, she had contrived a plot. She took the nine eliminated cylinders to her Washington apartment and hid them casually in a hatbox on a closet shelf. She also took ten other cylinders that had been previously used which were there in her office, put them in the leather case, brought it with her when she returned to New York, and checked it in the Grand Central parcel room.

'That was in preparation for her plot, and she probably would have proceeded with it the next day, using the police for the mystification, if it hadn't been for that invitation I sent around for a discussion at my office. She decided to wait for developments. Why she ignored my invitation I don't know, and I shall intrude no guesses. That same evening, Friday, Mr. Goodwin went after her and brought her to my office. She had made a profound impression on him, and she struck me as being of uncommon quality. Evidently her opinion of us was less flattering. She formed the idea that we were more vulnerable to guile than the police; and the next day, Saturday, after she had mailed the parcel room check to Mr. O'Neill and made the phone call to him, giving the name of Dorothy Unger, she sent me a telegram, signing Mr. Breslow's name to it, conveying the notion that observation of Mr. O'Neill's movements might be profitable. We validated her appraisal of us. Mr. Goodwin was at Mr. O'Neill's address bright and early Sunday morning, as Miss Gunther intended him to be. When Mr. O'Neill emerged he was followed, and you know what happened.'

'I don't understand,' Skinner interposed, 'why O'Neill was such an easy sucker for that Dorothy Unger phone call. Didn't the damn fool suspect a plant'Or is he a damn fool or something else?'

Wolfe shook his head. 'Now you're asking for more than I've got. Mr. O'Neill is a headstrong and bumptious man, which may account for it; and we know that he was irresistibly tempted to learn what was on those cylinders, whether because he had killed Mr. Boone or for some other reason is yet to be discovered. Presumably Miss Gunther knew what might be expected of him. Anyhow her plot was moderately successful. It kept us all in that side alley for a day or two, it further jumbled the matter of the cylinders and the leather case, and it was one more involvement of an NIA man, without, however, the undesirable result-undesirable for Miss Gunther-of exposing him as the murderer. She was saving that-the disclosure of the murderer's identity and the evidence she had-for the time that would best suit her purpose.'

'You've got pictures of all this,' Skinner said sarcastically. 'Why didn't you call her on the phone or get her in your office and lecture her on the duties of a citizen?'

'It was impractical. She was dead.'

'Oh'Then you didn't know it all until after she had been killed?'

'Certainly not. How the devil could I'Some of it, yes, it doesn't matter how much. But when word came from Washington that they had found in Miss Gunther's apartment, perfunctorily concealed, nine of the cylinders Mr. Boone had dictated the afternoon of his death-nine, not ten-there was the whole story. There was no other acceptable explanation. All questions became paltry and pointless except the one question: where is the tenth cylinder?'

'Wherever you start a sentence,' Hombert complained grouchily, 'it always ends on that goddam cylinder!'

Wolfe opened his eyes enough to pick Hombert out. 'You try doing a sentence that makes any sense and leave the cylinder out.'

Skinner demanded, 'What if she threw it in the river?'

'She didn't.'

'Why not?'

'I've already told you. Because she intended to use it, when the time came, to get the murderer punished.'

'What if you're making your first and only mistake and she did throw it in the river?'

'Drag the river. All the rivers she could reach.'

'Don't be whimsical. Answer my question.'

Wolfe's shoulders went perceptibly up and down. 'In that case we would be licked. We'd never get him.'

'I think,' Hombert said pointedly, 'that it is conceivable that you would like to sell a bill of goods. I don't say you're a barefaced liar.'

'I don't say I'm not, Mr. Hombert. We all take those chances when we exchange words with other people. So I might as well go home-'

'Wait a minute,' Skinner snapped. 'Do you mean that as an expert investigator you advise abandoning all lines of inquiry except the search for that cylinder?'

'I shouldn't think so.' Wolfe frowned, considering. 'Especially not with a thousand men or more at your disposal. Of course I don't know what has been done and what hasn't, but I know how such things go and I doubt if much has been overlooked in a case of this importance, knowing Mr. Cramer as I do. For instance, that piece of iron pipe; I suppose every possible effort has been made to discover where it came from. The matter of arrivals at my house Monday evening has of course been explored with every resource and ingenuity. The tenants of all the buildings in my block on both sides of the street have naturally been interviewed, on the slim chance, unlikely in that quiet neighborhood, that somebody saw or heard something. The question of opportunity alone, the evening of the dinner at the Waldorf, must have kept a dozen men busy for a week, and perhaps you're still working on it. Inquiries regarding relationships, both open and concealed, the checking and rechecking of Mr. Dexter's alibi-these and a thousand other details have unquestionably been competently and thoroughly attended to.'

Wolfe wiggled a finger. 'And where are you'So sunk in a bog of futility and bewilderment that you resort to such monkey tricks as ditching Mr. Cramer, replacing him with a buffoon like Mr. Ash, and swearing out a warrant for my arrest! Over a long period I have become familiar with the abilities and performances of the New York police, and I never expected to see the day when the inspector heading the Homicide Squad would try to solve a difficult murder case by dragging me off to a cell, attacking my person, putting me in handcuffs, and threatening me with mayhem!'

'That's a slight exaggeration. This is not a cell, and I don't-'

'He intended to,' Wolfe asserted grimly. 'He would have. Very well. You have asked me my advice. I would continue, within reason, all lines of inquiry that have already been started, and initiate any others that offer any promise whatever, because no matter what the cylinder gives you-if and when you find it-you will almost certainly need all available scraps of support and corroboration. But the main chance, the only real hope, is the cylinder. I suggest you try this. You both met Miss Gunther'Good. Sit down and shut your eyes and imagine it is last Thursday afternoon, and you are Miss Gunther, sitting in your office in the BPR headquarters in Washington. You have decided what you are going to do with the leather case and the nine eliminated cylinders; forget all that. In your hand is the cylinder, and the question is what to do with it. Here's what you're after: you want to preserve it against any risk of damage, you want it easily accessible should you need it on short notice, and you want to be certain that no matter how many people look for it, or who, with whatever persistence and ingenuity, it will not be found.'