The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

“You’re getting a little ahead,” Smith stated. “I said we would confer on aspects of evidence after your plans are made. You will make plans only after you have accepted the offer. Do I understand that you’ve accepted it?”

“You do not. Not as described. I decline it.”

Smith took it like a gentleman. He said nothing. After some long seconds of saying nothing, he swallowed, and that was his first sign of weakness. Evidently he was throwing in his hand and was ready for another deal. When, after another period of silence, he swallowed again, there was no question about it.

“There is another possibility,” he said, “that would not be open to the objections you have made. Don O’Neill.”

“M-m-m-m,” Wolfe remarked.

“He also came in a taxicab. The motive is plain and in fact already established, since it is the motive that has already been accepted, wrongly and maliciously, all over the country. He would not serve the purpose as satisfactorily as Dexter or Kates, but it would transfer the public resentment from an institution or group to an individual; and that would change the picture completely.”

“M-m-m-m.”

“Also, evidence would not be suspect on account of its source.”

“M-m-m-m.”

“And therefore the scope of the evidence could be substantially widened. For example, it might be possible to introduce the testimony of a person or persons who saw, here in your hall, O’Neill putting the scarf into the pocket of Kates’s overcoat. I understand that Goodwin, your confidential assistant, was there throughout-”

“No,” Wolfe said curtly.

“He doesn’t mean I wasn’t there,” I assured Smith with a friendly grin. “Only that I’ve already been too damn positive about it. You should have come sooner. I would have been glad to discuss terms. When O’Neill tried to buy me it was Sunday, and I can’t be bribed on Sunday-”

His eyes darted at me and through me. “What did O’Neill want you to do?”

I shook my head. Probably a thousand ergs. “That wouldn’t be fair. Would you want me to tell him what you wanted me to do?”

He was strongly tempted to insist, there was no doubt about his thirst for knowledge, but his belief in the conservation of energy, coupled with the opinion he had formed of me, won the day. He gave it up without another try and returned to Wolfe.

“Even if Goodwin couldn’t give it,” he said, “there is still a good chance of testimony to that effect being available.”

“Not from Mr. Breslow,” Wolfe declared. “He would be a wretched witness. Mr. Winterhoff would do fairly well. Mr. Erskine Senior would be admirable. Young Mr. Erskine-I don’t know, I rather doubt it. Miss Harding would be the best of all. Could you get her?”

“You’re going too fast again.”

“Not at all. Fast? Such details are of the greatest importance.”

“I know they are. After you are committed. Are you accepting my suggestion about O’Neill?”

“Well.” Wolfe leaned back, opened his eyes to a wider slit, and brought his finger tips together at the apex of his central bulk. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Smith. The best way to put it, I think, is in the form of a message, or rather messages, for Mr. Erskine. Tell Mr. Erskine-”

“I’m not representing Erskine. I have mentioned no names.”

“No? I thought I heard you mention Mr. O’Neill, and Mr. Dexter and Mr. Kates. However, the difficulty is this, that the police or the FBI may find that tenth cylinder at any moment, and in all likelihood that would make fools of all of us.”

“Not if we have-”

“Please, sir. You have talked. Let me talk. On the hypothesis that you may run across Mr. Erskine. Tell him, that I am grateful for this suggestion regarding the size of the fee I may ask for without shocking him. I’ll remember it when I make out my bill. Tell him that I appreciate his effort to pay the fee in a way that would keep it off my income tax report, but that form of skullduggery doesn’t appeal to me. It’s a matter of taste, and I happen not to like that. Tell him that I am fully aware that every minute counts; I know that the death of Miss Gunther has increased the public resentment to an unprecedented outburst of fury; I read the editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal; I heard Raymond Swing on the radio this evening; I know what’s happening.”

Wolfe opened his eyes still wider. “Especially tell him this. If this idiotic flimflam is persisted in there will probably be the devil to pay and I’ll be helpless, but I’ll send in a bill just the same, and I’ll collect it. I am now convinced that he is either a murderer or a simpleton, and possibly both. He is not, thank God, my client. As for you-no, I won’t bother. As you say, you are merely an errand boy, and I suppose a reputable lawyer, of the highest standing. Therefore you are a sworn officer of the law. Pfui!-Archie. Mr. Smith is going.”

He had indeed left his chair and was upright. But he wasn’t quite going. He said, in precisely the same tone he had used at the door when telling me he would like to see Mr. Wolfe:

“I would like to know whether I can count on this being treated as confidential. I merely want to know what to expect.”

“You’re a simpleton too,” Wolfe snapped. “What’s the difference whether I say yes or no-to you? I don’t even know your name. Wouldn’t I do as I please?”

“You think-” Smith said, and didn’t finish it. Probably the sentence as conceived might have betrayed a trace of some emotion, like sizzling rage for instance, and that wasn’t to be permitted under any circumstances.