The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

what was going on in every sector except the one that was occupied by Saul Panzer, and it was impossible to imagine what Saul could be doing that could justify, let alone necessitate, the gaudy and spectacular stunt Wolfe was indulging in. When Saul phoned in at two o’clock I had a notion to tackle him and try to open him up, but I knew it would be hopeless and put him through to the bedroom. On any list of temptations I have resisted, that one goes first. I was tingling from head to foot with the desire to listen in. But a part of the understanding between Wolfe and me is that I never violate instructions except when circumstances unknown to him, as interpreted by my best judgment, require it, and I couldn’t kid myself that that applied here. My instructions were that Saul Panzer was out of bounds for me until further notice, and I put the thing on the cradle and walked up and down with my hands in my pockets.

Other phone calls came, it doesn’t matter what, and I did violate another instruction, the one to receive any and all callers. Circumstances certainly justified that. I was in the kitchen helping Fritz sharpen knives, I suppose on the principle that in times of crisis we instinctively seek the companionship of fellow creatures, when the bell rang and I went to the front door, fingered the curtain aside for a peek, and saw Breslow. I opened the door a crack and barked through at him:

“No admittance this is a house of mourning beat it!”

I banged the door and started back to the kitchen, but didn’t make it. Passing the foot of the stairs I became aware of sound and movement, and stopping to look up I saw what was making it. Wolfe, covered with nothing but the eight yards of yellow silk it took to make him a suit of pajamas, was descending. I goggled at him. If nothing else, it was unprecedented for him to move vertically except with the elevator.

“How did you get out?” I demanded.

“Fritz gave me a key.” He came on down, and I noted that at least he had put his slippers on. He commanded me, “Get Fritz and Theodore in the office at once.”

I had never before seen him outside his room in deshabille. It was obviously an extreme emergency. I swung the kitchen door open and spoke to Fritz and then went to the office, buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone, and told Theodore to make it snappy. By the time Theodore trotted down and in, Wolfe was seated behind his desk and Fritz and I were standing by.

“How are you, Theodore? I haven’t seen you for three days.”

“I’m all right, thank you, sir. I’ve missed you.”

“No doubt.” Wolfe’s glance went from him to Fritz, then to me, and he said slowly and clearly, “I am a brainless booby.”

“Yes, sir,” I said cordially.

He frowned. “So are you, Archie. Neither of us has any right, henceforth, to pretend possession of the mental processes of an anthropoid. I include you because you heard what I said to Mr. Hombert and Mr. Skinner. You have read the reports from Mr. Bascom’s men. You know what’s going on. And by heaven, it hasn’t occurred to you that Miss Gunther was alone in this office for a good three minutes, nearer four or five, when you brought her here that evening! And it occurred to me only just now! Pfui! And I have dared for nearly thirty years to exercise my right to vote!” He snorted. “I have the brain of a mollusk!”

“Yeah.” I was staring at him. I remembered, of course, that when I had brought Phoebe that Friday night I had left her in the office and gone to the kitchen to get him. “So you think-”

“No. I am through pretending to think. This makes it untenable. – Fritz and Theodore, a young woman was in here alone four minutes. She had, in her pocket or her bag, an object she wanted to hide-a black cylinder three inches in diameter and six inches long. She didn’t know how much time she would have; someone might enter any moment. On the assumption that she hid it in this room, find it. Knowing the quality of her mind, I think it likely that she hid it in my desk. I’ll look there myself.”

He shoved his chair back and dived to pull open a bottom drawer. I was at my own desk, also opening drawers. Fritz asked me, “What do we do, divide it in sections?”

“Divide hell,” I told him over my shoulder. “Just start looking.”

Fritz went to the couch and began removing cushions. Theodore chose, for his first guess, the two vases on top of the filing cabinet which at that season contained pussy willows. There was no more conversation; we were too busy. I can’t give a detailed report of the part of the search conducted by Fritz and Theodore because I was too intent on my own part of it; all I had for them was occasional glances to see what they were covering; but I kept an eye on Wolfe because I shared his opinion of the quality of Phoebe’s mind and it would have been like her to pick Wolfe’s own desk for it provided she found a drawer which looked as if its contents were not often disturbed. But he drew a blank. As I was opening the back of the radio cabinet, he slid his chair back into position, got comfortable in it, muttered, “Confound that woman,”

and surveyed us like a field commander directing his troops in action.

Fritz’s voice came, “Is this it, Mr. Wolfe?”

He was kneeling on the rug in front of the longest section of bookshelves, and stacked beside him were a dozen volumes of the bound Lindenia, with a big gap showing on the bottom shelf, which was only a few inches above the floor. He was extending a hand with an object in it at which one glance was enough.

“Ideal,” Wolfe said approvingly. “She was really extraordinary. Give it to Archie. Archie, roll that machine out. Theodore, I’ll be with you in the potting room possibly later today, certainly tomorrow morning at the usual hour. Fritz, I congratulate you; you tried the bottom shelf first, which was sensible.”

Fritz was beaming as he handed me the cylinder and turned to go, with Theodore following him.

“Well,” I remarked as I plugged the machine in and inserted the cylinder, “this may do it. Or it may not.”

“Start it,” Wolfe growled. He was tapping on an arm of his chair with a finger. “What’s the matter? Won’t it go?”

“Certainly it will go. Don’t hurry me. I’m nervous and I have the brain of a-I forget what. Mollusk.”

I flipped the switch and sat down. The voice of Cheney Boone came to our ears, unmistakably the same voice we had heard on the other ten cylinders. For five minutes neither of us moved a muscle. I stared at