The Silent Speaker (Crime Line)

Chapter 7

FRIDAY WE GOT THE bite. Since Wolfe spends every morning from nine to eleven up in the plant rooms, I was in the office alone when the call came. The call took the regular routine in this Land of the Secretary.

“Miss Harding calling Mr. Wolfe. Put Mr. Wolfe on, please.”

If I put it all down it would take half a page to get me, not Mr. Wolfe, just me, connected with Miss Harding. Anyhow I made it, and got the idea across that Wolfe was engaged with orchids and I would have to do. She wanted to know how soon Wolfe could get up there to see Mr. Erskine, and I explained that he seldom left the house for any purpose whatever, and never merely on business.

“I know that!” she snapped. She must have missed another night’s sleep. “But this is Mr. Erskine!”

I knew we had him now, so I snooted her. “To you,” I agreed, “he is all of that. To Mr. Wolfe he is nothing but a pest. Mr. Wolfe hates to work, even at home.”

Instructed to hold the wire, I did so, for about ten minutes. Finally her voice came again:

“Mr. Goodwin?”

“Still here. Older and wiser, but still here.”

“Mr. Erskine will be at Mr. Wolfe’s office at four-thirty this afternoon.”

I was getting exasperated. “Listen, Public Relations,” I demanded, “why don’t you simplify it by connecting me with this Erksine? If he comes at four-thirty he’ll wait an hour and a half. Mr. Wolfe’s hours with orchids are from nine to eleven in the morning and from four to six in the afternoon, and nothing short of murder-I mean nothing-has ever changed it or ever will.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Sure it is. So is this ring-around-the-rosy method for a man communicating with another man, but I stand for it.”

“Hold the wire.”

I never got connected with Erskine, that was too much to expect, but in spite of everything we finally completed an arrangement, fighting our way through the obstacles, so that when Wolfe come downstairs at eleven o’clock I was able to announce to him:

“Mr. Frank Thomas Erskine, President of the National Industrial Association, with outriders, will be here at ten minutes past three.”

“Satisfactory, Archie,” he muttered.

Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It’s childish.