The Silent Speaker - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Cheney Boone is the Director of the Bureau of Price Regulation (BPR), an agency of the Federal government. At a dinner in New York hosted by the National Industrial Association (NIA), he is beaten to death with a monkey wrench shortly after his confidential secretary, Phoebe Gunther, brings him items to use as props for the speech he was to give that night. The body is discovered by Alger Kates, a BPR researcher.

There is considerable bad blood between the BPR and the NIA and the public is generally aware of the antagonism. Members and officers of the NIA are frantic because the public has assumed that someone in the association instigated Boone's murder.

When the NIA hires Nero Wolfe to investigate the murder, Wolfe calls a meeting of principals related to the case. The meeting includes Boone's widow and niece, the BPR's acting director Solomon Dexter, Alger Kates, the NIA's executive committee, and Don O'Neill. Also present are Inspector Cramer, Sergeant Stebbins and a representative of the FBI. Phoebe Gunther had been invited but does not attend. As the meeting's participants discuss, it is discovered that anyone present at the dinner could have murdered Boone – hundreds of attendees had opportunity, and none of them have an alibi provided by anyone who would not already be inclined to protect them.

After the meeting's participants depart, Wolfe sends Archie for Phoebe Gunther. Entering her apartment, Archie finds both her and Kates. Miss Gunther accompanies Archie to the brownstone and agrees to answer Wolfe's questions if he will answer hers. She states that she lost a leather case containing dictation cylinders, which Boone gave her shortly before his death, through pure carelessness, and that Boone had not told her what was on them.

Don O'Neill has received in the mail a claim check from the parcel room at Grand Central Station. Alerted by an otherwise bogus telegram, Archie follows O'Neill, sees him exchange the claim check for a leather case, and intercepts him. Archie gives O'Neill the choice of going to the police, or going to Wolfe's office to open the case. Eventually O'Neill agrees to go with Archie to the brownstone, where the leather case is found to contain ten dictation cylinders. A machine is procured and the cylinders played. When Archie and Wolfe listen to the cylinders, Boone's references to dates and events makes it clear that these are not the cylinders that he gave Miss Gunther prior to his speech. Wolfe notes in disgust that he and Archie have been "sniggled."

Wolfe calls another meeting of the NIA and BPR representatives, but once again Phoebe Gunther is absent. The BPR people come to help advance the search for Boone's murderer; the NIA people come to try to get the case solved and off the front page. Wolfe has just begun speaking when Fritz comes to the office door and beckons Archie urgently. Fritz takes Archie to the area under the front stoop, where Miss Gunther lies dead. They find the length of rusty iron pipe used to bludgeon her, and also a scarf belonging to the NIA's Winterhoff, dirty with rust flakes and concealed in the pocket of Kates' topcoat.

There is no evidence that points directly at anyone present, however. Cramer instructs the well connected members of the NIA to remain in New York – thus alienating the NIA's out-of-towners. Wolfe is annoyed when he learns that a search of Phoebe Gunther's apartment in Washington has turned up some dictation cylinders, but only nine instead of the expected ten. Wolfe is convinced that the only way to identify the murderer is to locate the missing dictation cylinder.

The NIA's sense of urgency to get the case solved soars as public opinion turns more decisively against it. Inspector Ash, who has been assigned to replace Cramer due to political pressure, calls Wolfe to police headquarters and threatens a search warrant to force entry to the brownstone. Wolfe reacts violently, and Archie has to step between the two men to head off a physical confrontation.

Police Commissioner Hombert, also in the meeting with Wolfe and Ash, just wants the case to go away. He instructs Ash to continue the investigation and placates Wolfe by vacating the open warrants. Wolfe controls himself and draws the picture everyone else: that Phoebe Gunther wanted to use Boone's death to damage the NIA by keeping the public's attention on it; that she did so by concealing evidence on the missing cylinder, hiding it where she could eventually retrieve it; that the recording would unmistakably identify the murderer; and that Cramer was correct to focus his resources on finding the cylinder.

Wolfe then dictates a letter to the NIA, terminating his engagement and returning their $30,000 retainer. Having broken with his client, Wolfe anticipates a renewed assault by the police, since he is no longer shielded by his arrangement with the NIA. So he stages a mental breakdown, persuading his doctor to certify him as suffering from a persecution complex and to deny the police access to him.

Archie gets word that the police are sending a doctor with a court order to see Wolfe. Wolfe bestirs himself and gives the matter further consideration. He urges Archie, Fritz, and Theodore to search the office for the cylinder, which is eventually located behind some books. When the cylinder is played back, both Wolfe and Cramer are vindicated:

The murderer was the ostensibly mild-mannered Alger Kates, who had been providing confidential BPR information to Don O'Neill in exchange for money. An associate of O'Neill had informed Cheney Boone of the scheme, and Boone had dictated a cylinder — the missing cylinder — for Phoebe Gunther, detailing the bribery scheme, his conversation with the associate, and his feelings on the matter. When Kates happened to bring some papers to Boone before the reception, Boone confronted him with what he knew. Kates reacted by grabbing the monkey wrench that was lying nearby and killing Boone.

Phoebe Gunther, having been told by Boone of the bribery and now possessing the dictation cylinder with the incriminating evidence, resolved to keep the cylinder away from the police until the maximum possible damage had been done to the NIA in the court of public opinion. Knowing that the cylinder was the key to the entire case, she hid it in Wolfe's office when she was left alone there the night of the first gathering of suspects. Unfortunately for her, she also showed her hand in insisting later that certain items Kates had retained after the murder be returned to Boone's wife. Kates, now knowing that she knew of his guilt, killed her, lying in wait in the shadows around Wolfe's brownstone until she arrived.

When confronted by Wolfe, Cramer, and the incriminating cylinder, Kates acknowledges his guilt and brags about how even O'Neill is now afraid of him. O'Neill denies his part in the bribery scheme, but Kates signs a confession that will seal both men's fates.

In a scene set after the disposition of the case, Archie informs Wolfe that he is not, in fact, a sap, and is aware that Wolfe had found the missing cylinder well before the frantic hunt in his office; he is simply unsure of whether Wolfe waited so long for "art's sake," or simply to ensure that he could collect the $100,000 reward offered by the NIA. Wolfe does not disagree with either hypothesis, but suggests another motivation: that, if he had simply revealed the cylinder immediately, Phoebe Gunther's death would have been wasteful, and that perhaps the least Wolfe could do was continue as far as possible along her objective: damage to the NIA.