The Silent Speaker

The Silent Speaker
Author(s)	Rex Stout
Cover artist	Robert Hallock
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Nero Wolfe
Genre(s)	Detective fiction
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	October 21, 1946
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	308 pp. (first edition)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Not Quite Dead Enough
Followed by	Too Many Women

The Silent Speaker is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1946. It was published just after World War II, and key plot elements reflect the lingering effects of the war: housing shortages and restrictions on consumer goods, including government regulation of prices, featuring the conflict between a federal price regulatory body and a national business association, paralleling the conflicts between the Office of Price Administration and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

The Silent Speaker was Stout's first full-length Nero Wolfe novel since Where There's a Will in 1940. "Thereafter, though he would continue writing for another thirty years, his stories would all be Nero Wolfe stories," wrote biographer John McAleer. "He liked Wolfe and Archie. After all, they were an essential part of himself. 'During the war years I missed them,' he told me."

Plot introduction

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."

— Nero Wolfe, clarifying matters for the District Attorney, in The Silent Speaker, chapter 29.

The head of a Federal agency is bludgeoned to death just before giving a speech to an industrial association. Public opinion quickly turns against the association, which is thought to have been involved in the murder. The association hires Wolfe to find the murderer in hope of ending the public relations disaster.

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.

The unfamiliar word

In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is an unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. The Silent Speaker contains just this one:

• Gammer. Chapter 29.

Cast of characters

• Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
• Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant (and the narrator of all Wolfe stories)
• Doctor Vollmer — Wolfe's neighbor and practitioner of choice when medical treatment is needed

For the BPR:

• Solomon Dexter — Acting Director of the BPR following Cheney Boone's death
• Phoebe Gunther — Boone's confidential secretary, and second in command at the BPR in all but title
• Alger Kates — A researcher for the BPR
• Mrs. Cheney Boone — Widow of the murdered BPR director
• Nina Boone — Boone's niece

For the NIA:

• Frank and Edward Erskine — Father and son members of the NIA's Executive Committee
• Messrs. Breslow and Winterhoff — Other members of the Executive Committee
• Don O'Neill — Chairman of the dinner committee for the NIA event at which Boone was murdered
• Hattie Harding — Assistant Director of Public Relations

For New York law enforcement:

• Inspector Ash, Inspector Cramer, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, Commissioner Hombert and District Attorney Skinner

Sentiment

The reader is given the opportunity to see how much Wolfe's attitude toward sentiment changes over a brief span of time. In The Silent Speaker, he tells Archie, "One of your most serious defects is that you have no sentiment." Only two years later, in And Be a Villain, he tells Archie, "You would sentimentalize the multiplication table."

Reviews and commentary

• Isaac Anderson, The New York Times Book Review (October 27, 1946) — In this new Nero Wolfe story we are introduced to two organizations whose feelings toward each other are somewhat less than tepid. The NIA, composed of tycoons of high and low degree, is dedicated to the preservation of the American Way of Life. The BPR, a Government bureau, is believed by NIA to have for its chief purpose the throttling of Free Enterprise — which, as everybody knows, is just another name for the aforesaid A. W. of L. The chairman of BPR is fatally conked with a monkey wrench just before he was to have addressed a meeting of NIA — and there are those who believe that NIA has resorted to murder when other attempts to curb BPR have failed. Such a case as this is right up Nero Wolfe's alley. He even neglects his beloved orchids for three whole days. Whether he also neglects his beer deponent sayeth not. It is a humdinger of a story with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin at their uproarious best.
• Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime — The least likely suspect is well hidden, Wolfe does some thinking, and Archie is Archie. Not too much wrangling with the police, and in truth one of Rex Stout's best in the semi-demi form.
• Saturday Review of Literature (November 9, 1946) — Head of govt. price regulating bureau monkey-wrenched out of life just before industrialists' banquet. Enter much-missed Nero Wolfe. Slightly subdued Archie Goodwin narrates Nero's adventures with inimical groups; which include second murder, sharp-edged satire, and Dupinesque solution. Welcome home, Nero.
• Terry Teachout, About Last Night, "Forty years with Nero Wolfe" (January 12, 2009) — Rex Stout's witty, fast-moving prose hasn't dated a day, while Wolfe himself is one of the enduringly great eccentrics of popular fiction. I've spent the past four decades reading and re-reading Stout's novels for pleasure, and they have yet to lose their savor ... It is to revel in such writing that I return time and again to Stout's books, and in particular to The League of Frightened Men, Some Buried Caesar, The Silent Speaker, Too Many Women, Murder by the Book, Before Midnight, Plot It Yourself, Too Many Clients, The Doorbell Rang, and Death of a Doxy, which are for me the best of all the full-length Wolfe novels.
• J. Kenneth Van Dover, At Wolfe's Door — Wolfe's return to the novel-length mystery is a strong one: the plot is solid and the characters — especially Phoebe Gunther — are interesting. There are also strong ideological implications to the action. Miss Gunther refers to the capitalists of the NIA as "the dirtiest gang of pigs and chiselers on earth." Solomon Dexter calls them "the dirtiest bunch of liars and cutthroats in existence." Archie and Wolfe evidently share this estimation. Wolfe deliberately prolongs the public rancor against the NIA until events force him to disclose the criminal and to accept the NIA's gratitude and money.

Adaptations

A Nero Wolfe Mystery (A&E Network)

The Silent Speaker was adapted for the second season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002). The only episode to be both written and directed by Nero Wolfe executive producer Michael Jaffe, "The Silent Speaker" made its debut in two one-hour episodes airing July 14 and 21, 2002, on A&E.

Timothy Hutton is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) are Debra Monk (Mrs. Boone), Colin Fox (Fritz Brenner), Bill Smitrovich (Inspector Cramer), Cynthia Watros (Phoebe Gunther), Joe Flaherty (Dr. Vollmer), George Plimpton (Winterhoff), James Tolkan (FBI Agent Richard Wragg), Conrad Dunn (Saul Panzer), Fulvio Cecere (Fred Durkin), David Schurmann (Frank Erskine), Christine Brubaker (Hattie Harding), Bill MacDonald (Breslow), Matthew Edison (Edward Erskine), R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins), Nicky Guadagni (Mrs. Cramer/Secretary), Richard Waugh (Don O'Neill), Manon von Gerkan (Nina Boone), Julian Richings (Alger Kates), Robert Bockstael (Solomon Dexter), Gary Reineke (Hombert), Steve Cumyn (Skinner) and Doug Lennox (Inspector Ash).

In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small, the soundtrack includes music by Anton Rubinstein (titles) and Dick Walter.

A Nero Wolfe Mystery is available on DVD from A&E Home Video (ISBN 076708893X). The bonus 16:9 letterbox version [1] of "The Silent Speaker" is the only episode of Nero Wolfe that A&E Home Video has made available in widescreen format. "The Silent Speaker" is one of three telefilms initially aired in two parts that A&E released as a "double episode," with a single set of titles and credits.

Publication history

The first edition of The Silent Speaker marks the change from Stout's previous publisher, Farrar & Rinehart, to The Viking Press, which would remain his (first edition) publisher for the remainder of his writing career.

• 1946, New York: The Viking Press, October 21, 1946, hardcover

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of The Silent Speaker: "Green cloth, front cover and spine printed with yellow lettering and red rules; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly green and yellow pictorial dust wrapper."

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of The Silent Speaker had a value of between $400 and $750. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.

• 1946, Toronto: Macmillan, 1946, hardcover
• 1946, New York: Detective Book Club #55, December 1946, hardcover
• 1947, New York: Armed Services Edition #1222, January 1947, paperback
• 1947, London: Collins Crime Club, March 10, 1947, hardcover
• 1948, New York: Bantam #308, October 1948, paperback
• London: Collins (White Circle) #215c, not dated, paperback
• 1956, London: Fontana #150, 1956, paperback
• 1994, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 0-553-23497-8 February 1994, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Walter Mosley
• 2002, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1572702702 May 2002, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
• 2009, New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group (with Black Orchids) ISBN 9780553386554 August 25, 2009, trade paperback
• 2011, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-78389-9 February 16, 2011, e-book

External links

• A Nero Wolfe Mystery — "The Silent Speaker" at the Internet Movie Database
• A Nero Wolfe Mystery — "The Silent Speaker" at The Wolfe Pack, official site of the Nero Wolfe Society
• Script (PDF) for "The Silent Speaker," written by Michael Jaffe (December 7, 2001)
• Farkash, Michael R., "Nero Wolfe: Silent Speaker"; Hollywood Reporter, July 12, 2002