Prisoner's Base

by Rex Stout

  "Dear Perry:

  I hope you won't be too mad at me for standing you up. I'm not going to do anything loony. I just want to be sure where I stand. I doubt if you will hear from me before June 30th, but you will then all right. Please, and I mean this, please don't try to find me.

  Love, Pris."

  Helmar folded the note and returned it to the briefcase. "Perhaps I should explain the significance of June thirtieth. That will be my ward's twenty-fifth birthday, and on that day, under the terms of her father's will, the trust terminates and she takes complete possession of the property. That is the basic position, but there are complications, as there always are. One is that the largest single item of the property is ninety per cent of the stock of a large and successful corporation, and there is some feeling among part of the managing and directing personnel about my ward's taking control. Another is my ward's former husband."

  Wolfe frowned. "Alive?" he demanded. He refuses to touch marital messes.

  "Yes." Helmar was frowning too. "That was my ward's one disastrous blunder. She ran away with him when she was nineteen, to South America, and left him three months later, and divorced him in nineteen forty-eight. There was no further communication between them, but two weeks ago I received a letter from him, sent to me as the trustee of the property, claiming that, under the provisions of a document she had signed shortly after their marriage, half of the property legally belonged to him. I doubt-"

  I horned in. I had stood the suspense long enough. "You say," I blurted, "her name is Priscilla Eads?"

  "Yes, she took her maiden name. The husband's name is Eric Hagh. I doubt-"

  "I think I've met her. I suppose you've got a picture for us?" I got up and crossed to him. "I'd like to see."

  "Certainly." He didn't care much for an underling butting in, but condescended to reach for his briefcase and finger in it. "I have three good pictures of her I brought from her apartment. Here they are." I took them and stood looking them over.

  He went on. "I doubt if his claim has any legal validity, but morally-that may be a question. It is indubitably a question with my ward. His letter came from Venezuela and I think she may have gone there to see him. She fully intended-she intends-to be here on June thirtieth, but how long does it take to get from New York to Caracas by plane? Not more than twenty hours, I think. She has a wild streak in her. The first thing to do will be to check all plane passengers to Venezuela, and if it's humanly possible I want to reach her before she sees that man Hagh."

  I handed the photographs to Wolfe. "She's worth looking at," I told him. "Not only the pictures, but, as I thought, I've seen her. Just recently. I forget exactly where and when, but I remember from something somebody said, it was the day we had bacalhau for dinner. I don't-"

  "What the devil are you gibbering about?" Wolfe demanded.

  I looked him in the eye. "You heard me," I said, and sat down.

  Chapter 3

  One of Wolfe's better performances was his handling of Perry Helmar after my disclosure that Priscilla Eads was upstairs in the south room. The problem was to get Helmar out of there reasonably soon with his conviction of his need for Wolfe's services intact, without any commitment from us to take his job. Wolfe broke it by telling Helmar that he would sleep on it, and that if he decided to tackle it I would call at Helmar's office at ten in the morning for further details. Of course Helmar blew up. He wanted action then and there.

  "What would you think of me," Wolfe asked him, "if, solely on information furnished by you here and now, I accepted this case and started to work on it?"

  "What would I think? That's what I want!"

  "Surely not," Wolfe objected. "Surely you would be employing a jackass. I have never seen you before. Your name may be Perry Helmar, or it may be Eric Hagh; I have only your word for it. All that you have told me may be true, or none of it. I would like Mr. Goodwin to call on you at your office, and I would like him to visit your ward's apartment and talk with her maid. I am capable of boldness, but not of temerity. If you want the kind of detective who will dive in heedlessly on request from a stranger, Mr. Goodwin will give you some names and addresses."

  Helmar was fairly stubborn and had objections and suggestions. For his identity and bona fides we could phone Richard A. Williamson. For visiting his ward's apartment and talking with her maid, tonight would do as well as tomorrow. But according to Wolfe I couldn't possibly be spared until morning because we were jointly considering an important problem, and the sooner Helmar left and let us do our considering, the better. Finally he went. He returned the photographs to the briefcase before tucking it under his arm, and in the hall he let me get his hat from the rack and open the door for him.

  I went back to the office but didn't get inside. As I was stepping over the sill Wolfe barked at me, "Bring her down here!"

  I stopped. "Okay. But do I brief her?"

  "No. Bring her here."

  I hesitated, deciding how to put it. "She's mine, you know. My taking her up and locking her in was a gag, strictly mine. You would have tossed her out if I had consulted you. You have told me to refund her dough and get rid of her. She is mine. With the dope that Helmar has kindly furnished, you will probably be much too tough for her. I reserve the right, if and when I see fit, to go up and get her luggage and take her to the door and let her out."

  He chuckled audibly. He doesn't do that often, and after all the years I've been with him I haven't got the chuckle tagged. It could have been anything from a gloat to an admission that I had the handle. I stood eying him for three seconds, giving him a chance to translate if he wanted it, but apparently he didn't, so I turned and strode to the stairs, mounted the two flights, inserted the key in the hole, turned it, and knocked, calling my name. Her voice told me to come in, and I opened the door and entered.

  She was right at home. One of the beds had been turned down, and its coverlet, neatly folded, was on the other bed. Seated at a table near a window, under a reading lamp, doing something to her nails, she was in the blue negligee and barefooted. She looked smaller than she had in the peach-colored dress, and younger.

  "I had given you up," she said, not complaining. "In another ten minutes I'll be in bed."

  "I doubt it. You'll have to get dressed. Mr. Wolfe wants you down in the office."

  "Now?"

  "Now."

  "Why can't he come up here?"

  I looked at her. In that getup, to me she was a treat; to Wolfe, in his own house, she would have been an impudence. "Because there's no chair on this floor big enough for him. I'll wait outside."

  I went to the hall, pulling the door to. I was not prancing or preening. True, it was I who had hooked onto something that had turned out to be worth ten grand to us, but I saw no acceptable way of cashing it in, and I had no idea what line Wolfe was going to take. I had stated my position, and he had chuckled.

  It didn't take her long to dress, which scored another point for her. When she emerged, back in the peach color, she came to me, asking, "Is he very mad?"

  I told her nothing alarming. The stairs are wide enough for two abreast, and we descended side by side, her fingers on my arm. That struck me as right and appropriate. I had told Wolfe that she was mine, thereby assuming a duty as well as claiming a privilege.

  I may have stuck out my chest some as we entered the office together, though it was involuntary.

  She marched across to his desk, extended a hand, and told him cordially, "You look exactly right! Just as I thought! I would-"

  She broke it off because she was getting a deep freeze. He had moved no muscle, and the expression on his face, while not belligerent, was certainly not cordial. She drew back.

  He spoke. "I don't shake hands with you because you might later think it an imposition. We'll see. Sit down, Miss Eads."

  She did all right, I thought. It's not a comfortable spot, having an offered hand refused, whatever the explanation may be. After drawing back, she flushed, opened her mouth and closed i
t, glanced at me and back at Wolfe, and, apparently deciding that restraint was called for, moved toward the red leather chair. But short of it she suddenly jerked around and demanded, "What did you call me?"

  "Your name. Eads."

  Flabbergasted, she stared. She transferred the stare to me. "How?" she asked, "Why didn't you tell me? But how?"

  "Look," I appealed to her, "you had a jolt coming, and what did it matter whether from him or me? Sit down and take it."

  "But you couldn't possibly…" It trailed off. She moved and sat. Her remarkable eyes went to Wolfe. "Not that it makes much difference. I suppose I'll have to pay you more, but I was willing to anyhow. I told Mr. Goodwin so."

  Wolfe nodded. "And he told you that he was taking the money you gave him tentatively, conditional on my approval. Archie, get it, please, and return it to her."

  I had expected that, naturally, and had decided not to make an issue of it. If and when I took a stand I wanted to be on the best ground in sight. So I arose and crossed to the safe and opened it, got the seven new fifties, went to Priscilla, and proffered them. She didn't lift a hand.

  "Take it," I advised her. "If you want to balk, pick a better spot." I dropped it on her lap and returned to my chair. As I sat down, Wolfe was speaking.

  "Your presence here, Miss Eads, is preposterous. This is neither a rooming house nor an asylum for hysterical women; it is my-"

  "I'm not hysterical!"

  "Very well, I withdraw it. It is not an asylum for unhysterical women; it is my office and my home. For you to come here and ask to be allowed to stay a week, sleeping and eating in the room directly above mine, without revealing your identity or any of the circumstances impelling you, was grotesque. Mr. Goodwin knew that, and you would have been promptly ejected if he had not chosen to use you and your fantastic request as a means of badgering me-and also, of course, if you had not been young and attractive. Because he did so choose, and you are uncommonly attractive, you were actually taken up to a room and helped to unpack, refreshments were taken up to you, a meal was served you, my whole household was disrupted. Then-"

  "I'm sorry." Priscilla's face was good and red, no faint pink flush. "I'm extremely sorry. I'll leave at once." She was rising.

  Wolfe showed her a palm. "If you please. There has been a development. We have had a visitor. He left here only half an hour ago. A man named Perry Helmar."

  She gasped. "Perry!" She dropped back into the chair, "You told him I'm here!"

  "No." Wolfe was curt. "He had been to your apartment and found you gone, and had found the note you left for him-you did leave a note for him?"

  "I-yes."

  "Finding it, and learning you had scooted, he came straight here. He wanted to hire me to find you. He told me of your approaching twenty-fifth birthday, and of the communication he received recently from your former husband, now in Venezuela, regarding a document you once signed, giving him half of your property. You did sign such a document?"

  "Yes."

  "Wasn't that a foolish thing to do?"

  "Yes, but I was a fool then, so naturally I was foolish."

  "Well. When Mr. Goodwin looked at photographs of you Mr. Helmar had brought, of course he recognized you, and he managed to inform me without informing Mr. Helmar. But Mr. Helmar had already made a definite proposal. He offered to pay me ten thousand dollars and expenses if I would produce you in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth."

  "Produce me?" Priscilla laughed, but not merrily.

  "That was his phrase." Wolfe leaned back and rubbed his lip with a fingertip. "The moment Mr. Goodwin recognized the photographs and informed me, I was of course in an anomalous situation. I earn a living and maintain an expensive establishment by working as a private detective. I can't afford quixotism. When I am offered a proper fee for a legitimate job in the field I cover, I don't refuse it. I need the money. So. A man I've never seen before comes and offers me ten thousand dollars to find and produce a certain object by a certain date, and by chance-by chance alone-that object is locked in a room of my house. Is there any reason why I shouldn't disclose it to him and collect my fee?"

  "I see." She pressed her lips together. In a moment the tip of her tongue showed, going from left to right and back again. "That's how it is. It was lucky he brought the photographs for Mr. Goodwin to recognize, wasn't it?" Her eyes moved to me. "I suppose I should congratulate you, Mr. Goodwin?"

  "It's too early to tell," I growled. "Save it."

  "I admit," Wolfe told her, "that if I had accepted a commission from you, or if Mr. Goodwin, acting as my agent, had taken money from you unconditionally, I would be bound to your interest and therefore unable to consider Mr. Helmar's offer. But there is no such bond. I am not committed to you in any way. There was no legal, professional, or ethical obstacle to prevent my disclosing you to him and demanding payment-but, confound it, there was my self-esteem. And is. I can't do it. Also there is Mr. Goodwin. I have rebuked him for installing you and told him to get rid of you, and if I now collect ransom for you he will be impossible to live with or work with."

  Wolfe shook his head. "So it is by no means my good fortune that you chose my house as a haven. If you had gone anywhere else, Mr. Helmar would have come to hire me to find you, I would have taken the job, and I would surely have earned the fee. If my self-esteem will not let me profit by your presence here, through chance and Mr. Goodwin, neither will my self-interest permit me to suffer loss by it-so substantial a loss-and I have two suggestions to offer-alternative suggestions. The first is simple. When you were arranging with Mr. Goodwin to stay here you told him in effect that there was no limit to the amount you would pay. Your words, as he reported them to me, were, 'Whatever you say.' You were speaking to him as my agent, and therefore to me. I now say ten thousand dollars."

  She goggled at him, her brows high. "You mean I pay you ten thousand dollars?"

  "Yes. I submit this comment: I suspect that the money will come from you in any case, directly or indirectly. If, as the trustee of your property, Mr. Helmar has wide discretion, as he probably has, it is more than likely that the payment for finding and producing you would come from that property, so actually-"

  "This is blackmail!"

  "I doubt if you can properly-"

  "It's blackmail! You're saying that if I don't pay you ten thousand dollars you'll tell Perry Helmar I'm here and get it from him!"

  "I'm saying no such thing." Wolfe was being patient. "I said I had an alternative suggestion. If you don't like that one here's the other." He looked at the wall clock. "It's ten minutes past eleven. Mr. Goodwin helped you unpack; he can help you pack. You can be out of here in five minutes, with your luggage, and there will be no surveillance. We will not even so much as spy from a window to see which way you turn. We will forget you exist for ten hours and forty-five minutes. At the end of that period, at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, I shall phone Mr. Helmar, take his job on the terms he proposed, and start after you."

  Wolfe fluttered a hand. "It was distasteful to me, having to offer to take the money direct from you instead of through Mr. Helmar, but I felt you merited that consideration. I'm glad you contemn it as blackmail, since I like to pretend that I earn at least a fraction of what I collect; but the offer stands until ten in the morning, should you decide that you prefer it to this hide-and-seek."

  "I'm not going to pay you any ten thousand dollars!" She had her chin up.

  "Good."

  "It's ridiculous!"

  "I agree. Also, of course, the alternative is ridiculous for me. Leaving here, you can go straight home, phone Mr. Helmar that you are there and will see him in the morning, and go to bed, leaving me to go whistle for my dinner. I'll have to risk that; there's no way around it."

  "I'm not going home, and I'm not going to phone anyone."

  "As you please." Wolfe glanced at the clock. "It's a quarter past eleven, and you have no time to lose if you expect to make it a job for me. Archie, will you br
ing her luggage down, please?"

  I arose, in no hurry. The situation was highly unsatisfactory, but how could I change it? Priscilla wasn't waiting. She was out of her chair, saying, "I can manage, thanks," and on her way.

  I watched her crossing the hall and starting up, and then turned to Wolfe. "It reminds me more of 'run sheep run,' as we called it in Ohio. That's what the shepherd yelled-'run sheep run!' It ought to be an exciting game and lots of fun, but I think I should tell you before she leaves, I'm not absolutely sure I'll want to play. You may have to fire me."

  He only muttered, "Get her out of here."

  I took my time mounting the stairs, thinking she wouldn't want my help folding things. The door to the south room was standing open. From the landing I called, "May I come in?"

  "Don't bother," her voice came. "I'll make out."

  She was moving around. I went to the threshold. The suitcase, open on the rack, was three-fourths packed. That girl would have been a very satisfactory traveling companion. Without a glance at me, she finished the suitcase, swift and efficient, and started on the hatbox.

  "Watch your money," I said. "You have plenty. Don't give it to a stranger to hold."

  "Sending little sister off to camp?" she asked, without giving me the eyes. It may have been banter, but it wasn't any too light.

  "Yeah. Down there you said you supposed you should congratulate me, and I asked you to save it. I doubt if I deserve it."

  "I guess you don't. I take it back."

  She pulled the zipper all the way around the hatbox, got her jacket and hat and put them on, and took her handbag from the table. She reached for the hatbox, but I already had it, and also the suitcase. She went first, and I followed. Down in the lower hall she didn't glance into the office as we passed by, but I did, and saw Wolfe at his desk, leaning back with his eyes closed. When I had the front door open she made to take the luggage, but I hung on to it. She persisted but so did I, and since I weighed more I won. At the foot of the stoop we turned east, walked to Tenth Avenue, and crossed to the other side.