Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base

“When and how did you learn of the murder of Miss Eads?”

“On the radio this morning. The seven-forty-five newscast.”

“That was the first you heard of it?”

“Yes.”

“How did you spend your time last night between ten-thirty and two o’clock? Briefly. As fast as you please. I do shorthand.”

“I was in bed. I was tired after a hard day’s work and went to bed early, shortly after ten, and stayed there.”

“Where do you live?”

“I have a suite at the Prince Henry Hotel, Brooklyn.”

I looked at him. I always look again at people who live in Brooklyn. “Is that where you were last night?”

“Certainly. That’s where my bed is, and I was in it.”

“Alone?”

“I’m unmarried.”

“Were you alone in your suite throughout the period from ten-thirty to two o’clock last night?”

“I was.”

“Can you furnish any corroboration? Phone calls? Anything at all?”

His jaw moved spasmodically. He was controlling himself. “How can I? I was asleep.”

I looked at him without bias but with reserve. “You understand the situation, Mr. Brucker. A lot of people stand to profit from Miss Eads’s death, some of them substantially. These things have to be asked about. How much of this business will you now inherit?”

“That’s a matter of public record.”

“Yeah. But you know, don’t you?”

“Of course I know.”

“Then, if you don’t mind, how much?”

“Under the provisions of the will of the late Nathan Eads, son of the founder of the business, I suppose that nineteen thousand three hundred and sixty-two shares of the common stock of the corporation will come to me. The same amount will go to four other people — Miss Duday, Mr. Quest, Mr. Pitkin, and Mr. Helmar. Smaller amounts go to others.”

Whitey spoke, his sharp blue-gray eyes straight at me. “I am Bernard Quest.” His voice was firm and strong, with no sign of wrinkles. “I have been with this business sixty-two years, and have been sales manager for thirty-four years and vice-president for twenty-nine.”

“Right.” I wrote. “I’ll get names down.” I looked at the woman next to Bernard Quest on his left. She was middle-aged, with a scrawny neck and dominating ears, and was unquestionably a rugged individualist, since no lipstick had been allowed anywhere near her. I asked her, “Yours, please?”

“Viola Duday,” she said in a clear voice so surprisingly pleasant that I raised my brows at my notebook. “I was Mr. Eads’s secretary, and in nineteen thirty-nine he made me assistant to the president. He was, of course, president. During his last illness, the last fourteen months of his life, I ran the business.”

“We helped all we could,” Brucker said pointedly.

She ignored him. “My present title,” she told me, “is assistant secretary of the corporation.”

I moved my eyes. “You, sir?”

That one, on Viola Duday’s left, was a neat little squirt, with a suspicious twist to his lips, who had been fifty years old all his life and would be for the rest of it. Apparently he had a cold, since he kept sniffing and dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief.

“Oliver Pitkin,” he said, and was a little hoarse. “Secretary and treasurer of the corporation since nineteen thirty-seven, when my predecessor died at the age of eighty-two.”

I was beginning to suspect that the conference I had crashed had not been about the price of towels. Of the four Brucker had named besides himself, three were present — all but Helmar. That proved nothing against any or all of them, but I wished I had a recording of their conversation before I entered. Not that I wasn’t doing all right, considering. I focused on the only one still nameless, and the only one of the five who could have been regarded as worthy of attention on other grounds than her possible connection with the murder of Priscilla Eads. As for age, she could have been Bernard Quest’s granddaughter. As for structure, she could have been improved upon — who couldn’t? — but no part of her called for a motion to reconsider. A tendency of Brucker’s head to twist toward his right, where she sat, had not been unnoticed by me. I asked her for her name.

“Daphne O’Neil,” she said. “But I don’t think I belong in your little book, Mr. Detective, because I wasn’t in Mr. Eads’s will. I was just a good little girl when he died, and I only started to work for Softdown four years ago. Now I’m the Softdown stylist.”

The way she pronounced words it wasn’t exactly baby talk, but it gave you the feeling that in four seconds it would be. Also she called me Mr. Detective, which settled it that a Softdown stylist should be seen and not heard.

“Perhaps you should know,” Viola Duday volunteered in her clear, pleasant voice, “that if Miss Eads had lived until next Monday and controlled the business, Miss O’Neil would soon have been looking for another connection. Miss Eads did not appreciate Miss O’Neil’s talents. You may think it generous of Miss O’Neil not to want you to waste space on her in your little book, but—”

“Is this necessary, Vi?” Bernard Quest asked sharply.

“I think so.” She was pleasantly firm about it. “Being an intelligent woman, Bernie, I’m more realistic than any man, even you. No one is going to be able to hide anything, so why not shorten the agony? They’ll dig up everything. That for ten years before Nate Eads died you tried to get him to give you a third interest in the business, and he refused. That Ollie here” — she glanced, not with animosity, at Oliver Pitkin — “beneath his mask of modest and stubborn efficiency, is fiercely anti-feminist and hates to see a woman own or run anything.”

“My dear Viola,” Pitkin began in a shocked tone, but she overspoke him.

“That my ambition and appetite for power are so strong that you four men, much as you fear and distrust one another, fear and distrust me more, and you knew that when Priscilla was in control I would have top authority. They’ll learn that this Daphne O’Neil — my God, what a name for her, Daphne—”

“It means ‘laurel tree,’” Daphne said to be helpful.

“I know it does. That she was playing Perry Helmar and Jay against each other, and with June thirtieth approaching she was getting desperate and so were they. That Jay—”

What stopped her was Daphne suddenly reaching across in front of Pitkin and slapping her on the mouth. It was a remarkably swift and accurate performance, giving Viola Duday no time to duck or block. Miss Duday raised a hand as if to counter, but merely covered her mouth with it, recoiling.

“You asked for it, Vi,” Quest told her. “And if you’re counting on Ollie and me being with you, and I think you are, this is a big mistake.”

“I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time,” said Daphne, more like baby talk than before. “I’ll do it again.”

I was perfectly willing to sit and wait for Miss Duday to start up where she had left off, or for someone else to start something, but apparently that script was finished, so I spoke.

“Miss Duday is absolutely right,” I told them. “I don’t mean that what she said is right — that I don’t know about — but she was right in saying that if you try to hold out and cover up you’ll just prolong the agony. It’ll all come out, don’t think it won’t, the bad with the good, and the quicker the better.” I looked at the president. “It wouldn’t hurt a bit, Mr. Brucker, if you followed Miss Duday’s example. Where does everybody stand, the way you see it? For instance, this conference you were having. Whose idea was it? What were you talking about? What were you saying?”

Brucker, his head tilted back, was regarding me down his long, thin nose. “We were saying,” he stated, “that we would have to accept the fact that the manner of Miss Eads’s death, especially at this time, created an extremely unpleasant situation for all of us. I had spoken to Mr. Quest about it, and we had decided to discuss it with Miss Duday and Mr. Pitkin. I had already spoken with Miss O’Neil and thought she should be present. We agreed that it was unthinkable that any of us, or any other member of the Softdown staff who will now come into possession of Softdown stock, could possibly have been involved in the murder of Miss Eads. We—”