Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base

“I know, but I don’t remember it very well.”

I explained it carefully, but it didn’t seem that she listened carefully, from a couple of questions she asked, so I explained it again. She said she would be at the office at eleven o’clock. I suggested that she bring her own lawyer, and she said she didn’t want to tell him about it because he might not approve and she didn’t want to argue with him. I didn’t insist, since Nathaniel Parker was going to be asked to act on her behalf, and she couldn’t possibly do any better.

She warned me, “I don’t think I’m still a nut, but I’m still a coward, so I’m pretty brave to do this and I hope you know it.”

I told her that I did and fully appreciated it.

That made it a very different kind of morning. First I ascended to the plant rooms and told Wolfe that the thirty cents I had added to my taxi fare by making a detour to the Salvation Army depot had been well invested, and got instructions. Then I returned to the office and obeyed the instructions. The main item was the phone call to Parker, since he had to have full details, including not only names, addresses, events, and intentions, but the purpose and plan of the attack. He was not enthusiastic, which was nothing new; and he made it plain that since he would be Mrs. Jaffee’s attorney of record, her interest would be his primary consideration. Knowing as I did that he would give Wolfe his right eye if necessary, I told him that if he got disbarred on account of this operation I could probably get him a job folding paper napkins. I admit it was a feeble crack, but even if it had been a masterpiece he wouldn’t have been amused. Lawyers are incapable of taking a joke about getting disbarred because it costs them so much time and money to get barred.

The eleven-o’clock council of war in the office was a big success, with no real argument from anyone. Mrs. Jaffee was ten minutes late, but aside from that I was proud of her, and by the time it was over I was seriously considering calling her Sarah. She was by no means a mere gump, nodding to it just because she didn’t know any better. It had to be explained to her in full, exactly what was to be done and why and when and by whom, and for the most part that was left to Parker, since she was his client.

Parker, who was six feet four with nothing to protect his bones from exposure to the weather but tough-looking leathery skin, was so skeptical that at one point I thought he was going to pass, but he finally conceded that the move might be undertaken without undue risk to juridical virtue, to his own reputation, or to his client’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. When all details had been settled and money passed — a dollar bill from Sarah to Parker as a token retainer — I got at the phone and dialed a number.

It took persistence. A thin and sour female voice told me that Mr. Perry Helmar was engaged and asked what I wanted. I said that Mr. Nathaniel Parker would tell Mr. Helmar and asked how soon he would be accessible. She said she didn’t know. It went on according to pattern, and in order to win I had to drop the name of Mrs. Jaffee. In another minute Helmar was on, and Parker took it at the extension on Wolfe’s desk, leaning over on his elbows. I kept my receiver at my ear and got it in my notebook.

After Parker had identified himself as a confrere he dived right in. “I’m preparing to start an action for a client, counselor, and I’m calling you as a matter of professional courtesy. The client is Mrs. Sarah Jaffee. I believe you know her?”

“I’ve known her all her life. What kind of action?”

Parker was easygoing and anything but pugnacious. “Perhaps I should explain that Mrs. Jaffee was referred to me by Mr. Nero Wolfe. It was on—”

“That crook?” Helmar was outraged. “That damned scoundrel?”

Parker laughed a little, tolerantly. “I won’t stipulate that, and I doubt if you can establish it. I was saying that I understand that it was on Mr. Wolfe’s advice that Mrs. Jaffee determined on this action. She wants it begun immediately. It is to be directed at Jay L. Brucker, Bernard Quest, Oliver Pitkin, Viola Duday, and Perry Helmar. She wants me to ask a court to enjoin those five people from assuming ownership of any of the capital stock of Softdown, Incorporated, under the provisions of the will of the late Nathan Eads, and from attempting to exercise any of the rights of such ownership.”

“What?” Helmar was incredulous. “Will you repeat that?”

Parker did so, and added, “I think it must be admitted, counselor, that this is a new approach and an extremely interesting one. Her idea is that the injunction is to stand until it is determined to the satisfaction of the court whether one or more of those five people has acquired the stock by the commission of a crime — the crime in question, manifestly, being the murder of Priscilla Eads. Frankly, at first I doubted whether such an injunction would be granted, but on consideration I’m not at all sure. It is certainly worth trying, and Mrs. Jaffee, as a stockholder in the corporation, has a legitimate interest at stake. I have told her I’ll move in the matter, and at once.”

He paused. Nothing for four seconds; then Helmar: “This is an act of malice. Nero Wolfe put Mrs. Jaffee up to this. I intend to speak with Mrs. Jaffee.”

“I don’t think that will help.” Parker was a little chillier. “As Mrs. Jaffee’s attorney, I have advised her to discuss the matter with no one — except with Mr. Wolfe, of course, if she sees fit. She is here in Mr. Wolfe’s office with me now. As I said, I called you as a matter of professional courtesy, and also because I believe, as I hope you do, that a meeting of minds is always preferable to a meeting of fists or weapons.”

“No judge would grant such an injunction.”

“That remains to be seen.” Parker was close to icy. “I have been discussing it with Mr. Wolfe, who referred Mrs. Jaffee to me. He thinks there should be no delay, and I am leaving now for my office to draft the application, but I told him I thought an effort should be made to protect all interests without going to court. He said he believed any such effort would be fruitless, but he is willing that it be tried, conditionally. The conditions are that it occur this evening, at his office, and that all those involved be present.”

“At Wolfe’s office?” Helmar was outraged again.

“Yes.”

“Never. Never! He’s a murderer himself.”

“I think, counselor, you’re a little free with words. I know you have been under a strain, but what if you were seriously challenged?”

“All right. But don’t think you can get me to agree to come to Wolfe’s office. I won’t!”

Nevertheless, he did. He didn’t come right out and say it, even after he had fully realized that his choice was between that and a summons from a judge to appear and wrangle in public, but he pleaded that he couldn’t possibly commit his four associates to such a meeting without consulting them, and he wasn’t sure how soon he could get in touch with them. He wanted the afternoon until six o’clock, but Parker said nothing doing. The limit was three-thirty. Parker would proceed to draft the application and have everything in readiness, including a date with a judge, and he would keep the date if by half-past three he had not received word that the Softdown quintet would be at Wolfe’s office at nine o’clock that evening.

Parker cradled the phone and straightened up, all seventy-six inches of him. “They’ll come,” he said confidently but not jubilantly. “Damn you, Wolfe. I have theater tickets.”

“Use them,” Wolfe told him. “I won’t need you.”

Parker snorted. “With my client here defenseless? Between them, one of them presumptively a murderer, and you — you a wild beast when you are smelling prey? Ha!” He turned. “Mrs. Jaffee, one of my functions as your attorney is to keep you away, as far as practicable, from dangerous persons and influences, and these two men together represent all the perils and pitfalls of all the catalogues. Will you have lunch with me?”