Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base

Miss Duday kept her composure. “I really don’t know,” she said. “Of course this has changed the situation — temporarily, at least.”

“You told Mr. Goodwin that as soon as Miss Eads was in control Miss O’Neil would lose her job.”

“Did I? Well, now she won’t.”

“You also told Mr. Goodwin that she was playing Mr. Helmar and Mr. Brucker against each other. What was the connection between that fact and the murder of Miss Eads?”

“None that I know of.”

“No, that won’t do.” Wolfe was crisp. “Mr. Goodwin said he was there to investigate the murder, and you volunteered that information. You are much too intelligent to blatter irrelevancies. What was the connection?”

She smiled, a thin tight smile. “Goodness, am I cornered? Do you suppose in some dark crevice of my mind there was the thought that I wouldn’t dream of thinking either of those men capable of murdering for profit, but in their blind passion for that creature — there was no telling? And I blurted it out to Mr. Goodwin that day? Am I like that?”

“I couldn’t say.” Wolfe skipped it. “When and where did you last see Miss Eads?”

“One week ago today. Last Thursday afternoon, at the office.”

“What office?”

“The Softdown office at One ninety-two Collins Street.”

“What happened, and what was said? Tell me about it.”

Viola Duday hesitated. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and hesitated some more. Finally she spoke. “This is a detail,” she said, “where we acted like idiots — these four men and I. We had a discussion Tuesday afternoon — it was interrupted by your man, Mr. Goodwin, and we agreed on the account we would give of what had happened on Thursday. We knew that would come up in the investigation of the murder, and we agreed on what to say. It was the only time in my life I have ever been a complete fool. Miss O’Neil was present, because she had been concerned in the events of Thursday. Since she is totally brainless, it didn’t take a competent policeman more than ten minutes alone with her to tangle her up. In the end, naturally, they learned exactly what had happened Thursday, so I might as well tell you. Do you want it in full?”

“Full enough. I can always stop you.”

“Priscilla came downtown and had lunch with me. She said that she had talked with Sarah Jaffee the day before, and Sarah had refused to be elected a director, that she wouldn’t even come to a stockholders’ meeting on July first as we had planned. Priscilla and I discussed getting someone else for a fifth director, and other things. After lunch she went back to the office with me. It had got so it was always tense around that place when Priscilla was there, and that day it was worse than usual. I wasn’t in the room when the scene between Priscilla and Miss O’Neil started, so I don’t know how it began, but I heard the last of it. Priscilla told her to leave the building and not come back, and she refused to go. That had happened once before.”

“On the former occasion,” Mr. Brucker put in, “Miss Eads had been completely in the wrong.”

Viola Duday ignored him. She didn’t even spend a glance on him, but kept at Wolfe. “Priscilla was furious. She phoned Helmar at his law office and asked him to come, and when he arrived she told him and Brucker that she had decided to have a new board of directors and put me in as president. They called in Quest and Pitkin, and the four of them spent three hours trying to persuade her that I was incompetent and would ruin the business. I don’t think they succeeded. I know that when she left she came to my room and said it would be only eleven more days, and that she was going away for the weekend, and she shook hands. That was the last time I saw her.”

“As far as you knew, it was still her intention to make you president?”

“Yes. I’m sure it was.”

“Do you know that she came here Monday afternoon and spent some hours in this house?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you know what she came for?”

“I know nothing definite. I have heard conjectures.”

“I won’t ask you from whom or what. I am aware, Miss Duday, that in coming here this evening you people were impelled only partly by the threat of a legal action by Mrs. Jaffee. You also hoped to learn what Miss Eads came to see me for and what she said. I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. I have given a complete report to the police, or Mr. Goodwin has, and if they don’t care to publish it neither do I. But I will ask you, do you know of any reason why, on Monday, Miss Eads should have decided to seek seclusion? Was she being harassed or frightened by anyone?”

“On Monday?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip, regarding him. “Having no knowledge of it, I could only offer a guess.”

“Try a guess.”

“Well, I know that Perry Helmar had an appointment with her at her apartment for Monday evening. I learned that only yesterday. I know that these men were desperate, and they spent hours Monday at the Softdown office going through records for years back and compiling memoranda. I thought then that they were probably collecting evidence to prove my incompetence and demonstrate it to Priscilla, and I now think that Helmar made that appointment with her Monday, insisted on it, in order to show her that evidence and convince her that I could not be trusted. My guess is that if she decided to seek seclusion it was because they were pestering her, especially Helmar, and she had had enough of them.”

“Why especially Helmar?”

“Because he had more at stake. The others all help to run the business and could expect to continue to get good salaries after Priscilla took over. Helmar has had very little to do with the business operations, and is not an officer of the corporation, but he has been drawing forty thousand a year as counsel. He has actually earned perhaps one-tenth of it, if anything. After June thirtieth I doubt if he would have drawn anything at all, and—”

“That’s false, and you know it,” Helmar challenged her. “That’s utterly unfounded!”

“You’ll have your turn,” Wolfe told him.

“He can have it now.” Miss Duday was contemptuous. “That’s all I have to say — unless you have questions?”

“No. Well, Mr. Helmar? Go ahead.”

There was a polite interruption from Eric Hagh. He wanted a refill for his glass, and others were ready too, so there was a short recess. Hagh seemed to have got the impression that we were counting on him to keep Sarah Jaffee company, and I was too busy to resent it, but apparently Nat Parker wasn’t.

Wolfe poured beer from his third bottle, swallowed some, and prompted Helmar. “Yes, sir?”

From his manner and expression it was apparent that it was hard for Perry Helmar to believe that he was in such a fix. For him, a senior member of an old and respected Wall Street law firm, to have to sit conspicuously in that red leather chair and undertake to persuade a private detective named Nero Wolfe that he was not a murderer was insufferable, but he had to suffer it. His oratorical baritone was raspy and supercilious under the strain.

“You say you are not interested,” he told Wolfe, “in the factors of means and opportunity. The motive is palpable for all of us, but it is also palpable that Miss Duday is biased by animus. She cannot support her statement that after June thirtieth my income from the corporation would have ceased. I deny that Miss Eads intended to take any action so ill advised and irresponsible.”

He took a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “As you know, when I went to Miss Eads’s apartment Monday evening to keep an appointment with her, I found a note she had left for me. The police have the original. This is a copy. It reads: