Rex Stout: Prisoner's Base

“Then you need a caretaker, and I’m it. How about a drink?”

“If it isn’t too much bother.”

I said it wasn’t and left her, locking the door with the key I had brought along from the office. Downstairs, after stopping in the kitchen to tell Fritz we had a guest locked in the south room, to ask him to take her up a drink, and to give him the key, I went to the office, took the seven fifties from my pocket, worked them into a fan, and put them under a paperweight on Wolfe’s desk.

At one minute past six, when the sound came of Wolfe’s elevator descending, I got so busy with things on my desk that I didn’t have time to turn my head when he entered the office. I followed him by ear — crossing to his chair behind his desk, getting his four thousand ounces seated and adjusted in comfort, ringing for beer, grunting as he reached for the book he was reading, left there by him two hours earlier, his place marked by a counterfeit ten-dollar bill which had been autographed in red ink by a former Secretary of the Treasury in appreciation of services rendered. I also caught, by ear, Wolfe speaking to Fritz when he brought the beer.

“Did you put this money here, Fritz?”

Of course that forced me. I swiveled. “No, sir, I did.”

“Indeed. Thank you, Fritz.” He got his eighteen-carat opener from the drawer, uncapped a bottle, and poured. Fritz departed. Wolfe let the foam subside a little, not too much, lifted the glass, and took two healthy swallows. Putting the glass down, he tapped the new non-counterfeit fifties, still in a fan under the paperweight, with a fingertip, and demanded, “Well? Flummery?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what?”

I bubbled with eager frankness. “I admit it, sir, what you said Friday about my excessive labors and the bank balance — that really hurt. I felt I wasn’t doing my share, with you sweating it out four hours a day up with the orchids. I was sitting here this afternoon mulling over it, some of the hardest mulling I’ve ever done, when the doorbell rang.”

He was reacting to my opening as expected. Turning to his place in the book, he started reading. I went right on.

“It was a human female in her twenties, with unprecedented eyes, a fine wholesome figure, a highly polished leather suitcase, and a hatbox. She tooted her knowledge of the premises and you and me, bragging about her reading. I brought her in here and we chatted. She wouldn’t tell her name or anything else about herself. She wants no advice, no information, no detective work, no nothing. All she wants is board and room for one week, with meals served in her room, and she specified the south room, which, as you know, is on the same floor as mine.”

I made a little gesture signifying modesty. With his eyes on the book, he didn’t see it, but I made it anyway. “With your trained mind, naturally you have already reached the conclusion that I was myself compelled to accept, on the evidence. Not only has she read about me, she has seen my picture, and she can’t stand it not to be near me — as she put it, for one wonderful week. Luckily she is supplied with lettuce, and she paid for the week in advance, at fifty bucks a day. That’s where that came from. I told her I was taking it only tentatively, awaiting your okay, and took her up to the south room and helped her unpack, and locked her in. She’s there now.”

He had turned in his chair for better light on his book, practically turning his back on me. I went on, unruffled. “She said something about having to go somewhere and stay until June thirtieth, where no one could find her, but of course she had to put some kind of face on it. I made no personal commitments, but I won’t object to some sacrifice of time and convenience, provided I average eight hours’ sleep. She seems educated and refined and will probably want me to read aloud to her, so I’ll have to ask you to lend me some books, like Pilgrim’s Progress and Essays of Elia. She also seems sweet and unspoiled and has fine legs, so if we like her and get used to her one of us could marry her. However, the immediate point is that, since I am responsible for that handy little contribution of cash, you may feel like signing a replacement for the check I tore up Friday.”

I got it from a drawer, where I had it ready, and got up to put it on his desk. He put his book down, took his pen from the stand, signed the check, and slid it across to me.

He regarded me with what looked like amiable appreciation. “Archie,” he told me, “that was an impressive performance. Friday I spoke hastily and you acted hastily, and the fait accompli of that torn check had us at an impasse. It was an awkward problem, and you have solved it admirably. By contriving one of your fantastically and characteristically puerile inventions, you made the problem itself absurd and so disposed of it. Admirable and satisfactory.”

He removed the paperweight from the fifties, picked them up, jiggled the edges even, and extended his hand with them, telling me, “I didn’t know we had fifties in the emergency cash reserve. Better put them back. I don’t like money lying around.”

I didn’t take the dough. “Hold it,” I said. “We’re bumping.”

“Bumping?”

“Yes, sir. That didn’t come from the safe. It came from a visitor as described, now up in the south room. I invented nothing, puerile or not. She’s a roomer for a week if you want her. Shall I bring her down so you can decide?”

He was glaring at me. “Bah,” he said, reaching for his book.

“Okay, I’ll go get her.” I started for the door, expecting him to stop me with a roar, but he didn’t. He thought he knew I was playing him. I compromised by going to the kitchen to ask Fritz to come in a minute, and let him precede me back to the office. Wolfe didn’t glance at us.

“A little point of information,” I told Fritz. “Mr. Wolfe thinks I’m exaggerating. Our lady visitor you took a drink to up in the south room — is she old, haggard, deformed, ugly, and crippled?”

“Now, Archie,” Fritz reproved me. “She is quite the opposite. Precisely the opposite!”

“Right. You left her locked in?”

“Certainly. I brought you the key. You said she would probably have her dinner—”

“Yeah, we’ll let you know. Okay, thanks.”

Fritz darted a look at Wolfe, got none in return, wheeled, and left. Wolfe waited for the sound of the kitchen door closing, then put his book down and spoke. “It’s true,” he said in a tone that would have been fitting if he had just learned that I had been putting thrips on his plants. “You have actually installed a woman in a room of my house?”

“Not installed exactly,” I objected. “That’s too strong a word. And it implies that I have personal—”

“Where did you get her?”

“I didn’t get her. As I told you, she came. I wasn’t inventing. I was reporting.”

“Report it in full. Verbatim.”

That order was easy, compared to some I have had to fill. I gave him words and actions complete, from opening the front door to let her in through to locking the south room door to keep her in. He leaned back with his eyes closed, as he usually does when I’m reporting at length. When I finished he had no questions, not one. He merely opened his eyes and snapped at me, “Go up and give her back her money.” He glanced at the wall clock. “It’ll be dinnertime in twenty minutes. Get her out of the house in ten. Help her pack.”

Here I hit a snag. Looking back at it, it would seem that my natural and normal course would have been to obey instructions. My double mission had been accomplished. I had taken a backhanded crack at his being so damn particular about accepting jobs and clients, and also I had got a replacement for my check. She had served my purpose, so why not bounce her? But evidently something about her, maybe the way she packed a suitcase, had made an impression on me, for I found myself taking a line.