Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base

“Delia?... No, no, this is Mr. Quest. I’m sorry to get you out of bed... No, no, I’m quite all right. I just want you to do something for me. You know that piece of old clothesline on the tray on my dresser? I want you to go and see if it’s there just as it was, just the way it was. I’ll hold the line. Go and see and come and tell me... No, don’t move it, just see if it’s there.”

He propped his forehead on his free hand and waited. All eyes were not on him, because there were glances at Wolfe, who had reached for his own instrument and was listening in. Two full minutes passed before Quest’s head lifted and he spoke.

“Yes, Delia... It is? You’re sure?... No, I just wanted to know... No, no, I’m all right, everything’s quite all right... Good night.”

He put the receiver on the cradle, accurately and firmly, and turned. “I could have used it, Mr. Wolfe, that’s true, but I couldn’t possibly have put it back, because I haven’t been there.” He stood up, got a change purse from a pocket, took out two dimes and a nickel, and put them on my desk. “It’s a quarter call with tax. Thank you.” He returned to his chair and sat. “I think it will be better if I restrict myself to answering questions.”

Wolfe grunted. “You’ve anticipated them, sir. That was well conceived and superbly executed, flummery or not. You have nothing to add?”

“No.”

“So you also know when to stop.” Wolfe went right, “And you, Mr. Pitkin? Were you too blessed with a catharsis many years ago?”

Oliver Pitkin sniffed for the hundredth time. A rye and ginger ale had been provided for him some two hours back, and he was still working at it. I had been wrong about him Tuesday when I figured that he had always been fifty years old and always would be. He had already put on at least five years, and he had shrunk. Instead of tagging him a neat little squirt I would now call him a magnified beetle. Apparently he had heard somewhere that it is impressive, when you are conversing, to keep your head tilted forward with your chin on your chest, and to look up from under your brows, like a prizefighter in a crouch — and maybe it can be, but not when he did it.

“I’m not sure,” he said cautiously, “that I know what a catharsis is. Will you define it?”

“I’d rather withdraw it. Let’s revert to my question to Miss Duday: what have you to say to remove or discredit the suspicion that you are a murderer?”

“That’s not the way to do it.” He sniffed. “That’s un-American. First show me the evidence back of the suspicion, if there is any, and then I will answer it. That’s the American way.”

“I have no evidence.”

“Then you have no suspicion.”

Wolfe regarded him. “Either, sir, you’re an ass or you’re masquerading as one. When there is evidence that you have murdered, there will be not a suspicion but a conviction. If I had evidence that one or more of you is guilty I wouldn’t sit here half the night, inviting you to jabber; I would phone the police to come and get you. Have you anything to say?”

“Not like that, no. Ask me a question.”

“Do you think you are capable of committing a murder — not killing in defense or an explosion of passion, but deliberate murder?”

Pitkin studied him from under his brows. He wasn’t going to be caught off guard. “No,” he said.

“Why not? Many people can and do. Why couldn’t you?”

That took more study. Finally: “Because of the way I look at things.”

“How do you look at things?”

“From the standpoint of profit and loss. I’m a bookkeeper, and, the way I see it, there’s nothing to life but bookkeeping. That’s why Mr. Eads kept promoting me until he made me secretary and treasurer of the corporation — he knew how I looked at things. One rule is this: that if the risk of a transaction is very great it should not be considered at all, no matter what profit it offers if it is successful. That’s one of the basic rules that should never be broken. You apply that rule to the idea of committing a murder, and what do you get? There’s too much risk, so you don’t do it. The idea is no good. It’s all a matter of debit and credit, and with murder you start out with too big a debit. Every proposition on earth can be figured on a basis of profit and loss, and there’s no other practical way to figure anything.”

He sniffed. “When I say profit I mean earned profit, but not in the legal sense. I mean earned de facto , not de jure. Take the income I will get for the rest of my life from my ownership of stock in Softdown, Incorporated. That is called unearned income, but actually I have earned it by the years of devoted service I have rendered to the company. I have earned it because I deserve it. But as a contrast, take the profit — the income — that Sarah Jaffee has been getting from her ownership of stock since the death of her father.”

He twisted around in his chair. “Mrs. Jaffee, I’d like to ask you, what have you ever done for the corporation? Tell me one single thing, small or large. Your average income in Softdown dividends for the past five years has been more than forty thousand dollars. Have you earned one cent of it?”

Sarah was staring at him. “My father did the earning,” she said.

“But you, personally?”

“No, of course not. I’ve never earned anything.”

Pitkin left her. “And take you, Mr, Hagh. What your claim amounts to in reality — you are demanding a share of the Softdown profits. Legally you may get something, I don’t know, but you certainly haven’t earned anything, and nobody related to you or connected with you has earned anything. Isn’t that correct?”

Hagh’s expression was tolerant. “It is perfectly correct, sir. I can feel no regret or embarrassment at being put in the class with the charming Mrs. Jaffee.” He smiled irresistibly at Sarah, who was next to him.

Pitkin untwisted to his normal position, focusing on Wolfe from under his brows. He sniffed. “You see what I mean when I say that life is nothing but bookkeeping?”

Wolfe nodded. “It’s not too recondite for me. How about Miss Eads? Wasn’t her position essentially the same as Mrs. Jaffee’s? Wasn’t she also a parasite? Or had the interest she had recently shown in the business made her an earner?”

“No. That was no service to the corporation. It was an interference.”

“Then she had earned nothing?”

“That’s right.”

“And deserved nothing?”

“That’s right.”

“But in a week she would have taken title to ninety per cent of the company’s stock, leaving you earners with nothing but your salaries. Wasn’t that deplorable?”

“Yes. We all thought so.”

“You, perhaps, with uncommon warmth because you are fiercely anti-feminist and hate to see a woman own or run anything?”

Pitkin sniffed. “That is not true.”

“So Miss Duday told Mr. Goodwin.”

“Miss Duday is spiteful and untrustworthy. About women, I merely feel that they too should be subject to the rules of bookkeeping and be permitted to take only what they earn, and on account of their defects of ability and character they are incapable of earning much more than a bare subsistence. The exceptions are very rare.”

Wolfe pushed his tray back, placed his palms on the chair arms, and moved his head slowly from left to right, from Helmar to Duday, and back again, taking them in.

“I think I’ve had enough of you,” he said, not offensively. “I’m not at all sure the evening has been well spent — whether, as Mr. Pitkin would put it, it shows a profit or loss, for you or for me.” He levered himself out of his chair and upright. “Mr. Parker, will you come with me? I’d like to consult you briefly before deciding where I’m at.”