Rex Stout: Prisoner's Base

I went to the hall, pulling the door to. I was not prancing or preening. True, it was I who had hooked onto something that had turned out to be worth ten grand to us, but I saw no acceptable way of cashing it in, and I had no idea what line Wolfe was going to take. I had stated my position, and he had chuckled.

It didn’t take her long to dress, which scored another point for her. When she emerged, back in the peach color, she came to me, asking, “Is he very mad?”

I told her nothing alarming. The stairs are wide enough for two abreast, and we descended side by side, her fingers on my arm. That struck me as right and appropriate. I had told Wolfe that she was mine, thereby assuming a duty as well as claiming a privilege. I may have stuck out my chest some as we entered the office together, though it was involuntary.

She marched across to his desk, extended a hand, and told him cordially, “You look exactly right! Just as I thought! I would—”

She broke it off because she was getting a deep freeze. He had moved no muscle, and the expression on his face, while not belligerent, was certainly not cordial. She drew back.

He spoke. “I don’t shake hands with you because you might later think it an imposition. We’ll see. Sit down, Miss Eads.”

She did all right, I thought. It’s not a comfortable spot, having an offered hand refused, whatever the explanation may be. After drawing back, she flushed, opened her mouth and closed it, glanced at me and back at Wolfe, and, apparently deciding that restraint was called for, moved toward the red leather chair. But short of it she suddenly jerked around and demanded, “What did you call me?”

“Your name. Eads.”

Flabbergasted, she stared. She transferred the stare to me. “How?” she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? But how?”

“Look,” I appealed to her, “you had a jolt coming, and what did it matter whether from him or me? Sit down and take it.”

“But you couldn’t possibly...” It trailed off. She moved and sat. Her remarkable eyes went to Wolfe. “Not that it makes much difference. I suppose I’ll have to pay you more, but I was willing to anyhow. I told Mr. Goodwin so.”

Wolfe nodded. “And he told you that he was taking the money you gave him tentatively, conditional on my approval. Archie, get it, please, and return it to her.”

I had expected that, naturally, and had decided not to make an issue of it. If and when I took a stand I wanted to be on the best ground in sight. So I arose and crossed to the safe and opened it, got the seven new fifties, went to Priscilla, and proffered them. She didn’t lift a hand.

“Take it,” I advised her. “If you want to balk, pick a better spot.” I dropped it on her lap and returned to my chair. As I sat down, Wolfe was speaking.

“Your presence here, Miss Eads, is preposterous. This is neither a rooming house nor an asylum for hysterical women; it is my—”

“I’m not hysterical!”

“Very well, I withdraw it. It is not an asylum for unhysterical women; it is my office and my home. For you to come here and ask to be allowed to stay a week, sleeping and eating in the room directly above mine, without revealing your identity or any of the circumstances impelling you, was grotesque. Mr. Goodwin knew that, and you would have been promptly ejected if he had not chosen to use you and your fantastic request as a means of badgering me — and also, of course, if you had not been young and attractive. Because he did so choose, and you are uncommonly attractive, you were actually taken up to a room and helped to unpack, refreshments were taken up to you, a meal was served you, my whole household was disrupted. Then—”

“I’m sorry.” Priscilla’s face was good and red, no faint pink flush. “I’m extremely sorry. I’ll leave at once.” She was rising.

Wolfe showed her a palm. “If you please. There has been a development. We have had a visitor. He left here only half an hour ago. A man named Perry Helmar.”

She gasped. “Perry!” She dropped back into the chair, “You told him I’m here!”

“No.” Wolfe was curt. “He had been to your apartment and found you gone, and had found the note you left for him — you did leave a note for him?”

“I — yes.”

“Finding it, and learning you had scooted, he came straight here. He wanted to hire me to find you. He told me of your approaching twenty-fifth birthday, and of the communication he received recently from your former husband, now in Venezuela, regarding a document you once signed, giving him half of your property, You did sign such a document?”

“Yes.”

“Wasn’t that a foolish thing to do?”

“Yes, but I was a fool then, so naturally I was foolish.”

“Well. When Mr. Goodwin looked at photographs of you Mr. Helmar had brought, of course he recognized you, and he managed to inform me without informing Mr. Helmar. But Mr. Helmar had already made a definite proposal. He offered to pay me ten thousand dollars and expenses if I would produce you in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth.”

“Produce me?” Priscilla laughed, but not merrily.

“That was his phrase.” Wolfe leaned back and rubbed his lip with a fingertip. “The moment Mr. Goodwin recognized the photographs and informed me, I was of course in an anomalous situation. I earn a living and maintain an expensive establishment by working as a private detective. I can’t afford quixotism. When I am offered a proper fee for a legitimate job in the field I cover, I don’t refuse it. I need the money. So. A man I’ve never seen before comes and offers me ten thousand dollars to find and produce a certain object by a certain date, and by chance — by chance alone — that object is locked in a room of my house. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t disclose it to him and collect my fee?”

“I see,” She pressed her lips together. In a moment the tip of her tongue showed, going from left to right and back again. “That’s how it is, It was lucky he brought the photographs for Mr. Goodwin to recognize, wasn’t it?” Her eyes moved to me. “I suppose I should congratulate you, Mr. Goodwin?”

“It’s too early to tell,” I growled. “Save it.”

“I admit,” Wolfe told her, “that if I had accepted a commission from you, or if Mr. Goodwin, acting as my agent, had taken money from you unconditionally, I would be bound to your interest and therefore unable to consider Mr. Helmar’s offer. But there is no such bond. I am not committed to you in any way. There was no legal, professional, or ethical obstacle to prevent my disclosing you to him and demanding payment — but, confound it, there was my self-esteem. And is. I can’t do it. Also there is Mr. Goodwin. I have rebuked him for installing you and told him to get rid of you, and if I now collect ransom for you he will be impossible to live with or work with.”

Wolfe shook his head. “So it is by no means my good fortune that you chose my house as a haven. If you had gone anywhere else, Mr. Helmar would have come to hire me to find you, I would have taken the job, and I would surely have earned the fee. If my self-esteem will not let me profit by your presence here, through chance and Mr. Goodwin, neither will my self-interest permit me to suffer loss by it — so substantial a loss — and I have two suggestions to offer — alternative suggestions. The first is simple. When you were arranging with Mr. Goodwin to stay here you told him in effect that there was no limit to the amount you would pay. Your words, as he reported them to me, were, ‘Whatever you say.’ You were speaking to him as my agent, and therefore to me. I now say ten thousand dollars.”

She goggled at him, her brows high. “You mean I pay you ten thousand dollars?”