Prisoner's Base

by Rex Stout

"For the kick." I was slightly exasperated. "There are at least a thousand people in the metropolitan area who think Nero Wolfe has lived long enough, and one or more of them might have decided to take a hand. His room, as you apparently know, is directly below this. What I expect to find is a brace and bit in the suitcase and a copperhead or rattler in the hatbox. Are they locked?"

  She regarded me to see if I was kidding, decided I wasn't, and stepped over and opened the suitcase. I was right there. On top was a blue silk negligee, which she lifted and put on the bed.

  "For the kick," she said indignantly.

  "It hurts me worse than it does you," I assured her. "Just pretend I'm not here."

  I'm not a lingerie expert, but I know what I like, and that was quite a collection. There was one plain white folded garment, sheer as gossamer, with the finest mesh I had ever seen. As she put it on the bed I asked politely, "Is that a blouse?"

  "No. Pajama."

  "Oh. Excellent for hot weather."

  When everything was out of the suitcase I picked it up for a good look, pressing with my fingertips on the sides and ends, inside and out. I wasn't piling it on; among the unwanted articles that had been introduced into that house in some sort of container were a fer-de-lance, a tear-gas bomb, and a cylinder of cyanogen. But there was nothing tricky about the construction of the suitcase, or the hatbox either; and as for the contents, you couldn't ask for a prettier or completer display of the personal requirements of a young woman for a quiet and innocent week in a private room of the house of a private detective.

  I backed off. "I guess that'll do," I granted. "I haven't inspected your handbag, nor your person, so I hope you won't mind if I lock the door. If you sneaked down to Mr. Wolfe's room and put a cyanide pill in his aspirin bottle, and he took it and died, I'd be out of a job."

  "Certainly." She hissed it. "Lock it good. That's the kind of thing I do every day."

  "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.

  Chapter 2

  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 do
wn 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.

  I told Wolfe that, acting as his agent, I had practically promised her that he would see her. He only grunted. I told him that he could probably get her to can the mystery and tell her name and describe her troubles, and if so the resulting fee might provide for my salary checks for a year. Another grunt.

  I gave up. "Okay," I said, "she'll have to find some bacalhau somewhere else. Maybe East Harlem-there's a lot of Portuguese around there. I shouldn't have mentioned it to her."

  "Bacalhau?" he demanded.

  "Yeah. I happened to mention we were having it for dinner, and she asked what it was and I told her, and she said salt cod couldn't possibly be fit to eat no matter how it was cooked, not even if it was an adaptation of a Portuguese recipe by you and Fritz." I shrugged. "Skip it. She may be a murderess anyhow. What's the difference if we break a precedent by turning her out hungry just at mealtime? What if I did sell her on salt cod and now have to evict her unfed? Who am I?"

  I got up and picked up the seven fifties from his desk. "This," I said regretfully, "puts us back where we started. Since this is to be returned to her, I have contributed nothing to the bank account, and the situation regarding my salary check snaps back to last Friday. That leaves me no alternative." I reached to my desk for the check he had signed as replacement, took it at the middle of its top edge with thumbs and forefingers-

  "Archie!" he roared. "Don't tear that!"

  I still do not know what the decision would have been about the roomer upstairs if it had been left to us. Because Wolfe did not like the idea of sending anyone from his house hungry, because of his instinctive reaction to the challenge that salt cod couldn't be made edible, and because of my threat to tear up another check, the roomer was not bounced before dinner, and the tray that was prepared for the south room was inspected personally by Wolfe before Fritz took it up. But except for the preparation and dispatch of the tray, no decision was put into words; the question was ignored. Wolfe and I ate together in the dining room as usual; the salt cod with Portuguese trimmings was so good that I had no room for the veal and not much for the walnut pudding; and when we were through with coffee and I followed Wolfe back into the office I assumed that the first item on the agenda would be Miss or Mrs. X. But he didn't even call a meeting. After a full meal, which our dinner always is, it takes him four or five minutes to get adjusted in his chair to his complete satisfaction. With that accomplished that Monday evening, he opened his book and started to read.

  I had nothing to complain about, since it was certainly his move. She was still up there, fed and locked in, and it was up to him. He could just pass it and let her stay, which was unthinkable, or he could have me bring her down for a talk, which he would hate, or he could tell me to put her out, which might or might not get my prompt cooperation. In any case, I didn't intend to give him an opening, so when he started reading I sat regarding him silently for a couple of minutes and then got up and headed for the door.

  His voice came at me from behind. "You're not going out?"

  I turned and was bland. "Why not?"

  "That woman you smuggled in. The arrangement was that you would get rid of her after dinner."

  It was a barefaced lie; there had been no such arrangement, and he knew it. But he had unquestionably squared off and feinted with a jab, and it was my turn. The disposal of our roomer would probably have been settled quickly and finally if it hadn't been for an interruption. The doorbell rang. It was only two steps from where I stood to the hall, and I took them.

  After dark I never open the outside door to a ring without first flipping on the stoop light and taking a look through the one-way panel. That time a glance was enough. He was alone, about twice my age, tall and bony with a square jutting jaw, with a dark gray felt hat firmly on his head and a briefcase under his arm. I pulled the door open and asked him how he did. Ignoring that question, he said his name was Perry Helmar and that he wanted to see Nero Wolfe, urgently. Ordinarily, when Wolfe is in the office and a stranger calls, I let the caller wait while I go in to check, but now, welcoming a chance to give Wolfe another tack to sit on, and also perhaps to postpone a showdown on the roomer until bedtime, I invited the guy in, hung his hat on the rack, and escorted him to the office.

  I thought for a second that Wolfe was going to get up and march out without a word. I have known him to do that more than once, upon deciding that someone, not always me, is not to be borne. The idea did dart into his mind-I know that look only too well-but it wasn't strong enough to overcome his reluctance to leave his chair. So he sat and surveyed the visitor with a resentful scowl.

  "I should explain," Helmar explained, "that I came to you immediately not only because I know something of your record and reputation, but also because I know my friend Dick Williamson's opinion of you-Richard A. Williamson, the cotton broker. He says you once performed a miracle for him."

  Helmar paused politely to give Wolfe a chance to insert an acknowledgment of this flattering preamble. Wolfe did so by inclining his head a full eighth of an inch.

  "I don't ask for a miracle," Helmar resumed, "but I do need speed, boldness, and sagacity." He was in the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe's desk, with his briefcase on the little table at his elbow. His voice was a raspy oratorical baritone, hard and bony like him. He was going on. "And discretion-that is essential. You have it, I know. As for me, I am a senior partner in a law firm of the highest repute, with offices at Forty Wall Street. A young woman for whom I am responsible has disappeared, and there is reason to fear that she is doing something foolish and may even be in jeopardy. She must be found as quickly as possible."

  I opened a drawer to get out a notebook, and reached for my pen. What could be sweeter? A missing person, and a senior member of a Wall Street firm of high repute so bothered that he came trotting to us at night without even stopping to phone in advance. I glanced at Wolfe and suppressed a grin. His lips were tightened in resigned acceptance of the inevitable. Work was looming, work that he could probably find no rational excuse for rejecting, and how he hated it!

  "I have a definite proposal," Helmar was saying. "I will pay you five thousand dollars and necessary expenses if you will find her, and put me in communication with her, by June twenty-ninth-six days from now. I will pay double that, ten thousand, if you will produce her in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth."

  My eyes were on him in fitting appreciation when he spoke of five grand, and then ten grand; but I lowered them to my notebook when I heard that date, June 30. It could have been a coincidence, but I had a good sharp hunch that
it wasn't, and I have learned not to sneer at hunches. I lifted my eyes enough to get Wolfe's face, but there was no sign that the date had smacked him as it had me.

  He sighed good and deep, surrendering with fairly good grace to the necessity of work. "The police?" he inquired, not hopefully.

  Helmar shook his head. "As I said before, discretion is essential."

  "It usually is, for people who hire a private detective. Tell me about it briefly. Since you're a lawyer you should know what I need to decide whether I'll take the job."

  "Why shouldn't you take it?"

  "I don't know. Tell me about it."

  Helmar shifted in his chair and leaned back, but not at ease. I decided that his lacing and unlacing of his fingers was not merely a habit; he was on edge. "In any case," he said, "this is confidential. The name of the young woman who has disappeared is Priscilla Eads. I have known her all her life and am her legal guardian, and also I am the trustee of her property under the will of her father, who died ten years ago. She lives in an apartment on East Seventy-fourth Street, and I was to call there this evening to discuss some business matters with her. I did so, arriving a little after eight, but she wasn't there, and the maid was alarmed, as she had expected her mistress home for an early dinner and there had been no word from her."

  "I don't need that much," Wolfe said impatiently.

  "Then I'll curtail it. I found on her writing desk an envelope addressed to me. Inside was a handwritten note." He reached for his briefcase and opened it. "Here it is." He took out a folded sheet of blue-tinted paper, but put it down to get a spectacle case from a pocket and put on black-rimmed glasses. He retrieved the paper. "It reads, 'Dear Perry-'"

  He stopped, lifting his chin to glance at me and then at Wolfe. "She has called me by my first name," he stated, "ever since she was twelve years old and I was forty-nine. Her father suggested it."

  Apparently he invited comment, and Wolfe obliged. "It is not actionable," he muttered.

  Helmar nodded. "I only mention it. It reads: