Prisoner's Base

Chapter 12

During the fifty-some hours that had passed since my call at the Softdown building on Collins Street, I had had plenty of spare moments for research, and one of the items I had collected was Bernard Quest’s age. He was eighty-one. Nevertheless, it was not necessary to assume, as Wolfe had in the case of Viola Duday, that if he had killed Priscilla Eads he had probably done so by contrivance and not by perpetration. In spite of his pure white hair and wrinkled old skin, I would have bet, from the way he looked and moved and held his shoulders and head, that he could still have chinned himself up to five or six times.

He told Wolfe, in a low but firm and strong voice, “In a long life I have had to swallow only two really bitter pills. This affair is one of them. I don’t mean the murder, the violent death of Priscilla Eads, though that was shocking and regrettable. I mean that it is thought possible that I, Bernard Quest, was involved in it. Not only by you, I don’t care about you, but by the official and responsible investigators of crime.”

His eyes went left, to Pitkin and Miss Duday, and right, to Brucker and Helmar, and back to Wolfe. “These others are infants compared to me. I have been with this business sixty-two years. I have been sales manager for thirty-four years and vice-president for twenty-nine. More than four billion dollars’ worth of our products have been sold by me and/or under my direction. In nineteen twenty-three, when I was made vice-president by Nathan Eads, he promised me that someday I would be given a substantial block of stock in the corporation. In the years that followed that promise was repeated several times, but it was never kept. In nineteen thirty-eight Nathan Eads told me that he had made provision in his will for redemption of the promise. I protested, and by then I was resentful enough to back up my protest with action, but it was too late. I was nearly seventy years old, and rival firms which had formerly offered me unlimited inducements would no longer do so. By then I knew, of course, that I could place no reliance at all on the word of Nathan Eads, but I had waited too long to make my demands effective by the only method that would have moved him.

“Four years later, in nineteen forty-two, he died. When the will was read I found that once more he had broken his word to me. I said I have swallowed two really bitter pills; that was the first one. It may be asked, what did it matter? I was over seventy. My children were grown and out in the world, happy and on the way to success. My wife was dead. I had an ample income, more than I needed. What good would three million dollars’ worth of corporation stock have done me? None. None at all. Probably more harm than good to me and mine. But I decided to kill a girl, Priscilla Eads, then fifteen years old, in order to get at least a portion of it.”

“Bernie!” Miss Duday gasped.

“Yes, Vi.” He looked at her, nodded, and returned to Wolfe. “I have not told this to the police, not because I thought it important to withhold it, but because those who have questioned me have not been a stimulating audience. Sitting here an hour ago, I realized that it would be — a pleasure? No, not a pleasure, but an excellent opportunity to lighten the load. After eighty, that is a major objective, to lighten the load.”

Suddenly he smiled, but it was not at or with any of us; he was smiling to himself. “My sense of justice, of fairness, was outraged. I knew that Nathan Eads, who had inherited the business, had contributed very little to its phenomenal growth during the quarter-century he had been the nominal head. That growth was mainly the work of two men, one named Arthur Gilliam, a production genius, and me. Eads had to give Gilliam ten per cent of the corporation’s stock in order to keep him, and that stock is now owned by Gilliam’s daughter, Mrs. Sarah Jaffee. Because I wasn’t as tough as Gilliam, I got nothing. And this final treachery of Nathan Eads in the provisions of his will was too much for me. I didn’t decide to kill Priscilla for the sake of gain; that would have been a rational decision, and it wasn’t rational at all; I was simply unbalanced. I suppose I was actually insane.”

He waved that aside. “I decided,” he said, “to strangle her.”

There was a stir in the audience. He ignored it. “I knew that many criminals are traced by laboratory analysis of an object or objects, and I took elaborate precautions against that danger. Needing a piece of cord, I spent many hours reflecting on the safest method of getting one. My home was in Scarsdale, with a yard and a garage, and of course there were several kinds of cord around the place that would have served, but this must be absolutely untraceable. I solved the problem ingeniously, I think. I took the Broadway subway to the end of the line and went for a walk. Within half an hour I had spied two or three that would have been all right, but I was particular. The one I selected was at the edge of a vacant lot not far from the sidewalk — a piece of clothesline about three feet long. There was no passer-by within a hundred paces, but I was careful. I stooped to tie a shoelace, and when I straightened up the cord was coiled tightly in my hand.”

Viola Duday demanded, “Are you inventing this, Bernie?”

“No, Vi, this happened. I stuffed the cord in my pocket immediately and left it there until I was at home alone in my bedroom with the door locked. Then I examined it and was pleased to find that though it was very dirty and worn some it was quite sound. I went to the bathroom and washed it well in soapy water and rinsed it, but was then confronted with a problem. Where could I leave it to dry? Of course not where there was the slightest risk of its being seen by one of my two servants or by one of my guests who were coming to dinner, and I didn’t want to lock it in a drawer, wet. I didn’t like the idea of locking it in a drawer at all. So, after taking a shower, I tied the cord around my waist before dressing for dinner. I was quite uncomfortable with that cord around me next to my skin, but I wouldn’t have been comfortable if I had put it anywhere else.

“Later, after my guests had gone, when I was undressing for bed, I was reflecting on another problem, not for the first time. Would I have to make her manageable by hitting her with something before using the cord? I thought it greatly preferable to use only the one weapon, the cord, if it could be done that way. Removing it from my waist, I tried encircling various objects with it — the arm of a chair, a book, a pillow — and pulling it tight, but that told me nothing. I had to know how much tension was needed to choke off air and sound and make her helpless quickly. So I put the cord around my neck, got a good hold, and started to pull.”

All eyes were fixed on him as he lifted his fists to touch knuckles beneath his chin, and slowly to begin parting them.

“My God,” someone said.

Quest nodded. “Yes, but it’s anticlimax. No one came to me just in time. I merely came to myself, after collapsing on the floor and lying there naked some minutes — I don’t know how many. Nor do I know whether my collapse was only psychological or physical, or was physically induced by my tightening the cord. I do know that that was the one time in my life when the notion of suicide has flashed into my mind — not when I put the cord around my neck and pulled on it, I was conscious of no such notion then — but after I came to. For a moment my mind was quite empty. I sat on the floor staring at the cord in my hand — and suddenly it all rushed in on me as if a dam had burst. I had been seriously and deliberately planning murder, and there was the cord to prove it! Or had it been just a nightmare? I clambered to my feet and went to a mirror to look, and there was a livid ring around my neck. If at that moment there had been an easy way at hand — say, a loaded gun — I think I would have killed myself. But there wasn’t, and I didn’t. Later on, toward morning, I believe I even slept.

“Well.” Quest gestured. “That was the end of that. For ten years that cord, neatly coiled, has been on a tray on my dresser, where I see it morning and night. I have often been asked what it is and why it is there, but I have never told until now. As I—”

“Is it still there?” Wolfe asked.

Quest was startled. “Of course!”

“Has it been there continuously?”

Quest was more startled. His mouth dropped open, and his jaw hung, making him look ten years older. When he spoke his voice was different. “I don’t know.” He sounded half dazed. “I haven’t been home since Monday morning. I’ve been staying with my son in town — I want to phone.” He was on his feet. “I want to phone!”

I told him, “Here,” and pulled the instrument across and got up, and he came and took my chair and dialed a number. After a long wait he spoke.

“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.”

Taking the wall detour as before, he headed for the door, where Parker joined him, and they left together. I got up and canvassed for refills and got some takers, most of them leaving their seats. Viola Duday herded Sarah Jaffee to a far corner for a tête-à-tête. Andy Fomos crossed to them and joined in, uninvited; but in spite of their defects of ability and character they showed no signs of being in distress, so I didn’t intrude. When everyone had been attended to at the bar, I propped myself on the edge of Wolfe’s desk and closed my eyes and listened to the little hum they were making. I agreed with Wolfe — I had had enough for now, chiefly because I had caught no glimmer. Had he? I squeezed my eyes tight, concentrating, and the hum of the crowd kept me from hearing the door opening, but the hum stopped suddenly, and I raised my lids. They had returned. Parker crossed to Sarah. Wolfe came to his chair behind his desk but did not sit. He faced them.

“Miss Duday and gentlemen. I am not prepared to say yes or no. It’s past midnight, and I must digest what I have heard and seen. I make only this commitment: Mr. Parker will take no step on behalf of Mrs. Jaffee until he has heard from me sometime tomorrow, and he will notify you in advance through Mr. Helmar.”

Of course it wasn’t that easy. Helmar objected, and Brucker, but the loudest and stubbornest protests came from Irby, Eric Hagh’s lawyer, and Andy Fomos. Irby wanted the authenticity of his client’s document explicitly acknowledged by everyone. Fomos wanted to know when he would be made a director and how much he would be paid. While that minor tumult was proceeding, Bernard Quest went quietly to Sarah Jaffee and spoke to her persistently, but I saw her shake her head several times, so apparently he wasn’t doing so well.

First to give up and go was Fomos. He suddenly threw up his arms and dashed for the hall, and I had to step en it to get there in time to see him disappearing onto the stoop. Next was Viola Duday, with no escort, and then Jay Brucker and Oliver Pitkin together. Bernard Quest left alone, and Perry Helmar. The only one who thought it appropriate to offer me a hand to shake when I let him out was Eric Hagh, who left with his lawyer, Irby. Last to go were Sarah Jaffee and Nathaniel Parker. I felt magnanimous as I dosed the door after them and put the bolt on. What the hell, let him take her home. I was still way ahead, with my coat-and-hat-disposal service.

As I started for the office, here came Wolfe, headed for his elevator.

“Which one?” I asked.

He halted, glaring. “Which one what?”

“Excuse me. I meant it only as a pleasantry. If you’re as stumped as you look, God help your client.”

He eyed me. “Archie. Do you know who killed Miss Eads and Mrs. Fomos?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you think you know?”

“No, sir.”

“I do — or I did — but there’s a contradiction. What about Mrs. Jaffee? Is she a snake or a cheat?”

“No. Nice odds, say ten to one.”

“Then I need to ask her something, after consideration. Will you please have her here in the morning at eleven?”

I told him yes, and he proceeded to his elevator. My bed would have to wait a little, until I had helped Fritz put the office in order, especially ashtrays and the remains of the liquid refreshments. He was already in there, and I went to join him.