Prisoner's Base

Chapter 9

The next morning, Thursday, I cashed in on an investment.

I needed some kind of a break. There had been no follow-up of any kind on the Irby thing. Granted for the sake of argument that after dinner Wednesday evening was no time for it, what was wrong with Thursday morning? I decided for the thousandth time that I didn’t have the right temperament for working for Nero Wolfe. If I had, I would long ago have quit being exasperated by his matter-of-fact assumption that, barring specific urgencies, there was no point in starting the day’s detecting activities until after he came down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock. And anyway it seemed to me that this was a specific urgency. So when I had got up and shaved and showered and dressed, and gone down and greeted Fritz and had breakfast, and read the morning paper, learning among other things that no one had been charged with the murder of Priscilla Eads or Margaret Fomos, and proceeded to the office and opened the morning mail, and nine o’clock had come and gone with no word from on high, I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone and got him and inquired, “Do you invite people to the party or do I?”

“Neither, until we’re sure of Mr. Hagh.” He was gruff, of course.

“He’ll land at three.”

“Or never.”

That was it. One of his deepest convictions was that no vehicle propelled by machinery, from a scooter to an ocean liner, could reasonably be expected ever to reach its destination, and that only a dunce would bank on it. There was nothing I could do about it. After hanging up, I called Pan-Atlantic, and was told that Flight 193 was expected to arrive on schedule. As I got up to put the mail on Wolfe’s desk, the phone rang, and I sat down and got it.

“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“This is Archie Goodwin?”

“Right.”

“This is Sarah Jaffee, Mr. Goodwin.”

“So it is, by the voice. Good morning.”

“Good morning. I wanted — how are you?”

“I’m fine. And you?”

“I’m fine too. I just had my breakfast and I wanted to phone you. There was no place at the table but mine.”

“Good. In the long run that’ll save a lot of breakage on dishes.”

“It will save more than that.” A pause. “You took the coat and hat with you.”

“I did, and for God’s sake don’t tell me you want them back. I disposed of them.”

“I’ll never want them back.” She sounded quite positive. “When I went to the hall, long after you had left, and saw that the coat and hat were gone, I cried like a baby. When I quit crying I was scared. I was afraid I had been crying because the coat and hat were gone, but then I realized that wasn’t it, only I didn’t know what it was. Anyhow I quit worrying about why I had cried because I knew one thing for certain — I knew I was glad the coat and hat were gone, and I knew you had done a wonderful thing for me after the way I acted. I guess you understood why I acted like that. I’m a terrible coward, I always have been. I’m such a coward that three times yesterday afternoon when I started to phone you I simply couldn’t make my finger turn the dial.”

“You could have—”

“No, please! Let me finish or I won’t. I slept better than I have for a long time — I don’t know when. I had a wonderful sleep! And while I was eating breakfast, there where you were with me yesterday, I realized how it was. I realized that I had to do anything you asked me to do, anything — only of course not — I mean, anything you would ask me — that is, anything I can do. So just tell me what it is.”

“I told you yesterday.”

“I know, but I don’t remember it very well.”

I explained it carefully, but it didn’t seem that she listened carefully, from a couple of questions she asked, so I explained it again. She said she would be at the office at eleven o’clock. I suggested that she bring her own lawyer, and she said she didn’t want to tell him about it because he might not approve and she didn’t want to argue with him. I didn’t insist, since Nathaniel Parker was going to be asked to act on her behalf, and she couldn’t possibly do any better.

She warned me, “I don’t think I’m still a nut, but I’m still a coward, so I’m pretty brave to do this and I hope you know it.”

I told her that I did and fully appreciated it.

That made it a very different kind of morning. First I ascended to the plant rooms and told Wolfe that the thirty cents I had added to my taxi fare by making a detour to the Salvation Army depot had been well invested, and got instructions. Then I returned to the office and obeyed the instructions. The main item was the phone call to Parker, since he had to have full details, including not only names, addresses, events, and intentions, but the purpose and plan of the attack. He was not enthusiastic, which was nothing new; and he made it plain that since he would be Mrs. Jaffee’s attorney of record, her interest would be his primary consideration. Knowing as I did that he would give Wolfe his right eye if necessary, I told him that if he got disbarred on account of this operation I could probably get him a job folding paper napkins. I admit it was a feeble crack, but even if it had been a masterpiece he wouldn’t have been amused. Lawyers are incapable of taking a joke about getting disbarred because it costs them so much time and money to get barred.

The eleven-o’clock council of war in the office was a big success, with no real argument from anyone. Mrs. Jaffee was ten minutes late, but aside from that I was proud of her, and by the time it was over I was seriously considering calling her Sarah. She was by no means a mere gump, nodding to it just because she didn’t know any better. It had to be explained to her in full, exactly what was to be done and why and when and by whom, and for the most part that was left to Parker, since she was his client.

Parker, who was six feet four with nothing to protect his bones from exposure to the weather but tough-looking leathery skin, was so skeptical that at one point I thought he was going to pass, but he finally conceded that the move might be undertaken without undue risk to juridical virtue, to his own reputation, or to his client’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. When all details had been settled and money passed — a dollar bill from Sarah to Parker as a token retainer — I got at the phone and dialed a number.

It took persistence. A thin and sour female voice told me that Mr. Perry Helmar was engaged and asked what I wanted. I said that Mr. Nathaniel Parker would tell Mr. Helmar and asked how soon he would be accessible. She said she didn’t know. It went on according to pattern, and in order to win I had to drop the name of Mrs. Jaffee. In another minute Helmar was on, and Parker took it at the extension on Wolfe’s desk, leaning over on his elbows. I kept my receiver at my ear and got it in my notebook.

After Parker had identified himself as a confrere he dived right in. “I’m preparing to start an action for a client, counselor, and I’m calling you as a matter of professional courtesy. The client is Mrs. Sarah Jaffee. I believe you know her?”

“I’ve known her all her life. What kind of action?”

Parker was easygoing and anything but pugnacious. “Perhaps I should explain that Mrs. Jaffee was referred to me by Mr. Nero Wolfe. It was on—”

“That crook?” Helmar was outraged. “That damned scoundrel?”

Parker laughed a little, tolerantly. “I won’t stipulate that, and I doubt if you can establish it. I was saying that I understand that it was on Mr. Wolfe’s advice that Mrs. Jaffee determined on this action. She wants it begun immediately. It is to be directed at Jay L. Brucker, Bernard Quest, Oliver Pitkin, Viola Duday, and Perry Helmar. She wants me to ask a court to enjoin those five people from assuming ownership of any of the capital stock of Softdown, Incorporated, under the provisions of the will of the late Nathan Eads, and from attempting to exercise any of the rights of such ownership.”

“What?” Helmar was incredulous. “Will you repeat that?”

Parker did so, and added, “I think it must be admitted, counselor, that this is a new approach and an extremely interesting one. Her idea is that the injunction is to stand until it is determined to the satisfaction of the court whether one or more of those five people has acquired the stock by the commission of a crime — the crime in question, manifestly, being the murder of Priscilla Eads. Frankly, at first I doubted whether such an injunction would be granted, but on consideration I’m not at all sure. It is certainly worth trying, and Mrs. Jaffee, as a stockholder in the corporation, has a legitimate interest at stake. I have told her I’ll move in the matter, and at once.”

He paused. Nothing for four seconds; then Helmar: “This is an act of malice. Nero Wolfe put Mrs. Jaffee up to this. I intend to speak with Mrs. Jaffee.”

“I don’t think that will help.” Parker was a little chillier. “As Mrs. Jaffee’s attorney, I have advised her to discuss the matter with no one — except with Mr. Wolfe, of course, if she sees fit. She is here in Mr. Wolfe’s office with me now. As I said, I called you as a matter of professional courtesy, and also because I believe, as I hope you do, that a meeting of minds is always preferable to a meeting of fists or weapons.”

“No judge would grant such an injunction.”

“That remains to be seen.” Parker was close to icy. “I have been discussing it with Mr. Wolfe, who referred Mrs. Jaffee to me. He thinks there should be no delay, and I am leaving now for my office to draft the application, but I told him I thought an effort should be made to protect all interests without going to court. He said he believed any such effort would be fruitless, but he is willing that it be tried, conditionally. The conditions are that it occur this evening, at his office, and that all those involved be present.”

“At Wolfe’s office?” Helmar was outraged again.

“Yes.”

“Never. Never! He’s a murderer himself.”

“I think, counselor, you’re a little free with words. I know you have been under a strain, but what if you were seriously challenged?”

“All right. But don’t think you can get me to agree to come to Wolfe’s office. I won’t!”

Nevertheless, he did. He didn’t come right out and say it, even after he had fully realized that his choice was between that and a summons from a judge to appear and wrangle in public, but he pleaded that he couldn’t possibly commit his four associates to such a meeting without consulting them, and he wasn’t sure how soon he could get in touch with them. He wanted the afternoon until six o’clock, but Parker said nothing doing. The limit was three-thirty. Parker would proceed to draft the application and have everything in readiness, including a date with a judge, and he would keep the date if by half-past three he had not received word that the Softdown quintet would be at Wolfe’s office at nine o’clock that evening.

Parker cradled the phone and straightened up, all seventy-six inches of him. “They’ll come,” he said confidently but not jubilantly. “Damn you, Wolfe. I have theater tickets.”

“Use them,” Wolfe told him. “I won’t need you.”

Parker snorted. “With my client here defenseless? Between them, one of them presumptively a murderer, and you — you a wild beast when you are smelling prey? Ha!” He turned. “Mrs. Jaffee, one of my functions as your attorney is to keep you away, as far as practicable, from dangerous persons and influences, and these two men together represent all the perils and pitfalls of all the catalogues. Will you have lunch with me?”

They left together. That made me proud of her some more from another angle — or should I say curve? — because Nat Parker, a bachelor, was well and widely known for his particular taste in women and did not invite one to lunch absentmindedly; and I was not jealous. I had too good a head start, since there was no more coat and hat in her foyer for him to cart off to the Salvation Army.

Now, of course, Wolfe was committed. He didn’t move a finger toward a book or crossword puzzle or any of his other toys. Until lunch time he sat leaning back with his eyes closed, his lips moving now and then, pushing out and pulling in, and I left him to his misery, which I knew was fairly acute. When the going gets really hot and we’re closing in, he can get excited as well as the next one, though he refuses to show it, but on this one he was still trying to get set for some kind of a start, and I had to admit he was working on it. Before lunch I phoned Pan-Atlantic and was told that Flight 193 was expected in early, around two-thirty; and I called Irby to tell him that if he could get Eric Hagh to our place by half-past three he should bring him, but otherwise make it six o’clock.

After lunch it was more of the same, with Wolfe being so patient and uncomplaining it was painful, and I would have welcomed a couple of nasty remarks. Shortly before three Parker phoned to say that he had just talked with Helmar and the party was on. The Softdown five would arrive at nine o’clock, and he and Mrs. Jaffee a little earlier. I asked if he was escorting Mrs. Jaffee.

“Certainly,” he said virtuously. “She is my client. What’s that noise you’re making?”

“It’s something special,” I told him, “and takes a lot of practice. Don’t try it offhand. It’s a derisive chortle.”

I went to the kitchen to discuss the supply of liquid refreshments with Fritz. It was a strict rule that for an evening gathering in that house, whatever the business at hand, assorted drinks must be available, and Fritz and I always collaborated on it unless I was too busy. It always got into an argument, with Fritz insisting that two wines, a red and a white, should be included, and me maintaining that wine was out because it puts Americans to sleep and we wanted them wide awake. We were about ready for the usual compromise — a couple of bottles of white but no red — when the doorbell rang and I went to answer it.

It was Dewdrop Irby with a companion in a white linen suit, somewhat wrinkled and none too clean. I slipped the bolt and opened up and they stepped in.

“Mr. Archie Goodwin,” Irby said. “Mr. Eric Hagh.”

There had been so much talk of South America that I had been expecting something like a cross between Diego Rivera and Perón, but if this bird had been thoroughly bleached to fit his blond hair and blue eyes I couldn’t have told him from a Viking if it hadn’t been for his clothes. He was maybe a little older than me, and also, as I would have conceded in spite of his looking fagged and puffy, maybe a little handsomer.

Leaving his luggage, a bag and a suitcase, in the hall, I took them to the office and introduced Hagh to Wolfe. Hagh was inclined to boom when he spoke, but otherwise didn’t seem specially objectionable, and I resented it. I was prepared to object to a guy who had married an heiress and got her to sign that document as described, and naturally I felt it was up to him to supply evidence to support my objection. He disappointed me. He did speak with an accent I couldn’t place, but I couldn’t very well hold that against him with the United Nations only a mile and a half away.

Apparently they were expecting an extended session, from the way they settled in their chairs, but Wolfe made it short and not too sweet. Actually, from our standpoint, those two were now nothing but supers. Irby had been a godsend the day before, when he had come from nowhere to bring us a rake to pull in the Softdown stockholders, but now that Sarah Jaffee had furnished us with a much better one, he and his client were just extras.

Wolfe was moderately polite. “Did you have a tolerable journey, Mr. Hagh?”

“Not too bad,” Hagh replied. “A bit bumpy.”

Wolfe shuddered. “I congratulate you on your safe arrival.” He went to Irby. “There has been a new development. I’m not free to describe it in detail, but it concerns Mr. Helmar and his associates sufficiently for them to have agreed to come here this evening at nine o’clock to discuss the matter. Although—”

“I want to meet them,” Hagh said emphatically.

“I know you do. Although they are not coming on your affair, there is no reason why it cannot be broached, since the other matter is closely related. But if you come this evening it must be understood that the proceedings are entirely in my hands. You will take part only if and when invited, and you may not be invited at all. Do you wish to be present under those conditions?”

“But,” Irby protested, “you said there should be a meeting to discuss my client’s claim! I must insist—”

“You are in no position to insist, sir. By making me that silly offer yesterday you forfeited your right to equity. Do you wish to be present this evening?”

“I want only,” Hagh said, “what belongs to me — what I can prove belongs to me!”

“I may have worded my offer badly,” Irby admitted. “I may have misunderstood the nature of your interest in the matter. But it would be imprudent for us to meet those people here unless we have some assurance that you and Mr. Goodwin are going to testify to the authenticity—”

“Then don’t come,” Wolfe snapped.

Hagh pulled an envelope from his pocket and waggled it. “I have here the document that my wife signed and Margaret Caselli witnessed. I was present when she wrote it and signed it. It has been in my possession ever since, and there is no honest question that it is genuine. All we want is your help for the truth.”

He was absolutely in earnest, probably as much so as he had been on August 12, 1946, when he had finagled Priscilla into signing it. His appeal did not bring tears to my eyes.

Nor to Wolfe’s. He said flatly, “There will be no assurance, gentlemen, and no hint of a covenant. I am engaged for the rest of the afternoon. Under the conditions I have proposed, you will be welcome here at nine this evening if you care to come.”

That settled it. Hagh wanted him to take a look at the precious document, and Irby was too damn stubborn to give in without a couple more tries, but that was all. They could have saved their breath. I went to the hall with them and was disappointed again when Hagh, who was younger, bigger, and stronger than Irby, insisted on carrying both the bag and the suitcase. I kept looking for little points to score against him, and he kept double-crossing me.

I went to the kitchen and told Fritz there would be nine guests instead of seven.

But as it turned out that was not the final figure. Some four hours later, when I was up in my room changing my shirt and tie in honor of the approaching soiree, the doorbell rang, and a minute later Fritz called up that a man on the stoop who refused to give his name wanted to see me. I finished my grooming and descended and came upon a tableau. Fritz was at the front door, peering at the fastening of the chain bolt. Out on the stoop, visible through the one-way glass, was Andreas Hercules Fomos, glaring angrily at the crack which the bolt and chain were holding the door to, his posture indicating that he was making some kind of muscular effort.

“He’s pushing at it,” Fritz told me.

I walked to him and called through the crack, “You’ll never make it, son. I’m Goodwin. What do you want?”

“I can’t see you plain.” His voice was even gruffer and deeper than when he had been on the inside talking out. “I want in.”

“So did I, and what did I get? What do you want? That’s twice, so I have one coming. You asked me three times.”

“I could break your neck, Goodwin!”

“Then you’ll never get in. I use my neck. What do you want? Now we’re even.”

A voice came at me from behind. “What is all this uproar?”

Wolfe had emerged from the office and was advancing, which wasn’t as impetuous as it might have seemed. It was close to dinnertime, and he would soon have had to mobilize himself anyhow. Fritz trotted off toward the kitchen, where something was probably reaching its climax.

I told Wolfe, “It’s Andy Fomos, who ruined a shoe for me yesterday.” I told the crack, “In ten seconds we close the door the rest of the way, and don’t think we can’t.”

“What you told me yesterday!” he bellowed.

“What? Do you mean about Priscilla Eads going to make your wife a director of Softdown?”

“Yes! I was thinking about it, and a little while ago I phoned that Mrs. Jaffee. She wouldn’t say much, but she told me who you are and said I should see you. If that woman was going to make my wife an important thing like a director there must have been some good reason, and I want you to tell me what it was. She must have owed my wife something big, and I want to know what it was, because if it belongs to me I want it. My wife would have wanted me to have it. And you must know about it, or why did you come to see me?”

I turned to Wolfe. “When you send me out for objects you get ‘em, huh? This one completes the order. Do you want it?”

He was standing with his gaze focused through the one-way glass at the visitor. Fomos was not quite as impressive draped as he had been in shorts, but he was quite a figure. Wolfe grunted. “If he came this evening would he be uncontrollable?”

“Not if I have tools handy, and I will.”

“Invite him.”

I turned to the crack. “Listen, Junior. Some people are coming at nine o’clock this evening to talk the whole thing over, and we might get around to what’s biting you, why your wife was to be made a director, or we might not. You may come if you’ll behave yourself. If you don’t behave you won’t stay.”

“I won’t wait! I want in now! I want—”

“Oh, can it! You heard me. We’re now going to eat dinner, and the thought of you camped on the stoop would annoy us. If you’re down on the sidewalk by the time I count ten I’ll let you in at nine o’clock. If not, not. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...”

He had made it. Wolfe was headed for the dining room. I went to the kitchen and told Fritz, “One more. There will be ten. Counting Mr. Wolfe and me, an even dozen. Counting you, thirteen.”

“Then we will not count me,” he said firmly.