Prisoner's Base by Rex Stout Page B

she didn’t write, and then one day she phoned me—she was back in New York, and she was alone, except for Margaret, and she was calling herself Miss Priscilla Eads. I saw her a few times, and when she bought a place up in Westchester I went there once, but she was a completely different person, and she didn’t invite me again, and I wouldn’t have gone if she had. For nearly three years I didn’t see her at all, until she had been to Reno and come back and joined the Salvation Army—do you know about that?”
    I said yes.
    “She was through with that too at the time she heard of my husband’s death and came to see me. She had decided to take up her father’s business where he had left off, only of course she wouldn’t own it until she was twenty-five. She seemed more like the old Pris, and we might have got together again, but I had just lost Dick and I was in no condition to get together with anyone, so, the way it went, I didn’t see her again until last week, and then I didn’t—”
    She stopped abruptly and jerked her chin up. “For God’s sake, my not doing what she wanted—that didn’t have anything to do with her being killed, did it? Is that why you wanted to see me?”
    I shook my head. “I can’t answer the first one, but it’s not why I wanted to see you. Did she get in touch with you again? A phone call or letter?”
    “No.”
    “Did any of the others, the Softdown people?”
    “No.”
    “Where were you Monday night? Not that I want an affidavit, but the police will be asking.”
    “They will not!”
    “Sure they will, unless they crack it before they get to you. Practice on me. Name the people you were playing Canasta with.”
    “I wasn’t. I was at home. Here.”
    “Any company? Or was Olga here?”
    “No.”
    I shrugged. “That requires no practice.” I leaned to her a little. “Look, Mrs. Jaffee, I might as well admit it. I’m here under false pretenses. I said we wanted information, Mr. Wolfe and I, and we do, but we also want help. Of course you know of the provisions of Priscilla’s father’s will? Now that she is dead, you know that five people—Helmar, Brucker, Quest, Pitkin, and Miss Duday—you know that they will own most of the Softdown stock?”
    “Yes, certainly.” She was frowning, concentrating at me.
    “Okay. You’re a stockholder. We want you to bring an action against those five people. Use your own lawyer, or we’ll recommend one. We want you to ask a court for an injunction restraining them from exercising any of the rights of ownership of that stock until it isdetermined whether one or more of them acquired it by the commission of a crime. We think that under the circumstances a court will entertain such a request and may grant it.”
    “But what—” Her frown was deeper. “Why should I do that?”
    “Because you have a legitimate interest in the proper handling of the firm’s affairs. Because you were Priscilla’s oldest friend, and formerly her closest one. Who do you think killed her?”
    “I don’t know. I wish you—don’t do this!”
    “This is what I came for. It may amount to nothing. The police may get it fast, today or tomorrow, and if so that settles it. But they may never get it, that has been known to happen, and a week or a month from now may be too late for Mr. Wolfe to start on it, and anyhow his client won’t wait. We can’t march in as the cops can. We have to have some way of getting at those people, we have to get a foot in, and this will do it. I’ll tell you, Mrs. Jaffee, I’m not going to contribute any cracks about your accepting dividend checks, but it is true that that business has been supporting you in pretty good style for a long time, and this isn’t much for it to ask in return, especially since you can be darned sure Priscilla Eads would be asking it too if she could talk. It won’t take—”
    I stopped because only a sap goes on talking to someone who is walking out on him. As she left the divan and