Prisoner's Base Read Online Free PDF Page B

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