Prisoner's Base

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!"