Prisoner's Base

"As I said, I got out of bed and sat in a chair. It took little consideration for me to conclude that my hypothesis had been violently, tragically, and completely validated. I did not phone your office, Mr. Cramer, because it is not my habit to make the police a gift, unasked, of the product of my brain, because I was personally concerned, and because I knew how badly Mr. Goodwin's self-esteem had been bruised and I thought he would be gratified if we, not you, got the murderer. I did phone not long after getting the news from Mr. Goodwin-though not to you-and at three o'clock in the morning succeeded in reaching a man in Caracas whom I know a little and can trust within reason. Five hours later he called me back to say that Eric Hagh was new to Caracas and apparently had no background there."

"I could have told you that," Cramer grumbled. "He has been living at the Orinoco Hotel for two months."

"It's a pity I didn't ask you and save twenty dollars. While waiting for the report from Caracas, I had phoned Saul Panzer. He had come and eaten breakfast with me, and I had supplied him with money from my emergency cash reserve. From here he went to a newspaper office and got pictures of the man calling himself Eric Hagh, and from there he went to Idlewild Airport. At ten o'clock he boarded a plane for South America."

"Not for Caracas," Purley Stebbins objected. He was still standing with his gun in hand. "Not at ten o'clock."

"He didn't go to Caracas. He went to Cajamarca, Peru. The document signed by Priscilla Eads Hagh was written there. At Cajamarca he found people who had known Hagh, and two who also remembered Mrs. Hagh, and he learned, one, that Hagh was a professional gambler; two, that he had not been in Cajamarca for three years; and three, that the pictures he had with him were not of Hagh. He flew to Lima, engaged the interest of the police by a method not utterly unknown in our own city, and within twelve hours had collected enough items to phone me. The items included-you tell them, Saul. Briefly."

Saul gave his voice a little more volume than usual, because he wasn't facing the bulk of his audience. He had his eyes straight at Eric Hagh and had no intention of shifting them.