Prisoner's Base

I opened a drawer to get out a notebook, and reached for my pen. What could be sweeter? A missing person, and a senior member of a Wall Street firm of high repute so bothered that he came trotting to us at night without even stopping to phone in advance. I glanced at Wolfe and suppressed a grin. His lips were tightened in resigned acceptance of the inevitable. Work was looming, work that he could probably find no rational excuse for rejecting, and how he hated it!

"I have a definite proposal," Helmar was saying. "I will pay you five thousand dollars and necessary expenses if you will find her, and put me in communication with her, by June twenty-ninth-six days from now. I will pay double that, ten thousand, if you will produce her in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth."

My eyes were on him in fitting appreciation when he spoke of five grand, and then ten grand; but I lowered them to my notebook when I heard that date, June 30. It could have been a coincidence, but I had a good sharp hunch that it wasn't, and I have learned not to sneer at hunches. I lifted my eyes enough to get Wolfe's face, but there was no sign that the date had smacked him as it had me.

He sighed good and deep, surrendering with fairly good grace to the necessity of work. "The police?" he inquired, not hopefully.

Helmar shook his head. "As I said before, discretion is essential."

"It usually is, for people who hire a private detective. Tell me about it briefly. Since you're a lawyer you should know what I need to decide whether I'll take the job."

"Why shouldn't you take it?"

"I don't know. Tell me about it."

Helmar shifted in his chair and leaned back, but not at ease. I decided that his lacing and unlacing of his fingers was not merely a habit; he was on edge. "In any case," he said, "this is confidential. The name of the young woman who has disappeared is Priscilla Eads. I have known her all her life and am her legal guardian, and also I am the trustee of her property under the will of her father, who died ten years ago. She lives in an apartment on East Seventy-fourth Street, and I was to call there this evening to discuss some business matters with her. I did so, arriving a little after eight, but she wasn't there, and the maid was alarmed, as she had expected her mistress home for an early dinner and there had been no word from her."

"I don't need that much," Wolfe said impatiently.