Prisoner's Base

"Her mother died when she was an infant, and her father when she was fifteen. The cash and securities he left her, and the insurance, were nothing spectacular, but he set up a trust of ninety per cent of the stock of Softdown, Incorporated, a ten-million-dollar towel and textile business. The trustee was his friend and lawyer, Perry Helmar. Eighty per cent of the income of the trust was to go to Priscilla, and on her twenty-fifth birthday the whole works was to become her property. In case she died before her twenty-fifth birthday, the stock was to become the property of the officers and employees of the corporation. They were named in a schedule that was part of the will, with the amount to go to each one. Most of it went in big gobs to less than a dozen of them. Okay, she was killed six days before her twenty-fifth birthday. That is obviously a line, but it's certainly not exclusive."

"I'll bet it's not. The damn fool-I mean the father. What about the guy she married? I hear she ran away with him. Who was she running from? Her father was dead."

"I don't know-maybe the trustee; he was her guardian. That wasn't here. She met him somewhere on a trip, down South I think. There's very little on it in New York. What do you mean, Wolfe is neither involved nor interested?"

"Just that. He isn't."

"Ha-ha. I suppose you're calling for a friend. Give him my regards. Have you got your dime's worth?"

"For now, yes. I'll buy you a steak at Pierre's at seven-thirty."

He made a smacking noise. "That's the best offer I've had today. I hope I can make it. Ring me at seven?"

"Right. Much obliged."

I hung up, pulled the door open, and got out a handkerchief and wiped my brow and behind my ears. The booth was hot. I stepped out, found the Manhattan phone book, looked up an address, went out and crossed Thirty-fourth Street, and got a taxi going east.

Chapter 5