Prisoner's Base

I moved my eyes. "You, sir?"

That one, on Viola Duday's left, was a neat little squirt, with a suspicious twist to his lips, who had been fifty years old all his life and would be for the rest of it. Apparently he had a cold, since he kept sniffing and dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief.

"Oliver Pitkin," he said, and was a little hoarse. "Secretary and treasurer of the corporation since nineteen thirty-seven, when my predecessor died at the age of eighty-two."

I was beginning to suspect that the conference I had crashed had not been about the price of towels. Of the four Brucker had named besides himself, three were present-all but Helmar. That proved nothing against any or all of them, but I wished I had a recording of their conversation before I entered. Not that I wasn't doing all right, considering. I focused on the only one still nameless, and the only one of the five who could have been regarded as worthy of attention on other grounds than her possible connection with the murder of Priscilla Eads. As for age, she could have been Bernard Quest's granddaughter. As for structure, she could have been improved upon-who couldn't?-but no part of her called for a motion to reconsider. A tendency of Brucker's head to twist toward his right, where she sat, had not been unnoticed by me. I asked her for her name.

"Daphne O'Neil," she said. "But I don't think I belong in your little book, Mr. Detective, because I wasn't in Mr. Eads's will. I was just a good little girl when he died, and I only started to work for Softdown four years ago. Now I'm the Softdown stylist."

The way she pronounced words it wasn't exactly baby talk, but it gave you the feeling that in four seconds it would be. Also she called me Mr. Detective, which settled it that a Softdown stylist should be seen and not heard.

"Perhaps you should know," Viola Duday volunteered in her clear, pleasant voice, "that if Miss Eads had lived until next Monday and controlled the business, Miss O'Neil would soon have been looking for another connection. Miss Eads did not appreciate Miss O'Neil's talents. You may think it generous of Miss O'Neil not to want you to waste space on her in your little book, but-"

"Is this necessary, Vi?" Bernard Quest asked sharply.