Prisoner's Base

Brucker, his head tilted back, was regarding me down his long, thin nose. "We were saying," he stated, "that we would have to accept the fact that the manner of Miss Eads's death, especially at this time, created an extremely unpleasant situation for all of us. I had spoken to Mr. Quest about it, and we had decided to discuss it with Miss Duday and Mr. Pitkin. I had already spoken with Miss O'Neil and thought she should be present. We agreed that it was unthinkable that any of us, or any other member of the Softdown staff who will now come into possession of Softdown stock, could possibly have been involved in the murder of Miss Eads. We-"

"Miss Duday agreed to that?"

She answered me. "Certainly. If you thought, young man, that I was suggesting motives for murder acceptable to me, you misunderstood. I was merely giving you facts which will seem to you to be acceptable motives for murder. You were sure to discover them, and I was saving time."

"I see. What else were you saying, Mr. Brucker?"

"We were considering what to do. Specifically, we were considering whether we should arrange at once to get legal advice, and if so whether our corporation counsel would do, or would it be better to have special counsel for this. Also we were discussing the murder itself. We agreed that we knew of no one with a reason for killing Miss Eads and capable of such a crime. We spoke of the letter received recently from Eric Hagh, Miss Eads's former husband, by Perry Helmar-you know about that?"

"Yes, from Helmar. Claiming that he had a document that entitled him to half of her property."

"That's right. The letter was sent from Venezuela, but he could have come to New York by ship or plane-or he didn't even have to come; he could have hired someone to kill her."

"I see. Why?"

"We don't know why. I don't know. We were only trying to find some plausible explanation of the murder."

I insisted. "Yeah, but how could you figure Eric Hagh? If she had lived a week longer he would still have his document and she would have a lot more property for him to claim half of."

"One possibility," Viola Duday suggested, "would be that she had denied that she had signed the document, or he thought she was going to, and he was afraid he would get nothing at all."

"But she had stated that she had signed the document."

"Had she? To whom?"