Prisoner's Base

"I was in bed when you phoned," she said, sitting and picking up a spoon. "I assume you've had breakfast, but how about some coffee? Sit down-no, not there, that's my husband's place. Olga! A coffee cup, please!"

A door swung open and a Valkyrie entered with a cup and saucer in her hand.

"On a tray, my pet," Mrs. Jaffee said, and the Valkyrie whirled and disappeared. Before the door had stopped swinging she breezed in again with cup and saucer on a tray, and I backstepped not to get trampled. When she had gone I got my coffee from my hostess and went to a chair on the other side. She took her spoon and scooped a bite of melon.

"It's all right," she said, reassuring me. "I'm a nut, that's all." She opened wide for the bite of melon, and there was no question about her having teeth, very nice ones. I took a sip of coffee, which was barely drinkable for a man used to Fritz's.

"You know my husband is dead," she stated.

I nodded. "So I understood."

She took another bite of melon and disposed of it. "He was in the Reserve, a major, a Signal Corps technician. When he went away, one day in March a year ago, he left his hat and coat there in the hall. I didn't put them away. When I got word he had been killed, three months later, they were still there. That was a year ago, and there they are, and I'm sick of looking at them, I'm simply sick to death of looking at them, but there they are."

She pointed. "There's his breakfast place too, and I'm sick of looking at that. Weren't you surprised when I told you on the phone, all right, come ahead? You, a complete stranger, a detective wanting to ask me questions about a murder?"

"A little, maybe," I conceded, not to be cranky.

"Of course you were." She dropped a slice of bread into the slot of the toaster and spooned another bite of melon. "But at that I lost my nerve. A while back I decided to quit being a nut, and I decided the way I would do it-I would have a man do it for me. I would have a man sit here with me at breakfast, in Dick's place-my husband's place-and I would have him take that awful hat and coat out of that hall. But do you know what?"

I said I didn't.