Prisoner's Base

"Before you go," Wolfe said, "here's a piece of information for you. I am told that you are now claiming-specifically you, Mr. Helmar-that the document signed by Priscilla Eads, then Priscilla Hagh, giving her husband a half-interest in her property, is spurious. That is why Mr. Irby is here, and why his client, Mr. Hagh, has come to New York." He focused on Helmar. "If you accuse me of deception, sir, I accuse you of an impudent lie in an attempt to defraud. In this room Monday evening Miss Eads told Mr. Goodwin and me categorically that she had signed that document, and of course you knew-"

"Bravo!" Eric Hagh was out of his chair and moving, pulling an envelope from his pocket. "There is honesty for you, gentlemen!" He waved the envelope. "Here it is! Here it is!"

He may not, judging from his looks, have inherited the South American tendency to exuberance, but he sure had caught it, and there and then someone caught it from him. Andy Fomos bounced up, dashed across, confronted the Softdown team, and boomed, "And before you go you will listen to me! She was going to make my wife a director! And now they are both dead! What can you do, what can you do to make it fair and honest? What you can do is make me a director and pay me what she was going to pay my wife!" He shook a fist, and I got to my feet, but he gave up the fist to point a finger at Viola Duday. "And what were you doing, coming last week to have a secret talk with my wife!" He swung the finger to aim it at Brucker. "And what were you doing, the same thing, coming to talk with her? To ask her to be a director? Huh? Now you can ask me to be a director! There is no-"

"Archie!" Wolfe called sharply. I was already advancing. Others besides Hagh and Fomos were out of their chairs, making a jumble but no tumult.

I got Fomos back to his corner without serious resistance, and, returning, addressed the Softdown group. "Are you folks leaving or not? If you are, this way out. If not, you must be thirsty, and what will it be?"

"Bourbon and water for me," Viola Duday said promptly.