Prisoner's Base

Wolfe shook his head. "You're wasting time, sir. I'm an investigator, not a negotiator. I'm after a murderer. Is it you? I don't know, but you do. I ask you to speak to that."

"I would be glad to"-he cleared his throat again-"if I thought I knew anything that would help you to arrive at the truth. I'm just a plodding, hard-working businessman, Mr. Wolfe; there's nothing brilliant or spectacular about me the way there is about you. I remember a day back in nineteen thirty-two, the worst year for American business in this century. I was an awkward young fellow, had been with Softdown just three years, had started there when I finished college. It was a cold December day, a couple of weeks before Christmas, and I was in a gloomy frame of mind. Word had got around that on account of business conditions further retrenchment had been decided on, and at the end of the year several of us in my section would be dropped."

"If you think this is pertinent," Wolfe muttered.

"I do, yes, sir. On that cold December day Mrs. Eads had come to the office to see Mr. Eads about something, and had brought with her Priscilla, their little five-year-old daughter, a lovely little girl. Priscilla remained out on the floor while her mother went into her father's office, walking around looking at people and things, as children will; and I happened to be there, and she came up to me and asked what my name was, and I told her, Jay. Do you know what she said?"

He waited for a reply, and Wolfe, coerced, said, "No."

"She said, 'Jay? You don't look like a bluejay!' She was simply irresistible. I had been busy that morning with some tests of a new yarn we were considering, and I had a little of it in my pocket, just a few short strands of bright green, and I took it and tied it loosely around her neck and told her that was a beautiful necklace I was giving her for Christmas, and I took her to a mirror on the wall and held her up so she could look at it."

He had to clear his throat some more. "She was delighted, clapping her hands and making little childish cries of glee, and then her mother came, coming to get her, and with her was the husband and father, Mr. Nathan Eads. And little Priscilla ran to him, to her father, displaying her beautiful green necklace, and do you know what she said to him?"

"No."