Prisoner's Base

"Certainly." He didn't care much for an underling butting in, but condescended to reach for his briefcase and finger in it. "I have three good pictures of her I brought from her apartment. Here they are." I took them and stood looking them over.

He went on. "I doubt if his claim has any legal validity, but morally-that may be a question. It is indubitably a question with my ward. His letter came from Venezuela and I think she may have gone there to see him. She fully intended-she intends-to be here on June thirtieth, but how long does it take to get from New York to Caracas by plane? Not more than twenty hours, I think. She has a wild streak in her. The first thing to do will be to check all plane passengers to Venezuela, and if it's humanly possible I want to reach her before she sees that man Hagh."

I handed the photographs to Wolfe. "She's worth looking at," I told him. "Not only the pictures, but, as I thought, I've seen her. Just recently. I forget exactly where and when, but I remember from something somebody said, it was the day we had bacalhau for dinner. I don't-"

"What the devil are you gibbering about?" Wolfe demanded.

I looked him in the eye. "You heard me," I said, and sat down.

Chapter 3

One of Wolfe's better performances was his handling of Perry Helmar after my disclosure that Priscilla Eads was upstairs in the south room. The problem was to get Helmar out of there reasonably soon with his conviction of his need for Wolfe's services intact, without any commitment from us to take his job. Wolfe broke it by telling Helmar that he would sleep on it, and that if he decided to tackle it I would call at Helmar's office at ten in the morning for further details. Of course Helmar blew up. He wanted action then and there.

"What would you think of me," Wolfe asked him, "if, solely on information furnished by you here and now, I accepted this case and started to work on it?"

"What would I think? That's what I want!"