Prisoner's Base

It took persistence. A thin and sour female voice told me that Mr. Perry Helmar was engaged and asked what I wanted. I said that Mr. Nathaniel Parker would tell Mr. Helmar and asked how soon he would be accessible. She said she didn't know. It went on according to pattern, and in order to win I had to drop the name of Mrs. Jaffee. In another minute Helmar was on, and Parker took it at the extension on Wolfe's desk, leaning over on his elbows. I kept my receiver at my ear and got it in my notebook.

After Parker had identified himself as a confrere he dived right in. "I'm preparing to start an action for a client, counselor, and I'm calling you as a matter of professional courtesy. The client is Mrs. Sarah Jaffee. I believe you know her?"

"I've known her all her life. What kind of action?"

Parker was easygoing and anything but pugnacious. "Perhaps I should explain that Mrs. Jaffee was referred to me by Mr. Nero Wolfe. It was on-"

"That crook?" Helmar was outraged. "That damned scoundrel?"

Parker laughed a little, tolerantly. "I won't stipulate that, and I doubt if you can establish it. I was saying that I understand that it was on Mr. Wolfe's advice that Mrs. Jaffee determined on this action. She wants it begun immediately. It is to be directed at Jay L. Brucker, Bernard Quest, Oliver Pitkin, Viola Duday, and Perry Helmar. She wants me to ask a court to enjoin those five people from assuming ownership of any of the capital stock of Softdown, Incorporated, under the provisions of the will of the late Nathan Eads, and from attempting to exercise any of the rights of such ownership."

"What?" Helmar was incredulous. "Will you repeat that?"

Parker did so, and added, "I think it must be admitted, counselor, that this is a new approach and an extremely interesting one. Her idea is that the injunction is to stand until it is determined to the satisfaction of the court whether one or more of those five people has acquired the stock by the commission of a crime-the crime in question, manifestly, being the murder of Priscilla Eads. Frankly, at first I doubted whether such an injunction would be granted, but on consideration I'm not at all sure. It is certainly worth trying, and Mrs. Jaffee, as a stockholder in the corporation, has a legitimate interest at stake. I have told her I'll move in the matter, and at once."

He paused. Nothing for four seconds; then Helmar: "This is an act of malice. Nero Wolfe put Mrs. Jaffee up to this. I intend to speak with Mrs. Jaffee."