'Because he had more at stake. The others all help to run the business and could expect to continue to get good salaries after Priscilla took over. Helmar has had very little to do with the business operations, and is not an officer of the corporation, but he has been drawing forty thousand a year as counsel. He has actually earned perhaps one-tenth of it, if anything. After June thirtieth I doubt if he would have drawn anything at all, and-'
'That's false, and you know it,' Helmar challenged her. 'That's utterly unfounded!'
'You'll have your turn,' Wolfe told him.
'He can have it now.' Miss Duday was contemptuous. 'That's all I have to say-unless you have questions?'
'No. Well, Mr. Helmar? Go ahead.'
There was a polite interruption from Eric Hagh. He wanted a refill for his glass, and others were ready too, so there was a short recess. Hagh seemed to have got the impression that we were counting on him to keep Sarah Jaffee company, and I was too busy to resent it, but apparently Nat Parker wasn't.
Wolfe poured beer from his third bottle, swallowed some, and prompted Helmar. 'Yes, sir?'
Chapter 11
From his manner and expression it was apparent that it was hard for Perry Helmar to believe that he was in such a fix. For him, a senior member of an old and respected Wall Street law firm, to have to sit conspicuously in that red leather chair and undertake to persuade a private detective named Nero Wolfe that he was not a murderer was insufferable, but he had to suffer it. His oratorical baritone was raspy and supercilious under the strain.
'You say you are not interested,' he told Wolfe, 'in the factors of means and opportunity. The motive is palpable for all of us, but it is also palpable that Miss Duday is biased by animus. She cannot support her statement that after June thirtieth my income from the corporation would have ceased. I deny that Miss Eads intended to take any action so ill advised and irresponsible.'
He took a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. 'As you know, when I went to Miss Eads's apartment Monday evening to keep an appointment with her, I found a note she had left for me. The police have the original. This is a copy. It reads:
'Dear Perry:
I hope you won't be too mad at me for standing you up. I'm not going to do anything loony. I just want to be sure where I stand. I doubt if you will hear from me before June 30th, but you will then all right. Please, and I mean this, please don't try to find me.
Love, Pris.'
He folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. 'In my opinion, the tone and substance of that communication do not indicate that Miss Eads had decided to repay my many years of safeguarding and advancing her interests in the manner described by Miss Duday. She was neither an ingrate nor a fool. I decline to offer justification of the amount paid to me by the corporation as counsel, but will say only that it was for services rendered. The business is by no means confined solely to making and selling towels, as Miss Duday sneeringly implied. Its varied activities and wide interests require constant and able supervision.'
He sent a cold, straight glance at Viola Duday and went back to Wolfe. 'However, even if Miss Eads had decided to act as Miss Duday suggests, I would certainly not have been desperate. My income from my law practice, exclusive of the payments from Softdown, is adequate for my needs. And even if I had been desperate I would not have resorted to murder. The idea that a man of my training and temperament would, to gain any conceivable objective, perform so vicious a deed and incur so tremendous a risk is repugnant to every reputable theory of human conduct. That's all.'
He clamped his jaw.
'Not quite,' Wolfe objected. 'You leave too much untouched. If there was no question of desperation, if you had no thought that you were about to be squeezed out, why did you offer me five thousand dollars to find Miss Eads within six days, and double that to produce her, as you put it, alive and well?'
'I told you why. I thought it likely that she had gone, or was going, to Venezuela to see her former husband, and I wanted, if possible, to stop her before she reached him. I had had that letter from him, claiming a half-interest in her property, and she was greatly disturbed over it, and I was afraid she might do something foolish. My using that hackneyed phrase, 'alive and well' had no significance. I told you that the first thing to do would be to check all airplane passengers to Venezuela.' He pointed a straight, stern, bony finger. 'And you had her here, in this house, and kept it from me. And after I left, you sent her to her death!'
Wolfe, no doubt aware that the finger wasn't loaded, did not counter. He asked, 'Then you're conceding that the document Mr. Hagh was waving around is authentic? That his wife signed it?'
'No.'
'But she surely knew whether she had signed it or not. If she hadn't, if it was a fake, why would she go flying off to Venezuela?'
'She was-wild sometimes.'
Wolfe shook his head. 'You can't have it both ways, Mr. Helmar. Let's get it straight. You had shown Miss Eads the letter from Mr. Hagh and the photostat of the document. What did she say? Did she acknowledge she had signed it, or deny it?'
Helmar took his time replying. Finally he said, 'I'll reserve my answer to that.'
'I doubt if aging will help it,' Wolfe said dryly. 'Now that you know that Miss Eads had not gone to Venezuela, and I assure you she had no intention of going, how do you explain her backing out from her appointment with you, her departure, her asking you not to try to find her?'
'I don't have to explain it.'
