Read Online Prisoner's Base by Rex Stout - Free Book Online

“Full name, please.”
    “J. Luther Brucker.”
    “What does the J. stand for?”
    “It’s J-a-y, Jay.”
    I was writing. “You’re an officer of the corporation?”
    “President. I have been for seven years.”
    “When and how did you learn of the murder of Miss Eads?”
    “On the radio this morning. The seven-forty-five newscast.”
    “That was the first you heard of it?”
    “Yes.”
    “How did you spend your time last night between ten-thirty and two o’clock? Briefly. As fast as you please. I do shorthand.”
    “I was in bed. I was tired after a hard day’s work and went to bed early, shortly after ten, and stayed there.”
    “Where do you live?”
    “I have a suite at the Prince Henry Hotel, Brooklyn.”
    I looked at him. I always look again at people who live in Brooklyn. “Is that where you were last night?”
    “Certainly. That’s where my bed is, and I was in it.”
    “Alone?”
    “I’m unmarried.”
    “Were you alone in your suite throughout the period from ten-thirty to two o’clock last night?”
    “I was.”
    “Can you furnish any corroboration? Phone calls? Anything at all?”
    His jaw moved spasmodically. He was controlling himself. “How can I? I was asleep.”
    I looked at him without bias but with reserve. “You understand the situation, Mr. Brucker. A lot of people stand to profit from Miss Eads’s death, some of them substantially. These things have to be asked about. How much of this business will you now inherit?”
    “That’s a matter of public record.”
    “Yeah. But you know, don’t you?”
    “Of course I know.”
    “Then, if you don’t mind, how much?”
    “Under the provisions of the will of the late Nathan Eads, son of the founder of the business, I suppose that nineteen thousand three hundred and sixty-two shares of the common stock of the corporation will come to me. The same amount will go to four other people—Miss Duday, Mr. Quest, Mr. Pitkin, and Mr. Helmar. Smaller amounts go to others.”
    Whitey spoke, his sharp blue-gray eyes straight at me. “I am Bernard Quest.” His voice was firm and strong, with no sign of wrinkles. “I have been with this business sixty-two years, and have been sales manager for thirty-four years and vice-president for twenty-nine.”
    “Right.” I wrote. “I’ll get names down.” I looked at the woman next to Bernard Quest on his left. She was middle-aged, with a scrawny neck and dominating ears, and was unquestionably a rugged individualist, since no lipstick had been allowed anywhere near her. I asked her, “Yours, please?”
    “Viola Duday,” she said in a clear voice so surprisingly pleasant that I raised my brows at my notebook. “I was Mr. Eads’s secretary, and in nineteen thirty-nine he made me assistant to the president. He was, of course, president. During his last illness, the last fourteen months of his life, I ran the business.”
    “We helped all we could,” Brucker said pointedly.
    She ignored him. “My present title,” she told me, “is assistant secretary of the corporation.”
    I moved my eyes. “You, sir?”
    That one, on Viola Duday’s left, was a neat little squirt, with a suspicious twist to his lips, who had been fifty years old all his life and would be for the rest of it.Apparently he had a cold, since he kept sniffing and dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief.
    “Oliver Pitkin,” he said, and was a little hoarse. “Secretary and treasurer of the corporation since nineteen thirty-seven, when my predecessor died at the age of eighty-two.”
    I was beginning to suspect that the conference I had crashed had not been about the price of towels. Of the four Brucker had named besides himself, three were present—all but Helmar. That proved nothing against any or all of them, but I wished I had a recording of their conversation before I entered. Not that I wasn’t doing all right, considering. I focused on the only one still nameless, and the only one of the five who could have