The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

by Rex Stout

  Having learned where to find the aunt, the source of the buttons, I decided to try a risky short cut with the niece. Of course it was dangerous, but it might simplify matters a lot. I smiled at her, a good masculine smile, and said, I've held out on you a little, Miss Tenzer. I have not only heard about the buttons, I have seen some of them, and I have them with me. I put the paper bag on the table and slipped out the overalls. There were four, but I took two off to inspect them. See?

  Her reaction settled it. It didn't prove that she had never had a baby, or that she had had no hand in dumping one in Lucy Valdon's vestibule, but it did prove that even if she had done the dumping herself, she hadn't known that the baby was wearing blue corduroy overalls with white horsehair buttons, which seemed very unlikely.

  She took the overalls, looked at the buttons, and handed them back. They're Aunt Ellen's, all right, she said. Or a darned good imitation. Don't tell me someone told you I was wearing that some place where I worked. It wouldn't fit.

  Obviously, I agreed. I showed them to you because you're being very obliging and I thought they might amuse you. I'l1 tell you where I got them if you're curious.

  She shook her head. Don't bother. That's one of my many shortcomings, I'm never curious about things that don't matter. I mean matter to me. Maybe you're not either. Maybe you're only curious about buttons. Haven't we had enough about buttons?

  Plenty. I returned the overalls to the bag. I'm like you, curious only about things that matter to me. Right now I'm curious about you. What kind of office work do you do?

  Oh, I'm very special. Secretarial, highest type. When a private secretary gets married or goes on vacation or gets fired by her boss's wife, and there's no one else around that will do, that's for me. Have you a secretary?

  Certainly. She's eighty years old, never takes a vacation, and refuses all offers of marriage, and I have no wife to fire her. Have you got a husband?

  No. I had one for a year and that was too long. I didn't look before I leaped, and I'll never leap again.

  Maybe you're in a rut, secretarying for important men in offices. Maybe you ought to vary it a little, scientists or college presidents or authors. It might be interesting to work for a famous author. Have you ever thought of trying it?

  No, I haven't. I suppose they have secretaries.

  Sure they have.

  Do you know any?

  I know a man who wrote a book about buttons, but he's not very famous. Shall we have a refill?

  She was willing. I wasn't, but didn't say so. Expecting nothing more from her at present, I wanted to shake a leg, but she might be useful somehow in the future, and anyway I had given her the impression that she was making an impression, so I couldn't suddenly remember that I was late for an appointment. Another anyway, if one is needed: she was easy to look at and listen to, and if your intelligence is to be guided by experience you have to have experience. There were indications that an invitation to dine might be accepted, but that would have meant the whole evening and would have cost Lucy Valdon at least twenty bucks.

  I got home a little after seven and, entering the office, found that I owed Wolfe an apology. He was reading His Own Image. He finished a paragraph and, since it was close to dinnertime, inserted his bookmark and put the book down. He never dog-ears a book that gets a place on the shelves. Many a time I have seen him use the bookmark part way and then begin dog-earing.

  His look asked, the question and I answered it. He wants a verbatim report only when nothing less will do, so I merely gave him the facts, of course including Anne Tenzer's reaction to the overalls. When I finished he said, Satisfactory. Then he decided that was an understatement and added, Very satisfactory.

  Yes, sir, I agreed. I could use a raise.

  No doubt. Of course you have considered the possibility that she had seen the advertisement, knew you were shamming, and was gulling you.

  I nodded. Any odds you want she hadn't seen the ad. She did no fishing, and she isn't dumb.

  Where's Mahopac?

  Sixty miles north. Putnam County. I can grab a bite in the kitchen and be there by nine o'clock.

  No. The morning will do. You're impetuous. He looked at the wall clock. Fritz would come any minute to announce dinner. Can you get Saul now?

  Why? I demanded. I didn't say I would quit if I didn't get a raise. I merely said I could use one.

  He grunted. And I said no doubt. You will go to Mahopac in the morning. Meanwhile Saul will learn what Miss Tenzer, the niece, was doing in January. Could she have given birth to that baby? You think not, but it's just as well to make sure, and Saul can do it without. He turned his head. Fritz was in the doorway.

  Since Saul has been mentioned I might as well introduce him. Of the three free-lance ops we call on when we need help, Saul Panzer is the pick. If you included everybody in the metropolitan area, he would still be the pick, which is why, though his price is ten dollars an hour, he is offered five times as many jobs as he takes. If and when you need a detective and only the second best will do, get him if you can. For the best, Nero Wolfe, it's more like ten dollars a minute.

  So Friday morning, a fine bright morning, worth noticing even for early June, as I rolled along the Sawmill River Parkway in the Heron sedan, which belongs to Wolfe but is used by me, I had no worries behind me, since it was Saul who was checking on Anne Tenzer. If necessary he could find out where and when she ate lunch on January 17, whether anybody remembered or not, without getting anybody curious or stirring up any dust. That may sound far-fetched, and it is, but he is unquestionably a seventh son or something.

  It was 10:35 when I turned the Heron in to a filling station on the edge of Mahopac, stopped, got out, walked over to a guy who was cleaning a customer's windshield, and asked if he knew where Miss Ellen Tenzer lived. He said he didn't but the boss might, and I went inside and found the boss, who was about half the age of his hired help. He knew exactly where Ellen Tenzer lived and told me how to get there. From his tone and manner it was obvious that there was practically nothing he didn't know, and he could probably have answered questions about her, but I didn't ask any. It's a good habit to limit your questions to what you really need.

  Another chapter of the book I'll never write would be on how to give directions to places. Turning right at the church was fine, but in about a mile there was a fork he hadn't mentioned. I stopped the car, fished for a quarter, looked at it, saw tails, and went left. That way you're not responsible for a bum guess. The coin was right, for in another mile I came to the bridge he had mentioned, and a little farther on the dead end, where I turned right. Pretty soon the blacktop stopped and I was on gravel, curving and sloping up with woods on both sides, and in half a mile there was her mailbox on the left. I turned in, to a narrow driveway with ruts, took it easy not to bump trees, and was at the source of the white horsehair buttons. When I got out I left the paper bag with the overalls in the glove compartment. I might want them and I might not.

  I glanced around. Woods on all sides. For my taste, too many trees and too close to the house. The clearing was only sixty paces long and forty wide, and the graveled turnaround was barely big enough. The overhead door of a one-car garage was open and the car was there, a Rambler sedan. The garage was connected to the house, one story, the boarding of which ran up and down instead of horizontal and had grooves, and was painted white. The paint was as good as new, and everything was clean and neat, including the flower beds. I headed for the door, and it opened before I reached it.

  A disadvantage of not wearing a hat is that you can't take it off when you meet a nice little middle-aged lady, or perhaps nearer old than middle-aged, with gray hair bunched in a neat topknot and gray eyes clear and alive. When I said, Miss Ellen Tenzer? she nodded and said, That's my name.

  Mine's Goodwin. I suppose I should have phoned, but I was glad to have an excuse to drive to the country on such a fine day. I'm in the button business, and I understand you are too in a way well, not the business. I'm
interested in the horsehair buttons you make. May I come in?

  Why are you interested in them?

  That struck me as slightly off key. It would have been more natural for her to say. How do you know I make horsehair buttons? or Who told you I make horsehair buttons?

  Well, I said, I suppose you would like me better if I pretended it's art for art's sake, but as I said, I'm in the button business, and I specialize in buttons that are different. I thought you might be willing to let me have some. I would pay a good price, cash.

  Her eyes went to the Heron and back to me. I only have a few. Only seventeen.

  Still no curiosity about where I had heard of them. Maybe, like her niece, she was curious only about things that mattered to her. That would do for a start, I said. Would it be imposing on you to ask for a drink of water?

  Why no. She moved, and with the doorway free I entered, and as she crossed to another door at the left I advanced and used my eyes. I have good eyes, plenty good enough to recognize from six yards away an object I had seen before or rather, one just like it. It was on a table between two windows at the opposite wall, and it changed the program completely as far as Ellen Tenser was concerned. It had been quite possible, even probable, that the buttons on the overalls were some she had given to somebody, maybe years ago, but not now. Perhaps still possible, but just barely.

  Not wanting her to know I had spotted it, I headed for the door she had left by and went through to the kitchen. At the sink with the faucet running, she filled a glass and offered it, and I took it and drank. Good water, I said. A deep well?

  She didn't answer. Probably she hadn't heard my question, since she had one of her own on her mind. She asked it: How did you find out I make buttons?

  Worded wrong and too late. If she had asked it sooner, and if I hadn't seen the object on the table, I would have had to answer it as I had intended. I emptied the glass and put it down and said, Thank you very much. Wonderful water. How I found out is kind of complicated, and it doesn't matter, does it? May I see some of them?

  I told you, I only have seventeen.

  I know, but if you don't mind…

  What did you say your name is?

  Goodwin. Archie Goodwin.

  All right, you've had your drink of water, now you can go.

  But Miss Tenzer, I've driven sixty miles just to I don't care if you've driven six hundred miles. I'm not going to show you any buttons and I'm not going to talk about them.

  That suited me fine, but I didn't say so. Some time in the future, the near future, I hoped, developments would persuade her to talk about buttons at length, but it would be a mistake to try to crowd her until I knew more. For the sake of appearances I insisted a little, but she didn't listen. I thanked her again for the water and left. As I got the Heron turned around and headed out I was thinking that if I had the equipment in the car, and if it was dark, and if I was willing to risk doing a stretch, I would tap her telephone, quick.

  A telephone was what I wanted, quick, and I had noticed one, an outdoor booth, as I had passed a filling station after turning right at the church. Within five minutes after leaving Ellen Tenzer I was in it and was giving the operator a number I didn't have to get from my notebook. It was after eleven, so Wolfe would probably answer it himself.

  He did. Yes? He has never answered a telephone right and never will.

  Me. From a booth in Mahopac. Has Saul phoned in?

  No.

  Then he will around noon. I suggest that you send him up here. The niece can wait. The aunt knows who put the overalls on the baby.

  Indeed. She told you so?

  No. Three points. First, she didn't ask the right questions. Second, she got nervous and bounced me. Third, yesterday's Times was there on a table. She doesn't know I saw it. It was folded and there was a bowl of fruit on it, but at the top of the page that showed was a headline that started with the words JENSEN REFUSES'. The ad was on that page. So she had seen the ad, but when I dropped in and said I was interested in the horsehair buttons she made she didn't mention it. When she got around to the right question she put it wrong. She asked how I found out she made buttons. She might as well have asked how did Nero Wolfe get results from his ad so soon. Then she realized she wasn't handling it right and bounced me. One will get you twenty that she's not the mother. If she's not sixty she's close. But one will get you forty that she knows what the baby was wearing, that's the least she knows. Am I being impetuous?

  No. Do you want to turn her over to Saul?

  I do not. If he could crack her I could. I don't think anybody could until we know more about her. She may be phoning someone right now, but that can't be helped. I'm going back and stake out. If she's phoning, someone may come, or she may go. We can cover her around the clock if you get Fred and Orrie. You'll send Saul?

  Yes.

  He'll need directions and you need a pencil.

  I have one.

  Okay. I gave the directions, not forgetting to mention the fork. Three-tenths of a mile from where he hits the gravel there's a wide spot where he can pull off and sit in his car. If I don't show within an hour I'm not around, she has left and so have I, and he'd better go to a phone and call you to see if you've heard from me. He could go to the house first for a look. She might have a visitor and I might have my head stuck in a window trying to hear. Have you any suggestions?

  No. I'll get Fred and Orrie. When will you eat?

  I told him tomorrow maybe. Returning to the Heron and climbing in, and deciding that as the day wore on it might not be so funny, I headed for Main Street, found a market, and got chocolate bars, bananas, and a carton of milk. I should have told Wolfe I would. He can't stand the notion of a man skipping a meal.

  Driving back, I was considering where to leave the car. There were spots not too far from the mailbox where I could ease it in among the trees, but if she went for a ride I would have to get it out to the road in a hurry, and she might go the other way; I didn't know where the gravel road went over the hill. I decided that getting it into the woods far enough to hide it was out, and therefore it might as well be handy. Anyway she had seen it, and if and when it tailed her in broad daylight she would know it. I could only hope she would stay put until Saul came with a car she hadn't seen. I left the Heron in the open, less than a hundred yards from the mailbox, where a gap between trees left enough roadside room, and took to the woods. I am neither an Indian nor a Boy Scout, but if she had been looking out a window I don't think she would have seen me as I made my way to where I had a view of the house from behind a bush. Also a view of the garage.

  The garage was empty.

  It called for profanity, and I used some, out loud. I don't apologize for either the profanity or the situation. I would have done it again in the same circumstances. If we were going to keep her covered I had to leave sooner or later to get to a phone, and right away, while she was looking it over and perhaps making a phone call, and deciding what to do, was not only as good a time as any, it was the best until the empty garage showed me that it had been the worst.

  All right, my luck was out. I dodged through the trees to the clearing, crossed it, went to the door, and banged on it. There might be someone else in the house, though no one had been visible when I was in it. I waited half a minute and banged again, louder, and bellowed, Anybody home? After another half a minute I tried the doorknob. Locked. There were two windows to the right, and I went and tried them. Also locked. I went around the corner of the house, taking care not to step in flower beds, which was damn good manners in the circumstances, and there was a window wide open. She had left in a hurry. I didn't have to touch the window. All I had to do was stick a leg in, wiggle my rump onto the sill, and pull the other leg in, and I had broken and entered.

  It was a bedroom. I sang out good and loud, Hey, the house is on fire! and stood and listened. Not a sound, but to make sure I did a quick tour two bedrooms, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. Nobody, not even a cat.

  S
he might have merely gone to the drugstore for aspirin and be back any minute. If so, I decided, let her find me in the house. I would tackle her. Almost certainly she was an accessory to something. I don't know all the New York statutes by heart, but there must be a law about leaving babies in people's vestibules, so I wouldn't bother to keep an ear cocked for the sound of a car coming up the hill.

  The most likely find was letters or phone numbers, or maybe a diary, and I started in the living room. The Times was still on the table under the bowl of fruit. I unfolded it to see if she had clipped the ad; it was intact. There was no desk, but the table had a drawer, and there were three drawers in the stand in a corner that held the telephone. In one of the latter was a card with half a dozen phone numbers, but they were all local. No letters anywhere. There were bookshelves at one wall, some with books and some with magazines and knickknacks. Going through books takes time, so I left that for the second time around and moved to a bedroom, the one that was obviously hers.

  That was where I rang the bell, in the bottom drawer of the bureau. A once-over isn't very thorough and I nearly missed it, but at the bottom, underneath a winter-weight nightgown, there it was or rather, there they were. Not one, two two pairs of blue corduroy overalls, each with four white horsehair buttons. The same size as those in the glove compartment of the Heron. A week ago I wouldn't have thought it possible that I would ever get so much pleasure from looking at baby clothes. After gloating a full minute I put them back in the drawer and went and opened a door to a closet. I wanted more.

  Eventually I got more, but not in the closet. Not even in the house, strictly speaking, but in the cellar. It was a real cellar, not just a hole for an oil-burning furnace. The space for the furnace was partitioned off, and the rest was what a cellar ought to be, with cupboards and shelves with canned goods. There was even a rack with bottles of wine. Also there were some metal objects propped against the wall in a corner, and I didn't have to assemble them to tell that they were a baby's crib. Also there were three suitcases and two trunks, and one of the trunks contained diapers, rubber pants, bibs, rattles, balloons (not inflated), undershirts, T-shirts, sweaters, and various other garments and miscellaneous items.