The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

by Rex Stout

  That's not only vulgar, I said, it's irrelevant.

  The hell it is. You may remember that one day a month ago, when you were here asking me about Ellen Tenzer, I asked you if you had found the buttons.

  Now that you remind me, yes.

  And you dodged. Okay, but now listen to you. You know more about the buttons than I do, but I know this much, they were on a baby's overalls, and Ellen Tenzer made them, and some of them were on baby's overalls in her house, and she had had a baby in her house, and the night after you went to see her she was murdered. And now you come with this whimwham about Lucy Valdon and a baby, and you ask if I have any questions. I have. Is the baby in Lucy Valdon's house the one that Ellen Tenzer had in hers?

  Of course I had known that would come. Absolutely off the record, I said.

  All right.

  Until further notice.

  I said all right.

  Then yes.

  Is Lucy Valdon its mother?

  No.

  I don't ask if she's Wolfe's client, because that's obvious. If she wasn't you wouldn't have her lined up for your caper. As for it, the caper, I pass. No soap.

  There's no catch in it, Lon. She'll sign a release.

  He shook his head. That wouldn't help if someone throws a bomb. It's a good guess that Ellen Tenzer got murdered on account of that baby. That baby is hot, I don't know why, but it is. You're asking me to put a spotlight on it, not only where it lives, but where it can be seen outdoors twice a day. That would be sweet. The Gazette spots it, and the next day it gets snatched, or run over and killed, or God knows what. Nothing doing, Archie. Thank you for calling.

  I can tell you, straight, that there's no such risk. None at all.

  Not good enough.

  I uncrossed my legs. Everything we have said is off the record.

  Right.

  Here's more off the record. One will get you a thousand that there will be no snatch or any other trouble. Mrs. Valdon hired Nero Wolfe five weeks ago today to find out who the baby's mother is. It had been left in the vestibule of her house, and she knew nothing about it and still knows nothing. We have spent a lot of her money and our time and energy trying to find the mother, and have got nowhere. We're still trying. This attempt is based on the theory that a woman who had a baby six months ago and ditched it, no matter why, would like to see what it looks like. She will see the page in the Gazette, go to Washington Square, recognize the nurse and carriage from the picture, and have a look.

  Lon's head was cocked. What if she doesn't know the baby Mrs. Valdon has is hers?

  She probably does. If she doesn't we're wasting some more time and energy and money.

  The Gazette's circulation is nearly two million. If we ran that story there would be a mob of women around the carriage the next day. So?

  I hope not a mob. There would be some, yes. The nurse will be a detective, the best female op around. You may have heard of her Sally Corbett.

  Yeah.

  Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather will be on hand, within range. There will be three cameras attached to the carriage, not visible, and the nurse will know how to work them. They'll take shots of everyone who comes close enough for a look, and the pictures will be shown to Mrs. Valdon. Since the baby was left in her vestibule, it's a fair bet that the mother is someone she would recognize. The pictures will also be shown to a couple of other people whose names you don't need. Of course it depends on about a dozen ifs, but what doesn't? If you cross on the green you may get home alive. If you know what's good for your newspaper you'll grab this exclusive. If you run it and it works, you can have the picture of the mother and the story of how we got it, maybe.

  How straight is all this, Archie?

  As straight as an ace, king, queen, jack, and ten.

  Who killed Ellen Tenzer?

  How the hell do I know? Ask the cops or the DA.

  You say Panzer and Durkin and Cather will be on hand. Will you?

  No. I might be recognized. I'm a celebrity. My picture has been in the Gazette three times in the last four years.

  He lowered his head and rubbed his chin with a finger tip for five seconds. He looked up. All right. The picture deadline for Sunday is eight a.m. Thursday.

  It took an hour to get the details all settled because we were interrupted by four phone calls.

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON CONTINUED. To Dol (Theodolinda) Bonner's office on 45th Street to keep a date with Sally Corbett, made on the phone that morning. Dol and Sally had been responsible, six years back, for my revision of my basic attitude toward female cops, and I held it against them, just as Wolfe held it against Jane Austen for forcing him to concede that a woman could write a good novel. That afternoon Sally showed me once again that I had to keep the revised version. She made only the notes that were necessary, she restricted her curiosity to her dark blue eyes, and she asked only the questions she had to. We arranged to meet at the Posart Camera Exchange in the morning.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING. To the Posart Camera Exchange. Sally and I spent more than two hours in the workroom at the back with two mechanics, watching them install and test the cameras. They would have cost the client sixteen hundred bucks, but Al Posner was letting me rent them for a week. Sally was shown how to work them, but she would be fully coached later. I took her to lunch at Rusterman's.

  WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. To the Valdon house with Sally. Lucy had returned from the beach Tuesday evening. She had fixed it with the nurse, telling her that for a week or so someone else would take the baby out to give the nurse a break, and also with the maid and cook. I don't know how she explained the new fancy carriage, which was delivered before we arrived. By the time the Gazette personnel came, shortly before three a lady journalist and a photographer with a helper Sally was in her uniform, the nurse had gone for the afternoon, the carriage was outfitted, and Lucy needed a drink.

  Newspaper photographers work fast, and he was through in the nursery, with Lucy and Sally, by half past three. I tagged along to Washington Square, to see how Sally handled a baby carriage. I hadn't made a study of that, but I thought she did all right, dragging her feet a little and letting her shoulders sag. When I got back to the house the lady journalist was still there with Lucy, but she soon went, and I made martinis.

  THURSDAY, FRIDAY, and SATURDAY. To the Gazette first thing Thursday morning to look it over. The picture they had picked of Sally and the carriage, with baby, in the square, was perfect. The two of the nursery one of Lucy with the baby in her arms, and one of Sally brushing the baby's hair with Lucy watching were good enough shots, but Lucy's expression was not exactly dosing. She looked like a woman trying to smile in spite of a toothache. Lon said the others had been even worse. I saw no point in using the one of the front of the house, but made no objection. Lon okayed the four changes I made in the text.

  Sally wheeled the baby to Washington Square for its outing twice a day, all three days, but her camera, instruction and practice took place in the house, in the big room on the second floor, with Al Posner and Lucy and me. Lucy was needed because she was seven inches shorter than me and all levels had to be covered. Two of the cameras were concealed in ornaments at the ends of the hand bar, and one was in a narrow box at the front of the carriage with a rattle and other trinkets. That one was worked by remote control. During those three days I had my picture taken at least a thousand times. The Thursday ones were mostly off focus, the Friday ones were better, and by Saturday morning Sally had it down pat. Anyone looking at the baby from a distance of six yards or less was going to get shot, and shot good.

  Saul and Fred and Orrie were in the old brownstone Saturday evening until after midnight. They spent the first half hour in the office getting briefed (Saul was to direct their deployment in the square in the morning), and the next three hours in the dining room with me, with refreshments, playing pinochle.

  SUNDAY MORNING. To the kitchen for breakfast at nine thirty. At ten o'clock, the moment when Sally would be entering the sq
uare pushing the carriage, I was starting on my third sour-milk griddle cake with my right hand, while my left hand held the Gazette open to the full page spread entitled WOMEN LOVE BABIES. It's a matter of taste. In my opinion, WOMEN LIKE BABIES would have been more subtle.

  When Lon Cohen said there would be a mob he had overrated something, perhaps the punch of the Gazette. The Sunday crop was twenty-six pictures, seven in the morning and nineteen in the afternoon. I was at the house when Sally returned with the carriage and its cargo a little after five, and helped her remove the films. There had been only two exposures with the camera in the box at the front of the carriage, but we rolled it through and took it. The way we were spending the client's dough, another couple of bucks was nothing.

  Twenty-four hours later we still didn't know whether we had a picture of the mother or not. All we knew was that Lucy didn't recognize any of the twenty-six as someone she could name, and Julian Haft, Leo Bingham, and Willis Krug said they didn't. Wolfe had spoken to each of them on the phone in the morning, asking them to look at some pictures without explaining how we had got them, and when I got the prints from A1 Posner around noon, six of each, I had sent packets by messenger. By five o'clock they had all phoned. Negative from all three. I took a set to Lucy and she gave them a good look. There was one she wasn't sure about, but the woman she thought it resembled had been on her list and had been eliminated by Saul. She invited me to stay until Sally took the baby on the afternoon outing and returned, and get the day's crop of films, but I wanted to be at 35th Street to get the reports from Krug and Haft and Bingham.

  At twenty minutes past four Haft and Bingham had called but not Krug, and when the phone rang I supposed it would be him. But after the first word of the routine I was interrupted.

  Saul, Archie. A booth on University Place.

  And?

  Maybe a break. Something we thought might happen. At four-oh-four a taxi stopped on the north side of the square, double-parked, and a woman got out. She crossed the street and looked around. The taxi stayed put. She spotted the carriage halfway across the square and headed for it and went right up to it. She didn't bend over or put a hand on the carriage or in it, but she spoke to Sally. She was there looking less than a minute forty seconds. Orrie's car was around the corner, but with her hack waiting there was no point to that. She went back to it and it rolled. A Paragon. Do I stick here until five o'clock?

  You do not. You find that hackie.

  Do you want the number?

  Sure. You might get run over or something.

  He gave me the taxi's registration number, and I jotted it down and told him I would be out from 4:45 to 6:00, getting the films from Sally and taking them to Al Posner. When I hung up I sat for a minute, breathing, enjoying it more than I had for weeks. Then I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone.

  Yes?

  Congratulations. Your theory that a woman who had a baby six months ago might like to see what it looks like was sound. The idea of having both the men and the cameras was also sound. I'm leaving in ten minutes and thought you might like to know. Two to one we have hooked the mother. Make it three to one.

  Please report.

  Glad to. I told him. So if she's the mother we've got her. Finding out where the taxi took her may not help much, but of course Saul will know which picture. Congratulations.

  Satisfactory, he said, and hung up.

  When Krug phoned a few minutes later, as I was getting up to go, to say that he didn't recognize any of the pictures I had sent him, he was probably surprised that I was so cheerful about it.

  Monday's crop was more than twice as big as Sunday's, and Sally had changed the films at noon, so there were six rolls. Fifty-four exposures altogether, and one of them was worth its weight in rubies. I got them to 47th Street before six o'clock, but Al couldn't run them through that evening: two of his men were on vacation and one was home sick, and he was plugged up. I persuaded him to let me in at eight in the morning and took them home with me. While we were at the dinner table Saul phoned. The hackie's name was Sidney Bergman and he had welcomed a finif. He had picked up the fare on Madison Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets, taken her straight to the square, and back to 52nd and Park. He had never seen her before and knew nothing about her. I told Saul to keep an eye out for her at the square in the morning, she might come back for another look, and then come to the office and wait for me.

  It was a quarter to twelve Tuesday morning when I got to the office with the prints. I could have made it half an hour sooner, but I had taken the time at the Posart Camera Exchange to make packets for Al to send to Krug and Haft and Bingham. If Lucy didn't know her, one of them might. Wolfe was at his desk with beer, and Saul was in the red leather chair with wine. A bottle of the Corton Charlemagne was on the stand at his elbow. Apparently they were discussing literature; there were three books on Wolfe's desk and one in his hand, open. I went and sat and listened. Yep, literature. I got up and started out and was stopped by Wolfe's voice.

  Yes, Archie?

  I turned. I hate to interrupt. I approached Saul. Feel thy pictures, mister? I handed them to him.

  She didn't show this morning, he said. His hands were as deft with the prints as they were with a poker deck. A glance at each one was enough until he was about halfway through, when he tilted one for better light, nodded, and held it out. That's her.

  I took it. It was a good clear shot, three-quarter face, angled up as most of them were. Wide forehead, eyes the right distance apart, nose rather narrow, mouth rather wide, chin a little pointed. The eyes were fixed, focused to the right, concentrated.

  She could be attractive, I said.

  She is, Saul said. She walks straight and smooth.

  Details?

  Five feet seven. Hundred and twenty pounds. In the upper thirties.

  The envelope, please. He handed it to me, and I put the picture in with the others and the envelope in my pocket. I'm sorry I had to interrupt you gentlemen. I have an errand. If you need me you know Mrs. Valdon's number. I turned and went.

  Since Sunday, Lucy's relations with me had been a little strained. No, that's not good reporting. Her relations with the world were strained, and I happened to be handy. Her lawyer had phoned her Sunday evening about the Gazette piece, and he had come to the house for a talk Monday afternoon. He thought she was sticking her neck out and he strongly disapproved. Her best friend, Lena Guthrie, disapproved even more strongly, and she had had a dozen phone calls from other friends, not to mention enemies; and from a remark she made Monday afternoon I gathered that Leo Bingham had been one of them.

  So there was an atmosphere, and when I arrived Tuesday and was directed by Marie Foltz to the second floor I had the big room to myself for nearly half an hour; and when the client finally came she stopped three paces short and asked, Something new, Archie?

  Just the prints, I said. From yesterday.

  Oh. How many?

  Fifty-four.

  I have a headache. I suppose I have to?

  Maybe not. I got the envelope from my pocket, shuffled through the prints, and handed her one. Try that one. It's special.

  She gave it a glance. What's special about it?

  I'm betting three to one that she's the mother. She came in a taxi and had it wait while she spotted the carriage, went and took a good long look, nearly a minute, and went back to the taxi. Do you know her?

  Another glance at it. No.

  Would you mind taking it to the light to make sure?

  I don't. All right. She went to a lamp on a table and switched it on, and looked, frowning. She turned. I think I've seen her somewhere.

  Then forget your headache, all the headaches, and take another look. Of course we'll find her sooner or later, but it was six weeks ago today that you hired Nero Wolfe to find the mother, and we've spent a lot of your money, and you've had it fairly rough. It will save time and money and bumps if you can name her. Sit there by the lamp, huh?

  She closed
her eyes and raised a hand to rub her forehead and went and sat. She didn't look at the print again, just sat and looked at space, frowning, with her lips pressed tight. Suddenly her head jerked around to me and she said, Of course. Carol Mardus.

  I laughed. You know, I said, during these six weeks I have seen you in various moods from gay to glum, but I have never seen you look really beat until this minute. I laughed because that's funny.

  I don't feel funny.

  I do. I feel wonderful. Are you sure it's Carol Mardus?

  Yes. Certainly. It shouldn't have taken me so long.

  Who and what is she?

  She got Dick started. She was a reader at Distaff, and she got Manny Upton to take Dick's stories. Then later he made her fiction editor. She is now.

  Fiction editor of Distaff?

  Yes.

  She wasn't on your list.

  No, I didn't think of her. I've only seen her two or three times.

  C-A-R-O-L? M-A-R-D-I-S?

  U-S.

  Married?

  No. As far as I know. She was married to Willis Krug, and divorced.

  My brows went up. That's interesting. She wasn't on his list. Divorced how long ago?

  I don't know exactly. I think four or five years. I only met her after I married Dick and Willis too.

  I have to ask a question. If she's the mother, and now that's ten to one, how likely is it no, not likely.' How credible is it that Dick was the father?

  I don't know. I've told you about Dick, Archie. I know he had been intimate with her years ago no, I don't know it, but someone told me. But if she's the mother Suddenly she was on her feet. I'm going to see her. I'm going to ask her.

  Not right now. I started a hand for her arm but stopped it. Never mix personal relations with business relations unless you have to. I'm going to give you an order. I've made a few requests and suggestions, and I've talked you into a couple of things, but I've never given you an order. Now I do. You will mention Carol Mardus to no one, positively no one, until I say you can. And you won't see her or phone her. Right?