Рекс Стаут - The Mother Hunt

“Archie, I don’t—”

“Let me finish. You have no license to lose, but you would also be open to the felony charge. I doubt very much if they would press it, they probably wouldn’t even charge you, but you would be wide open. I want to make that absolutely clear before you decide what to do.”

“But you mean... you would go to jail?”

“Probably.”

“All right.”

“All right what?”

“I’ll turn loose.”

“Damn it, Lucy, you’ve twisted it all around. Or I have. We don’t want you to turn loose. We positively don’t. Mr. Wolfe is stiff with fury. He resented Ellen Tenzer being killed because he sent me to her, but that was nothing compared to this. If he doesn’t nail the man who killed Carol Mardus he won’t eat for a year. I merely had to make it plain what you might be in for if you stick.”

“But you’ll go to jail.”

“That’s my funeral. Also my business, I’m a detective. Leave that to us. The cops don’t know there is any connection between Carol Mardus and Ellen Tenzer and you and us, and with any kind of a break they won’t know until we’ve got the murderer, and then it won’t matter. Have you mentioned Carol Mardus to anybody?”

“No.”

“Positive?”

“Yes. You ordered me not to.”

“So I did. I now order you to forget Mr. Wolfe and me and think only of yourself. Do you stick or let go?”

She gripped my arm again. Her fingers were stronger than you would expect. “Tell me honestly, Archie. Do you want me to stick? Thinking only of yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Then I stick. Kiss me.”

“That sounds like an order.”

“It is.”

Twenty minutes later I turned the Heron into the driveway, circled around the curve, and stopped at the door of the cottage. No one was visible; they were all on the beach side. As Lucy was getting out I spoke. “I just had an idea. I have one a year. I might possibly be walking past the house and feel like dropping in. May I have a key?”

Her eyes widened. Nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand, as things stood between us, would have said, “Of course, but why?” She said only, “Of course,” swung the car door shut, and went. In a couple of minutes she was back. She handed me the key, said, “No phone call for you,” and tried hard to smile. I pressed the gas pedal and was off.

One of the various prospects for the future that I didn’t care for was sitting down for lunch with Wolfe. It would be painful. He always talked at table, and one of two things would happen. Either he would grump through it without even trying, or worse, he would pick something as far as possible from babies or murders, say the influence of Freud on theological dogma, and fight his way through. The prospect was bad enough without that. So I stopped at a place along the way and ate duckling, with a sauce that Fritz would have turned up his nose at, and it was five minutes to two when, after leaving the Heron at the garage around the corner, I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone and used my key.

Wolfe would be toward the end of lunch. But he wasn’t. Not in the dining room. Crossing the hall to the office door, I glanced in. He wasn’t there either, but someone else was. Leo Bingham was in the red leather chair, and Julian Haft was in one of the yellow ones. Their heads turned to me, and their faces were not cheerful. I beat it to the kitchen, and there was Wolfe at my breakfast table, with a board of cheese, crackers, and coffee. He looked up, grunted, and chewed. Fritz said, “The duckling’s warm, Archie. Flemish olive sauce.”

I swear I hadn’t known duckling was on for lunch when I ordered it on the way. “I had a bite at the beach,” I lied. To Wolfe: “Mrs. Valdon wants you to get the murderer. I told her the cops would get him sooner or later if she wanted to pull out, but she said, quote, ‘I want Nero Wolfe to get him.’ Unquote.”

He growled. “You know quite well that that locution is vile.”

“I feel vile. Do you know you have company?”

“Yes. Mr. Bingham came half an hour ago. I was at lunch; I haven’t seen him. I told him through Fritz that I would not see him unless he got Mr. Haft and Mr. Krug to come, and he used the telephone.” He was putting Brie on a cracker. “What took you so long? Was she difficult?”

“No. I dawdled. I was afraid to lunch with you. I thought you might throw your plate at me. Is Krug coming?”

“I don’t know.”

“You actually wouldn’t have seen Bingham if he had balked?”

“Certainly I would. But he had to wait until I finished lunch, and he might as well try to get the others.” He aimed a finger at me. “Archie. I am making an effort to control myself. I advise you to do the same. I realize that the provocation is as insupportable for you—”

The doorbell rang. I moved, but Wolfe snapped, “No. Fritz will go. Have some cheese. Coffee? Get a cup.”

Fritz had gone. I got a cup and poured, and plastered a cracker with Brie. I was controlling myself. It might be Willis Krug at the door, but it might be Inspector Cramer, and if so, fur would fly. But when Fritz returned he said he had shown Mr. Krug to the office, and I took too big a sip of hot coffee and scalded my tongue. Wolfe took another cracker, and cheese, and then another. Finally he asked me politely if I wanted more, pushed his chair back, rose, thanked Fritz for the meal as always, and moved. I followed.

As we entered the office Leo Bingham bounced up out of the red leather chair and boomed, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Wolfe detoured around him. My route was between Wolfe’s desk and the other two. Wolfe sat and said, “Sit down, Mr. Bingham.”

“By God, if you—”

“Sit down!” Wolfe roared.

“I want to—”

“Sit down!”

Bingham sat.

Wolfe eyed him. “In my house I do the bawling,” he said. “You came to see me, uninvited. What do you want?”

“I was invited,” Julian Haft said. “What do you want?” His thin tenor was close to a squeak.

“I didn’t come to go on the air,” Bingham said. “You wanted Krug and Haft, and here they are. When you’re through with them I’ll speak with you privately.”

Wolfe’s head turned slowly to the right, to take his eyes past Haft to Krug, who was nearest me, and back again to the left. “It saves time,” he said, “to have all three of you, because I wish to ask each of you the same question. And no doubt each of you would like to ask me the same question. Your question would be, why was a picture of Carol Mardus among those I sent you on Tuesday? My question is, why did none of you identify it?”

Bingham blurted, “You sent it to them too?”

“I did.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I’m going to tell you, but with a long preamble. First, to clear the way, you should know that what I told you in this room nearly six weeks ago was pure invention. Mrs. Valdon had received no anonymous letters.”

Bingham and Krug made noises. Haft adjusted his balloon-tired cheaters to stare better.

Wolfe ignored the noises. “It wasn’t about anonymous letters that Mrs. Valdon came to me, it was about a baby that had been left in the vestibule of her house. She hired me to learn who had left it there and who its mother was. And father. I failed miserably. After a week of fruitless effort I decided to try the conjecture that Mrs. Valdon’s late husband had been the father, and I asked her to get the cooperation of three or four of his close associates. You know how that resulted. Mr. Upton refused my request. Each of you three gave me a list of the names of women who had been in contact with Mr. Valdon in the spring of last year, the period when the baby had been conceived. I remark in passing that the name of Carol Mardus was on none of the lists.”