Рекс Стаут: The Mother Hunt

I never got to His Own Image , but the magazines got a big play, and I was halfway through the other paperback, a collection of pieces about the Civil War, when the phone call came at a quarter past five. The woman at the desk, who had known what I wanted Wednesday before I told her, vacated her chair for me, but I went and took it on my side, standing.

“Goodwin speaking.”

“This is Anne Tenzer. I got a message to call the Exclusive Novelty Button Company and ask for Mr. Goodwin.”

“Right. I’m Goodwin.” Her voice had plenty of feminine in it, so I put plenty of masculine in mine. “I would like very much to see you, to get some information if possible. I think you may know something about a certain kind of button.”

“Me? I don’t know anything about buttons.”

“I thought you might, about this particular button. It’s made by hand of white horsehair.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Why, how on earth — do you mean you’ve got one?”

“Yes. May I ask, where are you?”

“I’m in a phone booth at Madison Avenue and Forty- ninth Street.”

From her voice, I assumed that my voice was doing all right. “Then I can’t expect you to come here to my office, Thirty-ninth Street and crosstown. How about the Churchill lobby? You’re near there. I can make it in twenty minutes. We can have a drink and discuss buttons.”

“You mean you can discuss buttons.”

“Okay. I’m pretty good at it. Do you know the Blue Alcove at the Churchill?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes, with no hat, a paper bag in my hand, and a white and green orchid in my lapel.”

“Not an orchid. Men don’t wear orchids.”

“I do, and I’m a man. Do you mind?”

“I won’t know till I see you.”

“That’s the spirit. All right, I’m off.”

At a wall table in the Admiralty Bar at the Churchill there isn’t much light, but there had been in the lobby. Beatrice Epps had been correct when she said Anne Tenzer was about her size, but the resemblance stopped there. It was quite conceivable that Miss Tenzer had aroused in some man, possibly Richard Valdon, the kind of reaction that is an important factor in the propagation of the species; in fact, in more men than one. She was still a blonde, but she wasn’t playing it up; she didn’t have to. She sipped a Bloody Mary as if she could take it or leave it.

The button question had been disposed of in ten minutes. I had explained that the Exclusive Novelty Button Co. specialized in rare and unusual buttons, and that someone in one of the places she had worked had told me that she had noticed the buttons on her blouse, had asked her about them, and had been told that they had been made by hand of white horsehair. She said that was right, her aunt had made them for years as a hobby and had given her six of them as a birthday present. She still had them, five of them still on the blouse and the other one put away somewhere. She didn’t remind me that I had told her on the phone that I had one. I asked if she thought her aunt had a supply of them that she might be willing to sell, and she said she didn’t know but she didn’t think she could have very many, because it took a whole day to make one. I asked if she would mind if I went to see her aunt to find out, and she said of course not and gave me the name and address: Miss Ellen Tenzer, Rural Route 2, Mahopac, New York. Also she gave me the phone number.

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’ll 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.”