Rex Stout - The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Nonsense. Certainly you do. You know quite well I wouldn't dishonor that fine old phrase.

Cramer glared. Then what in the name of God do you know? What did she hire you to do? Why have you kept her covered? Why have you told her to clam?

She consulted me in confidence. Why should I be denied a privilege that is accorded to lawyers and doctors, even those who are patently unworthy of it? She had violated no law, she had done nothing for which she was obliged to account, she had no knowledge of an actionable offense. There was no. What did she hire you to do?

Wolfe nodded. There's the rub. If I tell you that, with all details, or if she tells you, she will be a public target. When the baby was left in her vestibule it was wrapped in a blanket, and attached to the blanket inside, with an ordinary bare pin, was a slip of paper with a message on it. The message had been printed with rubber typo one of those kits that are used mostly by children. Therefore What did it say?

You're interrupting. Therefore it was useless as a pointer.It was the message that moved Mrs. Valdon to come to me. If I. Where is it?

If I told you what it said my client would be subjected to vulgar notoriety. And it I want that message and I want it now!

You have interrupted me four times, Mr. Cramer. My tolerance is not infinite. You would say, of course, that the message would not be published, and in good faith, but your good faith isn't enough. No doubt Mrs. Nesbitt was assured that her name wouldn't become known, but it did. So I reserve the message. I was about to say, it wouldn't help you to find your murderer. Except for that one immaterial detail, you know all that I know, now that you have reached my client. As for what Mrs. Valdon hired me to do, that's manifest. I engaged to find the mother of the baby. They have been at that, and that alone, for more than three weeks Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Panzer, Mr. Durkin, and Mr. Cather. You ask if I'm blocked. I am. I'm at my wit's end.

I'll bet you are. Cramer's eyes were slits. If you're reserving the message why did you tell me about it?

To explain why Mrs. Valdon is at such pains about a baby left in her vestibule. To prevent her harassment I had to tell you what she hired me to do, and if I told you that, I had to tell you why.

Of course you've got the message.

I may have. If you have in mind getting a judge to order me to produce it, it will not be available. Don't bother.

I won't. Cramer stood up. He took a step, threw the cigar at my wastebasket, and missed as usual. He looked down at Wolfe. I don't believe there was a message. I noticed you didn't use that fine old phrase. I want the real reason Mrs. Valdon is spending a fortune on a stray baby, and keeping her lip buttoned, and if I don't get it from you, by God I'll get it from her. And if there was a message I'll get that from her.

Wolfe hit the desk with his fist. After all this! he roared. After I have indulged you to the utmost! After I have given you my word on the two essential points! You would molest my client!

You're damn right I would. Cramer took a step toward the door, remembered his hat, reached across the red leather chair to get it, and marched out. I went to the hall to see that he was on the outside when he shut the door. When I stepped back in, Wolfe spoke.

No mention of anonymous letters. A stratagem?

No. The mood he's in, he would have used any club he had. So it wasn't Upton. Not that that matters. There were a dozen lines to her.

He took in air through his nose, clear down, and let it out through his mouth. She knows nothing he doesn't know, except the message. Should you tell her to talk, reserving only that?

No. If she answers ten questions they'll make it a million. I'll go and tell her what to expect, and I'll be there when they come with a warrant. I suggest you should phone Parker. Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, and arranging bail on a holiday can be a problem.

The wretch, he growled, and as I headed for the front I was wondering whether he meant Cramer or the client. When Saul Panzer phoned at half past three Saturday afternoon, July 7, to report that he had closed the last gap on the adoption, eliminating the girl who worked in Willis Krug's office, the second stage of the mother hunt was done. A very superior job by all five of us (I might as well include Wolfe): 148 girls and women covered and crossed off, and nobody's face scratched. Very satisfactory. Nuts. I told Sal that would be all for now but there might be more chores later. Fred and Orrie had already been turned loose.

Wolfe sat and scowled at whatever his eyes happened to light on. I asked him if he had any program for me, and when he gave me a look that the situation fully deserved but I didn't, I told him I was going to a beach for a swim and would be back Sunday night. He didn't even ask where he could reach me, but before I left I put a slip on his desk with a phone number. It belonged to a cottage on Long Island which Lucy Valdon had rented for the summer.

Cramer's bark had been worse than the DA's bite. She hadn't even had her name is the paper. When I arrived at Eleventh Street, Tuesday noon, and told her a caller would be coming she had a mild attack of funk, and she didn't eat much lunch, but when a Homicide Bureau dick came around three o'clock he didn't even have a warrant. Just a written request, signed by the DA himself. And when she phoned some four hours later she was already back home. The captain in charge of the bureau and two assistant DA's had each had a go at her, and one of them had been fairly tough, but she had lost no hide. The trouble with a clam is that you have only two choices: just sit and look at her, or lock her up. And she was an Armstead, she owned a house, she had a lot of friends, and the chance that she had killed Ellen Tenzer or knew who had was about one in ten million. So she spent the Fourth of July at the beach cottage with the baby, the nurse, the maid, and the cook. It had five bedrooms and six baths. What if the rooms are all occupied and a Homicide Bureau dick drops in and wants to take a bath? You have to be equipped.

Ordinarily, when I am out and away I forget the office and the current job, if any, and especially I forget Wolfe, but that Sunday at the beach my hostess was the client, so as I lay on the sand while she was inside feeding the baby I took a look at the prospect. One hundred per cent gloom. It often happens with the first look at a job that there seems to be no place to start, but you can always find some little spot to peck at. This was different. We had been at it nearly five weeks, we had followed two lines and come to a dead end both times, and there was no other possible line that I could see. I was about ready to buy the idea that Richard Valdon had not been the baby's father, that he had never met the girl who was its mother, and that she was some kind of a nut. She had read his books or seen him on television, and when she had a baby it wasn't convenient to keep, she had decided to arrange for it to be named Valdon. If it was something screwy like that, she was a needle in a haystack and the only hope was to forget the mother and go after the murderer, and the cops had been doing that for a solid month. At least ninety-nine per cent gloom. On my back on the sand with my eyes closed, I pronounced aloud an unrefined word, and Lucy's voice came. Archie! I suppose I should have coughed.

I scrambled up and we made for the surf.