Rex Stout - The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

And Monday morning at eleven o'clock Wolfe walked into the office as if he were bound for somewhere, put the orchids in the vase, sat, and without glancing at the mail said, Your notebook.

That started the third stage.

By lunchtime we had settled the last detail of the program and all that remained was to carry it out, which of course was my part. It took me only three days to get it act, but it was another four before the ball started to roll, because the Sunday Gazette appears only on Sunday. My three days went as follows.

MONDAY AFTERNOON. Back to the beach to sell the client on it. She balked and I stayed for dinner. It wasn't so much the moving back to town she objected to, it was the publicity, and it would have been no go if I hadn't stretched a point and mixed personal relations with business relations. When I left I had her promise to be back at Eleventh Street by Wednesday noon and to stay as long as necessary.

TUESDAY MORNING. To Al Posner, co-owner of the Posart Camera Exchange on 47th Street, to persuade him to come and help me buy a baby carriage. Back at his place with it, I left the selection of the cameras and their installation to him, after explaining how they were to be used, and he promised to have it ready by Wednesday noon.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON. To Lon Cohen's office on the twentieth floor of the Gazette Building. If Lon has a title I don't know what it is. Only his name is on the door of the small room, the second door down the hall from the big corner office of the publisher. I have been there maybe a hundred times over the years, and at least seventy of them he was at one of the three phones on his desk when I entered. He was that Tuesday. I took the chair at the end of the desk and waited.

He hung up, passed his hand ova his smooth black hair, swiveled, and aimed his quick black eyes at me. Where'd you get the sunburn?

I don't burn. You have no fling for color. I patted my cheek. Rich russet tan.

When that point had been settled, or rather not settled, I crossed my legs. You're one lucky guy, I said. Just because I like you, within reason, I walk in and hand you an exclusive that any paper in town would pay a grand for.

Uh-huh. Say Ah.

This is not a gift horse you have to look in the mouth of. You may have heard the name Lucy Valdon. The widow of Richard Valdon, the novelist?

Yeah.

It will be a Sunday feature, full page, mostly pictures. A good wholesome title, maybe WOMEN LIKE BABIES. What text there is, there won't be much, will be by one of your word artists. It will tell how Mrs. Valdon, the young, beautiful, wealthy widow of a famous man, with no child of her own, has taken a baby into her luxurious home and is giving it her loving care. How she has hired an experienced nurse who is devoted to the little toddler no, it can't toddle yet. Maybe the little angel or the little lambkin. I'm not writing it. How the nurse takes it out twice a day in its expensive carriage, from ten to eleven in the morning and from four to five in the afternoon, and wheels it around Washington Square, so it can enjoy the beauties of nature trees and grass and so forth.

I gestured. What a poem! If you have a poet on the payroll, swell, but it must include the details. The pictures can be whatever you want Mrs. Valdon feeding the baby, or even bathing it if you like nudes but one picture is a must, of the nurse with the carriage in Washington Square. I'll have to insist on that. Also it will have to be in next Sunday. The pictures can be taken tomorrow afternoon. You can thank me at your leisure. Any questions?

As he opened his mouth, not to thank me, judging by his expression, a phone buzzed. He turned and got it, the green one, listened and talked, mostly listened, and hung up. You have the nerve of a one-legged man at an ass-kicking convention, he said.

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.