Rex Stout - The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

She smiled. No one has ever given me an order since my father died.

Then it's about time. Well?

Here. She put out a hand and I took it. The atmosphere was back to normal, but there was work to do. As a client, I said, you're the cream of the cream. I have to use the phone on business.

There was one in a cabinet at the end of the room, and I went and opened the door and dialed. I wouldn't have been surprised if Fritz had answered, they were so deep in literature, but it was Saul. I told him it would save time if Wolfe got on, and in a moment had his voice. Yes?

I'm at Mrs. Valdon's house. She knows the woman, not well. The name is Carol Mardus. I spelled it. She's the fiction editor of Distaff magazine. The Distaff Building is on Madison Avenue at Fifty-second Street. She was intimate with Valdon some years ago. Further details to follow. Congratulations again. If she isn't the mother she certainly knows who is. I'm on my way, to find out what she was doing in January.

No, Wolfe said. Saul will go.

Hold it. I slipped a cog. I turned to Lucy. You said you've seen her two or three times. Did you see her last winter?

She shook her head. I was just thinking. I haven't seen her since Dick died.

To the phone. Saul? Mrs. Valdon hasn't seen her since last September. Don't get too close to her, maybe she strangles the way she walks, straight and smooth. She was married to Willis Krug, but they were divorced four or five years ago. You might start with him, but you might not. He may not want to be reminded of her. She wasn't on his list. I have a suggestion.

Yes? Wolfe.

Manuel Upton is her boss. He told you five weeks ago that if Mrs. Valdon wants a favor from him she can ask him. She could phone and ask him if Carol Mardus was around last winter. That might simplify it, but of course it might tangle it.

It might indeed. Saul will follow routine. Tell Mrs. Valdon to mention Carol Mardus to no one.

I already have.

Tell her again. Stay with her. Divert her. Don't let her out of your sight. Click.

I cradled the phone and closed the cabinet. Saul will check on Carol Mardus, I told Lucy. 'My job is you. I am to keep you under constant surveillance. Mr. Wolfe understands you. He knows you wanted to find the mother so you could pull her hair. If you leave the house I'll have to tail you.

She tried to smile. I am beat, Archie, she said. Carol Mardus!

It's not certain yet, only ten to one, I told her.

It became certain two days later, at twenty minutes past ten Thursday evening, when Saul made his last phone call from Florida.

Of course it was Ellen Tenzer that complicated it. If there had been nothing to it but the mother hunt, I could simply have gone to Carol Mardus, showed her the picture, and asked her how and where she had spent last winter; and if she had stalled I would have told her that it would be a cinch to find out if she had been carrying and having a baby, and she might as well save me time and trouble. But almost certainly, if she was the mother, she had either killed Ellen Tenzer or knew or suspected who had, so it wasn't so simple.

I ignored Wolfe's instruction to keep my eye on the client, women being the one thing he admits I know more about than he does, and took over for Saul at Washington Square. When I got to the office late Tuesday afternoon, after taking the day's crop of films to Al Posner, there had been developments. Willis Krug and Julian Haft and Leo Bingham had all phoned to say that they recognized none of the faces on the fifty-four prints, which was surprising in Krug's case, since he had been married to one of them. And Saul had phoned twice, first just before four o'clock, to get Wolfe before he went up to the plant rooms, to report that Carol Mardus had been absent from her job at Distaff for nearly six months, from Labor Day until the last of February, and again shortly after six to report that she had also been absent from her home, an apartment on East 83rd Street, and the apartment had not been sublet. That made it fifty to one. Wolfe enjoyed his dinner more than he had for weeks, and so did I.

A little before eleven the doorbell rang, and it was Saul. He preceded me to the office, sat in the red leather chair, and said, I just did something I'm glad my father will never know about. I swore to something with my hand on the New Testament. The Bible was upside down.

Wolfe grunted. Was it inescapable?

Yes. This person is a little twisted. He or she was taking fifty bucks to tell me something he or she had promised someone to keep secret, but first I had to swear on the Bible I would never tell who told me. That wasn't sensible. What if my price for telling was merely sixty bucks? Anyway I got the address. He got his notebook from a pocket and flipped it open. Care of Mrs. Arthur P. Jordan, 1424 Sunset Drive, Lido Shores, Sarasota, Florida. Things sent there to Carol Mardus last fall reached her. He or she didn't swear to it on the Bible, but I bought it and paid for it.

Satisfactory, Wolfe said. Perhaps.

Saul nodded. Of course it's still perhaps. There's a plane from Idlewild for Tampa at three-twenty-five a.m.

Wolfe made a face. I suppose so. He hates airplanes. I suggested getting the Heron and driving Saul to Idlewild, but Wolfe said no, I was to be at Washington Square at ten in the morning. He knows how I yawn when I'm short on sleep.

Saul phoned four times from Florida. Wednesday afternoon he reported that 1424 Sunset Drive was the private residence of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur P. Jordan, and Carol Mardus had been a guest there last fall and winter. Late Wednesday evening he reported that Carol Mardus had been obviously pregnant in November and December. Thursday noon he reported that she been taken to the Sarasota General Hospital on January 16, had been admitted under the name of Clara Waldron, and had given birth to a boy baby that night. At twenty minutes past ten Thursday evening he reported that he was at Tampa International Airport, that Clara Waldron, with baby, had taken a plane there for New York on February 5, and that he was doing likewise in three hours.

Wolfe and I hung up. The mother hunt was over. Forty-five days.

He eyed me. How much of that woman's money have we spent?

Around fourteen grand.

Pfui. Tell Fred and Orrie they're no longer needed. And Miss Corbett. Tell Mrs. Valdon she can return to the beach. Return the cameras.

Yes, sir.

Confound it! It could be so simple! But for that woman.

The dead one. Yeah.

But she gave you a drink of water.

Nuts. If we emptied the bag for Cramer now, including the message, the only question would be should we demand separate trials. Not only you and me, also the client. I could ring Parker and ask him which is worse, withholding evidence or conspiring to obstruct justice.

He tightened his lips and took a deep breath, and another one. Have you a suggestion?

I have a dozen. I have known for two days we would soon be facing this, and so have you. We can tackle Carol Mardus just on the mother angle, no mention of Ellen Tenzer, just what she did with her baby, and see what happens. There's a chance, a damn slim one but a chance, that she simply got rid of the baby, which isn't hard to do, and she didn't know what had happened to it, and that piece in the Gazette about Mrs. Valdon merely made her curious. Or suspicious. Second suggestion: we could take a stab at the rest of the commitment to the client. You were to learn the identity of the mother. Done. You were also to demonstrate the degree of probability that Valdon was the father. Before we tackle Carol Mardus head on we might do a routine job on her and Valdon in the spring of last year.