Rex Stout - The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Nineteen-fifty-seven.

And since then? Particularly the past sixteen months?

I can't help you on that. In the past two years I haven't seen Carol more than five or six times, at parties and so on. I've had some correspondence with her, and I've spoken with her on the phone fairly often, but only on business manuscripts I sent her or wanted to send her. Of course I've heard talk about her. There are people who will say to a man, I understand your ex-wife is having a time with so-and-so.' That doesn't mean anything. Nothing those people say means anything.

You're wrong, Mr. Krug. Every word uttered since man first invented words is a part of the record, though unrecorded. I grant that tattle is often vacuous. A question. If your association with your former wife has been only casual since the divorce, why did you omit her name from the list you gave me, and why did you not identify her picture?

Krug nodded. Of course. Pause. Frankly, I don't know.

Nonsense.

It may be nonsense, but I don't know. Not putting her name on the list, that's easy to understand. He stopped. A long pause. No, I won't dodge it. It doesn't matter how I justified it consciously. We can't control our subconscious mind, but sometimes we know what it's up to. Subconsciously I refused to accept the possibility that Carol had sent anonymous letters to Lucy Valdon, so I didn't put her on the list and I tore the picture up. That's the best I can do, either for you or for the police.

The police should never ask you. They will of course ask you this, so I might as well: did you kill Carol Mardus?

Oh, for God's sake. No.

When and how did you learn of her death?

I was in the country for the weekend. I have a little place at Pound Ridge. Manny Upton phoned while I was having a late breakfast; the police had notified him and asked him to identify the body. Carol had no relatives in New York. I drove to town and went to my office, and I had only been there a few minutes when Leo Bingham phoned and asked me to come here.

You spent the night in the country?

Yes.

The police will want particulars, since you are the divorced husband, but I'll leave that to them. One more question, a hypothetical one. If Carol Mardus had a baby by Richard Valdon, conceived in April of last year and born last January, four months after Valdon's death; and if X knew about it, helped her dispose of it, and later, moved by pique or jealousy or spite, took it and left it in Mrs. Valdon's vestibule, who is X? Of the men in Carol Mardus's orbit, which one fits the specifications? I don't ask you to accuse, merely to suggest.

I can't, Krug said. I told you, I know nothing about her for the past two years.

Wolfe poured beer, emptying the bottle, waited until the foam was at the right level to bead his lips, drank, removed the beads with his tongue, put the glass down, and swiveled to face the red leather chair. You heard the hypothetical question, Mr. Bingham. Have you a suggestion?

I wasn't listening, Bingham said. I'm thinking about you. I'm getting tight on your brandy. I'm deciding whether to believe you or not, about how you got that picture. You're a very smooth article.

Pfui. Believe me or not as you please. You accepted the proposal. What have you to say about Carol Mardus?

Bingham hadn't had time to get tight, but he was working at it. Fritz had left the cognac bottle on the stand, and Bingham's second pouring had been a good three ounces. His neon-sign smile hadn't been turned on once, he hadn't shaved, and his necktie knot was off center.

Carol Mardus, he said. Carol Mardus was a fascinating aristocratic elegant tramp. He raised his glass. To Carol! He drank.

Wolfe asked, Did you kill her?

Certainly. He drained the glass and put it on the stand. All right, let's be serious. I met her years ago, and she could have had me by snapping her fingers, but there were two difficulties. I was broke and living on crumbs, and she belonged to my best friend, Dick Valdon. Belonged' is the wrong word because she never belonged to anybody, but she was Dick's for that year. Then she was somebody else's, and so on. Manny Upton, that fish. As you know, she was married for a while to Willis Krug. He looked at Krug. You're no fish. Did you actually think she would go tame?

No reply.

You didn't. You couldn't. Bingham returned to Wolfe. I used another wrong word. Carol wasn't a tramp. She certainly wasn't a floozy. Would a floozy leave a good job for six months to have a baby?

But you haven't decided to believe me.

Hell, I believe you. I believe you because it fits Carol exactly. Krug's right, Dick was the father. And Dick was dead, so she could go ahead and have the baby. See? There wouldn't be a man it would belong to, it would just be hers. Then after it came she realized she didn't want it. She wouldn't be tied to a man, but it would be just as bad to be tied to a baby, only she didn't realize it until after it came. That's why I believe you, it fits her to a T. One thing I don't like, I admit it. You say someone helped her dispose of it, so she must have asked him to. Why didn't she ask me? That hurts. I mean that, it hurts.

He reached for the bottle with one hand and the glass with the other, poured, and took a healthy swallow. He wasn't appreciating the cognac, he was just drinking it. Damn it, he said, she should have asked me.

Possibly she preferred to ask a woman.

Not a chance. You can rule that out. Not Carol. Didn't it have to be kept secret?' Yes.

She wouldn't have trusted any woman to keep any secret. She wouldn't have trusted any woman, period.

You're hurt that she didn't ask you, that she didn't prefer you to the other available alternatives. So you must have some notion of who the other alternatives were. This question is not hypothetical; consider it established that she asked someone to help her dispose of the baby; whom did she ask, if not you?

I don't know.

Of course you don't. But whom might she have muted in so delicate a matter in preference to you?

You know, by God, that's a thought. Bingham put the glass to his lips and held it there. He took a little sip. First I would say her ex-husband. Willis Krug.

Mr. Krug says his only recent association with her has been on business matters. You challenge that?

No. I'm just answering your question. It's a damn good question. I know how Carol felt about Krug. She liked him. She felt he could be trusted, he could be depended on. But if he says it wasn't him it probably wasn't. My second pick would be Julian Haft.

Wolfe grunted. You're merely naming those present You're clowning.

I am not. Carol thought Haft was the tops. She thought nobody was in his class as a judge of writing, and she let him know it. He was the only man she would have dinner with and then go home and read manuscripts. That's another reason tramp was the wrong word for her; she liked her work and was good at it. I can clown, but I'm not clowning now. But I shouldn't have put Krug first. I overlooked Manny Upton. He should be first.

Her employer.

Well, her boss. That's why he's first. He let her go for six months and come back to her job. He must have known what she went for. She told her friends, including me, that she was taking a long vacation, but she must have told Manny the truth. Hell, it's obvious. If you're half as good as you're supposed to be it stares you in the face.