Rex Stout - The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Wolfe nodded. I've spoken with them again, Saturday afternoon, day before yesterday, and told them the anonymous letters were mere invention, invented by me to account for my request for lists of names. The lists didn't help any, but I have completed the job Mrs. Valdon hired me for. She no longer needs me; I am in her house only by her sufferance. I am now after a murderer. During my conversation with those three men Saturday afternoon the opinion was advanced that you killed Carol Mardus. That's what I want to discuss with you, the likelihood that you're a murderer.

Blah. Upton cocked his head. You know, I hand it to you. You've built a reputation on pure gall. Also you're a liar. No one advanced the opinion that I killed Carol Mardus. Did he say why I killed her? What are you really after? Why did you have Lucy Valdon get me down here?

To get some information I badly need. When did you learn that Carol Mardus came to see me on Friday?

More blah. I wouldn't hake supposed you'd try that old worn-out trick she came to see you, and she told you something, and she's dead. I suppose she told you I had threatened to kill her. Something like that?

No. Wolfe shifted in the chair. The back was too high for him to lean back properly as he did at home. If we're to talk to any purpose I'll have to expound it. I engaged with Mrs. Valdon to find the mother of a baby that had been left in the vestibule of her house. I did so, at great expense and after much floundering about. It was Carol Mardus. She came to me on Friday to learn how much I knew, and I obliged her. To dispose of the baby when she returned from Florida with it, she had enlisted the help of a friend, a man. Call him X.

Make it Z. X has been overworked.

Wolfe ignored it. There were four men whom Miss Mardus might have gone to for help in such a matter: Willis Krug, Julian Haft, Leo Bingham, and yourself. Her choice, X, was not a happy one. The problem of the immediate disposal of the infant was well solved; it was placed in the care of one Ellen Tenzer, a retired nurse who lived alone in a house she owned in Mahopac. But Miss Mardus had told X that Richard Valdon was the father of the baby, and that was a mistake. For two reasons. There were two facts about X that Miss Mardus had not sufficiently considered: one, that he had himself been denied, and was still denied, the pleasure of her intimate favors, and resented it; and two, that he had the soul of an imp. Imp defined as a little malignant spirit. Being an editor, you know words.

Upton didn't say.

So when the baby was four months old, and the expense of its upkeep made it desirable to dispose of it differently and permanently, X indulged himself in what he no doubt regarded as merely a prank. Choosing a Sunday in May because he knew Mrs. Valdon would be at home alone that evening, he got the baby from Ellen Tenzer, pinned to its blanket a slip of paper on which he had printed a message, deposited it in the vestibule of Mrs. Valdon's house, and telephoned her that there was something in her vestibule. The message is in my office safe. It said Your memory is more exact than mine, Archie.

I was in the chair Upton had passed by. Quote, I said. Mrs. Richard Valdon this baby is for you because a boy should live in his father's house.' End quote.

Repeat it, Upton commanded me.

I repeated it.

A little malignant spirit, Wolfe said. He not only had the pleasure of perturbing Mrs. Valdon; there was the added fillip of telling Miss Mardus what he had done. But Mrs. Valdon came to me, and it took Mr. Goodwin and me just three days to learn that the baby had been in the care of Ellen Tenzer. Mr. Goodwin went to see her and spoke with her, and she was alarmed. I doubt if she knew how the baby had been disposed of; she probably didn't know who the mother was; but she did know that its origin was supposed to be a secret, never to be revealed. She communicated with X, and they met that evening. The soul of an imp is a strange phenomenon. It had led him to perform what he regarded as a permissible prank, but the threat of its imminent disclosure was intolerable. Permissible but not disclosable. He was with Ellen Tenzer in her car, and his strangling her was not on sudden impulse, for he must have had the cord with him.

Upton stirred on the couch. He was listening with both ears and both eyes. I would give something, he said, to know how much of this is invention. All of it?

No. Most of it is established or can be. Some, not much, is surmise on valid grounds. This next is surmise, for Miss Mardus did not tell me whether or when she had suspected that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. She must have suspected it if she knew that her baby had been in Ellen Tenzer's care, but she may not have known that. Did she read newspapers?

What?

Did Miss Mardus read newspapers?

Of course.

Then it is not a surmise that after her talk with me she did suspect that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. More than a mere suspicion. The newspapers had reported Mr. Goodwin's visit to Ellen Tenzer. Must I elucidate that? No.

Then the rest is manifest. After her talk with me Miss Mardus did what Ellen Tenzer had done after her talk with Mr. Goodwin; she communicated with X. They met that evening, and he had a piece of cord in his pocket. Not, from the published descriptions, the same kind of cord he had used with Ellen Tenzer. A shrewd precaution. The threat now was disclosure not merely of a nasty prank, but of murder. He strangled her this time, perhaps, in his own car and dumped the body in an alley. An alley on Perry Street, less than a block from the building where Willis Krug lives. Returning her to her former husband? That's not even surmise, merely comment. That would be suitably impish, wouldn't it?

Finish it, Upton croaked. Surmise who is X.

That's risky, Mr. Upton. That might be slander.

Yes. It might. Apparently they don't know any of this at the District Attorney's office. I was there most of yesterday. Shouldn't you tell them?

I should, yes. I haven't. I shall when I can name X.

Then you're withholding evidence?

I'm doing something much worse; I'm conspiring to obstruct justice. So are Mr. Goodwin and Mrs. Valdon. That's why you must be detained until I can name X.

You sit there and calmly… Upton let it hang. It's unbelievable. Why me? Why are you telling me?

I needed to discuss it with you. I talked with Bingham and Krug and Haft on Saturday, and I wanted to talk with you. One of them advanced the opinion, not explicitly but by implication, that you had killed Carol Mardus. His point was that you would not have let her take a six months' vacation unless she confided in you the compelling reason for it, that you knew she was pregnant, and that therefore she had probably had your help in disposing of the baby. Hence the conclusion that you are X. Surely not wanton. When I said I wanted to discuss the likelihood that you're a murderer you said blah. I don't think you can dismiss it so cavalierly.

I still say blah. And I'm not going to conspire to obstruct justice. He stood up. I am going to see if you'll actually… He headed for the door.

Not having any great desire to dangle him, I merely beat him to the door and put my back to it. He made a grab for my arm, but missed and got the front of my jacket, and started pulling. That isn't good for a jacket, especially a light summer weight, and I got his wrists and twisted, maybe a little harder than necessary. He let go, so I did too, and the damn fool hauled off and swung. I sidestepped, whirled him around, pinned his arms from behind, hustled him across to a chair, and put him in it. That chair had been meant for him anyway. As I went to mine a ring came from the phone in the cabinet at the end of the room, but I ignored it.