Rex Stout - The Father Hunt

He nodded. "Orrie. Saul will be needed for chores more difficult." "He sure will. Now me. It's entirely my fault. Fritz,

I've changed my mind. May I have some coffee? You pour it, please, my hand might shake." I moved my chair around to face Wolfe. "I can't blame it on McCray. Even if he knew all about where Jarrett spent that summer, he didn't know when Amy was born. We hadn't told Ballou, so Ballou hadn't told him. But me? If I had the brains of a half-wit I would have asked McCray where Ballou was during July nineteen forty-four. It's entirely my fault that I drove up there through a cloudburst and invited that ape to push my nose in. Bounce me. Don't pay me for this week. I'll get a job sewing on buttons."

Fritz, who was there pouring coffee, said, "Not if you commit hara-kiri, Archie." He wouldn't have, with Wolfe there, if it had been the dining room or the office, but we were in his kitchen.

"It wasn't wholly futile," Wolfe said. "He gave you confirmation of what had been only a valid assumption, that he knew the date of birth. That's now established. Those places and dates had been arranged in his head before you arrived."

"Uh^huh." I drank coffee and burned my mouth. "Thanks for the bone. That about covers comment. A question, Do I tell the client about Carlotta Vaughn?"

"I think not. Not now. The telephone will do for telling her that we think it highly improbable that Mr. Jarrett sired her. What time is it?" He would have had to pivot his head to ask the kitchen clock.

"Eight thirty-five."

"You'll be late for poker. At Saul's apartment?"

"Yes. It always is."

"If Saul will be free tomorrow morning ask him to come at ten, and call Fred and Orrie. Also at ten. When they come give them everything; they'll need it all and there's nothing we should reserve. You have seen Mr. Jarrett and I haven't. I need your opinion. Elinor Denovo's letter said, "This money is from your father.' We know it was sent by Mr. Jarrett, the first check two weeks after the birth, but it appears that he is not the father. Well? You have seen him. What impelled him?"

"Yeah, I've seen him." I drank coffee. "And heard him. God only knows. It might be for any one of a thousand reasons, including blackmail, that a man might send a

woman a grand every month for twenty-two years, but we decided to take Elinor's letter without salt, and there it is, this money is from your father. She couldn't have meant it came direct from Amy's father because it didn't, unless we crack Jarrett's alibi, and we won't. But she knew it came from Jarrett. Even if there was no understanding or arrangement, the checks were Seaboard Bank and Trust Company, and she knew they were from Jarrett. So this money is from your father really meant this money was sent to me by Cyrus M. Jarrett because a certain man was your father. Then all we have to do is tell Saul and Fred, while Orrie checks the alibi, to pick up Jarrett twenty-two years ago and find out what certain man he would feel obligated to that much and that long."

"His son."

"Oh, sure. The son comes first and foremost. You stole my line. I was going to stand up and say, 'Even a baboon could feel like that about a son, and Jarrett has got one,' and walk out." I stood up. "You have Saul's number if anything happens this evening. Eugene Jarrett might drop in for a chat."

I walked out.

8

When Wolfe came down to the office from the plant rooms at eleven o'clock Friday morning, Saul Panzer ($10 an hour and worth double that), Fred Durkin ($8 an hour and worth it), and Orrie Cather ($8 an hour and usually worth it) were on three of the yellow chairs facing me, with notebooks in their hands. They had been there an hour. Saul, wiry and a little undersized all but his ears and nose, could have occupied about any spot in life that appealed to him, but he had settled for free-lance operative years ago because he could work only when he wanted to, make as much money as he needed, be outdoors a lot, and wear his old wool cap from November 1 to April 15. A reversible cap like that, light tan on one side and plaid on the other, and not there at all if you stick it in a pocket, can be a help when you're tailing. Fred, shorter than me but some broader, was apt to fool you. Just when you decided that it was too bad that some of his muscle power couldn't be traded in for brain power, he might get a wedge in where it was hard to see a crack. It was too bad that Orrie knew how good-looking he was. A mirror can be a handy tool, either your own or one on a wall, but not if you're more interested in checking on your hair than in the subject.

They got up when Wolfe entered, and when, after shaking hands around because he hadn't seen them for weeks, he went to his desk, they shifted their chairs to face him. I told him that they had been briefed and given expense money and that we had discussed Orrie's assignment, checking Jarrett's alibi. Wolfe looked at Saul and asked, "Comments?"

Saul closed Ms notebook. "I could make a few dozen. Who couldn't? But if we want to place her from March to October nineteen forty-four, the snag is that we don't know when she switched from Carlotta Vaughn to Elinor Denovo. To place someone that long ago is always tough, and that makes it a lot tougher."

"But you think that should be tackled first?"

"For Fred and me, yes. Of course the son is the best bet, or rather, he's the only bet as it stands now, but that's for you and Archie. McCray. Ballou told Archie that he wanted to meet you."

Wolfe tightened his lips. Paying four grown men and paying them well, or the client was, and he had to work. He growled. "Archie. Get Mr. McCray. I'll talk."

You would think that getting through to a vice-president would be easier and quicker than to a president, but it wasn't. Some underling positively wouldn't put Mr. McCray on until Mr. Wolfe was on, and when they were both on, voice to voice, Wolfe got clogged too. He was polite enough, saying how he would appreciate it if Mr. McCray would come at three o'clock, but McCray wasn't even sure he could come at six, and wouldn't Monday do? He wanted to get away for the weekend, but finally agreed to make it at six or a little after.

The trio stayed until lunchtime. I got a Washington call through to a three-star general at the Pentagon who hadn't forgotten something Wolfe had once done for him, strictly private, and he told Wolfe he would be glad to see Orrie Cather and give him any assistance that security would permit. Most of the hour and a half was spent on Saul's and Fred's program. All they would have were the two names and the photographs; they didn't even know if during those long-gone months she had slept among eight million others in New York or in some suburb-or even in Wisconsin. We had the names of only four people who had known her then: the Jarretts, father and son and daughter, and Bertram McCray. The daughter lived in Italy, and McCray had told me that all he knew about Elinor Denovo after she moved out of the Jarrett house was that he had seen her there three or four times during those six or seven months. It's hard to start when you have nowhere to start from. The best we could do was

three feeble stabs: Fred, with photographs, would go the rounds of shops, from dry cleaners to drugstores, in the neighborhood of the Jarrett houses, town and country; Saul would try anything that occurred to him, from old telephone directories to the charge-account records of mid-town stores; and I would put an ad in all New York papers.