The Mother Hunt (7 page)

That was where I rang the bell, in the bottom drawer of the bureau. A once-over isn’t very thorough and I nearly missed it, but at the bottom, underneath a winter-weight nightgown, there it was—or rather, there they were. Not one, two—two pairs of blue corduroy overalls, each with four white horsehair buttons. The same size as those in the glove compartment of the Heron. A week ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible that I would ever get so much pleasure from looking at baby clothes. After gloating a full minute I put them back in the drawer and went and opened a door to a closet. I wanted more.

Eventually I got more, but not in the closet. Not even in the house, strictly speaking, but in the cellar. It was a real cellar, not just a hole for an oil-burning furnace. The space for the furnace was partitioned off, and the rest was what a cellar ought to be, with cupboards and shelves with canned goods. There was even a rack with bottles of wine. Also there were some metal objects propped against the wall in a corner, and I didn’t have to assemble them to tell that they were a baby’s crib. Also there were three suitcases and two trunks, and one of the trunks contained diapers, rubber pants, bibs, rattles, balloons (not inflated), undershirts, T-shirts, sweaters, and various other garments and miscellaneous items.

With my hankering for baby clothes fully satisfied, and with the house still to myself, I started over again, in the living room. There must be something some- where that would give a hint on where and who the baby had come from. But there wasn’t. I’ll skip the next hour and a half, except to say that I know how to look
for something that isn’t supposed to be found, and I did a job on that house. It takes more time when you leave everything the way it was, but I did a job. All I had when I finished was a few names and addresses, from letters and envelopes in a drawer in the bedroom, and a few phone numbers, and none of them looked promising.

I was hungry, and since I was there uninvited it would have been vulgar to help myself from her kitchen. Also it was twenty minutes to three and Saul had probably come some time ago, so I left, through the window I had entered by, took the driveway to the road and turned right, and when I rounded the bend saw Saul’s car, off the road at the wide spot. When he saw me he flopped over on the seat, and when I arrived he was snoring. He isn’t much to look at, with his big nose and square chin and wide sloping brow, and snoring with his mouth open he was a sight. I reached in the open window and twisted his nose, and in a millionth of a second he had my wrist and was twisting it. There you are. He knew I would go for his nose before I did.

“Uncle,” I said.

He let go and sat up. “What day is it?”

“Christmas. How long have you been here?”

“An hour and twenty minutes.”

“Then you should have left twenty minutes ago. Follow instructions.”

“I’m a detective. I saw the Heron. Would you care for a sandwich and raisin cake and milk? I’ve had mine.”

“Would I.” There was a carton on the back seat and I got in and opened it. Corned beef on rye, two of them. As I unwrapped one I said, “She skipped while I was gone to phone for you. She’s been gone over three hours.” I took a bite.

“That’s life. Anyone else there?”

“No.”

“Did you find anything?”

Not had I entered; that was taken for granted. I swallowed and got the carton of milk. “If any of your girl friends has twins there’s enough stuff in the cellar, in a trunk, for both of them. And in a drawer upstairs are two pairs of blue corduroy overalls with white horsehair buttons. Of course that’s why they’re not in the trunk, the buttons. Also in the cellar is the crib the baby slept in.”

When I briefed him Thursday evening I had given him the whole picture. With him we nearly always do. He took half a minute to look at this addition to it. “The clothes could be explained,” he said, “but the crib settles it.”

“Yeah.” My mouth was full.

“So the baby was there and she knows the answer. She may not know who the mother is, but she knows enough. How tough is she?”

“She’s the kind that might surprise you. I
think
she would clam up. If she came and found me there I was going to tackle her, but now I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. Probably the best bet is to cover her for at least a couple of days.”

“Then we shouldn’t be sitting here in my car. She knows your car, doesn’t she?”

I nodded and took a swig of milk. “Okay.” I put the milk and the rest of the sandwich in the carton. “I’ll go and finish this little snack, which is saving my life, in the Heron. Stick your car in the woods and then join me. If she comes before I leave you can duck. I’ll go home and report. If he decides on the cover, either Fred or Orrie will be here by nine o’clock. You decide how you want
him to make contact and tell me. If he decides he wants her brought in so he can tackle her himself, I’ll come instead of Fred or Orrie, and I may need your help.”

I climbed out, with the carton. Saul asked, “If she comes before I join you?”

“Stay with your car. Ill find it.” I started up the road.

S
aul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather, in shifts, had Ellen Tenzer’s house, or the approach to it, under surveillance for twenty hours—Saul from three p.m. to nine p.m. Friday, Fred from nine p.m. Friday to six a.m. Saturday, and Orrie from six a.m. to eleven a.m. Saturday. And nobody came.

When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven o’clock Saturday morning, a glance at my face answered his question before he asked it. I had no news. In his hand, as always, were the orchids he had picked for the honor of a day in the office. He put them in the vase on his desk, got his bulk adjusted in his chair, and went through the morning mail which I had opened. Finding nothing interesting or useful in it, he shoved it aside and frowned at me.

“Confound it,” he growled, “that woman has skedaddled. Hasn’t she?”

I got a quarter from my pocket, tossed it onto my desk, and looked at it. “Heads,” I said. “No.”

“Pfui. I want an opinion.”

“You do not. Only a damn fool has an opinion when he can’t back it up, and you know it. You are merely
reminding me that if I had stayed there instead of going to phone you I would have been on her tail.”

“That was not in my mind.”

“It’s in mine. It was just bad luck, sure, but luck beats brains. My getting in the house and finding things doesn’t square it. We would only have had to inquire around for an hour or so to learn that she had had a baby there. I hate bad luck. Saul phoned.”

“When?”

“Half an hour ago. The niece didn’t have a baby in December, January, or February. He has checked on her for that whole period and will report details. He is now finding out if the aunt has been to the niece’s apartment since yesterday noon. It’s nice to have brains
and
luck. Hell phone around noon to ask if he is to relieve Orrie and—”

The phone rang and I swiveled to get it.

“Nero Wolfe’s off—”

“Orrie Cather speaking. A booth in Mahopac.”

“Well?”

“No. Not well at all. At ten-fifty-five a car came, state police, and turned in. Three men got out, a trooper, and one I suppose was a county dep, and Purley Stebbins. They went and tried the door and then they went around the corner and the dep climbed in that open window and Stebbins and the trooper went back to the door. Pretty soon it opened and they went in. It didn’t look like I could help any so I dusted. Do I go back?”

“How sure are you it was Purley?”

“Nuts. I didn’t say I thought it was, I said it was. I’m reporting.”

“You certainly are. Come in.”

“If I went back maybe I—”

“Damn it, come in!”

I cradled the phone gently, took a breath, and turned.
“That
was Orrie Cather speaking, a booth in Mahopac. I told him to come in because the aunt won’t be coming home. She’s dead. Three men came in a state police car and are in the house, and one of them
is
Parley Stebbins. It doesn’t take luck
or
brains to know that a New York Homicide sergeant doesn’t go to Putnam County looking for white horsehair buttons.”

Wolfe’s lips were pressed so tight he didn’t have any. They parted. “A presumption is not a certainty.”

“I can settle
that”
I turned and lifted the phone and dialed the
Gazette
number, and when Wolfe heard me ask for Lon Cohen he pulled his phone over and got on. Lon is on one of his phones at least half of the time and usually you have to wait or leave a message, but I caught him in between and had him right away. I asked him if I still had a credit balance, and he said on poker no, on tips on tidings yes.

“Not much of a tip this time,” I told him. “I’m checking cm a rumor I just heard. Have you got anything on a woman named Tenzer? Ellen Tenzer?”

“Ellen Tenzer.”

“Right.”

“We might have. Don’t be so damned roundabout, Archie. If you want to know how far we have got on a murder just say so.”

“So.”

“That’s more like it. We haven’t got very far unless more has come in the last hour. Around six o’clock this morning a cop glanced in a car, a Rambler sedan, that was parked on Thirty-eighth Street near Third Avenue and saw a woman in the back, on the floor. She had been strangled with a piece of cord that was still around her throat and had been dead five or six hours. She has been
tentatively identified as Ellen Tenzer of Mahopac, New York. That’s it. I can call downstairs for the latest and call you back if it’s that important.”

I told him no, thanks, it wasn’t important at all, and hung up. So did Wolfe. He glared at me and I glared back.

“This makes it nice,” I said. “Talk about ifs.” He shook his head.

“Futile.”

“One particular if. If I had stuck and gone to work on her then and there I might have opened her up and she would be here right now and we would be wrapping it up. To hell with intelligence guided by experience.”

“Futile.”

“What isn’t, now? We couldn’t have asked for anything neater than white horsehair buttons, and now we’ve got absolutely nothing, and well have Stebbins and Cramer on our necks. Thirty-eighth Street is in Homicide South.”

“Homicide is their problem, not ours.”

“Tell them that. The niece will tell them that a button merchant named Archie Goodwin got her to give him her aunt’s address Thursday afternoon. The guy at the filling station will describe the man who wanted directions to her place Friday morning. They’ll find thousands of my fingerprints all over the house, including the cellar, nice and fresh. I might as well call Parker now and tell him to get set to arrange bail when I’m booked as a material witness.”

Wolfe grunted. “You can supply no information relevant to the murder.”

I stared. “The hell I can’t.”

“I think not. Let’s consider it.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, but his lips didn’t start the in-and-out routine. That was needed only for problems that were
really tough. In a minute he opened his eyes and straightened. “It’s fairly simple. A woman came with those overalls and hired me to find out where the buttons came from, and I placed that advertisement. It was answered by Beatrice Epps, and she told you of Anne Tenzer, and Anne Tenzer told you of her aunt, and you went to Mahopac. Since the aunt is dead, the rest is entirely at your discretion. You can’t be impeached. As a suggestion: she said she was about to leave to keep an appointment, and after a brief conversation you asked permission to wait there until she returned, and she gave it, saying that she didn’t know how long it would be. There alone, and curious about the importance of the white horsehair buttons to our client, and having time to pass, you explored the premises. That should do.”

“Not naming the client?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then it won’t be material witness. Withholding evidence. She made the buttons the client wanted to know about, and I was there asking about them, and she got in touch with someone who is connected with the buttons, and the client is connected with the buttons, so they want to ask her questions, so I will name her or else.”

“You have a reply. The client had no knowledge of Ellen Tenzer; she hired me to find out where the buttons came from. Therefore it is highly improbable that Ellen Tenzer had knowledge of the client. We are not obliged to disclose a client’s name merely because the police would like to test a tenuous assumption.”

I took a minute to look at it. “We might get away with it,” I conceded. “I can take it if you can. As for your suggestion, you left out my going to phone you and buy
lunch, but if they dig that up I can say that was after she left. However, I have a couple of questions. Maybe three. Isn’t it likely that Ellen Tenzer would still be alive if you hadn’t taken this job and run the ad and sent me to see her?”

“More than likely.”

“Then wouldn’t the cops be more likely to nail the character who killed her if they know what we know, especially about the baby?”

“Certainly.”

“Okay. You said, quote, ‘Homicide is their problem, not ours.’ If you mean that all the way, it will get on my nerves. It might even cost me some sleep. I saw her and was in her house and spoke with her, and she gave me a drink of water. I’m all for protecting a client’s interests, and I’m against Lucy Valdon’s being heckled by the cops, and she gave me a martini, but at least she’s still alive.”

“Archie.” He turned a hand over. “My commitment is to learn the identity of the mother and establish it to the client’s satisfaction, and to demonstrate the degree of probability that her husband was the father. Do you think I can do that without also learning who killed that woman?”

“No.”

“Then don’t badger me. It’s bad enough without that.” He reached to the button to ring for beer.

I
was in custody from 3:42 p.m. Sunday, when Inspector Cramer took me down, to 11:58 a.m. Monday, when Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer Wolfe calls on when only the law will do, arrived at the District Attorney’s office with a paper signed by a judge, who had fixed the bail at $20,000. Since the average bail for material witnesses in murder cases in New York is around eight grand, that put me in an upper bracket and I appreciated the compliment.