The Mother Hunt (6 page)

I got home a little after seven and, entering the office, found that I owed Wolfe an apology. He was reading
His Own Image.
He finished a paragraph and, since it was close to dinnertime, inserted his bookmark and put the book down. He never dog-ears a book that gets a place on the shelves. Many a time I have seen him use the bookmark part way and then begin dog-earing.

His look asked the question and I answered it. He wants a verbatim report only when nothing less will do, so I merely gave him the facts, of course including Anne Tenzer’s reaction to the overalls. When I finished he said, “Satisfactory.” Then he decided that was an understatement and added, “Very satisfactory.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed. “I could use a raise.”

“No doubt. Of course you have considered the possibility that she had seen the advertisement, knew you were shamming, and was gulling you.”

I nodded. “Any odds you want she hadn’t seen the ad. She did no fishing, and she isn’t dumb.”

“Where’s Mahopac?”

“Sixty miles north. Putnam County. I can grab a bite in the kitchen and be there by nine o’clock.”

“No. The morning will do. You’re impetuous.” He looked at the wall clock. Fritz would come any minute to announce dinner. “Can you get Saul now?”

“Why?” I demanded. “I didn’t say I would quit if I didn’t get a raise. I merely said I could use one.”

He grunted. “And I said no doubt. You will go to Mahopac in the morning. Meanwhile Saul will learn what Miss Tenzer, the niece, was doing in January. Could she have given birth to that baby? You think not, but it’s just as well to make sure, and Saul can do it without—” He turned his head. Fritz was in the door- way.

Since Saul has been mentioned I might as well introduce him. Of the three free-lance ops we call on when we need help, Saul Panzer is the pick. If you included everybody in the metropolitan area, he would still be the pick, which is why, though his price is ten dollars an hour, he is offered five times as many jobs as he takes. If and when you need a detective and only the second best will do, get him if you can. For the best, Nero Wolfe, it’s more like ten dollars a minute.

So Friday morning, a fine bright morning, worth noticing even for early June, as I rolled along the Sawmill River Parkway in the Heron sedan, which belongs to Wolfe but is used by me, I had no worries behind me, since it was Saul who was checking on Anne Tenzer. If necessary he could find out where and when she ate lunch on January 17, whether anybody remembered or not, without getting anybody curious or stirring up any dust. That may sound far-fetched, and it is, but he is unquestionably a seventh son or something.

It was 10:35 when I turned the Heron in to a filling station on the edge of Mahopac, stopped, got out, walked over to a guy who was cleaning a customer’s windshield, and asked if he knew where Miss Ellen Tenzer lived. He said he didn’t but the boss might, and I went inside and found the boss, who was about half
the age of his hired help. He knew exactly where Ellen Tenzer lived and told me how to get there. From his tone and manner it was obvious that there was practically nothing he didn’t know, and he could probably have answered questions about her, but I didn’t ask any. It’s a good habit to limit your questions to what you really need.

Another chapter of the book I’ll never write would be on how to give directions to places. Turning right at the church was fine, but in about a mile there was a fork he hadn’t mentioned. I stopped the car, fished for a quarter, looked at it, saw tails, and went left. That way you’re not responsible for a bum guess. The coin was right, for in another mile I came to the bridge he
had
mentioned, and a little farther on the dead end, where I turned right. Pretty soon the blacktop stopped and I was on gravel, curving and sloping up with woods on both sides, and in half a mile there was her mailbox on the left. I turned in, to a narrow driveway with ruts, took it easy not to bump trees, and was at the source of the white horsehair buttons. When I got out I left the paper bag with the overalls in the glove compartment. I might want them and I might not.

I glanced around. Woods on all sides. For my taste, too many trees and too close to the house. The clearing was only sixty paces long and forty wide, and the graveled turnaround was barely big enough. The overhead door of a one-car garage was open and the car was there, a Rambler sedan. The garage was connected to the house, one story, the boarding of which ran up and down instead of horizontal and had grooves, and was painted white. The paint was as good as new, and everything was clean and neat, including the flower
beds. I headed for the door, and it opened before I reached it.

A disadvantage of not wearing a hat is that you can’t take it off when you meet a nice little middle-aged lady, or perhaps nearer old than middle-aged, with gray hair bunched in a neat topknot and gray eyes clear and alive. When I said, “Miss Ellen Tenzer?” she nodded and said, “That’s my name.”

“Mine’s Goodwin. I suppose I should have phoned, but I was glad to have an excuse to drive to the country on such a fine day. I’m in the button business, and I understand you are too in a way—well, not the
business.
I’m interested in the horsehair buttons you make. May I come in?”

“Why are you interested in them?”

That struck me as slightly off key. It would have been more natural for her to say How do you know I make horsehair buttons? or Who told you I make horsehair buttons?

“Well,” I said, “I suppose you would like me better if I pretended it’s art for art’s sake, but as I said, I’m in the button business, and I specialize in buttons that are different. I thought you might be willing to let me have some. I would pay a good price, cash.”

Her eyes went to the Heron and back to me. “I only have a few. Only seventeen.”

Still no curiosity about where I had heard of them. Maybe, like her niece, she was curious only about things that mattered to her. “That would do for a start,” I said. “Would it be imposing on you to ask for a drink of water?”

“Why—no.” She moved, and with the doorway free I entered, and as she crossed to another door at the left I advanced and used my eyes. I have good eyes, plenty
good enough to recognize from six yards away an object I had seen before—or rather, one just like it. It was on a table between two windows at the opposite wall, and it changed the program completely as far as Ellen Tenzer was concerned. It had been quite possible, even probable, that the buttons on the overalls were some she had given to somebody, maybe years ago, but not now. Perhaps still possible, but just barely.

Not wanting her to know I had spotted it, I headed for the door she had left by and went through to the kitchen. At the sink with the faucet running, she filled a glass and offered it, and I took it and drank. “Good water,” I said. “A deep well?”

She didn’t answer. Probably she hadn’t heard my question, since she had one of her own on her mind. She asked it: “How did you find out I make buttons?”

Worded wrong and too late. If she had asked it sooner, and if I hadn’t seen the object on the table, I would have had to answer it as I had intended. I emptied the glass and put it down and said, “Thank you very much. Wonderful water. How I found out is kind of complicated, and it doesn’t matter, does it? May I see some of them?”

“I told you, I only have seventeen.”

“I know, but if you don’t mind …”

“What did you say your name is?”

“Goodwin. Archie Goodwin.”

“All right, you’ve had your drink of water, now you can go.”

“But Miss Tenzer, I’ve driven sixty miles just to—”

“I don’t care if you’ve driven six hundred miles. I’m not going to show you any buttons and I’m not going to talk about them.”

That suited me fine, but I didn’t say so. Some time in
the future, the near future, I hoped, developments would persuade her to talk about buttons at length, but it would be a mistake to try to crowd her until I knew more. For the sake of appearances I insisted a little, but she didn’t listen. I thanked her again for the water and left. As I got the Heron turned around and headed out I was thinking that if I had the equipment in the car, and if it was dark, and if I was willing to risk doing a stretch, I would tap her telephone, quick.

A telephone was what I wanted, quick, and I had noticed one, an outdoor booth, as I had passed a filling station after turning right at the church. Within five minutes after leaving Ellen Tenzer I was in it and was giving the operator a number I didn’t have to get from my notebook. It was after eleven, so Wolfe would probably answer it himself.

He did. “Yes?” He has never answered a telephone right and never will.

“Me. From a booth in Mahopac. Has Saul phoned in?”

“No.”

“Then he will around noon. I suggest that you send him up here. The niece can wait. The aunt knows who put the overalls on the baby.”

“Indeed. She told you so?”

“No. Three points. First, she didn’t ask the right questions. Second, she got nervous and bounced me. Third, yesterday’s
Times
was there on a table. She doesn’t know I saw it. It was folded and there was a bowl of fruit on it, but at the top of the page that showed was a headline that started with the words ‘
JENSEN REFUSES
’. The ad was on that page. So she had seen the ad, but when I dropped in and said I was interested in the horsehair buttons she made she didn’t mention it. When she got around to the right question she put it
wrong. She asked how I found out she made buttons. She might as well have asked how did Nero Wolfe get results from his ad so soon. Then she realized she wasn’t handling it right and bounced me. One will get you twenty that she’s not the mother. If she’s not sixty she’s close. But one will get you forty that she knows what the baby was wearing, that’s the least she knows. Am I being impetuous?”

“No. Do you want to turn her over to Saul?”

“I do not. If he could crack her I could. I don’t think anybody could until we know more about her. She may be phoning someone right now, but that can’t be helped. I’m going back and stake out. If she’s phoning, someone may come, or she may go. We can cover her around the clock if you get Fred and Orrie. You’ll send Saul?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll need directions and you need a pencil.”

“I have one.”

“Okay.” I gave the directions, not forgetting to mention the fork. “Three-tenths of a mile from where he hits the gravel there’s a wide spot where he can pull off and sit in his car. If I don’t show within an hour I’m not around, she has left and so have I, and he’d better go to a phone and call you to see if you’ve heard from me. He could go to the house first for a look. She might have a visitor and I might have my head stuck in a window trying to hear. Have you any suggestions?”

“No. Ill get Fred and Orrie. When will you eat?”

I told him tomorrow maybe. Returning to the Heron and climbing in, and deciding that as the day wore on it might not be so funny, I headed for Main Street, found a market, and got chocolate bars, bananas, and a carton of milk. I should have told Wolfe I would. He can’t stand the notion of a man skipping a meal.

Driving back, I was considering where to leave the car. There were spots not too far from the mailbox where I could ease it in among the trees, but if she went for a ride I would have to get it out to the road in a hurry, and she might go the other way; I didn’t know where the gravel road went over the hill. I decided that getting it into the woods far enough to hide it was out, and therefore it might as well be handy. Anyway she had seen it, and if and when it tailed her in broad daylight she would know it. I could only hope she would stay put until Saul came with a car she hadn’t seen. I left the Heron in the open, less than a hundred yards from the mailbox, where a gap between trees left enough roadside room, and took to the woods. I am neither an Indian nor a Boy Scout, but if she had been looking out a window I don’t think she would have seen me as I made my way to where I had a view of the house from behind a bush. Also a view of the garage.

The garage was empty.

It called for profanity, and I used some, out loud. I don’t apologize for either the profanity or the situation. I would have done it again in the same circumstances. If we were going to keep her covered I had to leave sooner or later to get to a phone, and right away, while she was looking it over and perhaps making a phone call, and deciding what to do, was not only as good a time as any, it was the best—until the empty garage showed me that it had been the worst.

All right, my luck was out. I dodged through the trees to the clearing, crossed it, went to the door, and banged on it. There might be someone else in the house, though no one had been visible when I was in it. I waited half a minute and banged again, louder, and bellowed, “Anybody home?” After another half a
minute I tried the doorknob. Locked. There were two windows to the right, and I went and tried them. Also locked. I went around the corner of the house, taking care not to step in flower beds, which was damn good manners in the circumstances, and there was a window wide open. She had left in a hurry. I didn’t have to touch the window. All I had to do was stick a leg in, wiggle my rump onto the sill, and pull the other leg in, and I had broken and entered.

It was a bedroom. I sang out good and loud, “Hey, the house is on fire!” and stood and listened. Not a sound, but to make sure I did a quick tour—two bedrooms, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. Nobody, not even a cat.

She might have merely gone to the drugstore for aspirin and be back any minute. If so, I decided, let her find me in the house. I would tackle her. Almost certainly she was an accessory to something. I don’t know all the New York statutes by heart, but there must be a law about leaving babies in people’s vestibules, so I wouldn’t bother to keep an ear cocked for the sound of a car coming up the hill.

The most likely find was letters or phone numbers, or maybe a diary, and I started in the living room. The
Times
was still on the table under the bowl of finit. I unfolded it to see if she had clipped the ad; it was intact. There was no desk, but the table had a drawer, and there were three drawers in the stand in a corner that held the telephone. In one of the latter was a card with half a dozen phone numbers, but they were all local. No letters anywhere. There were bookshelves at one wall, some with books and some with magazines and knick- knacks. Going through books takes time, so I left that
for the second time around and moved to a bedroom, the one that was obviously hers.