The Mother Hunt

Chapter 9

There were three men with us in the office at noon the next day, Tuesday, but they were not ex-familiars of the late Richard Valdon. Saul Panzer was in the red leather chair. On two of the yellow chairs fronting Wolfe’s desk were Fred Durkin, five feet ten, 190 pounds, bald and burly, and Orrie Cather, six feet flat, 180 pounds, good design from tip to toe. Each had in his hand some three-by-five cards on which I had typed information which had been furnished by the dient, and in his wallet some used fives and tens which I had got from the drawer in the safe.

Wolfe’s eyes were at Fred and Orrie, as always when briefing that trio. He knew Saul was getting it. “There should be no difficulties or complications,” he said. “It’s quite simple. Early this year, or possibly late last year, a woman gave birth to a baby. I want to find her. But your present mission is restricted to elimination. Regarding each of the women whose names are on those cards, you are merely to answer the question, could she have borne a baby at that time? When you find one who is not easily eliminated, whose whereabouts and movements during that period need more elaborate inquiry, go no further without consulting me. Is that clear?”

“Not very,” Orrie said. “How easy is ‘easily’?”

“That’s inherent in the approach I suggest, devised by Archie and me. You will address the woman herself only if you must. In most cases, perhaps all, you can get enough information from others—apartment-house staffs, tradesmen, mailmen—you know the routines. You will use your own names, and your inquiries are on behalf of the Dolphin Corporation, owner and operator of Dolphin Cottages, Clearwater, Florida. A woman is suing the corporation for a large sum in damages, half a million dollars, for injuries she suffered on Saturday, January sixth, this year, as she was stepping from a dock into a boat. She claims that the employee of the corporation who was handling the boat allowed it to move and her injuries resulted from his negligence. The case will come to trial soon, and the corporation wants the testimony of one Jane Doe (a name from one of your cards). Jane Doe was a tenant of one of the corporation’s cottages from December tenth to February tenth; she was on the dock when the incident occurred, and she told the manager of the cottages that the boat did not move and the boatman was not at fault. Am I too circumstantial?”

“No,” Fred said. Whether he knew what ‘circumstantial’ meant or not, he thought Wolfe couldn’t be too anything.

“The rest is obvious. There is no Jane Doe, and never has been, at the address the Dolphin Corporation has for her, and you are trying to find her. Could she be the Jane Doe on your card? Was she in Florida from December tenth to February tenth? No? Where was she?” Wolfe flipped a hand. “But you need no suggestions on how to make sure. You will be merely eliminating. Is it clear?”

“Not to me.” Orrie looked up from his notebook, in which he had been scribbling. “If the only question is did she have a baby, why drag in Florida and dolphins and a lawsuit?” His bumptious tone came from his belief that all men are created equal, especially him and Nero Wolfe.

Wolfe’s head turned. “Answer him, Saul.”

Saul’s notebook was back in his pocket, with the cards. He looked at Orrie as at an equal, which he wasn’t. “Evidently,” he said, “the chances are that the baby was a bastard and she went away to have it, so was she away? And if she wasn’t, the one thing that anybody would know about what a woman was doing five months ago is that she was having a baby, or wasn’t. The Florida thing is just to get started.”

That wasn’t fair, Wolfe’s part in it, since Saul had been given the whole picture five days ago, but the idea was to teach Orrie better manners, and of course Saul had to play up. When they had gone and I returned to the office after seeing them out, I told Wolfe, “You know, if you pile it on enough to give Orrie an inferiority complex it will be a lulu, and a damn good op will be ruined.”

He snorted. “Pfui. Not conceivable.” He picked up Silent Spring and got comfortable. Then his chin jerked up and he said politely. “You’re aware that I’m not going to ask you what was on that paper that woman handed you yesterday.”

I nodded. “It had to be mentioned sooner or later. If it had anything to do with my job, naturally I’d report it. I will anyway. It said in longhand: ‘Dearest Archie, Lizzie Borden took an ax, and gave her mother forty whacks. Your loving Lucy.’ In case you wonder—”

“Shut up.” He opened the book.

We still didn’t know how many would come to the stag party that evening, and it was late afternoon when Lucy phoned that she had booked all four of them. When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at six o’clock the notes I had typed were on his desk. As follows:

MANUEL UPTON. In his fifties. Editor of Distaff, the “magazine for any and every woman,” circulation over eight million. He had started Richard Valdon on the road to fame and fortune ten years back by publishing several of his short stories, and had serialized two of his novels. Married, wife living, three grown children. Home, a Park Avenue apartment.

JULIAN HAFT. Around fifty. President of the Parthenon Press, publisher of Valdon’s novels. He and Valdon had been close personally for the last five years of Valdon’s life. Widower, two grown children. Home, a suite in Churchill Towers.

LEO BINGHAM. Around forty. Television producer. No business relations with Valdon, but had been his oldest and closest friend. Bachelor. Gay-dog type. Home, a penthouse on East 38th Street.

WILLIS KRUG. Also around forty. Literary agent. Valdon had been one of his clients for seven years. Documentary widower; married and divorced. No children. Home, an apartment on Perry Street in the Village.

Whenever an assortment of guests is expected after dinner, Wolfe, on leaving the table, doesn’t return to the office and his favorite chair. He goes to the kitchen, where there is a chair without arms that will take his seventh of a ton with only a little overlap at the edges. The only time he has been overruled about the furniture in his house was when he bought a king-size arm- chair for the kitchen and Fritz vetoed it. It was delivered, and he sat in it for half an hour one morning discussing turnip soup with Fritz, but when he came down from the plant rooms at six o’clock it was gone. If he or Fritz ever mentioned it again they did so in privacy.

Since none of the four invited guests could be the mother we were looking for, and there was no reason to suppose that one of them was the murderer, I sized them up only from force of habit as I answered the doorbell and admitted them. Willis Krug, the literary agent, who arrived first, a little early, was a tall bony guy with a long head and flat ears. He started for the red leather chair, but I headed him off because I had decided Bingham should have it—Valdon’s oldest and closest friend—and he was the next to show, on the dot at nine o’clock. Leo Bingham, the television producer. He was tall and broad and handsome, with a big smile that went on and off like a neon sign. Julian Haft, the publisher, who came next, was a barrel from the hips up and a pair of toothpicks from the hips down, bald on top, with balloon-tired cheaters. Manuel Upton, editor of Distaff, was last to arrive, and looking at him I was surprised that he had arrived at all. A shrimp to begin with, he was sad-eyed and wrinkled, he sagged, and he was panting from climbing the stoop. I was sorry I hadn’t saved the red leather chair for him. When he was safe if not sound on one of the yellow ones I went to my desk and buzzed the kitchen on the house phone.

Wolfe entered. Three of the guests rose. Manuel Upton, who had the least to lift, didn’t. Wolfe, no hand- shaker, asked them to sit, went to his desk, and stood while I pronounced names, giving them all-out nods, at least half an inch. He sat, sent his eyes from right to left and back again, and spoke. “I don’t thank you for coming, gentlemen, since you are obliging Mrs. Valdon, not me. But I’m appreciative. You’re busy men with a day’s work behind you. Will you have refreshment? None is before you because that restricts choices, but a supply is at hand. Will you have something?”

Willis Krug shook his head. Julian Haft declined with thanks. Leo Bingham said brandy. Manuel Upton said a glass of water, no ice. I said scotch and water. Wolfe had pushed a button and Fritz was there and was given the order, including beer for Wolfe.

Bingham gave Wolfe the big smile. “I was glad to come. Glad of the chance to meet you.” His baritone went fine with the smile. “I’ve often thought of your enormous possibilities for television, and now that I’ve seen you and heard your voice—my God, it would be stupendous! I’ll come and tell you about it.”

Manuel Upton shook his head, slow to the left and slow to the right. “Mr. Wolfe may not understand you, Leo. ‘Enormous.’ ‘Stupendous.’” His croak went fine with all of him. “He may think that’s a personal reference.”

“Don’t you two get started now,” Willis Krug said. “You ought to hire the Garden and slug it out.”

“We’re incompatible,” Bingham said. “All magazine men hate television because it’s taking all their gravy. In another ten years there won’t be any magazines but one. TV Guide. Actually I love you, Manny. Thank God you’ll have Social Security.”

Julian Haft spoke to Wolfe. “This is the way it goes, Mr. Wolfe. Mass culture.” His thin tenor went all right with his legs but not with his barrel. “I understand you’re a great reader. Thank heaven books don’t depend on advertising. Have you ever written one? You should. It might not be enormous or stupendous, but it certainly would be readable, and I would like very much to publish it. If Mr. Bingham can solicit, so can I.”

Wolfe grunted. “Unthinkable, Mr. Haft. Maintaining integrity as a private detective is difficult; to preserve it for the hundred thousand words of a book would be impossible for me, as it has been for so many others. Nothing corrupts a man so deeply as writing a book; the myriad temptations are overpowering. I wouldn’t presume—”

Fritz had entered with a tray. First the beer to Wolfe, then the brandy to Bingham, the water to Upton, and the scotch and water to me. Upton got a pillbox from a pocket, fished one out and popped it into his mouth, and drank water. Bingham took a sip of brandy, looked surprised, took another sip, rolled it around in his mouth, looked astonished, swallowed, said, “May I?” and got up and went to Wolfe’s desk for a look at the label on the bottle. “Never heard of it,” he told Wolfe, “and I thought I knew cognac. Incredible, serving it offhand to a stranger. Where in God’s name did you get it?”

“From a man I did a job for. In my house a guest is a guest, stranger or not. Don’t stint yourself; I have nearly three cases.” Wolfe drank beer, licked his lips, and settled back. “As I said, gentlemen, I appreciate your coming, and I won’t detain you beyond reason. My client, Mrs. Valdon, said she would leave it to me to explain what she has hired me to do, and I shall be as brief as possible. First, though, it should be understood that everything said here, either by you or by me, is in the strictest confidence. Is that agreed?”

They all said yes.

“Very well. My reserve is professional and merely my obligation to my client; yours will be personal, on behalf of a friend. This is the situation. In the past month Mrs. Valdon has received three anonymous letters. They are in my safe. I’m not going to show them to you or disclose their contents, but they make certain allegations regarding her late husband, Richard Valdon, and they make specific demands. The handwriting, in ink, is obviously disguised, but the sex of the writer is not in question. The contents of the letters make it clear that they were written by a woman. My engagement with Mrs. Valdon is to identify her, speak with her, and deal with her demands.”

He reached for his glass, took a swallow of beer, and leaned back. “It’s an attempt to blackmail, but if the allegations are true Mrs. Valdon will be inclined to accede to the demands, with qualifications. When I find the letter-writer she will not be exposed or indicted, or compelled to forgo her demands, unless the allegations are false. The first necessity is to find her, and that’s the difficulty. Her arrangement for having the demands met is extraordinarily ingenious; nothing so crude as leaving a packet of bills somewhere. I’ll suggest its nature. You are men of affairs. Mr. Haft, what if you were told, anonymously, under threat of disclosure of a secret you wished to preserve, to deposit a sum of money to the credit of an account, identified only by number, in a bank in Switzerland? What would you do?”

“Good lord, I don’t know,” Haft said.

Krug said, “Swiss banks have some funny rules.”

Wolfe nodded. “The letter-writer’s arrangement is even more adroit. Not only is there no risk of contact, there is no possible line of approach. But she must be found, and I have considered two procedures. One would be extremely expensive and might take many months. The other would require the cooperation of men who were close friends or associates of Mr. Valdon. From Mrs. Valdon’s suggestions four names were selected: yours. On her behalf I ask each of you to make a list of the names of all women with whom, to your knowledge, Richard Valdon was in contact during the months of March, April, and May, nineteen-sixty-one. Last year. All women, however brief the contact and regardless of its nature. May I have it soon? Say by tomorrow evening?”

Three of them spoke at once, but Leo Bingham’s baritone smothered the others. “That’s a big order,” he said. “Dick Valdon got around.”

“Not only that,” Julian Haft said, “but there’s the question, what’s the procedure? There are eight or nine girls and women in my office Dick had some contact with. What are you going to do with the names we list?”

“There are four in my office,” Willis Krug said.

“Look,” Manuel Upton croaked. “You’ll have to tell us about the allegations.”

Wolfe was drinking beer. He put the empty glass down. “To serve the purpose,” he said, “the lists must be all-inclusive. They will be used with discretion. No one will be pestered; no offense will be given; no rumors will be started; no prying curiosity will be aroused. Very few of the owners of the names will be addressed at all. Inferences I have drawn from indications in the letters limit the range of possibilities. You have my firm assurance that you will have no cause for regret that you have done this favor for Mrs. Valdon, with this single qualification: if it should transpire that the writer of the letters is one for whom you have regard, she will of course be vexed and possibly frustrated. That will be your only risk. Have some brandy, Mr. Bingham.”

Bingham rose and went for the bottle. “Payola.” He poured. “It’s a bribe.” He took a sip. “But what a bribe!” The big smile.

“I want to hear about the allegations,” Upton croaked.

Wolfe shook his head. “That would violate a firm assurance I have given my client. Not discussible.”

“She’s my client too,” Krug said. “I was Dick’s agent, and now I’m hers since she owns the copyrights. Also I’m her friend, and I’m against anyone who sends anonymous letters, no matter who. I’ll get the list to you tomorrow.”

“Hell, I’m hooked,” Leo Bingham said. He was standing, twirling the cognac in the snifter. “I’ve been bribed.” He turned to Wolfe. “How about a deal? If you get her from my list I get a bottle of this.”

“No, sir. Not by engagement. As a gesture of appreciation perhaps.”

Julian Haft had removed his balloon-tired cheaters and was fingering the bows. “The letters,” he said. “Were they mailed in New York? The city?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you have the envelopes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May we see them—just the envelopes? You say the writing is disguised, but it might—one of us might get a hint from it.”

Wolfe nodded. “Therefore it would be ill-advised to show them to you. One of you might indeed get a hint of the identity of the writer but not divulge it, and that might complicate the problem for me.”

“I have a question,” Manuel Upton croaked. “I’ve heard that there’s a baby in Mrs. Valdon’s house, and a nurse for it. I know nothing about it, but the person who told me isn’t a windbag. Is there any connection between the baby and the letters?”

Wolfe was frowning at him. “A baby? Mrs. Valdon’s baby?”

“I didn’t say her baby. I said there’s a baby in her house.”

“Indeed. I’ll ask her, Mr. Upton. If it is somehow connected with the letters she must be aware of it. By the way, I have advised her to mention the letters to no one. No exceptions. As you gentlemen know, she didn’t mention them to you. The matter is in my hands.”

“All right, handle it.” Upton got to his feet. His weight was just about half of Wolfe’s, but from the effort it took to get it up from a chair it might have been the other way around. “From the way you’re handling us, or trying to, you’ll hash it up. I don’t owe Lucy Valdon anything. If she wants a favor from me she can ask me.”

He headed for the door, jostling Leo Bingham’s elbow as he passed, and Bingham’s other hand darted out and gave him a shove. Because a guest is a guest, and also because I doubted if he had the vim and vigor to shut the door, I got up and went, passed him in the hall, and saw him out. When I returned to the office Julian Haft was speaking.

“… but before I do so I want to speak with Mrs. Valdon. I don’t agree with Mr. Upton, I don’t say you’re handling it badly, but what you ask is rather—uh— unusual.” He put the cheaters back on and turned. “Of course I agree with you, Willis, about people who send anonymous letters. I suppose you think I’m being overcautious.”

“That’s your privilege,” Krug said.

“To hell with privilege,” Bingham said. He flashed the big smile at Haft. “I wouldn’t say overcautious, I’d say cagey. You were born scared, Julian.”

You have to make allowances. Buyers and sellers. To a literary agent a publisher is a customer, but to a television producer he’s just another peddler.