The Mother Hunt

Chapter 11

Cramer came at a quarter past eleven in the morning, Tuesday, July 3. When the doorbell rang I was on the phone, a purely personal matter. Back in May I had accepted an invitation to spend a five-day weekend, ending on the Fourth of July, at a friend’s place up in Westchester. The marathon mother hunt had forced me to cancel, and the phone call was from the friend, to say that if I would drive up for the Fourth I would find a box of firecrackers and a toy cannon waiting for me. When the doorbell rang I said, “You know I would love to, but a police inspector is on the stoop right now, or maybe a sergeant, wanting in. I may spend the night in the jug. See you in court.”

As I hung up the doorbell rang again. I went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass, and when I told Wolfe it was Cramer he merely tightened his lips. I went to the front, opened the door wide, and said, “Greetings. Mr. Wolfe is a little grumpy. He was expecting you yesterday.” Most of that was wasted, at his back as he marched down the hall and into the office. I followed. Cramer removed the old felt hat he wears winter and summer, rain or shine, sat in the red leather chair, no hurry, put the hat on the stand, and focused on Wolfe. Wolfe focused back. They held it for a good five seconds, just focusing. It wasn’t a staring match; neither one had any idea he could out-eye the other one; they were just getting their dukes up.

Cramer spoke. “It’s been twenty-three days.” He was hoarse. That was unusual. Usually it took ten minutes or so with Wolfe to get him hoarse. Also his big round face was a little redder than normal, but that could have been the July heat.

“Twenty-five,” Wolfe said. “Ellen Tenzer died the night of June eighth.”

“Twenty-three since I was here.” Cramer settled back. “What’s the matter? Are you blocked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The hell you are. By what or whom?”

A corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up an eighth of an inch. “I couldn’t answer that without telling you what I’m after.”

“I know you couldn’t. I’m listening.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Mr. Cramer. I am precisely where I was twenty-three days ago. I have no information for you.”

“That’s hard to believe. I’ve never known you to mark time for over three weeks. Do you know who killed Ellen Tenzer?”

“I can answer that. No.”

“I think you do. Have you any other client at present than Mrs. Richard Valdon?”

“I can answer that too. No.”

“Then I think you know who killed Ellen Tenzer. Obviously there’s a connection between her murder and whatever Mrs. Valdon hired you to do. I don’t need to spell it all out—the buttons, Anne Tenzer, the overalls, the baby Ellen Tenzer had boarded, the baby in Mrs. Valdon’s house, Goodwin’s going to Mahopac to see Ellen Tenzer, her sudden departure after he had seen her. Do you deny that there is a direct connection between Goodwin’s seeing Ellen Tenzer and the murder?”

“No. Nor affirm it. I don’t know. Neither do you.”

“Nuts.” Cramer was getting hoarser. “You can add as well as I can. If you mean neither of us can prove it, okay, but you intend to. I don’t know what Mrs. Valdon hired you to do, but I know damn well you intend to tag that murderer, provided it wasn’t her. I don’t think it was, because I think you know who it was, and if it was her you would have got from under before now. I can tell you why I think you know.”

“Please do.”

“I’m damn sure you would like to know. Do you deny that?”

“I’ll concede it as a hypothesis.”

“All right. You’re spending Mrs. Valdon’s money like water. Panzer and Durkin and Cather have been on the job for three weeks. They’re here every day, and sometimes twice a day. I don’t know what they’re doing, but I know what they’re not doing, and Goodwin too. They’re absolutely ignoring Ellen Tenzer. None of them has been to Mahopac, or seen that Mrs. Nesbitt, or seen Anne Tenzer, or dug into Ellen Tenzer’s record, or questioned her friends or neighbors, or contacted any of my men. They haven’t shown the slightest interest in her, including Goodwin. But you would like to know who killed her. So you already know.”

Wolfe grunted. “That’s admirably specious, but drop it. I give you my word that I haven’t the faintest notion of who killed Ellen Tenzer.”

Cramer eyed him. “Your word?”

“Yes, sir.”

That settled that. Cramer knew from experience that when Wolfe said “my word” it was straight and there was no catch in it. “Then what the hell,” he demanded, “are Panzer and Durkin and Cather doing? And Goodwin?”

Wolfe shook his head. “No, sir. You have just said that you know what they’re not doing. They’re not trespassing in your province. They’re not investigating a homicide. Nor Mr. Goodwin. Nor I.”

Cramer looked at me. “You’re under bail.”

I nodded. “You ought to know.”

“You spent the night in Mrs. Valdon’s house. Last night.”

I raised a brow. “There are two things wrong with that statement. First, it’s not true. Second, even if it were true, what would it have to do with homicide?”

“What time did you leave?”

“I didn’t. I’m still there.”

He turned a hand over. “Look, Goodwin. You know I’ve got to depend on reports. The eight-to-two man says you entered at nine-twenty-five and didn’t come out. The two-to-eight man says you didn’t come out. I want to know which one missed you. What time did you leave?”

“I was wondering what you came for,” I said. “I knew it couldn’t be homicide, the way you were flopping around. So you’re checking on the boys. Fine. By a quarter to two Mrs. Valdon and I were somewhat high, and we went out to dance on the sidewalk in the summer night. At a quarter past two she went back in and I left. So they both missed me. Also, of course—”

“You’re a clown and a liar.” He slowly raised a hand and pinched his nose. He looked at Wolfe. He got a cigar from his pocket, glared at it, rolled it between his palms, stuck it in his mouth, and clamped his teeth on it. “I could get your licenses with a phone call to Albany,” he said.

Wolfe nodded. “No doubt.”

“But you’re so goddam pigheaded.” He removed the cigar. “You know I can get your license. You know I can take you down and book you as a material witness. You know you’ll be wide open on a felony charge if you get stuck in the mud. But you’re so goddam bullnecked I’m not going to waste my breath trying to put the screw on you.”

“That’s rational.”

“Yeah. But you’ve got a client. Mrs. Richard Valdon. You’re not only withholding evidence yourself, you and Goodwin, you have told her to.”

“Does she say so?”

“She doesn’t have to. Don’t possum. Of course you have. She’s your client and she’s clammed up. The DA has asked her down and she won’t go. So we’ll take her.”

“Isn’t that a little brash? A citizen with her back- ground and standing?”

“Not with what we know she knows. It was the buttons on the overalls that sent Goodwin to see Ellen Tenzer. The overalls were on the baby that Mrs. Valdon says was left in her vestibule and is now in her house. So—”

“You said Mrs. Valdon is mute.”

“She told at least two people the baby was left in her vestibule—when she was alone in the house. She hasn’t told us, but if she has any sense she will, if she’s clean. Shell tell us everything she knows if she’s clean, including what she hired you to do and what you’ve done, I don’t think it was anything as raw as kidnapping because she had a lawyer make it legal on a temporary basis. But I’m damn sure the baby in her house is the one Ellen Tenzer had in her house until around May twentieth. There were two overalls in Ellen Tenzer’s house exactly like the ones Goodwin showed to Anne Tenzer, with the same kind of buttons. Those goddam buttons.”

It seemed to me beside the point for him to be nursing an anti-button grudge, but maybe he had had an interview with Nicholas Losseff.

He was going on. “So I want to know what Mrs. Valdon knows, and what you know, about that baby. The DA can’t get anything out of her lawyer or her doctor, and of course they’re privileged. The nurse and the maid and the cook aren’t privileged, but if they know anything they’ve been corked. The nurse claims that all she knows about it is that it’s a boy, it’s healthy, and it’s between five and seven months old. So Mrs. Valdon is not its mother. She didn’t have a baby in December or January.”

“I have given you my word,” Wolfe said, “that I have no notion of who killed Ellen Tenzer.”

“I heard you.”

“I now give you my word that I know no more about that baby—its parentage, its background, who put it in Mrs. Valdon’s vestibule—than you do.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Nonsense. Certainly you do. You know quite well I wouldn’t dishonor that fine old phrase.”

Cramer glared. “Then what in the name of God do you know? What did she hire you to do? Why have you kept her covered? Why have you told her to clam?”

“She consulted me in confidence. Why should I be denied a privilege that is accorded to lawyers and doctors, even those who are patently unworthy of it? She had violated no law, she had done nothing for which she was obliged to account, she had no knowledge of an actionable offense. There was no—”

“What did she hire you to do?”

Wolfe nodded. “There’s the rub. If I tell you that, with all details, or if she tells you, she will be a public target. When the baby was left in her vestibule it was wrapped in a blanket, and attached to the blanket inside, with an ordinary bare pin, was a slip of paper with a message on it. The message had been printed with rubber type—one of those kits that are used mostly by children. Therefore—”

“What did it say?”

“You’re interrupting. Therefore it was useless as a pointer. It was the message that moved Mrs. Valdon to come to me. If I—”

“Where is it?”

“If I told you what it said my client would be subjected to vulgar notoriety. And it—”

“I want that message and I want it now!”

“You have interrupted me four times, Mr. Cramer. My tolerance is not infinite. You would say, of course, that the message would not be published, and in good faith, but your good faith isn’t enough. No doubt Mrs. Nesbitt was assured that her name wouldn’t become known, but it did. So I reserve the message. I was about to say, it wouldn’t help you to find your murderer. Except for that one immaterial detail, you know all that I know, now that you have reached my client. As for what Mrs. Valdon hired me to do, that’s manifest. I engaged to find the mother of the baby. They have been at that, and that alone, for more than three weeks—Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Panzer, Mr. Durkin, and Mr. Cather. You ask if I’m blocked. I am. I’m at my wit’s end.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Cramer’s eyes were slits. “If you’re reserving the message why did you tell me about it?”

“To explain why Mrs. Valdon is at such pains about a baby left in her vestibule. To prevent her harassment I had to tell you what she hired me to do, and if I told you that, I had to tell you why.”

“Of course you’ve got the message.”

“I may have. If you have in mind getting a judge to order me to produce it, it will not be available. Don’t bother.”

“I won’t.” Cramer stood up. He took a step, threw the cigar at my wastebasket, and missed as usual. He looked down at Wolfe. “I don’t believe there was a message. I noticed you didn’t use that fine old phrase. I want the real reason Mrs. Valdon is spending a fortune on a stray baby, and keeping her lip buttoned, and if I don’t get it from you, by God I’ll get it from her. And if there was a message I’ll get that from her.”

Wolfe hit the desk with his fist. “After all this!” he roared. “After I have indulged you to the utmost! After I have given you my word on the two essential points! You would molest my client!”

“You’re damn right I would.” Cramer took a step toward the door, remembered his hat, reached across the red leather chair to get it, and marched out. I went to the hall to see that he was on the outside when he shut the door. When I stepped back in, Wolfe spoke.

“No mention of anonymous letters. A stratagem?”

“No. The mood he’s in, he would have used any club he had. So it wasn’t Upton. Not that that matters. There were a dozen lines to her.”

He took in air through his nose, clear down, and let it out through his mouth. “She knows nothing he doesn’t know, except the message. Should you tell her to talk, reserving only that?”

“No. If she answers ten questions they’ll make it a million. I’ll go and tell her what to expect, and I’ll be there when they come with a warrant. I suggest you should phone Parker. Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July, and arranging bail on a holiday can be a problem.”

“The wretch,” he growled, and as I headed for the front I was wondering whether he meant Cramer or the client.