The Mother Hunt

Chapter 14

It became certain two days later, at twenty minutes past ten Thursday evening, when Saul made his last phone call from Florida.

Of course it was Ellen Tenzer that complicated it. If there had been nothing to it but the mother hunt, I could simply have gone to Carol Mardus, showed her the picture, and asked her how and where she had spent last winter, and if she had stalled I would have told her that it would be a cinch to find out if she had been carrying and having a baby, and she might as well save me time and trouble. But almost certainly, if she was the mother, she had either killed Ellen Tenzer or knew or suspected who had, so it wasn’t so simple.

I ignored Wolfe’s instruction to keep my eye on the client, women being the one thing he admits I know more about than he does, and took over for Saul at Washington Square. When I got to the office late Tuesday afternoon, after taking the day’s crop of films to Al Posner, there had been developments. Willis Krug and Julian Haft and Leo Bingham had all phoned to say that they recognized none of the faces on the fifty-four prints, which was surprising in King’s case, since he had been married to one of them. And Saul had phoned twice, first just before four o’clock, to get Wolfe before he went up to the plant rooms, to report that Carol Mardus had been absent from her job at Distaff for nearly six months, from Labor Day until the last of February, and again shortly after six to report that she had also been absent from her home, an apartment on East 83rd Street, and the apartment had not been sublet. That made it fifty to one. Wolfe enjoyed his dinner more than he had for weeks, and so did I.

A little before eleven the doorbell rang, and it was Saul. He preceded me to the office, sat in the red leather chair, and said, “I just did something I’m glad my father will never know about. I swore to something with my hand on the New Testament. The Bible was upside down.”

Wolfe grunted. “Was it inescapable?”

“Yes. This person is a little twisted. He or she was taking fifty bucks to tell me something he or she had promised someone to keep secret, but first I had to swear on the Bible I would never tell who told me. That wasn’t sensible. What if my price for telling was merely sixty bucks? Anyway I got the address.” He got his notebook from a pocket and flipped it open. “Care of Mrs. Arthur P. Jordan, 1424 Sunset Drive, Lido Shores, Sarasota, Florida. Things sent there to Carol Mardus last fall reached her. He or she didn’t swear to it on the Bible, but I bought it and paid for it.”

“Satisfactory,” Wolfe said. “Perhaps.”

Saul nodded. “Of course it’s still perhaps. There’s a plane from Idlewild for Tampa at three-twenty-five a.m.”

Wolfe made a face. “I suppose so.” He hates airplanes. I suggested getting the Heron and driving Saul to Idlewild, but Wolfe said no, I was to be at Washington Square at ten in the morning. He knows how I yawn when I’m short on sleep.

Saul phoned four times from Florida. Wednesday afternoon he reported that 1424 Sunset Drive was the private residence of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur P. Jordan, and Carol Mardus had been a guest there last fall and winter. Late Wednesday evening he reported that Carol Mardus had been obviously pregnant in November and December. Thursday noon he reported that she had been taken to the Sarasota General Hospital on January 16, had been admitted under the name of Clara Waldron, and had given birth to a boy baby that night. At twenty minutes past ten Thursday evening he reported that he was at Tampa International Airport, that Clara Waldron, with baby, had taken a plane there for New York on February 5, and that he was doing likewise in three hours.

Wolfe and I hung up. The mother hunt was over. Forty-five days.

He eyed me. “How much of that woman’s money have we spent?”

“Around fourteen grand.”

“Pfui. Tell Fred and Orrie they’re no longer needed. And Miss Corbett. Tell Mrs. Valdon she can return to the beach. Return the cameras.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Confound it! It could be so simple! But for that woman.”

“The dead one. Yeah.”

“But she gave you a drink of water.”

“Nuts. If we emptied the bag for Cramer now, including the message, the only question would be should we demand separate trials. Not only you and me, also the client. I could ring Parker and ask him which is worse, withholding evidence or conspiring to obstruct justice.”

He tightened his lips and took a deep breath, and another one. “Have you a suggestion?”

“I have a dozen. I have known for two days we would soon be facing this, and so have you. We can tackle Carol Mardus just on the mother angle, no mention of Ellen Tenzer, just what she did with her baby, and see what happens. There’s a chance, a damn slim one but a chance, that she simply got rid of the baby, which isn’t hard to do, and she didn’t know what had happened to it, and that piece in the Gazette about Mrs. Valdon merely made her curious. Or suspicious. Second suggestion: we could take a stab at the rest of the commitment to the client. You were to learn the identity of the mother. Done. You were also to demonstrate the degree of probability that Valdon was the father. Before we tackle Carol Mardus head on we might do a routine job on her and Valdon in the spring of last year.”

He shook his head. “That would take time and more money. You will see Carol Mardus.”

“No, sir.” I was emphatic. “You will. I saw Ellen Tenzer. I have seen Mrs. Valdon twenty times to your once. I’ll do the chores, but it’s your name on the bill-head. In the morning?”

He scowled at me. Another woman to deal with. But he couldn’t deny that I had a point. When that was settled I had another one, that there was no hurry about telling the client that the mother hunt was definitely over; it would be better to wait until we had had a talk with the mother herself.

Before I went up to bed I rang Fred Durkin, and Orrie Cather, and Sally Corbett, to tell them the operation was finished to Wolfe’s satisfaction, not to mention mine. Also I considered dialing the number of Carol Mardus’s apartment on 83rd Street, to invite her to drop in tomorrow morning, but decided not to give her a night to sleep on it.

I learned Friday morning that she had slept on it. I was intending to ring her at her office around ten o’clock, but at ten minutes to nine, when I was in the kitchen dealing with bacon and corn fritters with honey, the phone rang. I got it there in the kitchen and used the routine, and a woman’s voice said she would like to speak with Mr. Wolfe. I said he wouldn’t be available until eleven o’clock, and I was his confidential assistant, and perhaps I could help.

She said, “You’re Archie Goodwin?”

“Right.”

“You may have heard my name. Carol Mardus.”

“Yes, Miss Mardus, I have.”

“I’m calling to ask …” A pause. “I understand that inquiries are being made about me. Here in New York and also in Florida. Do you know anything about it?”

“Yes. They’re being made at Mr. Wolfe’s direction.”

“Why does he …” Pause. “Why?”

“Where are you speaking from, Miss Mardus?”

“I’m in a phone booth. I’m on the way to my office. Does that matter?”

“It might. And even if you’re in a booth I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. I shouldn’t think you would, either. You went to a lot of trouble and expense to keep the baby strictly private.”

“What baby?”

“Now really. It’s much too late for that. But if you insist on an answer Mr. Wolfe will be free at eleven o’clock. Here at his office.”

A longer pause. “I could come at noon.”

“That will be fine. Speaking for myself, Miss Mardus, I look forward to seeing you.”

As I hung up and returned to the corn fritters I was thinking, I certainly do. Long time no find.

When I had finished the second cup of coffee and gone to the office and done the chores, I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone. If he didn’t hear from me, Wolfe would be expecting to see her in the red leather chair when he came down, since he had told me to have her there at eleven o’clock, and he would appreciate knowing he would have an extra hour before he would have to dig in and work. He did. When I told him she had saved him a dime by calling herself and she would arrive at noon, he said, “Satisfactory.”

I could use the extra hour too. Telling Fritz I was leaving on an errand, I went to Eleventh Street, told Lucy the Washington Square caper had been suspended and I would report at length later, removed the cameras from the baby carriage, took them to Al Posner, and told him to send a bill.

When the doorbell rang at ten minutes past noon and I went to the front, and at long last saw the mother in the flesh, my first impression was what the hell, if Richard Valdon played marbles with this when he had Lucy he was cuckoo. If she had been twenty years older it wouldn’t have been stretching it much to call her a hag. But when I went to my desk and sat after steering her to the office and the red leather chair, I stared at her. It was a different face entirely that was turned to Wolfe. It had sugar and spice and everything nice— only “nice” may not be the right word exactly. She merely hadn’t bothered to turn it on for the guy who opened the door. Also it wasn’t exactly sugar in her voice as she told Wolfe how much she enjoyed being in his house and meeting him. Obviously the “I dare you” in both her voice and her eyes wasn’t rigged; it had been built in, or born in.

Wolfe was leaning back, regarding her. “I can return that compliment, madam,” he told her. “It gratifies me to meet you. I have been seeking you for six weeks.”

“Seeking me? I’m in the phone book. I’m on the masthead of Distaff.” The voice and eyes implied that she would have loved to hear from him.

Wolfe nodded. “But I didn’t know that. I knew only that you had borne a baby and disposed of it. I had to—”

“You didn’t know I had borne a baby. You couldn’t have.”

“I do now. While you were carrying it, the last four months, you were a guest at the home of Mrs. Arthur P. Jordan in Sarasota, Florida. You entered the Sarasota General Hospital on January sixteenth, as Clara Waldron, and the baby was born that night. When you boarded an airplane at Tampa, for New York, on February fifth, still as Clara Waldron, the baby was with you. What did you do with it and where is it now?”

It took her a moment to find her voice, but it was the same voice—almost. “I didn’t come here to answer questions,” she said. “I came to ask some. You’ve had a man making inquiries about me here in New York and then in Florida. Why?”

Wolfe pursed his lips. “There’s no reason to withhold that,” he conceded. He turned. “The picture, Archie?”

I got one of the prints from a drawer and went and handed it to her. She looked at it, at me, at the print again, and at Wolfe. “I’ve never seen this before. Where did you get it?”

“There were cameras attached to the baby carriage in Washington Square.”

That fazed her. Her mouth opened, hung open a long moment, and closed. She looked at the print again, got its edge between thumbs and forefingers, tore it across, tore again, and put the pieces on the stand at her elbow.

“We have more,” Wolfe said, “if you want one for a memento.”

Her mouth opened and closed again, but no sound came.

“Altogether,” Wolfe said, “the cameras took pictures of more than a hundred people, but yours was of special interest because you arrived at the square in a cab, expressly for the purpose of looking at the baby in that particular vehicle, having seen a picture of it, and the nurse, in a newspaper. You said—”

“My God,” she blurted. “That’s why she did that. You did it.”

“I suggested it. You said you didn’t come to answer questions, but it will simplify matters if you oblige me. Do you know Mr. Leo Bingham?”

“You know I do. Since you’ve made inquiries about me.”

“Do you know Mr. Julian Haft?”

“Yes.”

“And you know Mr. Willis Krug, since you were married to him. All of the pictures taken by the cameras were shown to those three men. Is one of them the father of your baby?”

“No!”

“Was Richard Valdon the father?”

No reply.

“Will you answer me, madam?”

“No.”

“You won’t answer, or he wasn’t the father?”

“I won’t answer.”

“I advise you to. It is known that you were formerly intimate with Richard Valdon. Further inquiry will disclose if you renewed the intimacy in the spring of last year.”

No comment.

“Will you answer?”

“No.”

“When you arrived in New York with the baby on February fifth what did you do with it?”

No reply.

“Will you answer?”

“No.”

“Did you at a later date leave the baby in the vestibule of Mrs. Valdon’s house on Eleventh Street?”

No reply.

“Will you answer?”

“No.”

“Did you print the message that was pinned to the baby’s blanket when it was left in Mrs. Valdon’s vestibule? Will you answer?”

“No.”

“I strongly advise you, madam, to answer this question. How did you know that the baby Mrs. Valdon had in her house, as reported in the newspaper article, was your baby?”

No reply.

“Will you answer that?”

“No.”

“Where were you in the evening of Sunday, May twentieth? Will you answer?”

“No.”

“Where were you the night of Friday, June eighth? Will you answer?”

She got up and walked out, and I have to hand it to her, she walked straight and smooth. I would have had to double-quick to beat her to the front door, so I merely stepped to the hall. When she was out and the door was shut I stepped back in, returned to my desk, sat, and looked at Wolfe, and he looked back at me.

“Grrrr,” he said.

“That last question,” I said.

“What about it?”

“It may have been a little—uh—previous. It’s barely possible, just barely, that she doesn’t know about Ellen Tenzer. If the idea was to start her poking, shouldn’t we have had Saul standing by? Or all three?”

“Pfui. Is she a nincompoop?”

“No.”

“Then could even Saul shadow her?”

“Probably not. Then why ask her about June eighth?”

“She came here to find out how much we know. It was as well to inform her that our interest is not restricted to the baby and its parentage, that we are also concerned, even if only incidentally, with the death of Ellen Tenzer.”

“Okay.” I doubted if it was okay, but there was no point in pecking at it. “What comes next?”

“I don’t know.” He glowered at me. “Confound it, I am not lightning. I’ll consider it. I shall probably want to see Mr. Bingham, Mr. Haft, and Mr. Krug, to ask why they failed to recognize her picture, though that may be inconsequential. I’ll consider it. Will she approach Mrs. Valdon? Is she on her way there now?”

“No. Any odds you name.”

“Is Mrs. Valdon in danger? Or the baby?”

I took five seconds and shook my head. “I can’t see it.”

“Nor can I. Report to her and tell her to return to the beach. Escort her. Return this evening. If you’re anchored here you’ll badger me and we’ll squabble. Tomorrow we’ll do something, I don’t know what.”

I objected. “Mrs. Valdon will want her own car at the beach. After reporting to her I’ll have the afternoon and evening for checking on Carol Mardus for May twentieth.”

“No!” He slapped the desk. “A jackass could do that. Have I no imagination? No wit? Am I a dolt?”

I stood. “Don’t ask me if I’ll answer. I might. Tell Fritz to save some lobster for me for when I come home tonight. The food at the beach is apt to be spotty.” I went, first upstairs for a clean shirt.

So five hours later I was stretched out on the sand at the edge of the Atlantic. If I had extended an arm my fingers would have touched the client. Her reaction to the report had been in the groove for a woman. She had wanted to know what Carol Mardus had said, every word, and also how she had looked and how she had been dressed. There was an implication that the way she had been dressed had a definite bearing on the question, was Richard Valdon the father of the baby? but of course I let that slide. No man with any sense assumes that a woman’s words mean to her exactly what they mean to him.

Naturally she wanted to know what we were going to do now. I told her if I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t be there with her, I would be somewhere else, doing it. “The difficulty,” I said, “is that Mr. Wolfe is a genius. A genius can’t be bothered with just plain work like having someone tailed. He has to do stunts. He has to take a short cut. Anybody can get a rabbit out of a hat, so he has to get a hat out of a rabbit. This evening he will be sitting in the office, leaning back with his eyes closed, working his lips, pushing them out and pulling them in, out and in. That’s probably how Newton discovered the law of gravitation, leaning back with his eyes closed and working his lips.”

“He did not. It was an apple falling.”

“Sure. His eyes were closed and it hit him on the nose.”

When I got back to the old brownstone a little after midnight I was expecting to find on my desk a note telling me to come to Wolfe’s room at 8:15 in the morning, but it wasn’t there. Evidently his imagination and wit hadn’t delivered. Fritz’s had. In the kitchen there was a dish of Lobster Cardinal and a saucer with Parmesan ready grated. I sprinkled the cheese on and put it in the broiler, and drank milk and made coffee while it was browning, and while I was thinking that when Fritz came down after taking up the breakfast tray he might have word that I was to go up for instructions. Now that we had flushed the mother we had damn well better get a gun up.

Nothing doing. When Fritz returned to the kitchen at 8:20 Saturday morning, no word; and I had done with only six hours’ sleep in order to be on tap. I decided to poke him, and it would be better to get him in his room before he went up to the orchids, so I speeded up with the poached eggs Creole and toasted muffins and skipped the second cup of coffee; and I was pushing my chair back when the phone rang.

It was Saul. He asked if I had listened to the 8:30 news, and I said no, I had been brooding.

“Then I’m bad news,” he said. “About three hours ago a cop found a corpse in an alley off of Perry Street and it has been identified as Carol Mardus. She was strangled.”

I said something but it didn’t get out. My throat was clogged. I cleared it. “Anything else?”

“No, that was all.”

“Thank you very much. I don’t have to tell you to bite your tongue.”

“Of course.”

“And stand by.” I hung up.

I looked at my watch: 8:53.1 went to the hall, to the stairs, mounted a flight, found the door standing open, and entered. Wolfe had finished breakfast and was on his feet, shirt-sleeved, his jacket in his hand.

“Yes?” he demanded.

“Saul just phoned an item from the eight-thirty news. The body of Carol Mardus was found in an alley by a cop. Strangled.”

He glared. “No.”

“Yes.”

He threw the jacket at me.

It came close, but I didn’t catch it; I was too stunned. I couldn’t believe he had actually done it. As I stood and stared he moved. He went to the house phone, on the table by a window, pushed the button, and lifted the receiver, and in a moment said in a voice tight with rage, “Good morning, Theodore. I won’t be with you this morning.” He cradled the phone and started pacing back and forth. He never paced. After half a dozen turns he came and picked up the jacket, put it on, and headed for the door.

“Where are you bound for?” I demanded.

“The plant rooms,” he said, and kept going, and the sound came of the elevator. He was off his hinges. I went down to the kitchen and got my second cup of coffee.