The Mother Hunt

Chapter 18

Manuel Upton came at a quarter to twelve Monday morning.

There had been a few little developments. The client had admitted to Wolfe, in my hearing, that she didn’t know how to scramble eggs. I had admitted to him, in her hearing, that the scrambled eggs I had just eaten were fully up to Fritz’s very best. He had admitted to her, in my hearing, that forty was more minutes than you could expect a housewife to spend exclusively on scrambling eggs, but he maintained that it was impossible to do it to perfection in less, with each and every particle exquisitely firm, soft, and moist.

The News, which I had to go out for, stated that the late Carol Mardus had once been a bosom friend of the late Richard Valdon, famous novelist, but there was no hint that that was anything more than an interesting item in her record which the public had a right to know.

Saul had come at half past nine as arranged, and had been instructed regarding Anne Tenzer. He had reported that he had phoned Fritz at eight o’clock, and had been told that Homicide dicks were holding down the office day and night, in shifts, by authority of a search warrant, and that one of them was listening in; and Saul had said that he was calling just to say that he had nothing on and was available for an errand if Wolfe had one. He also reported that he had heard from a reliable source—which he wouldn’t name even to us— that a slip of paper with Wolfe’s phone number on it had been found in Carol Mardus’s apartment. So maybe no one had squawked. Maybe Cramer had merely been going to ask Wolfe if he had ever seen or heard of Carol Mardus, but that would have been enough to light the fuse. Saul was given three hundred dollars’ worth of tens and twenties. Anne Tenzer might be broke and appreciate it.

The reception for Upton was simply staged. Lucy was tending door anyway, since there might possibly be an official caller for her, and she let him in, took him up to the second floor, and led him into the big room. I had moved the roomiest chair over near the couch, and Wolfe was in it. I was standing. Upton entered, saw us, and stopped. He turned to Lucy, but she wasn’t there. She had slipped out and was shutting the door, as agreed.

Upton turned back to confront Wolfe. He was such a shrimp that with Wolfe sitting and him standing their eyes were almost at a level. He looked even smaller than I remembered. “You fat mountebank,” he croaked. He wheeled and started for the door, found me in the way, blocking him, and stopped.

“Sorry,” I said. “Road closed.”

He had too much sense to argue with the help when it was obvious that the help would need only one hand. He turned his back on me. “This is absurd,” he croaked. “This is New York, not Montenegro.”

So, I thought, he’s anti-Montenegro. I didn’t say it, merely thought it, so it’s not on my record.

Wolfe motioned to a chair. “You might as well sit, Mr. Upton. We’re going to talk at length. If you mean it’s absurd to hold you against your will, not at all. There are three of us to refute any accusation you might make. The handicap of your size precludes violence; Mr. Goodwin could dangle you like a marionette. Sit down.”

Upton’s jaw was set. “I’ll talk with Mrs. Valdon.”

“Perhaps, later. After you have told me all you know about Carol Mardus.”

“Carol Mardus?”

“Yes.”

“I see. I mean I don’t see. Why do you—” He bit it off. Then: “You’re here in Lucy Valdon’s house. So you’re still stringing her along. Have you sold her the idea that Carol Mardus sent her the anonymous letters? Now that she’s dead?”

“There were no anonymous letters.”

Upton gawked at him. There was a chair nearer to him than the couch, but he went to the couch and sat. “You can’t get away with that” he said. “Three other men were there when you told us about the anonymous letters.”

Wolfe nodded. “I’ve spoken with them again, Saturday afternoon, day before yesterday, and told them the anonymous letters were mere invention, invented by me to account for my request for lists of names. The lists didn’t help any, but I have completed the job Mrs. Valdon hired me for. She no longer needs me; I am in her house only by her sufferance. I am now after a murderer. During my conversation with those three men Saturday afternoon the opinion was advanced that you killed Carol Mardus. That’s what I want to discuss with you, the likelihood that you’re a murderer.”

“Blah.” Upton cocked his head. “You know, I hand it to you. You’ve built a reputation on pure gall. Also you’re a liar. No one advanced the opinion that I killed Carol Mardus. Did he say why I killed her? What are you really after? Why did you have Lucy Valdon get me down here?”

“To get some information I badly need. When did you learn that Carol Mardus came to see me on Friday?”

“More blah. I wouldn’t have supposed you’d try that old worn-out trick—she came to see you, and she told you something, and she’s dead. I suppose she told you I had threatened to kill her. Something like that?”

“No.” Wolfe shifted in the chair. The back was too high for him to lean back properly as he did at home. “If we’re to talk to any purpose I’ll have to expound it. I engaged with Mrs. Valdon to find the mother of a baby that had been left in the vestibule of her house. I did so, at great expense and after much floundering about. It was Carol Mardus. She came to me on Friday to learn how much I knew, and I obliged her. To dispose of the baby when she returned from Florida with it, she had enlisted the help of a friend, a man. Call him X.”

“Make it Z. X has been overworked.”

Wolfe ignored it. “There were four men whom Miss Mardus might have gone to for help in such a matter: Willis Krug, Julian Haft, Leo Bingham, and yourself. Her choice, X, was not a happy one. The problem of the immediate disposal of the infant was well solved; it was placed in the care of one Ellen Tenzer, a retired nurse who lived alone in a house she owned in Mahopac. But Miss Mardus had told X that Richard Valdon was the father of the baby, and that was a mistake. For two reasons. There were two facts about X that Miss Mardus had not sufficiently considered: one, that he had himself been denied, and was still denied, the pleasure of her intimate favors, and resented it; and two, that he had the soul of an imp. Imp defined as a little malignant spirit. Being an editor, you know words.”

Upton didn’t say.

“So when the baby was four months old, and the expense of its upkeep made it desirable to dispose of it differently and permanently, X indulged himself in what he no doubt regarded as merely a prank. Choosing a Sunday in May because he knew Mrs. Valdon would be at home alone that evening, he got the baby from Ellen Tenzer, pinned to its blanket a slip of paper on which he had printed a message, deposited it in the vestibule of Mrs. Valdon’s house, and telephoned her that there was something in her vestibule. The message is in my office safe. It said— Your memory is more exact than mine, Archie.”

I was in the chair Upton had passed by. “Quote,” I said. “‘Mrs. Richard Valdon this baby is for you because a boy should live in his father’s house.’ End quote.”

“Repeat it,” Upton commanded me.

I repeated it.

“A little malignant spirit,” Wolfe said. “He not only had the pleasure of perturbing Mrs. Valdon; there was the added fillip of telling Miss Mardus what he had done. But Mrs. Valdon came to me, and it took Mr. Goodwin and me just three days to learn that the baby had been in the care of Ellen Tenzer. Mr. Goodwin went to see her and spoke with her, and she was alarmed. I doubt if she knew how the baby had been disposed of; she probably didn’t know who the mother was; but she did know that its origin was supposed to be a secret, never to be revealed. She communicated with X, and they met that evening. The soul of an imp is a strange phenomenon. It had led him to perform what he regarded as a permissible prank, but the threat of its imminent disclosure was intolerable. Permissible but not disclosable. He was with Ellen Tenzer in her car, and his strangling her was not on sudden impulse, for he must have had the cord with him.”

Upton stirred on the couch. He was listening with both ears and both eyes. “I would give something,” he said, “to know how much of this is invention. All of it?”

“No. Most of it is established or can be. Some, not much, is surmise on valid grounds. This next is surmise, for Miss Mardus did not tell me whether or when she had suspected that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. She must have suspected it if she knew that her baby had been in Ellen Tenzer’s care, but she may not have known that. Did she read newspapers?”

“What?”

“Did Miss Mardus read newspapers?”

“Of course.”

“Then it is not a surmise that after her talk with me she did suspect that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. More than a mere suspicion. The newspapers had reported Mr. Goodwin’s visit to Ellen Tenzer. Must I elucidate that?”

“No.”

“Then the rest is manifest. After her talk with me Miss Mardus did what Ellen Tenzer had done after her talk with Mr. Goodwin; she communicated with X. They met that evening, and he had a piece of cord in his pocket. Not, from the published descriptions, the same kind of cord he had used with Ellen Tenzer. A shrewd precaution. The threat now was disclosure not merely of a nasty prank, but of murder. He strangled her—this time, perhaps, in his own car—and dumped the body in an alley. An alley on Perry Street, less than a block from the building where Willis Krug lives. Returning her to her former husband? That’s not even surmise, merely comment. That would be suitably impish, wouldn’t it?”

“Finish it,” Upton croaked. “Surmise who is X.”

“That’s risky, Mr. Upton. That might be slander.”

“Yes. It might. Apparently they don’t know any of this at the District Attorney’s office. I was there most of yesterday. Shouldn’t you tell them?”

“I should, yes. I haven’t. I shall when I can name X.”

“Then you’re withholding evidence?”

“I’m doing something much worse; I’m conspiring to obstruct justice. So are Mr. Goodwin and Mrs. Valdon. That’s why you must be detained until I can name X.”

“You sit there and calmly …” Upton let it hang. “It’s unbelievable. Why me? Why are you telling me?”

“I needed to discuss it with you. I talked with Bingham and Krug and Haft on Saturday, and I wanted to talk with you. One of them advanced the opinion, not explicitly but by implication, that you had killed Carol Mardus. His point was that you would not have let her take a six months’ vacation unless she confided in you the compelling reason for it, that you knew she was pregnant, and that therefore she had probably had your help in disposing of the baby. Hence the conclusion that you are X. Surely not wanton. When I said I wanted to discuss the likelihood that you’re a murderer you said blah. I don’t think you can dismiss it so cavalierly.”

“I still say blah. And I’m not going to conspire to obstruct justice.” He stood up. “I am going to see if you’ll actually …” He headed for the door.

Not having any great desire to dangle him, I merely beat him to the door and put my back to it. He made a grab for my arm, but missed and got the front of my jacket, and started pulling. That isn’t good for a jacket, especially a light summer weight, and I got his wrists and twisted, maybe a little harder than necessary. He let go, so I did too, and the damn fool hauled off and swung. I sidestepped, whirled him around, pinned his arms from behind, hustled him across to a chair, and put him in it. That chair had been meant for him anyway. As I went to mine a ring came from the phone in the cabinet at the end of the room, but I ignored it.

Wolfe grunted. “Very well, you’ve established that you’re under duress. So you’re not conspiring. We’ll assume that you are not X. But surely Miss Mardus told you why she had to have six months off. You knew she was pregnant and intended to give birth. Didn’t she tell you later, when she returned, who had helped her dispose of the baby? You must see, Mr. Upton, that that is a question you must answer.”

He was panting and glaring, at me. He moved the glare to Wolfe. “Not to you,” he said. “I’ll answer it to someone who has a right to ask it. And you’ll have questions to answer, plenty of them.” He stopped for breath. “I haven’t mentioned the baby to the police because I didn’t know it had any connection with her murder, and I don’t know it yet. I have told them about the anonymous letters, and about your wanting lists of names of women who knew Dick Valdon, and that you probably got them from Krug and Haft and Bingham. If you think you can crawl—”

There was a knock at the door, and I went and opened it enough to see out. Lucy was there. She whispered, “Saul Panzer,” and I nodded, shut the door, and told Wolfe, “Phone for you,” and he got up and came. I opened the door for him and shut it after him, returned to my chair, and sat.

“You were interrupted,” I said politely. “You were saying something about crawling. If you want to go on I’ll be glad to listen.”

Apparently he didn’t. He didn’t even want to glare, and I knew why. His wrists were hurting and he didn’t want to give me the satisfaction of seeing him rub them, and had to concentrate. When a wrist gets that particular twist it hurts for a while. I happened to know that there was a tube of salve in a cabinet upstairs that would have helped, but I wasn’t going to take him up to get it. It wasn’t my house, and anyway he shouldn’t have jerked my jacket out of shape. Let him suffer. He did so, for a good fifteen minutes.

The door opened and Lucy entered, followed by Wolfe. She stopped and he advanced. Upton left the chair and started to speak, but Wolfe cut in. “Keep your seat. Mrs. Valdon is going to make a phone call, and you may as well hear her.” He turned to me. “Tell her Mr. Cramer’s number.”

I did so, and she repeated it and headed for the cabinet at the end of the room. Upton moved in that direction but came up against me, and he told her back that Wolfe was a liar and a charlatan and so forth. When she got her number and spoke, he shut up and stood and listened. So did I. From the trouble she had getting Cramer, even though she gave her name, I guessed Lieutenant Rowcliff was on. I will never understand why Cramer keeps him around. But finally Lucy got him.

“Inspector Cramer? Yes, Lucy Valdon. I’m at home, my house on Eleventh Street. I have decided to tell you some things about the baby and about Carol Mardus…. Yes, Carol Mardus…. No, I don’t want to tell the District Attorney, I want to tell you…. No, I don’t know where Nero Wolfe is. I’ve decided I have to tell you, but I’m going to do it my way. I want to tell some other people too, at the same time…. Willis Krug and Leo Bingham and Julian Haft, and I want you to bring them or have them come…. That’s right…. No, I won’t do that, I want them to hear me telling you…. No, I won’t, and I can be stubborn, you know I can, they have to be here with you…. No, Manuel Upton is here with me now…. That’s all right, I’m all right…. Yes, I know exactly what I’m doing. … Of course, come right away if you want to, but I’m not going to tell you anything until they’re all here…. Yes, certainly…. All right, I won’t.”

She hung up and turned. “Was that all right?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “You shouldn’t have told him Mr. Upton is here. He’ll come first and want to see him. It’s not important; you’ll tell him he has gone. Archie, take him to the fourth floor and keep him quiet.”