The Father Hunt

Thursday morning I made a mistake I often make, crowding my luck. That's fine when it works, but too often it doesn't. Instead of ringing Avery Ballou for an appointment I just went, arriving a little after ten, and as a result I spent two hours in a reception room on the thirty-fourth floor of a forty-story financial castle on Wall Street. Mr. Ballou was in conference. That means anything from scouting around for indigestion pills to presiding at a gathering to decide something that will affect the future of thousands of people, but whatever it meant that morning, it was affecting my present. There was plenty for the eye in the marble-walled room, people coming and going and sitting around waiting and worrying, but I was too sore at my luck to get any fun out of it. It was five minutes past noon when a handsome junior financier came and took me inside and led me along a hall and around a corner to Ballou's room.

It had six windows, five upholstered leather chairs, two other doors, and I suppose other things to fit, but that was all my glance caught as I crossed to Ballou. There was a king-size desk near the far end, but he was standing at a window. If he was sorry he had kept me waiting so long he didn't mention it.

"What a morning," he said. "I can give you five minutes, Goodwin."

"That might do it," I said. I took something from a pocket. "You told us that the checks were endorsed by

Elinor Denovo. Here are two photographs of her, taken twenty years ago." I handed them to him. "Can you place her?"

He gave them a good look, taking half of one of the five minutes, then shook his head. "No, I can't. You say it's Elinor Denovo?"

"Right. That's certain."

"And she endorsed the checks. And you're expecting to connect her with Jarrett. Twenty years ago, that was nineteen forty-seven. I hadn't known him long then, and I never have known him as a-socially. Practically all my contacts with him have been business." He handed me the photographs. "Of course you think it's important to connect her."

"It's essential."

He went to the king-size desk, sat, pushed a button, and said, "Get Mr. McCray at Seaboard." I'm glad we don't have an intercom at the old brownstone. It would annoy me to be up in my room ready for a shower and just as I reached to turn it on hear Wolfe's voice, "Where's that letter from Mr. Hewitt?"