The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

I nodded. I know I can, and I want it. The point is, I don't want you to hold it against Mrs. Valdon that she asked you to have a talk with me: When you hire a detective you have to let him detect. She either had to let me do this or fire Nero Wolfe. If one of you knows where the baby came from and you want it to be provided for, just say so. Mrs. Valdon may not keep it herself, but she'll see that it gets a good home, and nobody will know anything you don't want them to know. The alternative is that I'll have to start digging, seeing your relatives and friends, and finding out You don't have to see my relatives and friends, Mrs. Dowd said emphatically.

Mine either, Miss Foltz declared.

I knew I didn't. Of course you can't always get a definite answer just by watching a face, but sometimes you can, and I had it. Neither of those faces had behind it the problem: to consider the offer from Mrs. Valdon, or to let me start digging. I told them so. As I finished the glass of milk I discussed faces with them, and I told them that I had assured Mrs. Valdon that a talk with them would settle it as far as they were concerned, which was a lie. You can't know what a talk is going to settle until you have had it, even when you do all the talking yourself. We parted friends, more or less.

There was an elevator, smoother and quieter than the one in Wolfe's old brownstone on West 35th Street, but it was only one flight up to where Mrs. Valdon had said she would be, and I hoofed it. It was a large room, bigger than our office and front room combined, with nothing modern in it except the carpet and a television cabinet at the far end. Everything else was probably period, but I am not up on periods. The client was on a couch, with a magazine, and nearby was a portable bar that had not been there an hour ago. She had changed again. For her appointment with Wolfe she had worn a tailored suit, tan with brown stripes; on my arrival she had had on a close-fitting gray dress that went with her eyes better than tan; now it was a lower-cut sleeveless number, light blue, apparently silk, though now you never know. She put the magazine down as I approached.

All clear, I told her. They're crossed off.

You're sure?

Positive.