The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

The Manhattan garment district has got everything from thirty-story marble palaces to holes in the wall. It is no place to go for a stroll, because you are off the sidewalk most of the time, detouring around trucks that are backed in or headed in, but it's fine as a training ground for jumping and dodging, and as a refresher for reflexes. If you can come out whole from an hour in those cross streets in the Thirties you'll be safe anywhere in the world. So I felt I had accomplished something when I walked into the entrance of 340 West 37th Street at ten o'clock Wednesday morning.

But then it got complicated. I tried my best to explain. first to a young woman at a window on the first floor and then to a man in an anteroom on the fourth floor, but they simply couldn't understand, if I didn't want to sell something or buy something, and wasn't looking for a job, why I was in the building. I finally made it in to a man at a desk who had a broader outlook. Naturally he couldn't see why the question, had those buttons been put on those overalls by Resnick & Spiro? was important enough for me to fight my way through 37th Street to get it answered, but he was too busy to go into that. It was merely that he realized that a man who had gone to so much trouble to ask him a question deserved an answer. After one quick look he said that Resnick & Spiro had never used such a button and never would. They used plastic almost exclusively. He handed me the overalls.

Many thanks, I said. Why I'm bothering about this wouldn't interest you, but it's not just curiosity. Do you know of any firm that makes buttons like these?

He shook his head. No idea.

Have you ever seen any buttons like them?

Never.

Could you tell me what they're made of?

He leaned over for another look. My guess would be some synthetic, but God only knows. Suddenly he smiled, wide, human, and humorous. Or maybe the Emperor of Japan does. Try him. Pretty soon everything will come from there.

I thanked him, stuffed the overalls back in the paper bag, and departed. Having suspected that that would be all I would get from Resnick & Spiro, I had spent an hour Tuesday evening with the Yellow Pages, the four and a half pages of listings under Buttons, and in my pocket notebook were the names of fifteen firms within five blocks of where I was. One was only fifty paces down the street, and I headed for it.