The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

He went to his desk for a glass and inspected one of them. Not so simple, he said, with all the stuff there is around. It looks like horsehair, but to be sure we'd have to rip into one of them.

How long will it take?

Anywhere from twenty minutes to five hours.

I told him the sooner the better and he knew the phone number.

I got to 35th Street and into the house just as Wolfe was crossing the hall to the dining room. Since mention of business is not permitted at table, he stopped at the sill and asked, Well?

Well so far, I told him. In fact perfect. A man who knows as much about buttons as you do about food has never seen anything like them. Someone spent hours on each one of them. The material had him stumped, so I took them to Hirsh. He'll report this afternoon.

He said satisfactory and proceeded to the table, and I went to wash my hands before joining him.

With all the trick gadgets they have hatched, there may be one you could attach to Wolfe and me and find out if he riles me more than I do him or vice versa, but we haven't got one, so I don't know. I admit that there are times when there is nothing to do but wait, but the point is how you wait. In the office that day after lunch I riled Wolfe by glancing at my watch every few minutes while he was dictating a long letter to an orchid-hunter in Honduras, and then he riled me by settling back, completely at ease, with Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. Damn it, he had a job. If he had to read a book, why not get His Own Image by Richard Valdon from the shelf? There might be some kind of a hint in it somewhere.

It was 3:43 when the phone call came from Hirsh. I had my notebook ready in case it was complicated with long scientific words, but it took only common ones and not many of them. I hung up and swiveled, and Wolfe actually moved his eyes from the book.

Horsehair, I said. No dye or lacquer or anything, just plain unadulterated white horsehair.

He grunted. Is there time for an advertisement in tomorrow's papers? Times and News and Gazette.

Times and News, maybe. Gazette, yes.