The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

That's the spirit. All right, I'm off. At a wall table in the Admiralty Bar at the Churchill there isn't much light, but there had been in the lobby. Beatrice Epps had been correct when she said Anne Tenzer was about her size, but the resemblance stopped there. It was quite conceivable that Miss Tenzer had aroused in some man, possibly Richard Valdon, the kind of reaction that is an important factor in the propagation of the species; in fact, in more men than one. She was still a blonde, but she wasn't playing it up; she didn't have to. She sipped a Bloody Mary as if she could take it or leave it.

The button question had been disposed of in ten minutes. I had explained that the Exclusive Novelty Button Co. specialized in rare and unusual buttons, and that someone in one of the places she had worked had told me that she had noticed the buttons on her blouse, had asked her about them, and had been told that they had been made by hand of white horsehair. She said that was right, her aunt had made them for years as a hobby and had given her six of them as a birthday present. She still had them, five of them still on the blouse and the other one put away somewhere. She didn't remind me that I had told her on the phone that I had one. I asked if she thought her aunt had a supply of them that she might be willing to sell, and she said she didn't know but she didn't think she could have very many, because it took a whole day to make one. I asked if she would mind if I went to see her aunt to find out, and she said of course not and gave me the name and address: Miss Ellen Tenzer, Rural Route 2, Mahopac, New York. Also she gave me the phone number.

Having learned where to find the aunt, the source of the buttons, I decided to try a risky short cut with the niece. Of course it was dangerous, but it might simplify matters a lot. I smiled at her, a good masculine smile, and said, I've held out on you a little, Miss Tenzer. I have not only heard about the buttons, I have seen some of them, and I have them with me. I put the paper bag on the table and slipped out the overalls. There were four, but I took two off to inspect them. See?

Her reaction settled it. It didn't prove that she had never had a baby, or that she had had no hand in dumping one in Lucy Valdon's vestibule, but it did prove that even if she had done the dumping herself, she hadn't known that the baby was wearing blue corduroy overalls with white horsehair buttons, which seemed very unlikely.