The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Twenty grand, I told him. The DA wanted fifty, so I'm stepping high. One of the dicks was pretty good, he nearly backed me into a corner on the overalls, but I got loose. No mention of Saul or Fred or Orrie, so they haven't hit on them and now they probably won't. I signed two different statements ten hours apart, but they're welcome to them. The status quo has lost no hide. If there's nothing urgent I'll go up and attend to my hide. I had a one-hour nap with a dick standing by. As for eating, what's lunch?

Sweetbreads in bйchamel sauce with truffles and chervil. Beet and watercress salad. Brie.

If there's enough you may have some. I headed for the stairs.

I could list five good reasons why I should have quit that job long ago, but I could list six, equally good, why I shouldn't and haven't. Turning it around, I could list two reasons, maybe three, why Wolfe should fire me, and ten why he shouldn't and doesn't. Of the ten, the big one is that if I wasn't around he might be sleeping under a bridge and eating scraps. He hates to work. It has never been said right out, by either of us, that at least half of my salary is for poking him, but it doesn't have to be.

But when I poke hard he is apt to ask if I have any suggestions, and therefore, when we returned to the office after lunch that Monday afternoon and he settled back with his book, I didn't let out a peep. If I had poked and he had asked for suggestions I would have had to pass. I had never seen a dimmer prospect. We had found out where the baby came from, and we were worse off than when we started.Three months had passed since it had arrived at Ellen Tenzer's, so that was hopeless. As for the names and addresses and phone numbers I had collected at the house, I had spent hours on them Saturday afternoon and evening, and none of them was worth a damn, and anyway the cops had them now and they were working on a murder. If anything useful was going to be uncovered by checking on Ellen Tenor or the baby, the cops would get it. That was probably how Wolfe had it figured as he sat buried in his book. If they tagged the murderer he could go on from there to find the mother. Of course if they tagged someone not only as the murderer but also as the mother, he would have to shave the client's bill, but it would save him a lot of work. I had to admit it would be a waste of Mrs. Valdon's I mean Lucy's money to send Saul and Fred and Orrie chasing around Putnam County.