The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Whenever an assortment of guests is expected after dinner, Wolfe, on leaving the table, doesn't return to the office and his favorite chair. He goes to the kitchen, where there is a chair without arms that will take his seventh of a ton with only a little overlap at the edges. The only time he has been overruled about the furniture in his house was when he bought a king-size armchair for the kitchen and Fritz vetoed it. It was delivered, and he sat in it for half an hour one morning discussing turnip soup with Fritz, but when he came down from the plant rooms at six o'clock it was gone. If he or Fritz ever mentioned it again they did so in privacy.

Since none of the four invited guests could be the mother we were looking for, and there was no reason to suppose that one of them was the murderer, I sized them up only from force of habit as I answered the doorbell and admitted them. Willis Krug, the literary agent, who arrived first, a little early, was a tall bony guy with a long head and flat ears. He started for the red leather chair, but I headed him off because I had decided Bingham should have it Valdon's oldest and closest friend and he was the next to show, on the dot at nine o'clock. Leo Bingham, the television producer. He was tall and broad and handsome, with a big smile that went on and off like a neon sign. Julian Haft, the publisher, who came next, was a barrel from the hips up and a pair of toothpicks from the hips down, bald on top, with balloon-tired cheaters. Manuel Upton, editor of Distaff, was last to arrive, and looking at him I was surprised that he had arrived at all. A shrimp to begin with, he was sad-eyed and wrinkled, he sagged, and he was panting from climbing the stoop. I was sorry I hadn't saved the red leather chair for him. When he was safe if not sound on one of the yellow ones I went to my desk and buzzed the kitchen on the house phone.

Wolfe entered. Three of the guests rose. Manuel Upton, who had the least to lift, didn't. Wolfe, no hand-shaker, asked them to sit, went to his desk, and stood while I pronounced names, giving them all-out nods, at least half an inch. He sat, sent his eyes from right to left and back again, and spoke. I don't thank you for coming, gentlemen, since you are obliging Mrs. Valdon, not me. But I'm appreciative. You're busy men with a day's work behind you. Will you have refreshment? None is before you because that restricts choices, but a supply is at hand. Will you have something?