The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

He was insulting her. Not caring to bother with something so obvious, he switched it to me. I obliged. You've probably been too busy with the baby to go into it, I told her. Say it was me. I put the baby in the vestibule before I phoned you. I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't known you were there, that the phone would be answered. It's possible that I had hung around until I saw you come home or until I saw a light in the house, but it's even more possible that I knew you were away for the weekend and would get home by dark. I might even have known what time you left Westport. Take the last question: was anyone with you in the car? That would have been the simplest and surest way for me to know when you got home, to be with you in the car. So if you had said yes, the next question would have been, who?

Good heavens. She was staring at me. Someone I know well enough to… She let it hang and turned to Wolfe. All right. Ask anything you want to.

He grunted. Not want. Must if I take the job. You own your house. Where is it?

Eleventh Street near Fifth Avenue. I inherited it. My great-grandfather built it. When I said I was sick and tired of being an Armstead I wasn't just talking, I meant it, but I like the house, and Dick loved it.

Do you share it? Have you any tenants?

No. Now I may I don't know.

Do the maid and the cook live there?

Yes.

Any others?

Not living in. A woman comes five days a week to help.

Could the maid or the cook have had a baby in January?

She smiled. Certainly not the cook. Nor the maid either. She has been with me nearly two years. No, she hasn't had a baby.

Then a relative of one of them. Perhaps a sister. An ideal arrangement for an inconvenient infant nephew. Wolfe moved a hand to put it aside. That will be routine. He tapped the slip of paper with a fingertip. The pinholes. Was it a safety pin?

No, it wasn't. Just an ordinary pin.

Indeed. His brows went up. You said inside the blanket. Where? Near what part of the baby feet, middle, head?

I think the feet, but I'm not sure. I had the baby out of the blanket before I saw the paper.

Wolfe swiveled. Archie. You like to give an opinion in terms of odds. What odds that no woman would so expose a baby to a bare pin?

I took three seconds. Not enough data. Exactly where was the pin? What did the baby have on? How accessible was a safety pin? Roughly, say ten to one, but that doesn't mean that one will get you ten that it was a man. I'm merely answering a question. No bet.