The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Where are you speaking from, Miss Mardus?

I'm in a phone booth. I'm on the way to my office. Does that matter?

It might. And even if you're in a booth I'd rather not discuss it on the phone. I shouldn't think you would, either. You went to a lot of trouble and expense to keep the baby strictly private.

What baby?

Now really. It's much too late for that. But if you insist on an answer Mr. Wolfe will be free at eleven o'clock. Here at his office.

A longer pause. I could come at noon.

That will be fine. Speaking for myself, Miss Mardus, I look forward to seeing you.

As I hung up and returned to the corn fritters I was thinking, I certainly do. Long time no find.

When I had finished the second cup of coffee and gone to the office and done the chores, I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone. If he didn't hear from me, Wolfe would be expecting to see her in the red leather chair when he came down, since he had told me to have her there at eleven o'clock, and he would appreciate knowing he would have an extra hour before he would have to dig in and work. He did. When I told him she had saved him a dime by calling herself and she would arrive at noon, he said, Satisfactory.

I could use the extra hour too. Telling Fritz I was leaving on an errand, I went to Eleventh Street, told Lucy the Washington Square caper had been suspended and I would report at length later, removed the cameras from the baby carriage, took them to Al Posner, and told him to send a bill.

When the doorbell rang at ten minutes past noon said I went to the front, and at long last saw the mother in the flesh, my first impression was what the hell, if Richard Valdon played marbles with this when he had Lucy he was cuckoo. If she had been twenty years older it wouldn't have been stretching it much to call her a hag. But when I went to my desk and sat after steering her to the office and the red leather chair, I stared at her. It was a different face entirely that was turned to Wolfe. It had sugar and spice and everything nice only nice may not be the right word exactly. She merely hadn't bothered to turn it on for the guy who opened the door. Also it wasn't exactly sugar in her voice as she told Wolfe how much she enjoyed being in his house and meeting him. Obviously the I dare you in both her voice and her eyes wasn't rigged; it had been built in, or born in.