It was a bedroom. I sang out good and loud, Hey, the house is on fire! and stood and listened. Not a sound, but to make sure I did a quick tour two bedrooms, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. Nobody, not even a cat.
She might have merely gone to the drugstore for aspirin and be back any minute. If so, I decided, let her find me in the house. I would tackle her. Almost certainly she was an accessory to something. I don’t know all the New York statutes by heart, but there must be a law about leaving babies in people’s vestibules, so I wouldn’t bother to keep an ear cocked for the sound of a car coming up the hill.
The most likely find was letters or phone numbers, or maybe a diary, and I started in the living room. The Times was still on the table under the bowl of fruit. I unfolded it to see if she had clipped the ad; it was intact. There was no desk, but the table had a drawer, and there were three drawers in the stand in a corner that held the telephone. In one of the latter was a card with half a dozen phone numbers, but they were all local. No letters anywhere. There were bookshelves at one wall, some with books and some with magazines and knickknacks. Going through books takes time, so I left that for the second time around and moved to a bedroom, the one that was obviously hers.
That was where I rang the bell, in the bottom drawer of the bureau. A once-over isn’t very thorough and I nearly missed it, but at the bottom, underneath a winter-weight nightgown, there it was or rather, there they were. Not one, two two pairs of blue corduroy overalls, each with four white horsehair buttons. The same size as those in the glove compartment of the Heron. A week ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible that I would ever get so much pleasure from looking at baby clothes. After gloating a full minute I put them back in the drawer and went and opened a door to a closet. I wanted more.
Eventually I got more, but not in the closet. Not even in the house, strictly speaking, but in the cellar. It was a real cellar, not just a hole for an oil-burning furnace. The space for the furnace was partitioned off, and the rest was what a cellar ought to be, with cupboards and shelves with canned goods. There was even a rack with bottles of wine. Also there were some metal objects propped against the wall in a corner, and I didn’t have to assemble them to tell that they were a baby’s crib. Also there were three suitcases and two trunks, and one of the trunks contained diapers, rubber pants, bibs, rattles, balloons (not inflated), undershirts, T-shirts, sweaters, and various other garments and miscellaneous items.
With my hankering for baby clothes fully satisfied, and with the house still to myself, I started over again, in the living room. There must be something somewhere that would give a hint on where and who the baby had come from. But there wasn’t. I’ll skip the next hour and a half, except to say that I know how to look for something that isn’t supposed to be found, and I did a job on that house. It takes more time when you leave everything the way it was, but I did a job. All I had when I finished was a few names and addresses, from letters and envelopes in a drawer in the bedroom, and a few phone numbers, and none of them looked promising.
I was hungry, and since I was there uninvited it would have been vulgar to help myself from her kitchen. Also it was twenty minutes to three and Saul had probably come some time ago, so I left, through the window I had entered by, took the driveway to the road sad turned right, and when I rounded the bend saw Saul’s car, off the road at the wide spot. When he saw me he flopped over on the seat, and when I arrived he was snoring. He isn’t much to look at, with his big nose and square chin and wide sloping brow, and snoring with his mouth open he was a sight. I reached in the open window and twisted his nose, and in a millionth of a second he had my wrist and was twisting it. There you are. He knew I would go for his nose before I did.
Uncle, I said.
He let go and sat up. What day is it?
Christmas. How long have you been here?
An hour and twenty minutes.
Then you should have left twenty minutes ago. Follow instructions.
I’m a detective. I saw the Heron. Would you care for a sandwich and raisin cake and milk? I’ve had mine.
Would I. There was a carton on the back seat and I got in and opened it. Corned beef on rye, two of them. As I unwrapped one I said, She skipped while I was gone to phone for you. She’s been gone over three hours. I took a bite.
That’s life. Anyone else there?
No.
Did you find anything?
Not had I entered; that was taken for granted. I swallowed and got the carton of milk. If any of your girl friends has twins there’s enough stuff in the cellar, in a trunk, for both of them. And in a drawer upstairs are two pairs of blue corduroy overalls with white horsehair buttons. Of course that’s why they’re not in the trunk, the buttons. Also in the cellar is the crib the baby slept in.
When I briefed him Thursday evening I had given him the whole picture. With him we nearly always do. He took half a minute to look at this addition to it. The clothes could be explained, he said, but the crib settles it.
Yeah. My mouth was full.
So the baby was there and she knows the answer. She may not know who the mother is, but she knows enough. How tough is she?
She’s the kind that might surprise you. I think she would clam up. If she came and found me there I was going to tackle her, but now I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. Probably the best bet is to cover her for at least a couple of days.
Then we shouldn’t be sitting here in my car. She knows your car, doesn’t she?
I nodded and took a swig of milk. Okay. I put the milk and the rest of the sandwich in the carton. I’ll go and finish this little snack, which is saving my life, in the Heron. Stick your car in the woods and then join me. If she comes before I leave you can duck. I’ll go home and report. If he decides on the cover, either Fred or Orrie will be here by nine o’clock. You decide how you want him to make contact and tell me. If he decides he wants her brought in so he can tackle her himself, I’ll come instead of Fred or Orrie, and I may need your help.
I climbed out, with the carton. Saul asked, If she comes before I join you?
Stay with your car. I’ll find it. I started up the road.
Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather, in shifts, had Ellen Tenzer’s house, or the approach to it, under surveillance for twenty hours Saul from three p.m. to nine p.m. Friday, Fred from nine p.m. Friday to six a.m. Saturday, and Orrie from six a.m. to eleven a.m. Saturday. And nobody came.
When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven o’clock Saturday morning, a glance at my face answered his question before he asked it. I had no news. In his hand, as always, were the orchids he had picked for the honor of a day in the office. He put them in the vase on his desk, got his bulk adjusted in his chair, and went through the morning mail which I had opened. Finding nothing interesting or useful in it, be shoved it aside and frowned at me.
Confound it, he growled, that woman has skedaddled. Hasn’t she?
I got a quarter from my pocket, tossed it onto my desk, and looked at it. Heads, I said. No.
Pfui. I want an opinion.
You do not. Only a damn fool has an opinion when he can’t back it up, and you know it. You are merely reminding me that if I had stayed there instead of going to phone you I would have been on her tail.
That was not in my mind.
It’s in mine. It was just bad luck, sure, but luck beats brains. My getting in the house and finding things doesn’t square it. We would only have had to inquire around for an hour or so to learn that she had had a baby there. I hate bad luck. Saul phoned.