Wolfe was leaning back, scowling at her. It was beginning to look like a job he could refuse only with a phony excuse, and he hated to work, and the bank balance was fairly healthy. You’re assuming too much, he objected. I’m not a magician, Mrs. Valdon.
Of course not. But you’re the best detective in the world, aren’t you?
Probably not. The best detective in the world may be some rude tribesman with a limited vocabulary. You say your lawyer knows about the baby. Does he know you are consulting me?
Yes, but he doesn’t approve. He thinks it’s foolish to want to keep it. There are laws about it and he has attended to that so I can keep it temporarily, because I insisted, but he’s against my trying to find the mother. But that’s my business. His business is just the law.
Though she didn’t know it, that was a hit. Wolfe couldn’t have described his own attitude toward lawyers any better himself, with all his vocabulary. He let up a little on the scowl. I doubt, he said, if you have sufficiently considered the difficulties. The inquiry would almost certainly be prolonged, laborious, and expensive, and possibly fruitless.
Yes. I said, I know you’re not a magician.
Can you afford it? My fees are not modest.
I know that. I have an inheritance from my grandmother, and the income from my husband’s books. I own my house. She smiled. If you want to see a copy of my income-tax report my lawyer has it.
Not necessary. It could take a week, a month, a year.
All right. My lawyer says keeping the baby on a temporary basis can be extended a month at a time.
Wolfe picked up the slip of paper, glared at it, put it down, and moved the glare to her. You should have come to me sooner, if at all.
I didn’t decide to until yesterday, definitely.
Possibly too late. Sixteen days have passed since Sunday, May twentieth. Was it daylight when the phone call came?
No, in the evening. A little after ten o’clock.
Male voice or female?
I’m not sure. I think it was a man trying to sound like a woman or a woman trying to sound like a man, I don’t know which.
If you had to guess?
She shook her head. I can’t even guess.
What was said? Verbatim.
I was alone in the house because the maid was out. When I answered the phone I said, Mrs. Valdon’s residence.’ The voice said, Is this Mrs. Valdon?’ and I said yes, and the voice said, Look in your vestibule, there’s something there,’ and hung up. I went down to the vestibule, and there it was. When I saw it was a live baby I took it in and called my doctor, and.
If you please. Had you been in the house all day and evening?
No. I had been in the country for the weekend. I got home around eight o’clock. I hate Sunday traffic after dark.
Where in the country?
Near Westport. At Julian Haft’s place he publishes my husband’s books.
Where is Westport?
Her eyes widened a little in surprise. Mine didn’t. What he doesn’t know about the metropolitan area would fill an atlas. Why, Connecticut, she said. Fairfield County.
What time did you leave there?
A little after six o’clock.
Driving? Your own car?
Yes.
With a chauffeur?
No. I have no chauffeur.
Was anyone with you in the car?
No, I was alone. She gestured with the wedding-ring hand. Of course you’re a detective, Mr. Wolfe, I’m not, but I don’t see the point of all this.
Then you haven’t used your brain. He turned. Tell her, Archie.
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.
I didn’t invite one. He swiveled back to her. I don’t suppose it was naked in the blanket?
Oh no. It was dressed too much. A sweater, a corduroy hat, corduroy overalls, a T-shirt, an undershirt, rubber pants, and diaper. Oh, and booties. It was dressed all right.
Any safety pins?
Certainly, in the diaper.
Was the diaper uh fresh?
No. It was a mess. It had probably been on for hours. I changed it before the doctor came, but I had to use a pillow case.
I cut in. A bet, since you asked my opinion. One will get you twenty that if a woman pinned the paper to the blanket, it wasn’t the one who dressed him.
No comment. He turned his head for a look at the wall clock. An hour till lunch. He took in through his nose all the air he had room for, which was plenty, let it out through his mouth, and turned to her. It would be necessary to get more information from you, much more, and Mr. Goodwin can do that as well as I. My commitment would be to learn the identity of the mother and establish it to your satisfaction, and to demonstrate the degree of probability that your husband was the father, with no warranty of success. Is that correct?
Why… yes. If you. No, I’ll just say yes.
Very well. There’s the formality of a retainer.
Of course. She reached for her bag. How much?
No matter. He pushed back his chair and rose. A dollar, a hundred, a thousand. Mr. Goodwin will have many questions. You will excuse me.
He crossed to the door and in the hall turned left, toward the kitchen. Lunch was to be shad roe in casserole, one of the few dishes on which he and Fritz had a difference of opinion that had never been settled. They were agreed on the larding, the anchovy butter, the chervil, shallot, parsley, bay leaf, pepper, marjoram, and cream, but the argument was the onion. Fritz was for it and Wolfe dead against. There was a chance that voices would be raised, and before I got my notebook and started in on the client I went and closed the door, which was soundproofed, and on my way back to my desk she handed me a check for one thousand and 00/100 dollars.