At a quarter to five that afternoon I was in conference, in the kitchen of Lucy Valdon’s house on West Eleventh Street. I was standing, leaning against the refrigerator, with a glass of milk in my hand. Mrs. Vera Dowd, the cook, who evidently ate her full share of what she cooked, judging by her dimensions, was on a chair. She had supplied the milk on request. Miss Marie Foltz, the maid, in uniform, who had undoubtedly been easy to look at ten years ago and was still no eyesore, was standing across from me with her back to the sink.
I need some help, I said and took a sip of milk.
I’m not skipping my session with the client before lunch in order to hold something back, but there’s no point in reporting everything I put in my notebook. A few samples, taking her word for it:
No one hated her, or had it in for her, enough to play a dirty trick like saddling her with a loose baby including her family. Her father and mother were in Hawaii, a stopover on an around-the-world trip; her married brother lived in Boston and her married sister in Washington. Her best friend, Lena Guthrie, one of the only three people to whom she had shown the paper that had been pinned to the blanket, the other two being the doctor and the lawyer, thought the baby looked like Dick, but she, Lucy, was reserving her opinion. She wasn’t going to name the baby unless she decided to keep it. She might name it Moses because no one knew for sure who Moses’ father was, but a smile went with that. And so on. Also a couple of dozen names the names of the five other weekend guests at the Haft place in Westport on May 20, the names of four women, which I had to drag out of her, with whom Dick might possibly have played house in April 1961, and an assortment of names, mostly men, who might know more about Dick’s personal diversions than his widow did. Three of those were marked as the most promising: Leo Bingham, television producer; Willis Krug, literary agent; and Julian Haft, publisher, the head of Parthenon Press. That’s enough samples.
I was having my conference with Mrs. Dowd and Miss Foltz in the kitchen because talking comes easier to people in a room where they are used to talking. When I told them I needed some help Mrs. Dowd narrowed her eyes at me and Miss Foltz looked skeptical.
It’s about the baby, I said and took another sip of milk. Mrs. Valdon took me upstairs for a look at it. To me it looks too fat and kind of greasy, and its nose is just a blob, but of course I’m a man.
Miss Foltz folded her arms. Mrs. Dowd said, It’s a good enough baby.
I suppose so. Apparently whoever left it in the vestibule had the idea that Mrs. Valdon might keep it. Whether she does or not, naturally she wants to know where it came from, so she has hired a detective to find out. His name is Nero Wolfe. You may have heard of him.
Is he on TV? Miss Foltz inquired.
Don’t be silly, Mrs. Dowd told her. How could he be? He’s real. To me: Certainly I’ve heard of him, and you too. Your picture was in the paper about a year ago. I forget your first name no, I don’t. Archie. Archie Goodwin. I should have remembered when Mrs. Valdon said Goodwin. I have a good memory for names and faces.
You sure have. I sipped milk. Here’s why I need help. In a case like this, what would a detective think of first? He would think there must be some reason why the baby was left at this house instead of some other house, and what could the reason be? Well, one good reason could be that someone who lives here wants that baby to live here too. So Mr. Wolfe asked Mrs. Valdon who lives here besides her, and she said Mrs. Vera Dowd and Miss Marie Foltz, and he asked her if one of them could have had a baby about four months ago, and she said. They both interrupted. I raised a hand, palm out. Now you see, I said, not raising my voice. You see why I need help. I merely tell you a detective asked a natural and normal question, and you fly off the handle. Try being detectives yourselves once. Of course Mrs. Valdon said that neither of you could have had a baby four months ago, and the next question was, did either of you have a relative, maybe a sister, who might have had a baby she couldn’t keep? That’s harder to answer. I’d have to dig. I’d have to find your relatives and friends and ask a lot of questions, and that would take time and cost money, but I’d get the answer, that’s sure.
You can get the answer right now, Mrs. Dowd said.
I nodded. I know I can, and I want it. The point is, I don’t want you to hold it against Mrs. Valdon that she asked you to have a talk with me: When you hire a detective you have to let him detect. She either had to let me do this or fire Nero Wolfe. If one of you knows where the baby came from and you want it to be provided for, just say so. Mrs. Valdon may not keep it herself, but she’ll see that it gets a good home, and nobody will know anything you don’t want them to know. The alternative is that I’ll have to start digging, seeing your relatives and friends, and finding out You don’t have to see my relatives and friends, Mrs. Dowd said emphatically.
Mine either, Miss Foltz declared.
I knew I didn’t. Of course you can’t always get a definite answer just by watching a face, but sometimes you can, and I had it. Neither of those faces had behind it the problem: to consider the offer from Mrs. Valdon, or to let me start digging. I told them so. As I finished the glass of milk I discussed faces with them, and I told them that I had assured Mrs. Valdon that a talk with them would settle it as far as they were concerned, which was a lie. You can’t know what a talk is going to settle until you have had it, even when you do all the talking yourself. We parted friends, more or less.
There was an elevator, smoother and quieter than the one in Wolfe’s old brownstone on West 35th Street, but it was only one flight up to where Mrs. Valdon had said she would be, and I hoofed it. It was a large room, bigger than our office and front room combined, with nothing modern in it except the carpet and a television cabinet at the far end. Everything else was probably period, but I am not up on periods. The client was on a couch, with a magazine, and nearby was a portable bar that had not been there an hour ago. She had changed again. For her appointment with Wolfe she had worn a tailored suit, tan with brown stripes; on my arrival she had had on a close-fitting gray dress that went with her eyes better than tan; now it was a lower-cut sleeveless number, light blue, apparently silk, though now you never know. She put the magazine down as I approached.
All clear, I told her. They’re crossed off.
You’re sure?
Positive.
Her head was tilted back. It didn’t take you long. How did you do it?’ Trade secret. I’m not supposed to tell a client about an operation until I have reported to Mr. Wolfe. But they took it fine. You still have a maid and a cook. If we get any ideas I may phone you in the morning.
I’m going to have a martini. Won’t you? Or what?
Having looked at my watch as I left the kitchen, and knowing that Wolfe’s afternoon session with the orchids would keep him up in the plant rooms until six o’clock, and remembering that one of my functions was to understand any woman we were dealing with, and seeing that the gin was Follansbee’s, I thought I might as well be sociable. I offered to make, saying I favored five to one, and she said all right. When I had made and served and sat, on the couch beside her, and we had sampled, she said, I want to try something. You take a sip of mine and I’ll take a sip of yours. Do you mind?
Of course I didn’t, since the idea was to understand her. She held her glass for me to sip, and I held mine for her.
Actually, I said, this good gin is wasted on me. I just had a glass of milk.