Why are you interested in them?
That struck me as slightly off key. It would have been more natural for her to say. How do you know I make horsehair buttons? or Who told you I make horsehair buttons?
Well, I said, I suppose you would like me better if I pretended it’s art for art’s sake, but as I said, I’m in the button business, and I specialize in buttons that are different. I thought you might be willing to let me have some. I would pay a good price, cash.
Her eyes went to the Heron and back to me. I only have a few. Only seventeen.
Still no curiosity about where I had heard of them. Maybe, like her niece, she was curious only about things that mattered to her. That would do for a start, I said. Would it be imposing on you to ask for a drink of water?
Why no. She moved, and with the doorway free I entered, and as she crossed to another door at the left I advanced and used my eyes. I have good eyes, plenty good enough to recognize from six yards away an object I had seen before or rather, one just like it. It was on a table between two windows at the opposite wall, and it changed the program completely as far as Ellen Tenser was concerned. It had been quite possible, even probable, that the buttons on the overalls were some she had given to somebody, maybe years ago, but not now. Perhaps still possible, but just barely.
Not wanting her to know I had spotted it, I headed for the door she had left by and went through to the kitchen. At the sink with the faucet running, she filled a glass and offered it, and I took it and drank. Good water, I said. A deep well?
She didn’t answer. Probably she hadn’t heard my question, since she had one of her own on her mind. She asked it: How did you find out I make buttons?
Worded wrong and too late. If she had asked it sooner, and if I hadn’t seen the object on the table, I would have had to answer it as I had intended. I emptied the glass and put it down and said, Thank you very much. Wonderful water. How I found out is kind of complicated, and it doesn’t matter, does it? May I see some of them?
I told you, I only have seventeen.
I know, but if you don’t mind…
What did you say your name is?
Goodwin. Archie Goodwin.
All right, you’ve had your drink of water, now you can go.
But Miss Tenzer, I’ve driven sixty miles just to I don’t care if you’ve driven six hundred miles. I’m not going to show you any buttons and I’m not going to talk about them.
That suited me fine, but I didn’t say so. Some time in the future, the near future, I hoped, developments would persuade her to talk about buttons at length, but it would be a mistake to try to crowd her until I knew more. For the sake of appearances I insisted a little, but she didn’t listen. I thanked her again for the water and left. As I got the Heron turned around and headed out I was thinking that if I had the equipment in the car, and if it was dark, and if I was willing to risk doing a stretch, I would tap her telephone, quick.
A telephone was what I wanted, quick, and I had noticed one, an outdoor booth, as I had passed a filling station after turning right at the church. Within five minutes after leaving Ellen Tenzer I was in it and was giving the operator a number I didn’t have to get from my notebook. It was after eleven, so Wolfe would probably answer it himself.
He did. Yes? He has never answered a telephone right and never will.
Me. From a booth in Mahopac. Has Saul phoned in?
No.
Then he will around noon. I suggest that you send him up here. The niece can wait. The aunt knows who put the overalls on the baby.
Indeed. She told you so?
No. Three points. First, she didn’t ask the right questions. Second, she got nervous and bounced me. Third, yesterday’s Times was there on a table. She doesn’t know I saw it. It was folded and there was a bowl of fruit on it, but at the top of the page that showed was a headline that started with the words JENSEN REFUSES’. The ad was on that page. So she had seen the ad, but when I dropped in and said I was interested in the horsehair buttons she made she didn’t mention it. When she got around to the right question she put it wrong. She asked how I found out she made buttons. She might as well have asked how did Nero Wolfe get results from his ad so soon. Then she realized she wasn’t handling it right and bounced me. One will get you twenty that she’s not the mother. If she’s not sixty she’s close. But one will get you forty that she knows what the baby was wearing, that’s the least she knows. Am I being impetuous?
No. Do you want to turn her over to Saul?
I do not. If he could crack her I could. I don’t think anybody could until we know more about her. She may be phoning someone right now, but that can’t be helped. I’m going back and stake out. If she’s phoning, someone may come, or she may go. We can cover her around the clock if you get Fred and Orrie. You’ll send Saul?
Yes.
He’ll need directions and you need a pencil.
I have one.
Okay. I gave the directions, not forgetting to mention the fork. Three-tenths of a mile from where he hits the gravel there’s a wide spot where he can pull off and sit in his car. If I don’t show within an hour I’m not around, she has left and so have I, and he’d better go to a phone and call you to see if you’ve heard from me. He could go to the house first for a look. She might have a visitor and I might have my head stuck in a window trying to hear. Have you any suggestions?
No. I’ll get Fred and Orrie. When will you eat?
I told him tomorrow maybe. Returning to the Heron and climbing in, and deciding that as the day wore on it might not be so funny, I headed for Main Street, found a market, and got chocolate bars, bananas, and a carton of milk. I should have told Wolfe I would. He can’t stand the notion of a man skipping a meal.
Driving back, I was considering where to leave the car. There were spots not too far from the mailbox where I could ease it in among the trees, but if she went for a ride I would have to get it out to the road in a hurry, and she might go the other way; I didn’t know where the gravel road went over the hill. I decided that getting it into the woods far enough to hide it was out, and therefore it might as well be handy. Anyway she had seen it, and if and when it tailed her in broad daylight she would know it. I could only hope she would stay put until Saul came with a car she hadn’t seen. I left the Heron in the open, less than a hundred yards from the mailbox, where a gap between trees left enough roadside room, and took to the woods. I am neither an Indian nor a Boy Scout, but if she had been looking out a window I don’t think she would have seen me as I made my way to where I had a view of the house from behind a bush. Also a view of the garage.
The garage was empty.
It called for profanity, and I used some, out loud. I don’t apologize for either the profanity or the situation. I would have done it again in the same circumstances. If we were going to keep her covered I had to leave sooner or later to get to a phone, and right away, while she was looking it over and perhaps making a phone call, and deciding what to do, was not only as good a time as any, it was the best until the empty garage showed me that it had been the worst.
All right, my luck was out. I dodged through the trees to the clearing, crossed it, went to the door, and banged on it. There might be someone else in the house, though no one had been visible when I was in it. I waited half a minute and banged again, louder, and bellowed, Anybody home? After another half a minute I tried the doorknob. Locked. There were two windows to the right, and I went and tried them. Also locked. I went around the corner of the house, taking care not to step in flower beds, which was damn good manners in the circumstances, and there was a window wide open. She had left in a hurry. I didn’t have to touch the window. All I had to do was stick a leg in, wiggle my rump onto the sill, and pull the other leg in, and I had broken and entered.