Her reaction settled it. It didn’t prove that she had never had a baby, or that she had had no hand in dumping one in Lucy Valdon’s vestibule, but it did prove that even if she had done the dumping herself, she hadn’t known that the baby was wearing blue corduroy overalls with white horsehair buttons, which seemed very unlikely.
She took the overalls, looked at the buttons, and handed them back. They’re Aunt Ellen’s, all right, she said. Or a darned good imitation. Don’t tell me someone told you I was wearing that some place where I worked. It wouldn’t fit.
Obviously, I agreed. I showed them to you because you’re being very obliging and I thought they might amuse you. I’l1 tell you where I got them if you’re curious.
She shook her head. Don’t bother. That’s one of my many shortcomings, I’m never curious about things that don’t matter. I mean matter to me. Maybe you’re not either. Maybe you’re only curious about buttons. Haven’t we had enough about buttons?
Plenty. I returned the overalls to the bag. I’m like you, curious only about things that matter to me. Right now I’m curious about you. What kind of office work do you do?
Oh, I’m very special. Secretarial, highest type. When a private secretary gets married or goes on vacation or gets fired by her boss’s wife, and there’s no one else around that will do, that’s for me. Have you a secretary?
Certainly. She’s eighty years old, never takes a vacation, and refuses all offers of marriage, and I have no wife to fire her. Have you got a husband?
No. I had one for a year and that was too long. I didn’t look before I leaped, and I’ll never leap again.
Maybe you’re in a rut, secretarying for important men in offices. Maybe you ought to vary it a little, scientists or college presidents or authors. It might be interesting to work for a famous author. Have you ever thought of trying it?
No, I haven’t. I suppose they have secretaries.
Sure they have.
Do you know any?
I know a man who wrote a book about buttons, but he’s not very famous. Shall we have a refill?
She was willing. I wasn’t, but didn’t say so. Expecting nothing more from her at present, I wanted to shake a leg, but she might be useful somehow in the future, and anyway I had given her the impression that she was making an impression, so I couldn’t suddenly remember that I was late for an appointment. Another anyway, if one is needed: she was easy to look at and listen to, and if your intelligence is to be guided by experience you have to have experience. There were indications that an invitation to dine might be accepted, but that would have meant the whole evening and would have cost Lucy Valdon at least twenty bucks.
I got home a little after seven and, entering the office, found that I owed Wolfe an apology. He was reading His Own Image. He finished a paragraph and, since it was close to dinnertime, inserted his bookmark and put the book down. He never dog-ears a book that gets a place on the shelves. Many a time I have seen him use the bookmark part way and then begin dog-earing.
His look asked, the question and I answered it. He wants a verbatim report only when nothing less will do, so I merely gave him the facts, of course including Anne Tenzer’s reaction to the overalls. When I finished he said, Satisfactory. Then he decided that was an understatement and added, Very satisfactory.
Yes, sir, I agreed. I could use a raise.
No doubt. Of course you have considered the possibility that she had seen the advertisement, knew you were shamming, and was gulling you.
I nodded. Any odds you want she hadn’t seen the ad. She did no fishing, and she isn’t dumb.
Where’s Mahopac?
Sixty miles north. Putnam County. I can grab a bite in the kitchen and be there by nine o’clock.
No. The morning will do. You’re impetuous. He looked at the wall clock. Fritz would come any minute to announce dinner. Can you get Saul now?
Why? I demanded. I didn’t say I would quit if I didn’t get a raise. I merely said I could use one.
He grunted. And I said no doubt. You will go to Mahopac in the morning. Meanwhile Saul will learn what Miss Tenzer, the niece, was doing in January. Could she have given birth to that baby? You think not, but it’s just as well to make sure, and Saul can do it without. He turned his head. Fritz was in the doorway.
Since Saul has been mentioned I might as well introduce him. Of the three free-lance ops we call on when we need help, Saul Panzer is the pick. If you included everybody in the metropolitan area, he would still be the pick, which is why, though his price is ten dollars an hour, he is offered five times as many jobs as he takes. If and when you need a detective and only the second best will do, get him if you can. For the best, Nero Wolfe, it’s more like ten dollars a minute.
So Friday morning, a fine bright morning, worth noticing even for early June, as I rolled along the Sawmill River Parkway in the Heron sedan, which belongs to Wolfe but is used by me, I had no worries behind me, since it was Saul who was checking on Anne Tenzer. If necessary he could find out where and when she ate lunch on January 17, whether anybody remembered or not, without getting anybody curious or stirring up any dust. That may sound far-fetched, and it is, but he is unquestionably a seventh son or something.
It was 10:35 when I turned the Heron in to a filling station on the edge of Mahopac, stopped, got out, walked over to a guy who was cleaning a customer’s windshield, and asked if he knew where Miss Ellen Tenzer lived. He said he didn’t but the boss might, and I went inside and found the boss, who was about half the age of his hired help. He knew exactly where Ellen Tenzer lived and told me how to get there. From his tone and manner it was obvious that there was practically nothing he didn’t know, and he could probably have answered questions about her, but I didn’t ask any. It’s a good habit to limit your questions to what you really need.
Another chapter of the book I’ll never write would be on how to give directions to places. Turning right at the church was fine, but in about a mile there was a fork he hadn’t mentioned. I stopped the car, fished for a quarter, looked at it, saw tails, and went left. That way you’re not responsible for a bum guess. The coin was right, for in another mile I came to the bridge he had mentioned, and a little farther on the dead end, where I turned right. Pretty soon the blacktop stopped and I was on gravel, curving and sloping up with woods on both sides, and in half a mile there was her mailbox on the left. I turned in, to a narrow driveway with ruts, took it easy not to bump trees, and was at the source of the white horsehair buttons. When I got out I left the paper bag with the overalls in the glove compartment. I might want them and I might not.
I glanced around. Woods on all sides. For my taste, too many trees and too close to the house. The clearing was only sixty paces long and forty wide, and the graveled turnaround was barely big enough. The overhead door of a one-car garage was open and the car was there, a Rambler sedan. The garage was connected to the house, one story, the boarding of which ran up and down instead of horizontal and had grooves, and was painted white. The paint was as good as new, and everything was clean and neat, including the flower beds. I headed for the door, and it opened before I reached it.
A disadvantage of not wearing a hat is that you can’t take it off when you meet a nice little middle-aged lady, or perhaps nearer old than middle-aged, with gray hair bunched in a neat topknot and gray eyes clear and alive. When I said, Miss Ellen Tenzer? she nodded and said, That’s my name.
Mine’s Goodwin. I suppose I should have phoned, but I was glad to have an excuse to drive to the country on such a fine day. I’m in the button business, and I understand you are too in a way well, not the business. I’m interested in the horsehair buttons you make. May I come in?