by Rex Stout
"I'm Archie Goodwin. Shall we go downstairs? I have reserved a table."
She shook her head. "I always eat lunch alone."
I want to be fair, but it's fair to say that she had probably had very few invitations to lunch, if any. Her nose was flat and she had twice as much chin as she needed. Her age was somewhere between thirty and fifty. "We can talk here," she said.
"At least we can start here," I conceded. "What do you know about white horsehair buttons?"
"I know I've seen some. But before I tell you—how do I know you'll pay me?"
"You don't." I touched her elbow and we moved aside, away from the traffic. "But I do." I got a card from my case and handed it to her. "Naturally I'll have to check what you tell me, and it will have to be practical. You could tell me you knew a man in Singapore who made white horsehair buttons but he's dead."
"I've never been in Singapore. It's nothing like that."
"Good. What is it like?"
"I saw them right here. In this building."
"When?"
"Last summer." She hesitated and then went on. "There was a girl in the office for a month, vacation time, filling in, and one day I noticed the buttons on her blouse. I said I had never seen any buttons like them, and she said very few people had. I asked her where I could get some, and she said nowhere. She said her aunt made them out of horsehair, and it took her a day to make one button, so she didn't make them to sell, just as a hobby."
"Were the buttons white?"
"Yes."
"How many were on her blouse?"
"I don't remember. I think five."
At the Hirsh Laboratories, deciding it would be better not to display the overalls, I had cut off one of the buttons, one of the three still intact. I took it from a pocket and offered it. "Anything like that?"
She gave it a good look. "Exactly like that, as I remember, but of course it was nearly a year ago. That size too."
I retrieved the button. "This sounds as if it may help, Miss Epps. What's the girl's name?"
She hesitated. "I suppose I have to tell you."
"You certainly do."
"I don't want to get her into any trouble. Nero Wolfe is a detective and so are you."
"I don't want to get anybody into trouble unless they have asked for it. Anyway, from what you've already told me it would be a cinch to find her. What's her name?"
"Tenzer. Anne Tenzer."
"What's her aunt's name?"
"I don't know. She didn't tell me and I didn't ask."
"Have you seen her since last summer?"
"No."
"Do you know if Quinn and Collins got her through an agency?"
"Yes, they did. The Stopgap Employment Service."
"How old is she?"
"Oh—she's under thirty."
"Is she married?"
"No. As far as I know."
"What does she look like?"
"She's about my size. She's a blonde—or she was last summer. She thinks she's very attractive, and I guess she is. I guess you would think so."
"I'll see when I see her. Of course I won't mention you." I got my wallet out. "My instructions from Mr. Wolfe were not to pay you until I have checked your information, but he hadn't met you and heard you, and I have." I produced two twenties and a ten. "Here's half of it, with the understanding that you will say nothing about this to anyone. You impress me as a woman who can watch her tongue."
"I can."
"Say nothing to anyone. Right?"
"I won't." She put the bills in her bag. "When will I get the rest?"
"Soon. I may see you again, but if that isn't necessary I'll mail it. If you'll give me your home address and phone number?"
She did so, West 169th Street, was going to add something, decided not to, and turned to go. I watched her to the entrance. There was no spring to her legs. The relation between a woman's face and the way she walks would take a chapter in a book I'll never write.
Since I had a table reserved in the restaurant downstairs, I went down and took it and ordered a bowl of clam chowder, which Fritz never makes, and which was all I wanted after my late breakfast. Having stopped on the way to consult the phone book, I knew the address of the Stopgap Employment Service—493 Lexington Avenue. But the approach had to be considered because (1) agencies are cagey about the addresses of their personnel, and (2) if Anne Tenzer was the mother of the baby she would have to be handled with care. I preferred not to phone Wolfe. The understanding was that when I was out on an errand I would use intelligence guided by experience (as he put it), meaning my intelligence, not his.
The result was that shortly after two o'clock I was seated in the anteroom of the Exclusive Novelty Button Co., waiting for a phone call, or rather, hoping for one. I had made a deal with Mr. Nicholas Losseff, the button fiend, as he had sat at his desk eating salami, black bread, cheese, and pickles. What he got was the button I had removed from the overalls and a firm promise to tell him the source when circumstances permitted. What I got was permission to make a phone call and wait there to get one back, no matter how long it took, and use his office for an interview if I needed to. The phone call had been to the Stopgap Employment Service. Since I had known beforehand that I might have a lot of time to kill, I had stopped on the way to buy four magazines and two paperbacks, one of the latter being His Own Image by Richard Valdon.
I never got to His Own Image, but the magazines got a big play, and I was halfway through the other paperback, a collection of pieces about the Civil War, when the phone call came at a quarter past five. The woman at the desk, who had known what I wanted Wednesday before I told her, vacated her chair for me, but I went and took it on my side, standing.
"Goodwin speaking."
"This is Anne Tenzer. I got a message to call the Exclusive Novelty Button Company and ask for Mr. Goodwin."
"Right. I'm Goodwin." Her voice had plenty of feminine in it, so I put plenty of masculine in mine. "I would like very much to see you, to get some information if possible. I think you may know something about a certain kind of button."
"Me? I don't know anything about buttons."
"I thought you might, about this particular button. It's made by hand of white horsehair."
"Oh." A pause. "Why, how on earth—do you mean you've got one?"
"Yes. May I ask, where are you?"
"I'm in a phone booth at Madison Avenue and Forty-ninth Street."
From her voice, I assumed that my voice was doing all right. "Then I can't expect you to come here to my office, Thirty-ninth Street and crosstown. How about the Churchill lobby? You're near there. I can make it in twenty minutes. We can have a drink and discuss buttons."
"You mean you can discuss buttons."
"Okay. I'm pretty good at it. Do you know the Blue Alcove at the Churchill?"
"Yes."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes, with no hat, a paper bag in my hand, and a white and green orchid in my lapel."
"Not an orchid. Men don't wear orchids."
"I do, and I'm a man. Do you mind?"
"I won't know till I see you."
"That's the spirit. All right, I'm off."
Chapter 5
AT A WALL TABLE in the Admiralty Bar at the Churchill there isn't much light, but there had been in the lobby. Beatrice Epps had been correct when she said Anne Tenzer was about her size, but the resemblance stopped there. It was quite conceivable that Miss Tenzer had aroused in some man, possibly Richard Valdon, the kind of reaction that is an important factor in the propagation of the species; in fact, in more men than one. She was still a blonde, but she wasn't playing it up; she didn't have to. She sipped a Bloody Mary as if she could take it or leave it.
The button question had been disposed of in ten minutes. I had explained that the Exclusive Novelty Button Co. specialized in rare and unusual buttons, and that someone in one of the places she had worked had told me that she had noticed the buttons on her blouse, had asked her about them, and had be
en told that they had been made by hand of white horsehair. She said that was right, her aunt had made them for years as a hobby and had given her six of them as a birthday present. She still had them, five of them still on the blouse and the other one put away somewhere. She didn't remind me that I had told her on the phone that I had one. I asked if she thought her aunt had a supply of them that she might be willing to sell, and she said she didn't know but she didn't think she could have very many, because it took a whole day to make one. I asked if she would mind if I went to see her aunt to find out, and she said of course not and gave me the name and address: Miss Ellen Tenzer, Rural Route 2, Mahopac, New York. Also she gave me the phone number.
Having learned where to find the aunt, the source of the buttons, I decided to try a risky short cut with the niece. Of course it was dangerous, but it might simplify matters a lot. I smiled at her, a good masculine smile, and said, "I've held out on you a little, Miss Tenzer. I have not only heard about the buttons, I have seen some of them, and I have them with me." I put the paper bag on the table and slipped out the overalls. "There were four, but I took two off to inspect them. See?"
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'll 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?"
"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 Tenzer 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.
