The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

Willis Krug took his time. He looked at Haft, not merely a glance, then at Bingham, and then at his glass, which was resting on his leg and had the fingers of both his hands curled around it. When he spoke his eyes stayed on the glass.

There are people, he said, quite a few people, who could probably tell you as much about Carol and me as I can. Maybe more for her part of it. We were married for exactly fourteen months. I wouldn't go through that again for… He raised his eyes to Wolfe. You know I was Dick Valdon's agent.

Wolfe nodded.

Carol sent him to me. I had never met her or heard of her. She was a reader on Distaff, and she had persuaded Manny Upton to take three of Dick's stories, and she thought he should have an agent and sent him to me, and I met her through Dick, and we were married about a year later. I knew she and Dick had been together. Everybody did. She had been with Manny Upton too. Everybody knew that too. I'm not speaking ill of the dead. She wouldn't think I was speaking ill of her if she were sitting here. She married me because she had been made fiction editor of Distaff, an important job, and she wanted well, I'll use her words. She said she wanted to go tame. She was good with words. She could have made it as a writer.

He took some bourbon and water and was careful with the swallowing. I thought she stayed tame for three or four months, but I didn't really know. I soon realized that with her, you would never really know. I'm not going to name names because that was more than five years ago, and it wouldn't mean anything about the time you're interested in. I don't mean I'm not interested. I am. There was a time when I might have strangled her myself if I if I had that in me. But that was long ago. You say you want to get the murderer all right, I want you to. Of course I do. One thing hard for me to believe, that she had a baby. The way you tell it, she must have. She had an abortion while she was married to me. If she had a baby, Dick Valdon must have been the father, I'm sure of that. No other man ever meant to her what Dick did. God knows I didn't. Are you sure about the baby? That she went to Florida and had a baby?

Yes.

Then Dick Valdon was the father.

Wolfe grunted. I'm obliged to you, sir, on behalf of my client. Naturally the father's identity is of interest to her. Go on.

That's all.

Surely not. When was the divorce?

Nineteen-fifty-seven.

And since then? Particularly the past sixteen months?