The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

The police will want particulars, since you are the divorced husband, but I'll leave that to them. One more question, a hypothetical one. If Carol Mardus had a baby by Richard Valdon, conceived in April of last year and born last January, four months after Valdon's death; and if X knew about it, helped her dispose of it, and later, moved by pique or jealousy or spite, took it and left it in Mrs. Valdon's vestibule, who is X? Of the men in Carol Mardus's orbit, which one fits the specifications? I don't ask you to accuse, merely to suggest.

I can't, Krug said. I told you, I know nothing about her for the past two years.

Wolfe poured beer, emptying the bottle, waited until the foam was at the right level to bead his lips, drank, removed the beads with his tongue, put the glass down, and swiveled to face the red leather chair. You heard the hypothetical question, Mr. Bingham. Have you a suggestion?

I wasn't listening, Bingham said. I'm thinking about you. I'm getting tight on your brandy. I'm deciding whether to believe you or not, about how you got that picture. You're a very smooth article.

Pfui. Believe me or not as you please. You accepted the proposal. What have you to say about Carol Mardus?

Bingham hadn't had time to get tight, but he was working at it. Fritz had left the cognac bottle on the stand, and Bingham's second pouring had been a good three ounces. His neon-sign smile hadn't been turned on once, he hadn't shaved, and his necktie knot was off center.

Carol Mardus, he said. Carol Mardus was a fascinating aristocratic elegant tramp. He raised his glass. To Carol! He drank.

Wolfe asked, Did you kill her?

Certainly. He drained the glass and put it on the stand. All right, let's be serious. I met her years ago, and she could have had me by snapping her fingers, but there were two difficulties. I was broke and living on crumbs, and she belonged to my best friend, Dick Valdon. Belonged' is the wrong word because she never belonged to anybody, but she was Dick's for that year. Then she was somebody else's, and so on. Manny Upton, that fish. As you know, she was married for a while to Willis Krug. He looked at Krug. You're no fish. Did you actually think she would go tame?

No reply.

You didn't. You couldn't. Bingham returned to Wolfe. I used another wrong word. Carol wasn't a tramp. She certainly wasn't a floozy. Would a floozy leave a good job for six months to have a baby?

But you haven't decided to believe me.