The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

A little malignant spirit, Wolfe said. He not only had the pleasure of perturbing Mrs. Valdon; there was the added fillip of telling Miss Mardus what he had done. But Mrs. Valdon came to me, and it took Mr. Goodwin and me just three days to learn that the baby had been in the care of Ellen Tenzer. Mr. Goodwin went to see her and spoke with her, and she was alarmed. I doubt if she knew how the baby had been disposed of; she probably didn't know who the mother was; but she did know that its origin was supposed to be a secret, never to be revealed. She communicated with X, and they met that evening. The soul of an imp is a strange phenomenon. It had led him to perform what he regarded as a permissible prank, but the threat of its imminent disclosure was intolerable. Permissible but not disclosable. He was with Ellen Tenzer in her car, and his strangling her was not on sudden impulse, for he must have had the cord with him.

Upton stirred on the couch. He was listening with both ears and both eyes. I would give something, he said, to know how much of this is invention. All of it?

No. Most of it is established or can be. Some, not much, is surmise on valid grounds. This next is surmise, for Miss Mardus did not tell me whether or when she had suspected that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. She must have suspected it if she knew that her baby had been in Ellen Tenzer's care, but she may not have known that. Did she read newspapers?

What?

Did Miss Mardus read newspapers?

Of course.

Then it is not a surmise that after her talk with me she did suspect that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. More than a mere suspicion. The newspapers had reported Mr. Goodwin's visit to Ellen Tenzer. Must I elucidate that? No.

Then the rest is manifest. After her talk with me Miss Mardus did what Ellen Tenzer had done after her talk with Mr. Goodwin; she communicated with X. They met that evening, and he had a piece of cord in his pocket. Not, from the published descriptions, the same kind of cord he had used with Ellen Tenzer. A shrewd precaution. The threat now was disclosure not merely of a nasty prank, but of murder. He strangled her this time, perhaps, in his own car and dumped the body in an alley. An alley on Perry Street, less than a block from the building where Willis Krug lives. Returning her to her former husband? That's not even surmise, merely comment. That would be suitably impish, wouldn't it?

Finish it, Upton croaked. Surmise who is X.

That's risky, Mr. Upton. That might be slander.