The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

He was panting and glaring, at me. He moved the glare to Wolfe. Not to you, he said. I'll answer it to someone who has a right to ask it. And you'll have questions to answer, plenty of them. He stopped for breath. I haven't mentioned the baby to the police because I didn't know it had any connection with her murder, and I don't know it yet. I have told them about the anonymous letters, and about your wanting lists of names of women who knew Dick Valdon, and that you probably got them from Krug and Haft and Bingham. If you think you can crawl There was a knock at the door, and I went and opened it enough to see out. Lucy was there. She whispered, Saul Panzer, and 1 nodded, shut the door, and told Wolfe, Phone for you, and he got up and came. I opened the door for him and shut it after him, returned to my chair, and sat.

You were interrupted, I said politely. You were saying something about crawling. If you want to go on I'll be glad to listen.

Apparently he didn't. He didn't even want to glare, and I knew why. His wrists were hurting and he didn't want to give me the satisfaction of seeing him rub them, and had to concentrate. When a wrist gets that particular twist it hurts for a while. I happened to know that there was a tube of salve in a cabinet upstairs that would have helped, but I wasn't going to take him up to get it. It wasn't my house, and anyway he shouldn't have jerked my jacket out of shape. Let him suffer. He did so, for a good fifteen minutes.

The door opened and Lucy entered, followed by Wolfe. She stopped and he advanced. Upton left the chair and started to speak, but Wolfe cut in. Keep your seat. Mrs. Valdon is going to make a phone call, and you may as well hear her. He turned to me. Tell her Mr. Cramer's number.

I did so, and she repeated it and headed for the cabinet at the end of the room. Upton moved in that direction but came up against me, and he told her back that Wolfe was a liar and a charlatan and so forth. When she got her number and spoke, he shut up and stood and listened. So did I. From the trouble she had getting Cramer, even though she gave her name, I guessed Lieutenant Rowcliff was on. I will never understand why Cramer keeps him around. But finally Lucy got him.