The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

If you are invited to call at the District Attorney's office, decline the invitation. If Stebbins or someone else calls here, see him or not as you please, but tell him nothing, and do not try to drag hints out of him. As for how they got onto your hiring Nero Wolfe, and the baby, it doesn't matter how. My guess would be Manuel Upton, but I wouldn't give a nickel to know: If it was Upton, some of the questions you won't answer may be about the anonymous letters. They could turn out to by the toughest item for Mr. Wolfe and me, but we knew that. He told four men they were in his safe. If a court orders him to produce them and he says they never existed, we could be charged with destroying evidence, which is worse than withholding evidence. That would be very funny and I must remember to laugh.

Archie.

Yes?

Just six weeks ago I was just going along. There was no baby upstairs, I had never seen you, I wouldn't have dreamed it would ever be… like this. When I say I hate it you understand, don't you?

Sure I do. I glanced at my watch, finished the martini, put the glass down, and rose. I'd better mosey.

Must you? Why not stay for dinner?

I don't dare. It's half past five. It's even money that either Stebbins or Inspector Cramer will turn up at six or soon after, and I should be there.

She pulled her shoulders in, released them, and left the couch. And all I have to do is say nothing. She stood, her head tilted up. Then come back later and tell me. Business relations.

I don't know what it was, what she said or the way she said it or something in her eyes. Whatever it was, I smiled and then I laughed, and then she was laughing too. Half an hour earlier it wouldn't have been reasonable to suppose that we would so soon be having a good laugh together. Obviously it was a good way to end a conversation, so I turned and went.

It was two minutes short of six o'clock when I used my key on the door of the old brownstone, went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was back, and then to the office. Even people who know better ask a lot of unnecessary questions for instance, my asking Fritz if there had been any phone calls. In the first place, he would have told me without being asked, and in the second place, Cramer or Stebbins hardly ever phoned. They just came, and nearly always at eleven a.m. or around half past two, after lunch, or at six p.m., since they knew Wolfe's schedule. As I entered the office the elevator was whining down the shaft.