The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

She told at least two people the baby was left in her vestibule when she was alone in the house. She hasn't told us, but if she has any sense she will, if she's clean. She'll tell us everything she knows if she's clean, including what she hired you to do and what you've done. I don't think it was anything as raw as kidnaping because she had a lawyer make it legal on a temporary basis. But I'm damn sure the baby in her house is the one Ellen Tenzer had in her house until around May twentieth. There were two overalls in Ellen Tenzer's house exactly like the ones Goodwin showed to AnneTenzer, with the same kind of buttons. Those goddam buttons.

It seemed to me beside the point for him to be nursing an anti-button grudge, but maybe he had had an interview with Nicholas Losseff.

He was going on. So I want to know what Mrs. Valdon knows, and what you know, about that baby. The DA can't get anything out of her lawyer or her doctor, and of course they're privileged. The nurse, and the maid and the cook aren't privileged, but if they know anything they've been corked. The nurse claims that all she knows about it is that it's a boy, it's healthy, and it's between five and seven months old. So Mrs. Valdon is not its mother. She didn't have a baby in December or January.

I have given you my word, Wolfe add, that I have no notion of who killed Ellen Tenzer.

I heard you.

I now give you my word that I know no more about that baby its parentage, its background, who put it in Mrs. Valdon's vestibule than you do.

I don't believe it.

Nonsense. Certainly you do. You know quite well I wouldn't dishonor that fine old phrase.

Cramer glared. Then what in the name of God do you know? What did she hire you to do? Why have you kept her covered? Why have you told her to clam?

She consulted me in confidence. Why should I be denied a privilege that is accorded to lawyers and doctors, even those who are patently unworthy of it? She had violated no law, she had done nothing for which she was obliged to account, she had no knowledge of an actionable offense. There was no. What did she hire you to do?