The Mother Hunt (Rex Stout Library)

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. To the Valdon house with Sally. Lucy had returned from the beach Tuesday evening. She had fixed it with the nurse, telling her that for a week or so someone else would take the baby out to give the nurse a break, and also with the maid and cook. I don't know how she explained the new fancy carriage, which was delivered before we arrived. By the time the Gazette personnel came, shortly before three a lady journalist and a photographer with a helper Sally was in her uniform, the nurse had gone for the afternoon, the carriage was outfitted, and Lucy needed a drink.

Newspaper photographers work fast, and he was through in the nursery, with Lucy and Sally, by half past three. I tagged along to Washington Square, to see how Sally handled a baby carriage. I hadn't made a study of that, but I thought she did all right, dragging her feet a little and letting her shoulders sag. When I got back to the house the lady journalist was still there with Lucy, but she soon went, and I made martinis.

THURSDAY, FRIDAY, and SATURDAY. To the Gazette first thing Thursday morning to look it over. The picture they had picked of Sally and the carriage, with baby, in the square, was perfect. The two of the nursery one of Lucy with the baby in her arms, and one of Sally brushing the baby's hair with Lucy watching were good enough shots, but Lucy's expression was not exactly dosing. She looked like a woman trying to smile in spite of a toothache. Lon said the others had been even worse. I saw no point in using the one of the front of the house, but made no objection. Lon okayed the four changes I made in the text.

Sally wheeled the baby to Washington Square for its outing twice a day, all three days, but her camera, instruction and practice took place in the house, in the big room on the second floor, with Al Posner and Lucy and me. Lucy was needed because she was seven inches shorter than me and all levels had to be covered. Two of the cameras were concealed in ornaments at the ends of the hand bar, and one was in a narrow box at the front of the carriage with a rattle and other trinkets. That one was worked by remote control. During those three days I had my picture taken at least a thousand times. The Thursday ones were mostly off focus, the Friday ones were better, and by Saturday morning Sally had it down pat. Anyone looking at the baby from a distance of six yards or less was going to get shot, and shot good.