what Miss Tenzer, the niece, was doing in January. Could she have given birth to that baby? You think not, but it's just as well to make sure, and Saul can do it without. He turned his head. Fritz was in the doorway.
Since Saul has been mentioned I might as well introduce him. Of the three free-lance ops we call on when we need help, Saul Panzer is the pick. If you included everybody in the metropolitan area, he would still be the pick, which is why, though his price is ten dollars an hour, he is offered five times as many jobs as he takes. If and when you need a detective and only the second best will do, get him if you can. For the best, Nero Wolfe, it's more like ten dollars a minute.
So Friday morning, a fine bright morning, worth noticing even for early June, as I rolled along the Sawmill River Parkway in the Heron sedan, which belongs to Wolfe but is used by me, I had no worries behind me, since it was Saul who was checking on Anne Tenzer. If necessary he could find out where and when she ate lunch on January 17, whether anybody remembered or not, without getting anybody curious or stirring up any dust. That may sound far-fetched, and it is, but he is unquestionably a seventh son or something.
It was 10:35 when I turned the Heron in to a filling station on the edge of Mahopac, stopped, got out, walked over to a guy who was cleaning a customer's windshield, and asked if he knew where Miss Ellen Tenzer lived. He said he didn't but the boss might, and I went inside and found the boss, who was about half the age of his hired help. He knew exactly where Ellen Tenzer lived and told me how to get there. From his tone and manner it was obvious that there was practically nothing he didn't know, and he could probably have answered questions about her, but I didn't ask any. It's a good habit to limit your questions to what you really need.
Another chapter of the book I'll never write would be on how to give directions to places. Turning right at the church was fine, but in about a mile there was a fork he hadn't mentioned. I stopped the car, fished for a quarter, looked at it, saw tails, and went left. That way you're not responsible for a bum guess. The coin was right, for in another mile I came to the bridge he had mentioned, and a little farther on the dead end, where I turned right. Pretty soon the blacktop stopped and I was on gravel, curving and sloping up with woods on both sides, and in half a mile there was her mailbox on the left. I turned in, to a narrow driveway with ruts, took it easy not to bump trees, and was at the source of the white horsehair buttons. When I got out I left the paper bag with the overalls in the glove compartment. I might want them and I might not.
I glanced around. Woods on all sides. For my taste, too many trees and too close to the house. The clearing was only sixty paces long and forty wide, and the graveled turnaround was barely big enough. The overhead door of a one-car garage was open and the car was there, a Rambler sedan. The garage was connected to the house, one story, the boarding of which ran up and down instead of horizontal and had grooves, and was painted white. The paint was as good as new, and everything was clean and neat, including the flower beds. I headed for the door, and it opened before I reached it.
A disadvantage of not wearing a hat is that you can't take it off when you meet a nice little middle- aged lady, or perhaps nearer old than middle-aged, with gray hair bunched in a neat topknot and gray eyes clear and alive. When I said, Miss Ellen Tenzer? she nodded and said, That's my name.
Mine's Goodwin. I suppose I should have phoned, but I was glad to have an excuse to drive to the country on such a fine day. I'm in the button business, and I understand you are too in a way well, not the business. I'm interested in the horsehair buttons you make. May I come in?
Why are you interested in them?
That struck me as slightly off key. It would have been more natural for her to say. How do you know I make horsehair buttons? or Who told you I make horsehair buttons?
Well, I said, I suppose you would like me better if I pretended it's art for art's sake, but as I said, I'm in the button business, and I specialize in buttons that are different. I thought you might be willing to let me have some. I would pay a good price, cash.
Her eyes went to the Heron and back to me. I only have a few. Only seventeen.
Still no curiosity about where I had heard of them. Maybe, like her niece, she was curious only about things that mattered to her. That would do for a start, I said. Would it be imposing on you to ask for a drink of water?
Why no. She moved, and with the doorway free I entered, and as she crossed to another door at the left I advanced and used my eyes. I have good eyes, plenty good enough to recognize from six yards away an object I had seen before or rather, one just like it. It was on a table between two windows at the opposite wall, and it changed the program completely as far as Ellen Tenser was concerned. It had been quite possible, even probable, that the buttons on the overalls were some she had given to somebody, maybe years ago, but not now. Perhaps still possible, but just barely.
Not wanting her to know I had spotted it, I headed for the door she had left by and went through to the kitchen. At the sink with the faucet running, she filled a glass and offered it, and I took it and drank. Good water, I said. A deep well?
She didn't answer. Probably she hadn't heard my question, since she had one of her own on her mind. She asked it: How did you find out I make buttons?
Worded wrong and too late. If she had asked it sooner, and if I hadn't seen the object on the table, I would have had to answer it as I had intended. I emptied the glass and put it down and said, Thank you very much. Wonderful water. How I found out is kind of complicated, and it doesn't matter, does it? May I see some of them?
I told you, I only have seventeen.
I know, but if you don't mind…
What did you say your name is?
Goodwin. Archie Goodwin.
All right, you've had your drink of water, now you can go.
But Miss Tenzer, I've driven sixty miles just to I don't care if you've driven six hundred miles. I'm not going to show you any buttons and I'm not going to talk about them.
That suited me fine, but I didn't say so. Some time in the future, the near future, I hoped, developments would persuade her to talk about buttons at length, but it would be a mistake to try to crowd her until I knew more. For the sake of appearances I insisted a little, but she didn't listen. I thanked her again for the water and left. As I got the Heron turned around and headed out I was thinking that if I had the equipment in the car, and if it was dark, and if I was willing to risk doing a stretch, I would tap her telephone, quick.
