The Mother Hunt by Rex Stout

and was painted white. The paint was as good as new, and everything was clean and neat, including the flowerbeds. 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, plentygood 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 Tenzer 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 inthe 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.
    A telephone was what I wanted, quick, and I had noticed one, an outdoor booth, as I had