Following Gambit (1962), covered in my post on “Booby Trap” (1944), Rex Stout’s The Mother Hunt (1963) finds Nero Wolfe hired by the widow of drowned novelist Richard Valdon, whose later book His Own Image he had preferred to the million-copy bestseller Never Dream Again. Somebody has left a baby in Lucy’s vestibule with a note reading, “THIS BABY IS FOR YOU BECAUSE A BOY SHOULD LIVE IN HIS FATHERS [sic] HOUSE.” She is understandably eager to learn the mother’s identity, hoping that will be “close enough” to proving that the baby—whom she smilingly says she might name Moses if she decides to keep him, “because no one knew for sure who Moses’ father was”—really is Dick’s son.

   His overalls yield a clue, handmade horsehair buttons that baffle “button fiend” Nicholas Losseff of the Exclusive Novelty Button Co.; a Times ad nets a reward for Beatrice Epps, whose temporary colleague at realtor Quinn and Collins, secretary Anne Tenzer, said hers were made by her aunt. Archie is directed by Anne to Ellen Tenzer in Mahopac, and gets the bum’s rush, but when he spots the Times open to that page, he knows she knows more than she’s telling. She leaves while he’s phoning in, and in her absence he enters through an open window to find evidence—later confirmed—that, while obviously not the mother of the child, whom she called Buster, she did have the boy there until three weeks earlier.

   Watching the house, Orrie reports seeing Purley arrive with the local law and Lon reveals that Ellen was found in her car in Manhattan, strangled with a piece of cord; Archie feels responsible, and knows it won’t be long before Cramer learns of his visit. Alerting Lucy, he is hauled in and gives A.D.A. Mandel et al. an edited version of the truth—not naming her—before Parker bails him out. Confident that his remit will encompass identifying the killer, Wolfe leaves Ellen to the police and starts at the other end, asking Lucy to convene Parthenon Press president Julian Haft, agent Willis Krug, TV producer Leo Bingham, and Distaff editor Manuel Upton, who knew most about Dick’s broad circle of acquaintances.

   Lucy and all but Upton provide lists totaling 148 women, fruitlessly investigated over 26 days at the cost of $8,674.30 to the client, suddenly confronted by Purley with knowledge of both the baby and Wolfe’s hiring, but staying clammed up. Stage three of this mother hunt entails having Lon trumpet the fact that a “nurse”—actually Dol Bonner’s employee Sally Corbett, last seen in Plot It Yourself (1959)—wheels Buster around in Washington Square twice a day. The carriage is rigged with cameras, so that Sally can snap candids of anyone who takes a look, as it is presumed the mother would do; Saul sees a woman take a taxi there, pegged by Lucy as Distaff fiction editor Carol Mardus…Krug’s ex-wife.

   Saul verifies that in January, “Clara Waldron” bore a baby boy in Sarasota, Florida, but before Wolfe, risking charges of withholding evidence or conspiring to obstruct justice, can plan his next move, she comes to him. Determined to ask and not answer questions, she admits merely that neither Haft, Krug nor Bingham—all of whom denied recognizing her photo, even her ex—is the father, then decamps, only to be found strangled like Ellen.

   Learning of this, a piqued Wolfe actually throws his suit jacket at Archie, who fortunately survives this assault with a deadly garment; also unusually, he gets romantically involved with someone besides Lily, and the client to boot, mixing personal and business relations.

   After Wolfe questions the Three Stooges about Carol’s history, including earlier liaisons with Dick—reportedly first among equals—Upton, and many others, he and Archie duck out the back, dodging Cramer. Having providentially obtained a key from Lucy, Archie hides them in her house while she is at her Long Island beach cottage, getting provisions from a deli en route; when she returns, he explains that Krug and Bingham have satisfied them as to Dick’s paternity. Wolfe has Lucy summon Upton, held by force, followed by Cramer and the others, and Saul brings Anne, whose temporary positions included one as Haft’s private secretary, in the course of which she mentioned that Ellen boarded babies.

   The inexplicably retitled “Motherhunt” (5/12 & 19/02), a two-part second-season episode of A Nero Wolfe Mystery, bears the credit “Alan Smithee,” the generic Directors Guild of America pseudonym. It here conceals the sole directorial effort of Charles B. Wessler, a prolific producer of lowbrow comedies such as the Farrelly Brothers’ Dumb and Dumber (1994) and There’s Something About Mary (1998). Adapted by that season’s consulting producer, Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, it features several name guest-stars—Carrie Fisher (as Ellen), Griffin Dunne (Lossoff [sic]), and Penelope Ann Miller (Lucy)—and two newbies making their sole series appearances: Brooke Burns (Beatrice) and Erinn Bartlett (Anne).

   Doyle gives Lucy a secretary, Miss Mimm (Shannon Jobe); a pet cause, killer fog (caused by coal smoke, and claiming 4,000 Londoners in 1952), on which she is shown delivering a lecture; and a varied musical proficiency. Fisher’s close friend, Dunne makes Lossoff suitably colorful, the first link in a chain that leads Archie (Timothy Hutton) to the sultry Beatrice and Anne and—via directions from a “local sage,” i.e., a Garage Attendant (Jim Davis)—the ill-fated Ellen. Her cottage is covered in shifts by Saul (Conrad Dunn), Fred (Fulvio Cecere), and Orrie (Trent McMullen), who sees the arrival of Purley (R.D. Reid), and her murder is outlined to Archie and Wolfe (Maury Chaykin) by Lon (Saul Rubinek).

   In a typically heated confrontation, Wolfe tells Cramer (Bill Smitrovich), “I would sleep under a bridge and eat scraps before I would submit a client to official harassment,” said client directing Wolfe to Bingham (James Tolkan)—now in radio—Haft (Steve Cumyn), Krug (Boyd Banks), and sole holdout Upton (Richard Waugh). A nice montage intercuts the ’teers eliminating potential mothers from Arizona to the Riviera and Fritz (Colin Fox) crossing off their names on a huge chart. Warned that she might wind up at headquarters, Lucy tells Purley, “I’ve always wanted to see them. My grandfather’s company poured the foundations”; Archie deems her a good enough dancer to take to the Flamingo Club.

   Doyle adds a flirtatious quality to Archie’s relationship with Sally (Manon von Gerkan), “who had made it necessary to revise my prejudice against female ops,” and is portrayed as a smoldering blonde before being deglamorized in her role as nurse. Rounding out this profusion of pulchritude, Carol (Kathryn Zenna) learns that Wolfe has inquired about her, seeking to find out why; Lucy displays undue interest in her visit, and the jacket-thrower calls Theodore—invoked but unseen on Chaykin’s series—on the house phone to cancel their 9:00 session with the orchids. Wolfe repays Lucy’s hospitality by scrambling eggs for them all, a process that according to him requires 40 minutes to be done to perfection.

            — Copyright © 2024 by Matthew R. Bradley.
   

Up next: “Murder Is Corny”

Edition cited:  The Mother Hunt: Bantam (1964)

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