When rich, beautiful widow Lucy Valdon finds an abandoned baby on her doorstep, she is led to believe that her late promiscuous husband, a successful novelist who died in an accident, is the father. She hires Nero Wolfe to discover the identity of the the infant's mother and during the course of the investigation she and Archie find themselves increasingly attracted to each other. One of the clues he finds is an unusual handmade horsehair button, but when he tracks down the craftswoman who made it, she is uncooperative and soon after is found strangled. When Wolfe orders his operatives to set up a sting in Washington Square Park using the baby as bait, the operation finally bears fruit.
—Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)