The Missing Chapter (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries), page 3
“Who do you gather that from?”
Lon narrowed his eyes. “One of our book reviewers. Why?”
“Wilbur Hobbs?”
“That’s right—oh, I see where you’re heading. The feud between Hobbs and Childress over the panning Wilbur gave his books. If Wolfe is looking to blow that up into something, forget it. Wilbur Hobbs is one acerbic, arrogant specimen, but hardly the murderous type. If he’s the best you’ve got, I’d tell your client to pack it in. By the way, who is your client?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Nice try, but uh-uh. I understand Childress really blasted your man in print recently.”
Lon looked down at his cluttered desk top, then leaned on an elbow and rubbed his forehead. “Archie, I’m not one for washing dirty linen in public, although you’re hardly public. What I’m about to say is for your ears only—which I realize means Wolfe’s, too: If there were one person I could dump from the staff of this venerable journal, it would be Hobbs. Not just because he’s arrogant and obnoxious, but because I don’t trust him.”
“How so?”
Before Lon could answer, one of his phones bleated. He scooped up the receiver. “Yeah, yeah … Okay, I see … Yeah, all right, you can hold the edition for five minutes if you absolutely have to, but not one damn second more, got it?” He slammed the receiver down and turned back to me. “The police got the masked marvel, all right. The stupe dropped his plastic clown’s face on the sidewalk half a block from his bungalow in Jamaica. Anyway, as I was saying, I don’t trust Hobbs as far as I can throw him. There’s scuttlebutt around, has been for several years, that he’s not above taking a few shekels here and there in exchange for a glowing review. The piece Childress did for the Manhattan Literary Times was the first time he’s been accused in print, though.”
“Is there anything to it?”
Lon pressed his palms against his eyes. “Dammit, I don’t know—maybe it’s my nature, but I’m suspicious. And to be honest, I’m biased, too—against Hobbs. You know how much I love this business, Archie, but there are always a few rotten apples in a bushel, and my guess is this particular apple’s got more worms than an Ozark bait shop. Every newspaper of any size has at least one or two reporters, feature writers, or critics who figure they hold their job by some kind of divine right and, cloaked in the armor of the holy and almighty First Amendment, have a license to write anything they please—fairness and the laws of libel and privacy be damned.”
“That’s quite a speech. You mentioned there’s been talk about Hobbs.”
“We’ve had a few random complaints through the years, including both a letter and a call a while back from Horace Vinson, the big kahuna at Monarch Press. He didn’t back it up with any evidence, though.”
“Horace Vinson—is he well-thought-of?”
“Are you kidding? The guy’s like a god, particularly to the writers who eat their oats in the Monarch stable. They worship him. Hell, he’s even been compared to Maxwell Perkins.”
“Pardon my ignorance, but who’s—”
“For a second, I forgot who I was talking to,” Lon cut in, holding up a hand. “You may be street-smart, as we like to say in our columns, but your cultural literacy is deficient, to say the least. Perkins was a great editor, a legend back in the twenties and thirties and forties. He worked with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wolfe—Thomas that is, not Nero.”
“Thanks, I’ll file that away in my memory bank. Back to Hobbs: Given the negative flak, is his job here at the Gazette in any jeopardy?”
“ ’Fraid not. The man who signs all our checks is a big booster of his.” Lon jabbed a thumb in the direction of the publisher’s office. “He likes the controversy Hobbs generates with his reviews. Claims it draws readers into the book section. He may be right, but I’m still for giving the guy a one-way ticket to the unemployment line, and I’ve said so to the boss more than once.”
“You’re cold of heart in these tough times, old friend. While we’re on the subject of Charles Childress, who came upon the body? Your story didn’t say.”
“I’m not sure who decided we’re still on the subject, but because we are old friends, it was another writer, a woman named Patricia Royce. She found Childress in mid-afternoon on the floor of his office; he’d apparently been dead about two hours, according to the medical examiner. Now, who’s your client?”
“Is it fair to assume that Miss—or Ms., or Mrs.—Royce was close to the deceased?”
“For somebody who doesn’t like to answer questions, you sure can ask a lot of them,” Lon complained, swiveling to answer the bleat of his telephone again. He gave his caller two curt yesses and a nasty no before signing off and turning back to me. “I can think of a pair of reasons why I’m indulging you, Archie and you know damn well what both of them are. One, I like being asked to break bread at Wolfe’s, and two, every so often you and your boss lob a scoop in this general direction. This may not be one of those times, but I can’t take the chance.”
I grinned. “You, sir, are a hard-headed, clear-eyed pragmatist.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere. Patricia Royce—real surname, Reiser—is a novelist, historical stuff, heavy on the romance. Not my type of bedtime reading, but she’s well-thought-of and has gotten good reviews across the board. She had known Childress for about ten years. To hear her tell it, their relationship was what people of my generation would have called ‘platonic.’ They apparently bolstered each other. When one was having trouble writing, the other would be encouraging, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds like a good quid pro quo. How did she get into his apartment?”
“Had a key. She used his word processor from time to time—hers was always on the blink.”
“Uh-huh. What do you know about Childress’s agent and his fiancée?”
“Believe it or not, Archie, I don’t have a shred of information about either one. And do you know why? Because I haven’t inquired. And why haven’t I inquired? Because nobody—except you, of course—has remotely suggested that this is anything but a suicide.”
He leaned back and spread his arms, palms up. “And now, on the memory of my dear, departed mother, I swear solemnly that you have picked me dry. I know nothing more about Charles Childress or the means of his departure from this earthly life.”
“That’s good enough for me,” I said, grinning and getting to my feet. “Will you also swear that if you get any more information on the late Mr. Childress, you’ll pass it along to yours truly?”
Lon swore, all right, although not in a way that his dear, departed mother would have cared for. He then tossed a wadded-up piece of paper at me, but it missed. I picked it up and fired it into his wastebasket, which was ten feet away. “It’s all in the wrist action,” I told him as I bowed and quickly backed out the door.
FOUR
WALKING HOME FROM THE GAZETTE, I occupied myself with how to give Wolfe that gentle shove in the right direction that I had promised Horace Vinson I would deliver. Lon hadn’t been much help, other than basically to confirm the low opinion Vinson held of the reviewer Wilbur Hobbs’s ethics. It was five-twenty when I got back to the brownstone. I still had forty minutes to come up with a stratagem that would start Wolfe’s motor, so I could hit him with it when he came down from the plant rooms. Little did I know that my work already had been done for me.
At six o’clock, the rumble of the elevator prefaced Wolfe’s arrival in the office. I swiveled to face him, but before I could get a word out, he spoke. “Archie, we shall accept Mr. Vinson’s commission, assuming we can agree upon a fee. Get him on the telephone. I will speak first. Then, if you do not already know how to reach Mr. Childress’s fiancée, his agent, and his former editor, you will get that information from Mr. Vinson.”
I worked to keep my mouth from dropping open. “Don’t you want to know how my talk with Lon went?”
“That can wait until after the conversation with Mr. Vinson,” Wolfe snapped, ringing for beer.
I got the editor-in-chief’s card from my center desk drawer and dialed his private number. He answered.
“Mr. Vinson, Nero Wolfe calling,” I said as Wolfe picked up his instrument and I stayed on the line.
“Good evening, sir. I have chosen to investigate the manner of Mr. Childress’s demise. My fee is one hundred thousand dollars, if I identify a murderer. If for any reason I am unsuccessful, the amount will be fifty thousand dollars. An advance of twenty-five thousand dollars, in the form of a cashier’s check made out to me, will be due here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
I couldn’t hear anything at the other end, not even deep breathing. I began to think Vinson had passed out when he finally cleared his throat and spoke. “That’s … a lot of money.”
“Just so,” Wolfe conceded. “But you told me earlier today of your awareness that I do not come cheap.”
“Hoist with my own petar,” Vinson said, chuckling sourly. “And I also said you shouldn’t come cheap, given your record. All right, Mr. Wolfe, I agree to your terms, and you’ll have that check tomorrow at ten, delivered by messenger. I’m curious about one thing, though: What made you decide that Charles was murdered?”
“That can wait for another time, sir; we have other matters to discuss. Have the police sealed Mr. Childress’s apartment?”
“No, not at all,” Vinson responded. “No reason to, from their point of view. They’re satisfied he was a suicide. In fact, I’ve been there myself. I was the one the police called first after Charles was found, because my name was on his billfold ID card on the line that says, ‘In case of accident, notify …’ And I also was the one who had to break the horrible news to his friends and family—they certainly didn’t want to.
“First I telephoned his fiancée, Debra Mitchell—I told you about her when I was at your home—and then I called one of his aunts out in Indiana, a woman named Melva Meeker. After his mother died a couple of years ago, Charles had described Mrs. Meeker to me as his closest relative, and he’d made her the executor of his estate. When I broke the news to her, she sounded quite stoic, almost disconcertingly without emotion. At least that was the impression I got on the phone. I know this sounds terrible, but all I could think about was how relieved I was that she didn’t break down when we talked. She also didn’t want to come to New York—she was quite adamant about that. But she asked if I would sift through her nephew’s personal effects and send back anything of either actual or sentimental value.”
“And you did?” Wolfe asked.
“Yes. She sent a notarized letter, giving me permission to go through Charles’s apartment. I got the keys from the police after they had verified with Mrs. Meeker that such was her wish, and I went to the apartment with my administrative assistant; her name is Laura Pyle. A sad experience, that was, like wandering through a cemetery. Anyway, Laura and I packed up two cartons of things and shipped them back to Indiana—his jewelry, which was mainly a wristwatch, a few rings, and some cufflinks—plus scrapbooks of his clippings and reviews, copies of some of his books, albums filled with family pictures, three bank passbooks, and a couple of stock certificates. His only safety deposit box, it turns out, is back in his hometown in Indiana.”
“Did Mr. Childress have a life insurance policy?”
“He did not, not a penny’s worth,” Vinson said with disgust. “That came up once in a conversation we had a couple years back. I looked upon Charles—and several of our other young writers, as well—the way a parent might look upon his offspring. Not long after he had signed with Monarch, I talked to Charles and asked, in a general way, of course, if he was properly planning for the future. That question might seem rude, but I’ve known too many writers who have no financial sense whatever, and who ended up in pretty sad shape. He told me about a few investments he’d made, and when I mentioned life insurance, he laughed, said he didn’t need it. He said he didn’t have anybody to worry about but himself.”
“Perhaps his attitude changed when he became engaged to Miss Mitchell,” Wolfe suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Vinson said. “When he told me he was going to get married, I brought the subject up again, and he brushed it off. I remember what he said: ‘Give it up, Horace, I’m not the insurance-buying type. The only thing I’d need a policy for is my funeral and burial costs, and the potter’s field is good enough for me.’ It sounded humorous at the time.”
Wolfe drew in air and expelled it. “What is left in the apartment?”
“All his clothes and books, for one thing,” Vinson said. “His aunt doesn’t want them, so I’ve arranged for them to be taken away by the Salvation Army. And his personal computer—that will be sold, with the proceeds going to his estate. He had what he told me a few weeks ago was an almost-completed Barnstable novel on disks, and—I know this sounds unseemly—we plan to see whether we can get it in shape to publish. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I’m going to in the next few days. His estate would of course share in any profits the book made.”
“Can you facilitate a visit to the apartment by Mr. Goodwin?” Wolfe asked.
“Certainly, no problem at all. Do you have any idea what he, and you, expect to find?”
“I do not. The scavenger must ever be open to what awaits. I regret that I must now attend to other business. Mr. Goodwin is on the line, however, and he will require particulars regarding several individuals he will be visiting.”
Wolfe cradled his receiver, and I took over our end of the conversation, getting addresses and in some cases, phone numbers. Vinson promised he would have the keys to Childress’s apartment sent over by messenger. I thanked him and said that he’d be hearing soon from Wolfe or me.
“All right, what gives?” I asked after hanging up as I swiveled to face Wolfe. “Just what happened while I was away?”
He poured beer and watched the foam dissipate. “About ten minutes after you left, Mr. Cramer arrived, in his usual state of dudgeon. Because of your call to Sergeant Stebbins yesterday, the inspector assumed we were probing Mr. Childress’s death, and he was affronted.”
“As only Cramer can be affronted.”
“Yes. I won’t go into irrelevant detail, but he accused me of trying to generate business by manufacturing a murder where none exists.”
“Déjà vu all over again.”
Wolfe grimaced at my Yogi Berra-ism. “I saw no need to defend myself by pointing out that we did not originate the murder theory. Cramer continued to badger me, however, until I became affronted. That was his mistake.”
“But our bank account’s gain,” I observed.
“The inspector hurled his cigar at the wastebasket, missing of course, and then he marched out. He was not smiling.”
“Who picked up the stogie?” I asked, glancing at the wastebasket. “That’s usually my job.”
“I did.” Wolfe’s voice was icy. “I have washed my hands twice since.”
“You have been through a lot, especially the way Cramer gnaws on those things. Well, what next?”
“Report.”
I did, unloading an account of my visit with Lon. After I finished, Wolfe unloaded a laundry list of instructions. The first was to go to Childress’s apartment and give the place a thorough combing, although, as he grumpily pointed out, “an army of others, including our well-intentioned client, have tromped through, likely obliterating any traces the murderer might have been thoughtful enough to leave.”
The next item was to visit Charles Childress’s fiancée, Debra Mitchell, who, Vinson had informed us, worked as a vice president for public relations at the Global Broadcasting Company, one of the TV networks that presumes to shape our national culture.
At nine-forty the next morning, Thursday, a messenger wearing Spandex pants and an inane grin delivered a cashier’s check for twenty-five thousand dollars and a small brown envelope from Vinson. The latter contained the keys to Childress’s apartment and a note from Vinson giving the building’s address and the name of the superintendent. After hoofing it to our neighborhood branch of the Metropolitan Trust Company and depositing the check, I flagged a southbound cab and gave him an address on what turned out to be a block-long, tree-lined street in the Village just west and a little south of Washington Square.
Childress’s building was a five-story brick number that had been rehabbed, probably in the last few years, judging from its tuck-pointed and well-scrubbed facade. I entered the small and gloomy foyer, noted on the mailbox that C. CHILDRESS occupied 1-A, and used one of the keys from Vinson to open the inside door. I found myself in a hallway that led toward the back of the building. The first door on my right was 1-A, and this time I had to use two keys, one of which released the dead-bolt lock.
The place was stale and airless, hardly surprising given it had been closed up for a week. I started in the living room, which faced the street. The carpeting was beige and the furniture nondescript—a tired and slightly lopsided burgundy sofa, two easy chairs, the yellow one of which looked new, a TV set in a mahogany cabinet, a couple of unmatched mahogany end tables with unmatched lamps, and a cherry wood coffee table whose glass top was littered with recent copies of The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Economist. The only picture on the yellow-and-brown striped papered walls was a print of a Renoir, the original of which, as she will be delighted to tell you, hangs in the sunroom of Lily Rowan’s penthouse.
A copy of Childress’s Death in the North Meadow lay on one of the end tables. I covered my hand with a handkerchief and flipped through it, finding no loose papers or notations. I was interested, however, in the author’s head-and-shoulders photograph, which was on the back inside flap of the dust jacket along with his thumbnail biography. He looked younger than I had pictured, but no less surly. His face, topped by well-tended, sandy hair, was triangular—wide cheekbones tapering to a narrow, clefted chin. The dark eyes glowered, and a tight-lipped mouth turned down at one end. From this image, it was difficult to conceive of Charles Childress smiling or breaking into laughter.
