The Missing Chapter

“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.