The Missing Chapter

“Absolutely. You want to know if I can account for my movements on the day that Charles was found dead. I know the drill pretty well. After all, I do edit mysteries, as you’re well aware.”

“Okay, Mr. Billings, where were you on—”

“On the Tuesday before last,” Billings cut in, smirking. “I looked on my calendar right after you phoned, knowing that you and Wolfe would consider me a suspect. And frankly, I’m still a suspect as far as you’re concerned, because I have no alibi — none whatever. I’d been working at home on Tuesdays — I can get infinitely more done away from the telephone and other office interruptions. And that was the case on the day Charles was found dead. I was at home all day — I have an apartment on the Upper East Side. Do I live with someone? No, sorry. Does my building have a doorman? No, it’s not in that league. Did anybody see me? No, at least not until I went to a bar in my neighborhood for a sandwich — corned beef, it was, on rye, and a beer. Any other questions?”

I showed him the key I was carrying, which he told me looked like hundreds of others he’d seen, but not that had ever belonged to him. “Here are mine,” he said casually, tossing a ringful on his desk blotter. None matched the one I had.

“Anything else?” he demanded.

“Ever been to Childress’s apartment?” I asked.

“You don’t give it up, do you? No, I have never been there.”

“Did you know that he died from a bullet fired from his own gun?”

“Yeah. Listen, I do read the papers. I don’t know why he had one, but I wasn’t surprised. I’ve toyed with getting a small-caliber pistol myself, for self-protection. Lord knows you need one in this town. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a pile of stuff to do.”

I got up, playing ever so fleetingly with the idea of making an anonymous, handkerchief-over-the-mouthpiece telephone call to one Lieutenant George Rowcliff of the Homicide Squad and telling him that a fellow named Keith Billings was seen leaving Charles Childress’s apartment building on the day the latter was found dead.

Nine

The walk home from Keith Billings’s office cooled me off, so by the time I mounted the steps to the brownstone, I conceded that turning Rowcliff loose on the sawed-off, smart-mouthed editor would be a form of cruel and unusual punishment, the kind that was frowned upon by the framers of the Federal Constitution. Maybe I’d make my anonymous call to Sergeant Purley Stebbins instead; unlike Rowcliff, Purley is neither mean nor stupid. But the man sure loves to use his handcuffs.

It was almost a quarter of six by the time I settled in at my desk. Wolfe had left two handwritten letters on my blotter, to orchid growers in Marietta, Georgia, and Madison, Wisconsin. I dutifully entered each into the PC and printed them out twice — one for his signature and the other for our files. After I’d finished, I glanced at my watch, which told me it was eight minutes past the hour: It’s a terrific watch, a quartz job Lily Rowan got me for my birthday two-plus years ago, and it’s never been off more than a second or so — until now. I accused it of galloping until I shot a peek at the wall clock, which also read 6:08. Just as I began contemplating the implications of all this, Fritz appeared at the door, alarm both on his face and in his voice.

“Where is he, Archie? He did not ring for beer, and he did not call down on the house telephone to say he would be delayed.”

“I was wondering the very same thing myself. I’ll go up.”

I took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor. When I got there, I found Wolfe standing in the little hallway that led to the plant rooms, glowering into the darkened interior of the one vehicle in the world he trusted. Theodore Horstmann stood behind him, his face longer than the men’s-room lines at Shea in the seventh inning on a warm Sunday afternoon when the Mets are playing the Dodgers.

“It doesn’t work,” Wolfe muttered.

I stepped into the elevator and pressed each of the buttons. He was right.

“Oh, well, at least the trip is southbound,” I told him, trying to make light of the situation. “Beer awaits at base camp.”

Wolfe was not amused, as his expression indicated. But he made the best of it and began the descent behind me. I beat him to the first floor by at least a minute. Fritz was at the bottom of the stairs, kneading his hands in his apron and looking up at me with a question mark on his face.

“The elevator’s on the fritz, pardon the expression. He’s coming — on foot. Have beer on his desk when he arrives,” I ordered. I swear Fritz saluted before doing a snappy about-face and darting into the kitchen — probably a vestige of his days with the Alpine Patrol.

When Wolfe arrived in the doorway, two bottles of beer and a frosted glass awaited on his blotter, and I was back at my desk. He marched into the office and got settled in his chair.