The Missing Chapter

“Yeah, that’s the one, George Rowcliff. He acted like my sole purpose was to ruin his day. He did listen, but his expression made it clear that the idiot was humoring me. About the only piece of information I got from him was that nobody in Charles’s apartment building even heard a shot that day, and he was damn grudging about giving me even that. I haven’t been patronized like that since one of my daughter’s elementary school teachers explained why she — my daughter, that is — was having trouble learning her multiplication tables.”

Wolfe moved his head up and down a fraction of an inch, which for him is the equivalent of a vigorous nod. “Lieutenant Rowcliff has never mastered the art of interacting civilly with other human beings.” He laced his fingers over his center mound.

“And obviously he never will,” Vinson huffed. “Mr. Wolfe, book publishing has been extremely good to me. I’ve always worked hard, so I don’t apologize for whatever success I’ve attained, but I have also been well rewarded for my efforts. By most standards, I’m a wealthy man. I dislike seeing anything happen that reflects badly on the publishing business, to say nothing of my extreme dislike of violence. I know that you don’t come cheap, nor should you, given your record. But I feel confident that I can afford your rates. I want you to find out who killed Charles Childress.”

Wolfe considered him through narrowed eyes. “Sir, you say you dislike that which reflects badly upon your profession. It is likely that were Mr. Goodwin and I to undertake the investigation you propose, a Substantial amount of negative publicity would accrue to that profession, or at least to substantial segments of it. You may want to heed one of Mr. Dickens’s passages and let sleeping dogs lie.”

Vinson’s jaw dropped. “I must tell you that I’m shocked,” he snapped. “Here a murder has been committed, and you, who have solved so many killings through the years, suggest that I merely look the other way!”

“At the risk of incurring your displeasure, I remain unconvinced that a murder has been committed,” Wolfe replied evenly. “The police are not total lackwits, with the possible exception of the man you encountered at headquarters. And even Lieutenant Rowcliff is possessed of a brain, albeit one not always fully operational. You appear to be the only person of the opinion that Mr. Childress did not take his own life.”

Vinson’s aristocratic face flushed. “Not so! I should have mentioned this earlier, but I talked to Charles’s fiancée yesterday. She absolutely agrees with me that it’s inconceivable he committed suicide.”

“Indeed?”

“Her name is Debra Mitchell. A stunning woman, absolutely lovely.” Vinson stopped to take a deep breath. “They were to be married at the end of the summer, in September.”

Wolfe raised his shoulders a fraction of an inch and let them drop. “One’s betrothed would hardly be likely to concede the possibility that her suitor committed suicide. Let me approach the matter from the opposite direction: Why are the authorities so unshakable in their conviction that Mr. Childress killed himself?”

Vinson was clearly angry, but he struggled to compose himself. “Charles was subject to pronounced mood swings,” he said tensely. “I had seen him at both extremes; the highs were... well, very high, and the troughs were canyons.”

“Was he manic-depressive?”

“I’m no psychiatrist, Mr. Wolfe, so I don’t know the precise clinical definition of that affliction, although Charles certainly showed what I think of as symptoms. But suicide — absolutely not, regardless of what the police say.”

“Why did Mr. Childress possess a handgun?”

“Oh — I should have mentioned that earlier,” the publisher said apologetically. “There had been several break-ins on his block in the last year or so, one of them an armed robbery in which a man and his wife both were beaten quite badly by the intruders. Charles had a first-floor front apartment, and that kind of thing made him jittery. He mentioned three or four months ago that he had bought a pistol.”

“Did others know he had the gun?”

“I can’t answer that, although I knew — because he told me — that he kept it in a drawer in the nightstand next to his bed.”

I’ve been around Wolfe long enough to tell when his mind begins to wander, and it was straying now, undoubtedly in the direction of the cassoulet Castelnaudary that he would be demolishing before long. “Mr. Vinson, I am not yet prepared to accept a commission from you,” he said, rising. “Mr. Goodwin will inform you of my decision.”

“When?” Vinson rasped, turning in his chair to follow Wolfe’s progress out the door.