The Missing Chapter

“Why not? I seem to recall that it’s happened to Nero Wolfe before.”

“Only rarely. Vinson isn’t so stupid to try something like that. Besides, he had nothing to gain that I can see by killing Childress.”

She showed me her pearly whites — and they are white. “Okay, scratch him. But I still say all the others are in it together.”

“So noted. I’ll pass your theory along to the man who signs my checks,” I promised. And I did, the next day. He was not impressed.

When I got home, the office was dark, meaning of course that Wolfe had turned in. There were no messages on my desk, and I decided to call it a day myself when I spotted Death in the North Meadow on one corner of Wolfe’s desk, where he always places a book immediately after he completes it. I figured, what the hell, I should read at least some of Childress’s work myself. I already knew what Wolfe thought of the guy’s prose, but somewhere in my growing-up process, I fell into the habit of forming my own opinions. The problem is, I’ve never gotten a crumb’s worth of satisfaction out of a novel; to me, they just aren’t alive. Give me the newspaper any day.

I took the book upstairs, and I waded through several chapters before turning in. It did nothing to change my mind about fiction in general and detective stories in particular. Sergeant Orville Barnstable was too quirky for my tastes, and I qualify as an expert: After all, I live under the same roof with a world-class eccentric, regardless of how anyone defines the word.

For starters, Barnstable turned out to be an unrelenting bumpkin, even for a cop in a semirural setting. By the fourth chapter, I’d lost track of the number of “gol-durns” and “aw-shuckses” that had escaped the Bull Durham-stained lips of this supposedly lovable curmudgeon, to say nothing of his habits of spouting homespun proverbs (“The early bird gets Aunt Maude’s mince pie and wishes he hadn’t” and “Never plow the same field twice unless you fell asleep at the wheel of the tractor the first time”) and consulting his gold pocketwatch with the steam locomotive etched on the back every other chapter. His “solid, stolid, sober” housekeeper-cook, the formidable Edna Louise Rasmussen, nagged him so incessantly and so stridently that any jury in a real-world courtroom would have let good ol’ Barnstable off with a justifiable homicide verdict if he’d taken it into his head to silence her forever with his trusty Smith & Wesson.

As far as the story line went — what there was of it — I had fingered the murderer correctly by page forty-six, as a peek at the preposterous and contrived climax later confirmed. I solved the thing not because I’m so clever, but because Childress’s plot was as transparent as a used-car salesman’s grin. When I told Wolfe the next day that I, too, had sampled Childress’s prose, he scowled and turned back to his crossword puzzle. The man doesn’t know true sacrifice when he encounters it.

By the time I did talk to Wolfe that Saturday, I already had paid visits to Ott and Billings. Both were listed in the Manhattan directory, and they lived about six blocks apart on the Upper East Side, which was my good fortune.

I called on Franklin Ott first. He and his wife lived in a co-op in the East Seventies just west of First Avenue. The post-World War II red-brick building was easily the newest structure on its block, and from the looks of its black-marble-and-chrome lobby, the literary agent was doing just fine, thank you. I gave the doorman my name.

“Is Mr. Ott expecting you?” he asked, reluctantly putting down the Daily News horoscope. He peered over half-glasses with a bored expression on a jowly face that hadn’t experienced a razor for at least twenty-four hours.

“No, but we’ve met, and I think he’ll recognize the name. If he doesn’t, tell him I’m from the office of Nero Wolfe.”

He brightened noticeably. “Oh, the big-time gumshoe, eh? Him I’ve heard of. Working on a case, are you?”

“As you probably know, Mr. Ott is an author’s agent,” I answered, stressing the adjective.

“Oh, okay, I get it,” he said with a crooked smile. “You guys are doing a book about your work. Make terrific reading, I’ll bet. Yes, sir, terrific reading. I’ll call Mr. Ott.” He picked up the phone and after a few seconds spoke into the receiver. “Mr. Ott? Mr. Goodwin from Nero Wolfe’s office is downstairs. What? Yes... Goodwin. Yes... all right. Thank you, sir.” He turned to me. “Go right on up,” he said respectfully, his jowls jiggling as he nodded. “Eleventh floor, apartment C. It’s to the right when you get off. Good luck with your book. I’ll buy a copy.”