The Missing Chapter

I thanked him for the vote of confidence and took a nonstop ride in the automatic elevator, which also was done in chrome and something resembling black marble. A slender, mousy, gray-haired woman who hardly looked like the swearing type answered my knock. “Mr. Goodwin, I’m Eleanor Ott,” she said softly, making a slight bow, or maybe it was supposed to be a curtsy. “Frank mentioned you to me after your visit to his office. He’s in his study right now.” She leaned closer, as if imparting a secret. “Don’t be surprised when you see him — he’s got a bandage on his face,” she whispered, although no one apparently was within earshot. “He was hit the other night — maybe you already know about it.”

“By Keith Billings, I understand.”

“What a vile young man!” she hissed, her pleasant face contorting. “He ought to be arrested and thrown into jail. I told Frank that he should press charges, and... well, never mind what I think.” She made a feeble attempt at a smile and asked me to follow her.

As I passed the sunken living room, my initial impression of the building was reinforced. At least thirty feet long, the room looked like a prime candidate for the cover of one of the slick home-decorating magazines. I won’t attempt to describe the decor, other than to say I felt for an instant that I was in the apartment of some very well-off friends of Lily’s we had visited in Paris several years ago.

Eleanor Ott led the way down a long corridor lined with photographs of writers and gestured me into a wood-paneled room where Franklin Ott, clad in an open-collared shirt and yellow cardigan sweater, sat at a handsome mahogany desk flipping the pages of what looked like a manuscript. This room was as neat as his office was messy.

“Oh... Goodwin, come in, come in. Pardon my appearance,” he said absentmindedly, rising and touching a hand lightly to the dressing that covered most of his left cheek. “I got into a little flare-up two nights ago. I suppose you’ve heard about it?”

“I have, and that’s why I’m here,” I said, taking a seat facing his desk as he dropped back into his chair and his wife closed the door, leaving us alone. “I’m curious as to how it all came about.”

He moved forward and stuck out his chin. “Now don’t go trying to make more of this than there is,” he cautioned tartly, waggling an index finger. “What happened between Keith Billings and me Thursday night is not going to give you or Nero Wolfe any insight — none whatever — into how Charles Childress met his death. So don’t you go getting any ideas.” There was menace in his voice.

“Okay, but I still need to satisfy that stubborn curiosity of mine.”

“Like a barnacle on a ship’s hull, huh? Okay.” He sighed. “Here’s a play-by-play. I can’t say I’m proud of what happened, but I’ll give it to you straight.” He pushed the manuscript aside and leaned his thin elbows on the desk blotter.

“My wife and I were at Cowley’s on Fifty-fourth, maybe you know it. Great ribs, great fish — particularly the coquilles St. Jacques. That’s scallops, you know. It’s about the only place we ever eat out anymore. We were in the bar waiting for a table to open up in the dining room when Keith Billings swaggered in, or maybe staggered better describes it. Now there’s no love lost between us — never has been. I won’t say I was instrumental in getting Billings canned as Charles’s editor — Charles made a lot of the noise himself — but I had my oar in there with Vinson, too, and Billings knew it, of course. The guy is arrogant, obnoxious, and overrated as an editor. He’s also a twenty-four-carat smart-ass, and whenever we meet — which thankfully is not very often — he always gets in a dig at me right at the start. Well, this time I thought I’d beat him to it.”

“And you did?”

He winced and shook his head at the painful memory. “Yeah. Understand, I’d had too much to drink. Hell, so had Billings, for that matter. Anyway, I made a crack about him getting the ultimate revenge against Charles for what I called his ‘ignominious departure from Monarch Press.’ That was stupid of me, of course. Billings came over to our booth and started spewing obscenities, calling me a ‘third-rate peddler of third-rate writers’ and a ‘disgrace to my profession’ in between the four-letter words.

“I replied that his use of profanity was indicative of the paucity of his vocabulary, which in turn was indicative of his lack of ability as an editor, or words to that effect. That’s when he said, ‘Stand up, you flannel-mouthed son of a bitch.’ ”

“And you did?” I said again.

“Yes. I mean, nobody talks that way in front of my wife,” he said angrily. “I’d barely gotten to my feet when the punch came. I never saw it coming, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor on my back and Eleanor was screaming. The episode won’t make a tape of great moments in publishing history.”

“I suppose not. It does strike me you were asking for trouble by baiting Billings,” I observed.