Two

I refilled Vinson’s cup, and he took two sips before going on. “I thought about all of this for a long time before calling you,” he told Wolfe, rubbing a palm along his well-defined jaw. “As I said earlier, Charles Childress was contentious. And if anything, that’s an understatement. In the last few months, Charles had fought — quite publicly — with both his editor at Monarch and with his agent, Franklin Ott. Charles and the editor, Keith Billings, who oversaw our mystery line, didn’t get along from the start, and I’m sorry to say their relationship had deteriorated through Charles’s three Barnstable books. He felt Billings over-edited him and made capricious changes. Keith, for his part, claimed the books’ plots were both weak and slipshod and badly needed shoring up.”

Vinson sighed. “Both of them were to some degree correct, and it seemed that every time I turned around I was mediating one of their battles. Finally, Frank Ott called and told me Charles wouldn’t write for Monarch anymore unless he got assigned a new editor. I gave in and tabbed someone else to work with him on his next book. Billings quit in a rage, feeling, perhaps with some justification, that his authority had been undercut. He now is working for another publisher — Westman & Lane — I’m sorry to say.”

“You valued the writer more than the editor,” Wolfe remarked.

Vinson stirred his coffee, then looked up. “I have always been referred to as ‘a writer’s man,’ ” he said, turning a palm up. “Maybe in this case, I tried too hard to live up to that tag. Anyway, at the same time he was mixing it up with Billings, Charles was sniping at Frank Ott, and he eventually fired him. He was angry because, among other things, Ott didn’t cut a better deal with us on his new Barnstable contract.”

“Did you feel Mr. Ott adequately represented his client?”

“I’ve known Ott for years, and he has always been a top-drawer agent, honest, hard-working, and plenty tough,” Vinson replied. “You should be aware that there were two factors at work here: First, Charles’s Barnstable books have sold okay, but not great; and second, I don’t have to tell you that these aren’t exactly the best of times anywhere, especially in the publishing world. I was a great supporter of Charles — hell, I’m the one who brought him in to continue the Sawyer series, and then I sided with him against a damn good editor, losing the editor in the process. But when Ott came at me three months ago looking for an eighty-percent increase on a new two-book contract, I dug in my heels. I knew Frank was being pressured by Charles, because he — Frank, that is — was realistic enough to know that such a demand was ludicrous. Eighty percent, for God’s sake, for books that don’t have a prayer of making the best-seller lists!”

Vinson realized his voice had been rising and checked himself. “So then what happens?” he said in more moderate tones. “First Charles fires Frank Ott, telling him something to the effect that ‘You’re supposed to be such a damn close buddy of Vinson’s, but you can’t get me a decent deal.’ Then he writes an article, one of those ‘It’s my turn to speak out’ things, for Book Business, our weekly trade magazine, in which he blasts both literary agents and editors. He calls agents ‘lazy and reactive,’ among other things, and he whacks editors as being ‘dictatorial, closed-minded meddlers and stiflers of creativity.’ Charles didn’t mention names, but he didn’t have to; most of the people who read the magazine, at least here in New York, knew exactly whom he was targeting in both cases.”

“Mr. Childress had a penchant for diatribe,” Wolfe observed. “When did the article about agents and editors appear?”

“Three weeks ago, and within minutes after the issue was on the street, you’d better believe I heard from both Billings and Ott,” Vinson answered, his voice rising again. “Keith already was well established at his new job, but he was really hot. He swore that if he ever ran into Charles again, he’d do some major-league stifling of his own. But his anger was nothing compared to Frank’s. He told me — I remember the phrasing precisely — that I’d better ‘put the lid on that smart-mouthed, marginally talented, egomaniacal bastard or I’ll sue his ass from here to Trenton. Hell, I may sue his ass anyway, and yours, too, while I’m at it.’ I’ve known Frank Ott for more than twenty years, and I’ve never, ever heard him talk like that, to me or to anyone else. I think he felt that his reputation had been damaged beyond repair.”

“Do others in the publishing community agree?”

Horace Vinson wrinkled his brow for several seconds before responding. “It’s... a little soon to tell, but, yes, that article probably did hurt Ott to some extent, even though a lot of people know that Charles had a penchant, to use your word, for shooting off his mouth.”

“You apparently feel that given the consecution you have described, either Mr. Billings or Mr. Ott is capable of murder, along with Wilbur Hobbs.”

Vinson shook his head mournfully, looking like he’d just missed the last night train to Poughkeepsie. “Mr. Wolfe, I like and respect two of those men very much. But yes, I’m convinced that Charles was killed by one of the three.”

“Have you discussed this with the authorities?”

“Huh! If you want to call it that. I went and saw a man at NYPD. Homicide — not that fellow Stebbins you mentioned earlier — and it took me less than fifteen seconds to realize I was wasting my time. This cretin, I forget his name, but he’s tall and has bulging eyes, he acted—”

“Lieutenant Rowcliff,” I put in.

“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.

I was left to supply the answer to one very angry and frustrated editor-in-chief. “You’ll be hearing from me later today,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I know he sometimes seems rude, but then, he’s a genius, and things are bouncing around in his cranium that you and I can’t begin to fathom.” It was part of my standard “He’s-tough-to-figure-out-but-he-means-well speech.” It did not play well with Vinson.

“He sure as hell does seem rude,” he snapped, standing and squaring his shoulders. Then the lines in his face softened. “But... I’ve worked with a lot of authors who thought they were geniuses — a few actually were — and most of them kept whatever manners they possessed well hidden. I’ve made all sorts of allowances for them, and of course I’m willing to make damn near any allowance if Mr. Wolfe does go to work on this awful business. Is there anything else I should be doing to persuade him — and you, too — that Charles was murdered?”

“You don’t have to persuade me. As for Mr. Wolfe, I can’t think of anything at the moment. He’s going to have to come around to that opinion on his own, but there’s no law that says I can’t give him a push in the right direction,” I said as we headed for the front hall.

“Push away,” Vinson answered, smiling tightly. Giving me a thumbs-up, he stepped into the wind and went down the steps in search of a taxi.