Four

Walking home from the Gazette, I occupied myself with how to give Wolfe that gentle shove in the right direction that I had promised Horace Vinson I would deliver. Lon hadn’t been much help, other than basically to confirm the low opinion Vinson held of the reviewer Wilbur Hobbs’s ethics. It was five-twenty when I got back to the brownstone. I still had forty minutes to come up with a stratagem that would start Wolfe’s motor, so I could hit him with it when he came down from the plant rooms. Little did I know that my work already had been done for me.

At six o’clock, the rumble of the elevator prefaced Wolfe’s arrival in the office. I swiveled to face him, but before I could get a word out, he spoke. “Archie, we shall accept Mr. Vinson’s commission, assuming we can agree upon a fee. Get him on the telephone. I will speak first. Then, if you do not already know how to reach Mr. Childress’s fiancée, his agent, and his former editor, you will get that information from Mr. Vinson.”

I worked to keep my mouth from dropping open. “Don’t you want to know how my talk with Lon went?”

“That can wait until after the conversation with Mr. Vinson,” Wolfe snapped, ringing for beer.

I got the editor-in-chief’s card from my center desk drawer and dialed his private number. He answered.

“Mr. Vinson, Nero Wolfe calling,” I said as Wolfe picked up his instrument and I stayed on the line.

“Good evening, sir. I have chosen to investigate the manner of Mr. Childress’s demise. My fee is one hundred thousand dollars, if I identify a murderer. If for any reason I am unsuccessful, the amount will be fifty thousand dollars. An advance of twenty-five thousand dollars, in the form of a cashier’s check made out to me, will be due here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

I couldn’t hear anything at the other end, not even deep breathing. I began to think Vinson had passed out when he finally cleared his throat and spoke. “That’s... a lot of money.”

“Just so,” Wolfe conceded. “But you told me earlier today of your awareness that I do not come cheap.”

“Hoist with my own petar,” Vinson said, chuckling sourly. “And I also said you shouldn’t come cheap, given your record. All right, Mr. Wolfe, I agree to your terms, and you’ll have that check tomorrow at ten, delivered by messenger. I’m curious about one thing, though: What made you decide that Charles was murdered?”

“That can wait for another time, sir; we have other matters to discuss. Have the police sealed Mr. Childress’s apartment?”

“No, not at all,” Vinson responded. “No reason to, from their point of view. They’re satisfied he was a suicide. In fact, I’ve been there myself. I was the one the police called first after Charles was found, because my name was on his billfold ID card on the line that says, ‘In case of accident, notify...’ And I also was the one who had to break the horrible news to his friends and family — they certainly didn’t want to.

“First I telephoned his fiancée, Debra Mitchell — I told you about her when I was at your home — and then I called one of his aunts out in Indiana, a woman named Melva Meeker. After his mother died a couple of years ago, Charles had described Mrs. Meeker to me as his closest relative, and he’d made her the executor of his estate. When I broke the news to her, she sounded quite stoic, almost disconcertingly without emotion. At least that was the impression I got on the phone. I know this sounds terrible, but all I could think about was how relieved I was that she didn’t break down when we talked. She also didn’t want to come to New York — she was quite adamant about that. But she asked if I would sift through her nephew’s personal effects and send back anything of either actual or sentimental value.”

“And you did?” Wolfe asked.

“Yes. She sent a notarized letter, giving me permission to go through Charles’s apartment. I got the keys from the police after they had verified with Mrs. Meeker that such was her wish, and I went to the apartment with my administrative assistant; her name is Laura Pyle. A sad experience, that was, like wandering through a cemetery. Anyway, Laura and I packed up two cartons of things and shipped them back to Indiana — his jewelry, which was mainly a wristwatch, a few rings, and some cufflinks — plus scrapbooks of his clippings and reviews, copies of some of his books, albums filled with family pictures, three bank passbooks, and a couple of stock certificates. His only safety deposit box, it turns out, is back in his hometown in Indiana.”

“Did Mr. Childress have a life insurance policy?”

“He did not, not a penny’s worth,” Vinson said with disgust. “That came up once in a conversation we had a couple years back. I looked upon Charles — and several of our other young writers, as well — the way a parent might look upon his offspring. Not long after he had signed with Monarch, I talked to Charles and asked, in a general way, of course, if he was properly planning for the future. That question might seem rude, but I’ve known too many writers who have no financial sense whatever, and who ended up in pretty sad shape. He told me about a few investments he’d made, and when I mentioned life insurance, he laughed, said he didn’t need it. He said he didn’t have anybody to worry about but himself.”

“Perhaps his attitude changed when he became engaged to Miss Mitchell,” Wolfe suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Vinson said. “When he told me he was going to get married, I brought the subject up again, and he brushed it off. I remember what he said: ‘Give it up, Horace, I’m not the insurance-buying type. The only thing I’d need a policy for is my funeral and burial costs, and the potter’s field is good enough for me.’ It sounded humorous at the time.”

Wolfe drew in air and expelled it. “What is left in the apartment?”

“All his clothes and books, for one thing,” Vinson said. “His aunt doesn’t want them, so I’ve arranged for them to be taken away by the Salvation Army. And his personal computer — that will be sold, with the proceeds going to his estate. He had what he told me a few weeks ago was an almost-completed Barnstable novel on disks, and — I know this sounds unseemly — we plan to see whether we can get it in shape to publish. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I’m going to in the next few days. His estate would of course share in any profits the book made.”

“Can you facilitate a visit to the apartment by Mr. Goodwin?” Wolfe asked.

“Certainly, no problem at all. Do you have any idea what he, and you, expect to find?”

“I do not. The scavenger must ever be open to what awaits. I regret that I must now attend to other business. Mr. Goodwin is on the line, however, and he will require particulars regarding several individuals he will be visiting.”

Wolfe cradled his receiver, and I took over our end of the conversation, getting addresses and in some cases, phone numbers. Vinson promised he would have the keys to Childress’s apartment sent over by messenger. I thanked him and said that he’d be hearing soon from Wolfe or me.

“All right, what gives?” I asked after hanging up as I swiveled to face Wolfe. “Just what happened while I was away?”

He poured beer and watched the foam dissipate. “About ten minutes after you left, Mr. Cramer arrived, in his usual state of dudgeon. Because of your call to Sergeant Stebbins yesterday, the inspector assumed we were probing Mr. Childress’s death, and he was affronted.”

“As only Cramer can be affronted.”

“Yes. I won’t go into irrelevant detail, but he accused me of trying to generate business by manufacturing a murder where none exists.”

“Déjà vu all over again.”

Wolfe grimaced at my Yogi Berra-ism. “I saw no need to defend myself by pointing out that we did not originate the murder theory. Cramer continued to badger me, however, until I became affronted. That was his mistake.”

“But our bank account’s gain,” I observed.

“The inspector hurled his cigar at the wastebasket, missing of course, and then he marched out. He was not smiling.”

“Who picked up the stogie?” I asked, glancing at the wastebasket. “That’s usually my job.”

“I did.” Wolfe’s voice was icy. “I have washed my hands twice since.”

“You have been through a lot, especially the way Cramer gnaws on those things. Well, what next?”

“Report.”

I did, unloading an account of my visit with Lon. After I finished, Wolfe unloaded a laundry list of instructions. The first was to go to Childress’s apartment and give the place a thorough combing, although, as he grumpily pointed out, “an army of others, including our well-intentioned client, have tromped through, likely obliterating any traces the murderer might have been thoughtful enough to leave.”

The next item was to visit Charles Childress’s fiancée, Debra Mitchell, who, Vinson had informed us, worked as a vice president for public relations at the Global Broadcasting Company, one of the TV networks that presumes to shape our national culture.

At nine-forty the next morning, Thursday, a messenger wearing Spandex pants and an inane grin delivered a cashier’s check for twenty-five thousand dollars and a small brown envelope from Vinson. The latter contained the keys to Childress’s apartment and a note from Vinson giving the building’s address and the name of the superintendent. After hoofing it to our neighborhood branch of the Metropolitan Trust Company and depositing the check, I flagged a southbound cab and gave him an address on what turned out to be a block-long, tree-lined street in the Village just west and a little south of Washington Square.

Childress’s building was a five-story brick number that had been rehabbed, probably in the last few years, judging from its tuck-pointed and well-scrubbed facade. I entered the small and gloomy foyer, noted on the mailbox that C. CHILDRESS occupied 1-A, and used one of the keys from Vinson to open the inside door. I found myself in a hallway that led toward the back of the building. The first door on my right was 1-A, and this time I had to use two keys, one of which released the dead-bolt lock.

The place was stale and airless, hardly surprising given it had been closed up for a week. I started in the living room, which faced the street. The carpeting was beige and the furniture nondescript — a tired and slightly lopsided burgundy sofa, two easy chairs, the yellow one of which looked new, a TV set in a mahogany cabinet, a couple of unmatched mahogany end tables with unmatched lamps, and a cherry wood coffee table whose glass top was littered with recent copies of The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Economist. The only picture on the yellow-and-brown striped papered walls was a print of a Renoir, the original of which, as she will be delighted to tell you, hangs in the sunroom of Lily Rowan’s penthouse.

A copy of Childress’s Death in the North Meadow lay on one of the end tables. I covered my hand with a handkerchief and flipped through it, finding no loose papers or notations. I was interested, however, in the author’s head-and-shoulders photograph, which was on the back inside flap of the dust jacket along with his thumbnail biography. He looked younger than I had pictured, but no less surly. His face, topped by well-tended, sandy hair, was triangular — wide cheekbones tapering to a narrow, clefted chin. The dark eyes glowered, and a tight-lipped mouth turned down at one end. From this image, it was difficult to conceive of Charles Childress smiling or breaking into laughter.

I’ve searched scores — maybe hundreds — of rooms; I like to think I’m as good as anybody in the business, and that includes Saul Panzer. I scoured the Childress apartment from baseboards to light fixtures — living room, two bedrooms, one of which had been converted to an office, kitchen, and bathroom — in seventy-five minutes, including seat cushions, bookcases, and bureau and desk drawers. On the hardwood floor in the room used as an office were dark stains I assumed to be blood. But if there were any clues as to who plugged the apartment’s tenant, they slipped by me. I was paging through the last of the volumes in the living room bookcase when a key turned in the front-door lock. A short, burly, sixtyish guy wearing brown coveralls stepped into the room. He was panting.

“I’m Carlucci, the super,” he announced, tilting his chin up defiantly and panting some more. “Heard somebody was in here. Can I help you?”

“Maybe,” I answered in a pleasant voice. “Mr. Vinson, whom I believe you’ve met, gave me the keys.” I held them and my notebook up. “I’m doing some checking on the contents of the dwelling.”

“Oh, insurance stuff, eh?” The defiance seeped away. “Yeah, I s’pose you have to do that, huh?”

I nodded somberly, putting on my insurance adjuster’s face. “A formality. As long as you’re here, Mr. Carlucci, perhaps you can help.” I fingered the knot on my tie. “The last few weeks, did Mr. Childress have any visitors who... well, who hadn’t ever been here before, or whom you didn’t recognize? It’s just a routine part of our investigation, you understand.”

Carlucci nodded grimly and pressed his lips together. “I really don’t pay no attention to who comes and goes around here, you know? I’m just the super, that’s all. I’m really sorry about what happened to Mr. Childress — he seemed like an okay guy, friendly, you know? But I never knew him all that well, except to say hi to once in a while and talk about the weather. I got so much to do that, hey, I barely got time to take a lunch break, you know?” He shrugged his burly shoulders.

“I know. Did you by chance notice if he had any visitors a week ago Tuesday — the day he died?”

“Uh-uh. After I found out what he done to himself, I wondered why I didn’t hear the shot. Then I remembered I was away for a couple of hours, at the hardware store, you know, getting some paint, and then I stopped by to see my sister in Little Italy. She’s just recovering from a stroke.”

“Did you know he kept a gun in the apartment?”

He rolled his eyes. “Nah, but I’m not surprised. Who doesn’t these days, you know? It’s an awful world.”

I agreed and said that I’d be leaving in just a few minutes, which seemed to relieve him. He backed out, pulling the door closed. I finished going through the books on the shelves, finding nothing, and I started for the front door. Don’t ask why I reached up on my way out, because I can’t supply an answer. Wolfe called it a fluke, I said it was instinct. Anyway, as I was leaving, I passed my hand along the top of the molding over the doorway to the foyer, expecting to get dust on my fingers. I did, but I also got a key. It was brass, for a door lock — I know that much after having studied locks and how to open them for the better part of my adult life.

This orphan was not a spare for any of the locks in the Childress apartment. I tried it on all of them, including the back door, which led to a gangway. And then, feeling stupid for having almost missed an obvious hiding place, I passed my hand along the moldings over all the other doors in the place. I got nothing but more dust — and a sliver in my right ring finger, which I couldn’t get out until I used tweezers at home later. Cursing silently, I tucked the mystery key in my pocket and left, walking east to Sixth Avenue, where, after waving my arm for five minutes, I got a northbound cab.

At eleven fifty-five, I spun through revolving doors into the two-story-high, white marble lobby of the GBC Tower on Sixth, checking in with an overfed guard in a dark blue uniform who was manning a desk that looked like a flight deck from one of the Star Wars movies. I asked him to call Debra Mitchell.

“Got an appointment?” he drawled, eyeing me as if I were selling vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias.

“No, but she’ll want to see me. The name is Archie Goodwin. You can tell her I’m here to talk to her about Charles Childress.”

It was obvious that neither name meant anything to him. He opened what apparently was a company phone book, let his fingers do the walking, and located a number, which he punched out on his instrument. He spun in his chair, giving me his broad back as he murmured something into the mouthpiece. He paused, did some more murmuring, then hung up and spun to face me.

“Seventeenth floor,” he said. “Here’s a badge, number two-eleven. Wear it at all times in the building, return it on your way out, and sign your name right here.” He thrust a loose-leaf notebook at me, and I scribbled my Hancock and the time on the lined paper.

The first thing I saw as the elevator doors opened at the seventeenth floor was a huge bronze eagle with outstretched wings — the logo of GBC — mounted on another white marble wall. Off to the left, at a white desk, was a pleasant-looking woman whose hair was — what else — white. “Can I help you?” she asked softly, peering over half-glasses.

I told her Debra Mitchell was expecting me, and she nodded. “Oh, yes, you are Mr. Goodwin, right? Ms. Mitchell said you were on your way up. Just go right through that door, then take a right. Her office is the third one on the left.”

The door was white, the hall walls were white, the carpeting was white. I found Debra Mitchell’s doorway just before snow blindness hit. I peeked in through the doorway and saw a mostly white office fully half the size of Wolfe’s, with a desk in one corner and a sofa and chairs grouped around a coffee table in the other. A woman was seated behind the desk, talking on the phone. “Yes, correct. Yes, they’ve got the guests lined up for the next three weeks, except for next Tuesday. That damned, loopy inventor from South Dakota, or maybe it’s North Dakota, the one who developed a car that runs on cornstarch or something like that, pooped out on us, said he was too busy to make the trip. Can you beat that? Too busy to be interviewed live on network TV? No wonder he’s never left whichever stupid Dakota he’s in.” She finally looked up, saw me standing in the doorway, and nodded, telling the person on the other end that she had to go. Then she pressed another button and told someone else, presumably a secretary, to hold her calls.

“Please come in, Mr. Goodwin,” she said with a cool smile, standing and coming around the desk. Debra Mitchell was worth a second look, as well as a third and a fourth. She was tall, at least five-ten in her heels, and whatever her weight, it was perfect for her height. Black, shoulder-length hair framed a face, high cheekbones and all, that would have looked just fine on the cover of any fashion magazine on any newsstand from here to Sri Lanka.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice you standing there.” She gestured me to the sofa while she sat in one of the chairs at right angles to it, smoothing the hem of her emerald-green dress. “I recognized your name, of course. You work with Nero Wolfe. Horace Vinson told me he was going to try to hire Mr. Wolfe to find out what... what really happened to Charles.” She looked down and then up at me, her golden-brown eyes shrewd. “Does your being here mean Mr. Wolfe will investigate his death?”

I nodded. “It does. Ms. Mitchell, I understand from Mr. Vinson that you agree with him that Charles Childress was murdered.”

“Of course I do!” she snapped, slicing the air with a manicured hand. “He would never have killed himself. Never! It’s too absurd to even discuss. Charles had everything to live for. His writing, our... our life together.” Her face registered more anger than sadness.

“But he did have drastic mood swings, didn’t he?”

“Of course he had mood swings. Charles was artistic, for God’s sake. But if everyone here with mood swings killed themselves, this town would be smaller than Utica.”

“Point taken. Had he been unusually depressed lately?”

“No, he had not,” she said tightly. “Oh, he was ticked off about his new contract, and I don’t blame him. Horace, whom I like very much, let Charles down badly and wouldn’t agree to much more than what he had gotten for his first Barnstable books. Charles was upset about that, and about the review that weasel had done in the Gazette.”

“I understand he also was angry with his agent and his editor at Monarch.”

“And with good reason in each case,” Debra said, her voice still tight. “As you probably are aware, they became his ex-agent and his ex-editor.”

“I am. Did Mr. Childress ever say anything to make you think that he was in danger?”

She shook her head vigorously and fingered the diamond pin on her floral print scarf. “No. In fact, Charles never seemed afraid of anything — or anyone. He was always ready to take on the world.”

“I understand that he wasn’t from New York.”

“No, although he had lived here for, oh, I don’t know, maybe twelve years. He comes — came — from some small town somewhere in Indiana. His parents are both dead. His closest relatives are a couple of aunts out there, both widowed, I think. I never met them, but I talked to one of them on the phone the other day, so did Horace; she made the arrangements to have Charles’s body shipped back home for burial.”

“Did you know he owned a gun?”

She nodded reluctantly. “Yes, he told me when he bought it — that was a couple of months ago. Some apartments on his block had been burglarized, even one in his own building, I think. Charles seemed almost proud of the fact that he’d picked it up. He grinned when he showed it to me, like a kid with a grotesque new toy. He laughed and said something macho like ‘Anybody who tries to bust in here is going to get the surprise of his life — and if he gets cute, it’ll be the end of his life, too.’ ”

“Did Mr. Childress carry any life insurance that you’re aware of?”

She made a noise that I could only describe as unladylike. “Not a chance! Charles didn’t have any use for it. He said insurance was the biggest waste of money since the building of the pyramids.”

“Do you know who the beneficiary of his estate was?”

“His aunts back in Indiana would be my guess,” she said defiantly. “It certainly wouldn’t have been me — I’m pretty well set, thanks to an uncle who helped develop a computer chip. And Charles knew I was well set. I didn’t need any of his money, if that’s what you were suggesting.”

“It wasn’t. Ms. Mitchell, do you care to nominate a murderer?”

The question stopped her cold, as it was supposed to. She studied the glass top of the coffee table, tracing circles on it with an index finger, then looked up slowly, tilting her head to one side. “Have you met Patricia Royce?” she asked quietly.

“No, but I intend to. Why?”

“Do you know anything about her?”

“I know she is a writer herself, and that she discovered Mr. Childress’s body the day of his death. I understand she was a close friend of his.”

“ ‘Friend’ has many meanings, Mr. Goodwin. It had different meanings to Charles and to Patricia.”

“Go on.”

She crossed her beautiful legs and tapped a shapely knee. “Let’s just say that Patricia expected something more out of the relationship than Charles did.” Her voice was chilly.

“Did he tell you this?”

“Huh! He didn’t have to. Mr. Goodwin, it doesn’t take someone with ESP to spot a woman on the make, and Patricia Royce was definitely on the make with Charles.”

“How did he feel about her?”

Debra rolled her eyes. “He saw her as a fellow author, someone who he could bounce ideas off, someone he could compare notes with. At that, she leaned on him for moral support a lot more than he leaned on her.”

“Did you and Childress ever discuss her feelings toward him?”

She nodded grimly. “We did. I told him I thought Patricia was in love with him, and he laughed at me. He just laughed at me! He said it was preposterous, that’s the word he used.”

“Ms. Mitchell, you’re not going to like this next question, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask it,” I told her, raising one eyebrow and giving her what Lily Rowan calls my “almost-smile.”

I got an almost-smile back. “Fire away,” she said bravely. “You’ll get a straight answer.”

“Okay. Were Charles Childress and Patricia Royce having an affair?”

She handled herself well, but then, she probably saw the pitch coming. “Mr. Goodwin, if I got outraged and said ‘no way!’ you probably would chalk it up as the natural reaction of a woman who was being cheated on, wouldn’t you?”

“I like to think I’m more enlightened than that,” I responded with a full smile.

“All right, then the answer is ‘no way!’ ” she said, not returning the smile. “Maybe it’s arrogance, but I believe I was close enough to Charles to know what he wanted in a long-term relationship, and Patricia didn’t have it. Now if you are going to ask me what ‘it’ is, we’ll have a problem, because I don’t think I can give you a definition.”

“How did Patricia Royce feel about you?”

Now she was toying with the little bronze eagle that perched on the coffee table. “Oh, she was always very polite when we ran into each other — too polite. I got the feeling that she wanted me to think she was this humble little writer from — where’s she from? — Virginia, I think it is. As you may know, she writes historical novels, mostly about the South. Charles always said they were very good, but I wouldn’t know. You couldn’t drag me kicking and screaming into a historical novel. Anyway, Patricia Royce was so damn self-effacing the few times we met that it gave me a pain. I know she never liked me. She and Charles had been friends long before I came along, and it was obvious that she deeply resented me, despite all that phony humility of hers.”

“And I gather you think she could have killed Childress?”

“You are not going to get me to respond to that,” Debra Mitchell said brusquely, giving the eagle another shove before she left it alone. “I know a little about the laws of libel and slander. Let’s just say I hope you spend some time talking to Patricia.”

I repeated that I planned to. “When did you last see Mr. Childress?”

“The night before he died. Last Monday night. We went out for dinner at a little Italian place we like on Second Avenue.”

“Did he seem particularly depressed?”

“Oh, he was kind of sour, but no more than he had been lately. Actually, dinner was my idea; I thought it might take his mind off his problems and cheer him. He’d always liked that restaurant, and we hadn’t been there for a while.”

“Where were you on Tuesday, say from mid-morning on?”

“Well, I—” She recoiled as if she’d been slapped. “Why are you asking?”

“Just my native curiosity.”

Her face went pale with anger, one of the better performances of outrage I’ve witnessed. “Listen, Mr. Goodwin, I’d hardly be encouraging your investigation if I were the killer, now, would I?”

“Probably not. But in my line of work, Ms. Mitchell, I’ve gotten in the habit of asking nosy questions. Do you have a problem with that one?”

Her face softened, but only slightly. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m still somewhat off-balance over this whole thing. Actually, I worked at home on Tuesday, editing press releases my staff had done for shows that we’ll be running during the summer. I do that sometimes — work at home, I mean. I can get so much more done away from the phones. I live in a co-op on Park near Sixty-eighth.”

“Did anyone see you during that time?”

“You really do ask nosy questions, don’t you? Well, I guess you have to. No, nobody saw me. Wait — I’m wrong. I went out just before noon. I needed some air, so I took a long walk and ended up doing some grocery shopping at a deli in the neighborhood. Our doorman, Jake, saw me go, and he saw me come back.”

“When was that?”

“I think it must have been close to two o’clock. I remember that I’d been home for about an hour and a half and I was thinking Charles would be phoning me soon. He had planned to spend some time at the library in the afternoon doing research on Pennsylvania for his next book. He had said he would call and tell me when he was picking me up — we were supposed to go to a cocktail party that the head of our news division was having in his place on Park. Well, I got a call, all right, but it wasn’t from Charles. It was from my office, telling me about Charles.” She fingered an ashtray on the coffee table, then looked up. “And that’s it,” she said, spreading her hands.

“But nobody can vouch for you between noon and two?”

She shrugged. “Maybe the clerk in the deli, but I didn’t get there until after my walk, maybe about one-forty-five. Does that make me a suspect?” she demanded with a toss of the head.

“It might,” I answered in a light tone. We were nothing if not civilized. “One more thing. Would you mind showing me the key to your apartment?”

Debra Mitchell started to frown but quickly erased it, smiling without warmth and tossing her head again. She knew that made her hair fall across her cheek. If I hadn’t been so intent on getting something accomplished, the gesture might have impressed me no end. “If this is some sort of come-on that I’m not familiar with, call me naive,” she said, narrowing her eyes and wrinkling her nose.

“I am by no means above a come-on,” I conceded, “but only after hours. I only want to see your key — I won’t even touch it.”

She shook her head as if indulging a child and went to her desk, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a patent leather purse. “All right, here it is,” she said, holding one key between her thumb and forefinger as she thrust her key chain at me with a flourish. “What does it tell you?”

“All that I want to know,” I said. Even from two feet away, I could see that her key was not even a distant cousin of the one I had pocketed earlier in the Village. I thanked her for seeing me and started to rise. “Before you go,” she said sheepishly, “I wonder if I can change the subject?” I nodded and she went on.

“You might have heard me on the phone when you arrived. A program of ours, Entre Nous, is an interview show — maybe you’ve seen it. It’s on weeknights at seven. Anyway, we lost our guest for next Tuesday, an inventor from the Dakotas, and I wondered if we could get Nero Wolfe in his place. I know he doesn’t like to leave home, but he won’t have to. Belle Corliss, she’s our interviewer, would come to his house along with a crew, and do the conversation right there. It would take—”

“Forget it,” I told her with a smile. “Mr. Wolfe guards his privacy like a Doberman. And he has a powerful aversion to television. Call the latter a character defect on his part, but that’s the way he is, eccentric through and through.” I didn’t bother to tell her that Wolfe also has a powerful aversion to having women in the brownstone.

“One more thing,” I said, stopping just short of the doorway and reaching into my pocket, pulling out the key I had found above Childress’s door. “Does this look familiar to you?”

Debra Mitchell took it and held it up. “No... It’s not one of mine,” she said, looking puzzled. “Why?”

“Just wondered. Well, thanks for your time.”

She pressed me again about Wolfe being on Entre Nous like a good TV executive, but I held fast, and she finally surrendered gracefully. I thanked her again for her time and patience, and she gave me a firm handshake. As I walked down the hall toward the elevator, I found myself musing on two things: Debra Mitchell’s beauty and her hardness, the latter underscored by what seemed to be a total lack of grief over the death of the man she had been going to marry.