The Missing Heiress

Author Notes

This story is set in the aftermath of World War II, when the United States was adjusting, not always easily, to peacetime after nearly four years of American conflict in Europe and the Pacific.

Among the places mentioned in the narrative is the William Sloane House YMCA, on West Thirty-Fourth Street near Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. The fourteen-story Sloan House, once said to be the largest residential Y in the country with sixteen hundred, was built in 1930, sold in 1963 for five million dollars, and later converted to rental apartments.

I stayed there on several occasions in 1961 when on weekend passes from my army post at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. The rooms were spartan but clean and neat, and the price was right for a young GI. And those trips to New York gave me a wonderful opportunity to familiarize myself with the city that plays such a large part in these stories.

If present-day New Yorkers reading this narrative are puzzled to learn that long-distance passenger trains once departed from Grand Central Terminal, it should be noted that the historic station was for decades home to many famous intercity trains, including the Twentieth Century Limited, the Southwestern Limited, and the Commodore Vanderbilt. But in 1991, Amtrak consolidated all its New York passenger operations at Penn Station, and Grand Central became solely a commuter depot.

If the name Mortimer M. Hotchkiss, a vice president of the Continental Bank & Trust Co., strikes a familiar chord with readers, it is because Rex Stout also had used him as Nero Wolfe’s banker. If you have found a good man, stick with him.

Four books have been of great help to me in my attempts to re-create the world of Nero Wolfe and the other characters and places Rex Stout created over four decades. They are: Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-Fifth Street: The Life and Times of America’s Largest Private Detective by William S. Baring-Gould (The Viking Press, New York, 1968); The Nero Wolfe Cookbook by Rex Stout and the Editors of the Viking Press (Viking Press, New York, 1973); The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe by Ken Darby as Told by Archie Goodwin (Little, Brown, Boston, 1983); and Rex Stout: A Biography by John McAleer (Little, Brown, Boston, 1977). The McAleer volume won an Edgar Award in the biography category from the Mystery Writers of America.

As with my previous Nero Wolfe books, I thank the estate of Rex Stout for graciously granting me permission to continue the adventures of Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and the other recurring characters who were so brilliantly created and depicted by Mr. Stout.

I also thank my agent, Martha Kaplan, as well as Otto Penzler and Charles Perry of Mysterious Press and the fine team at Open Road Integrated Media, all of whom have supplied much-appreciated support and encouragement.

And I save my biggest thanks for my wife, Janet, who has been a partner in every aspect of my life for well over a half century.