Fritz, who knows how to throw a punch when he has to, nodded solemnly, marching to an alcove in the hall and silently sliding back a panel that reveals a seven-by-twelve-inch hole. On the office side of the one-way opening is a picture of a waterfall, custom-designed to allow a viewer in the alcove both to see and hear what’s going on in the office.
I left Fritz to his surveillance and took the stairs by twos. As often as I’ve been up in the glassed-in rooms that occupy the fourth floor of the brownstone, I’m still awed each time I get hit by the colors of those ten thousand orchids that Wolfe unblushingly refers to as his concubines. I walked down the aisles through the cool, medium, and warm rooms, and stepped into the potting room, where both Theodore and Wolfe greeted me with cold stares. Wolfe, a sight to behold in his yellow smock, was sitting on a stool and contemplating a plant on the bench. “Yes?” he said sharply. He doesn’t like to be disturbed during his playtime.
“We have a guest, name of Wilbur Hobbs. He came to the door a few minutes ago, and I put him in the office. Fritz is keeping watch.”
He scowled, said something like “Grrr,” and pressed his lips together. “Very well. At eleven.” He turned back to the orchid.
There were two reasons Wolfe wanted me out of the plant rooms. First, as I mentioned above, he hates interruptions. Second, the longer Fritz stood in the hallway peering through the waterfall picture into the office, the more the preparations for lunch might be delayed.
When I got back to the first floor, Fritz nodded and silently slid the panel shut. “He has been looking at books the whole time, Archie,” he whispered, although with the thickness of the office door, whispering wasn’t necessary. I thanked him and marched in.
“Hi, sorry to desert you,” I said to Hobbs. He was standing at the shelves with a book lying open in his hand, the one without the jade pinkie ring. “Are you keeping occupied?”
“Indeed. An intriguing collection.”
“So I’ve remarked many times. To repeat my earlier offer, can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Beer? Bottled water?”
He swiveled from the waist up, compressing his lips, which apparently was his idea of a benign smile. “Again, thank you, no,” he told me, returning to the book. I fiddled with the bank balance and performed a few other bookkeeping chores until I heard the whine of the elevator precisely at eleven. I felt like a boxing fan who’d just sat through the undercard at the old St. Nicholas Arena and was about to view the main event.
Wolfe stepped into the room, halted when he saw Hobbs at his bookshelves, and dipped his chin the requisite eighth of an inch. He slipped the orchid-of-the-day into the vase on his blotter before settling into his chair. Our guest got the hint and circled until he was in front of the desk, facing Wolfe. “I am Wilbur Hobbs; Lon Cohen said you wanted to see me — about the suicide of that writer, Childress.” He made the noun sound like a malignancy.
“That is correct,” Wolfe replied, looking straight ahead. “Please sit down, sir. I find it more comfortable to converse without craning my neck.”
Hobbs nodded curtly and folded himself and his pearl-gray suit into the red leather chair. “Your library is most impressive,” he pronounced, folding his arms and cocking his head.
Wolfe considered him without enthusiasm. “It is not my intent to impress, but rather to surround myself with works that merit periodic revisiting.”
“I did not mean to suggest otherwise,” Hobbs fired back tartly. “I was particularly interested to find William Smith’s History of the Province of New York. And the 1895 Almayer’s Folly, inscribed by Conrad himself, and using his Polish name, Korzeniowski. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the edition with the missing ‘e’.”
“On page one-hundred-ten,” Wolfe replied. “Generosity is misspelled. Would you care for something to drink? I am having beer.”
“No, thank you. After Mr. Cohen told me of your interest in meeting with me, I decided to come unannounced on the chance you were available, although I realize that is a significant breach of etiquette, for which I apologize. Although he — Mr. Cohen — did not specify why you desired to see me, I assume it is related to the death of Charles Childress. And knowing something of your line of work, I further assume that you think he may not have died by his own hand.”
“Both logical assumptions,” Wolfe responded.
“I’m afraid I have little — presumably nothing — that will be of help to you in the pursuit of this line of investigation,” Hobbs said, forming a chapel with his fingers. “But I came anyway, partially, I confess, because I was extremely interested in meeting you — and in seeing your library. I am leaving this afternoon for an extended weekend on Long Island and won’t return to the city until Tuesday.”
“I will not delay your departure,” Wolfe said as Fritz entered with his libation. “Were you personally acquainted with Mr. Childress?”
Hobbs smoothed his mustache with an index finger. “I never met the man. I make it a point to avoid functions where authors are likely to congregate. I prefer to know them only through their writing.”
“You had a low opinion of his work?”
“I have what you would term low opinions of many authors,” Hobbs replied belligerently, “and I would be less than forthright with readers of the Gazette if I did not express my opinions both clearly and forcefully. Writers — the majority of writers, that is — understand and accept this as part of the price of plying their craft — or art, depending on the writer. Charles Childress did not. As you undoubtedly are aware, his bruised and fragile ego drove him to excoriate me in the Manhattan Literary Times. It was an unconscionable diatribe.”
Wolfe sampled the beer and moved his shoulders. “Those who hurl javelins must be prepared to dodge them as well.”
“Hah! But there is a difference,” Hobbs snapped, punching the air with a fist. “I was reviewing his work, while his attack was personal — a vicious assault upon my integrity.”
If that little speech was intended to impress Wolfe, it failed. “You reviewed all three of Mr. Childress’s books about the Pennsylvania detective, Barnstable?”
Hobbs drew in air and expelled it, settling back into the chair, which dwarfed him. “I did.”
“And you disliked each of them?”
“In varying degrees. I thought I was relatively kind to the first one that he penned. Bear in mind, I was never a great fan of Darius Sawyer’s Barnstable books. Oh, Sawyer was a serviceable writer, I’ll give him that much. Better than serviceable. He had two or maybe three interesting characters, and some of his dialogue was actually quite amusing. As you know, he developed an impressive following — some might call it a cult — in his later years. Then he died and along comes this continuator, a man of whom I had no previous knowledge.
“Now I must tell you, Mr. Wolfe, that on principle I do not abide life-after-death in the world of literature. But I read the new book with an open mind — as I of course always do. Charles Childress did a marginally adequate job of re-creating this Orville Barnstable character and other members of Sawyer’s original ensemble company. His dialogue was acceptable in places, although uneven. But his structure...” Hobbs shook his head and compressed his lips. “His narrative structure was clumsy, ill-constructed, and—”