“Not until I read that it was the weapon that killed him.” Hobbs sniffed. “But I was not surprised. I own a firearm myself. Although my building’s security system appears to be adequate, in this city one can never be too cautious.”
“Do you have any theories about Mr. Childress’s death?”
“I assumed — and still do — that he took his own life. What’s so unusual about that?” Hobbs shot back contentiously. “A lot of creative people, and far more talented ones than Childress, I hasten to add, have killed themselves, for whatever reasons: despair, depression, inability to live up to their earlier works or their reviews or their pathetically inflated self-images. Now I really must go,” he said, looking at his watch with a flourish. “I do not know who your client is, although I can guess. If you will take the advice of someone who has been following the literary cavalcade in this city, and across the country, for more than twenty years, stop jousting with windmills. Charles Childress put an end to his own life. Now, I really must be going. Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Goodwin.” Hobbs stood and bowed to each of us. “Good day.”
“One last thing,” I asked. “Is this by any chance yours?” I held out the key to Hobbs. He plucked it from my palm, contemplated it at arm’s length, and shrugged, handing it back. “No — not at all. Why?”
“Just a stab,” I said. “Any objection to showing me your keys?”
Hobbs glared. “As a matter of fact, I do,” the little man said. “I see no earthly reason to indulge the fantasies and fishing expeditions of private investigators, whether or not they are licensed by the state. Various governments around the world license peddlers and prostitutes, too, among others. Again, good day to you both.” With that, he bowed again, and it was a fine bow, although the gesture was wearing thin with me.
I followed Hobbs to the front hall, where he retrieved his precious bowler and walking stick, favored me with a faint smile — or maybe it was a sneer — and stepped out the door, presumably in search of a taxi. Here’s hoping all the cabbies in Manhattan were on their coffee breaks.
Eight
“Interesting specimen,” I said to Wolfe when I got back to the office. “Just the kind of guy you’d like to sit around with shooting the breeze.”
He snorted. “Mr. Childress was correct; the man is a preening poseur.”
“Sounds right to me. Say, here’s an idea: I tell Lon Cohen that unless he finds a way to get Hobbs tossed off the Gazette, he won’t ever get any more invitations to dinner here.”
Wolfe picked up his book and snorted again. “Archie, the fabric of your humor is frayed. Have you made arrangements to see Mr. Childress’s editor?”
I was about to respond when the phone rang. As if on cue, it was the individual in question, Keith Billings, returning my call. Billings sounded harried, so I didn’t waste words. “I work for Nero Wolfe, who is investigating Charles Childress’s death, and I would like to see you for a few minutes, preferably today.”
“Why?” he snapped.
“We are talking to everyone who knew Childress, in the hope that we can learn—”
“That you can learn how to turn his death from a suicide into a murder, right? I know enough about your famous boss to be aware that murder is his métier — not to mention a very profitable livelihood.”
“Then you also should be aware that Mr. Wolfe has a respect for facts. He doesn’t twist or alter them, and he certainly doesn’t have to manufacture murders in order to get business. A client is convinced that Mr. Childress was killed, and Mr. Wolfe happens to agree.”
“Just who is this client?” Billings fired back.
“Sorry, that’s something I cannot divulge at this time.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. You’re on a fishing expedition.”
“Look, I realize you and Childress weren’t exactly the best of friends, but—”
“Oh, now I get it. If I don’t sit still for an interview with you, the implication is that I’ve got something to hide, is that it, Goodwin?”
“You interrupted me — for the second time.” I kept my voice even and amiable. “What I was about to say was: but I’m certain you’d do anything you could to help identify the murderer — if there is one.”
I knew he was still on the line because I could hear angry breathing. After about fifteen seconds, he strung a series of expletives together, none of which can be used on vanity license plates in any state. The man belonged in publishing, all right: He had a fine grasp of the language and used a few words I made a mental note to look up later in Wolfe’s Oxford Dictionary of American Slang.
“All right, dammit, I’ve got a nightmare of an afternoon, but I can spare a few minutes,” Billings said after he’d finished spewing venom. “Come at three — I’m on the eighteenth floor. I assume you know the address.”
I assured him I did, and at two-fifty-six, I sauntered into the Art Deco lobby of a mature skyscraper on Madison Avenue in the Forties. The Westman & Lane Publishing Company occupied four floors, sixteen through nineteen, and its roster of employees, which included Keith Billings, took up more than one-fourth of the building directory. When I got off the elevator at eighteen, I found myself facing a massive reception desk. Behind it rose a large backlit display of Westman & Lane’s current publications, artfully arranged on several glass shelves. Also behind the desk sat a young man with oversized dark-rimmed glasses and curly black hair tied in a ponytail. He looked up from the book he had been reading and blinked his complete indifference in my direction.
“I’m here to see Keith Billings,” I said. “The name is Goodwin.”
He considered me with more indifference. “He expecting you?” When I said yes, the young dynamo tapped out a number on his phone and pronounced my name. He then nodded, cradled the receiver, and twitched his ponytail to the left. “Through that door,” he droned. “About halfway down on the right. Can’t miss it.”
I would have said thanks, but I didn’t want to distract him from his book, which he had dived back into. I pushed through into a long corridor. Where GBC-TV had been white all over, this place was gray, from the fabric walls to the carpeting. Office doors were spaced every few feet on both sides. An identical nameplate next to each one proclaimed its occupant in sans-serif capital letters. Many of the doors were open, revealing rooms barely big enough for one medium-sized desk, a couple of guest chairs, bookshelves filling one wall from floor to ceiling, and editors, all of whom seemed busy, presumably editing.
That is what Keith Billings was doing when I cast a shadow across his desk from the doorway. He looked up from a sheaf of papers, ran a hand through a forest of brown hair that already looked like it had been styled by an eggbeater, and tossed a frown in my direction. “Archie Goodwin, occupation — detective. Come in, sit down,” he said without warmth, gesturing toward his pair of standard-issue tubular chairs. Both had piles of books on them, so I took the smallest stack, placing it on the floor, and sat.
“Oh — sorry about the mess,” Billings muttered. “As you can see, housekeeping’s not high on my priority list.” He got up, all five-feet-seven of him, stalked to the door, shut it with a bang that unquestionably put a kink in the heavy editing going on up and down the hallway, and returned to his desk. “That’s the only way to keep from getting interrupted around here, and even a closed door is no damn guarantee. Now, you wanted to talk about Childress — go ahead.”
Billings planted elbows on the two clear spots on the desk top, resting his chin on clasped hands. I put him at no more than thirty-five, and maybe a year or two younger. His neck was thick and his face was square and ruddy, with wide cheekbones and eyes that I would have called black, although they probably were dark brown, complete with deep circles under them. He looked like a man who took life seriously and smiled only on alternate Wednesdays. He and the late Mr. Childress must have made quite a pair.