Which is why I was sitting in the office chatting with Horace Vinson, editor-in-chief of Monarch Press, at eleven the next morning when the groan of the elevator announced Wolfe’s descent from the plant rooms. The lord of the manor paused at the office door, dipped his head a fraction of an inch in our guest’s direction, then detoured around his desk, placing a raceme of orchids in a vase on the blotter before settling into the chair that was expressly constructed to support his seventh of a ton. “Mr. Vinson,” he said. His version of an effusive greeting.
“Mr. Wolfe, good to meet you. My God, those flowers are stunning.”
“Doritaenopsis, a crossing of Phalaenopsis and Doritis,” Wolfe replied. Vinson may not have known it, but he had said precisely the right thing; Nero Wolfe loves to have his orchids gushed over.
“Would you like more coffee or something else to drink?” he asked Vinson. “I am going to have beer.”
“Not just yet. Mr. Goodwin told you why I am here?”
“The death of a writer. Mr. Childress. One of your authors, I believe.”
Vinson shifted in the red leather chair and studied his pearl cufflink. “Yes, one of my authors,” he said huskily. “He was shot last week — eight days ago now — in his apartment in the Village.”
Wolfe paused to pour beer from one of two chilled bottles Fritz had just brought in. “I read the newspaper accounts.” He frowned at the foam in his glass. “The police have labeled it a suicide.”
“Nonsense! Charles had everything to live for. He was a relatively successful writer, he had a terrific future, and he was about to be married to a beautiful woman whom he loved and doted on.”
“He was shot with his own gun, and when Mr. Goodwin telephoned the police yesterday at my direction, he was informed by Sergeant Stebbins of Homicide that the only fingerprints on the weapon were his own,” Wolfe said evenly.
Vinson leaned forward and placed his palms on his knees. “Mr. Wolfe, surely you have seen enough murders to realize that killers know how to make their handiwork seem like something else.”
“I have,” Wolfe said, drinking beer and dabbing his lips with a handkerchief. “Tell me why someone would want to kill Mr. Childress.”
Vinson’s well-tailored shoulders sagged, and he dropped back into the chair with a sigh. “All right. First off, Charles was, well, not the most pleasant person you’d ever be likely to run into. Some people found him boastful and arrogant, to say the least.”
“Do you agree with that assessment?”
“Mr. Wolfe, Charles Childress was a talented writer — not brilliant, but with an ability that I felt was soon to come to full flower, if you’ll pardon the hyperbole. And he possessed a well-developed sense of self. He knew what his strengths were. And he wasn’t the least bit reticent about proclaiming them.”
“Fanfaronade is not a trait conducive to the development of friendships, but rarely is it the primary stimulus for murder,” Wolfe observed. Yep, I was there. He really said it.
“Fanfaronade, as you term it, was only a part of Charles’s problem,” Vinson replied without missing a beat, forming a chapel with his long, bony fingers. “He also was contentious, combative, and exceedingly vengeful. Does the name Wilbur Hobbs mean anything to you?”
Wolfe grunted. “He attempts to review books for the Gazette.”
That brought a slight smile to the editor’s angular face. “Well said. As you probably know, Charles was the continuator of the long and extremely popular series of detective novels, the Sergeant Barnstable stories, which were originated by Darius Sawyer in the forties.”
“I learned as much from the newspaper reports on Mr. Childress’s death,” Wolfe replied dryly. “My current schedule does not allow for the reading of detective fiction, let alone its so-called continuation by a second author.”
Vinson shrugged and let his eyes travel over Wolfe’s bookshelves. “Actually, some detective stories qualify as solid literature, better certainly than a lot of the non-genre work being turned out today. And I happen to think Charles did a fine job of capturing the spirit and flavor of Sawyer’s writing. Of course, my opinion could be termed suspect, as I am the one who picked Charles to be the series continuator after Sawyer died. I had read the books he’d done previously, for another publisher, and I felt he had potential to ultimately go beyond writing mysteries. Anyway, Wilbur Hobbs has been rough on all three of Charles’s Barnstable books, and he was particularly savage in reviewing the last one, which we published about six weeks ago.”
Wolfe drained his glass. He refilled it from the second bottle. “I read the review. How have other critics treated Mr. Childress’s work?”
“Mixed,” Vinson said. “Most range from mildly favorable to mildly negative, but nothing like Hobbs, who is a nasty, vituperative little man. As you know, his Gazette review of the most recent Barnstable book, Death in the North Meadow, was incredibly mean-spirited. Among other things, he called it a ‘towering exercise in mimicry’ and said that ‘Any self-respecting lover of mysteries should treat this volume as if it were a radioactive cobalt isotope.’ ”
Vinson exhaled. “Charles never took criticism particularly well, and Hobbs’s piece — it occupied all of page three in the Gazette’s Sunday book review section — really lit his wick. He fired off an article to the Manhattan Literary Times blasting Hobbs. I tried to talk him out of submitting the piece — there’s almost never anything to be gained by lashing back at a critic — but he was adamant. Are you familiar with the MLT?
Wolfe said no, and Vinson went on. “It’s a self-styled avant-garde weekly tabloid that thrives on controversy. Of course they printed Charles’s article, in which he attacked Hobbs as ‘a preening poseur, a peacock, a dandified and self-important satrap who is trying desperately, yea, pitifully, to become an arbiter of public taste, which is roughly equivalent to John Travolta trying to fit into Astaire’s white tie and tails.’ Quite a sentence, eh? But that wasn’t the worst of it. Charles all but accused Hobbs of being on the take, of accepting gifts — financial and otherwise — from authors and publishers whose works he praises in print.”
“Is there substance to that charge?”
Vinson set his jaw, then nodded reluctantly. “Possibly. It has been rumored in the publishing community for years, but nobody had ever come out and said anything publicly before. There’s no question about Hobbs having his favorites — both among writers and publishing houses. You can pretty well predict how he’s going to react to a book — with fawning praise or fiery vitriol — depending on who the writer and publisher are. Hobbs doesn’t like Monarch, never has, despite our having had two Pulitzer Prize winners and five National Book Awards in the last six years. Why doesn’t he like us?” Vinson asked, anticipating Wolfe’s question. “Because nobody in our house, from me on down to the lowest editorial assistant, will kowtow to the little viper. We’ve never made any secret of our feelings about the man, and I’ve even written to the publisher of the Gazette complaining about the obvious bias in Hobbs’s reviews. And he certainly didn’t like Charles Childress. After the MLT piece came out, almost a month ago, Hobbs phoned me in a fury. He made loud noises about a lawsuit, but that’s the last I heard about it.”
Wolfe leaned back and scowled. “Has Mr. Hobbs ever approached anyone at your company soliciting money or other favors?”
“A few years ago, two editors on our staff mentioned he tossed out some veiled hints to them that he was open to ‘offers,’ is how I think he termed it,” Vinson responded sourly. “Both editors assured me they pretended they didn’t understand what he was talking about. Apparently, Hobbs did not press the issue with either of them, but soon after those episodes, we started getting execrable reviews from him on virtually every one of our books.”