Janet Malcolm, one of the New Yorkers most distinguished writers, a person of undeniable rectitude, decency, and manners, and married, of course, to Gardner Botsford (who, it now seemed more obvious than ever, would have been the ideal successor), happened to be a friend of Mr. Gottlieb's. She was also his neighbor. Their houses were yards apart in Turtle Bay. Mr. Botsford had already told friends he thought the firing was brutal and cruel, and that Mr. Gottlieb was not the right man for the job. If Ms. Ross intended, as it appeared she had, a test of those she had long regarded as villains,
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