Rex Stout: And Four to Go

Rex Stout

And Four To Go

Introduction

WHEN IT WAS FIRST suggested that I write an introduction to one of the volumes in this edition of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, it never occurred to me that Bantam would come up with one I hadn’t even read. For one thing, I didn’t think there were any Nero Wolfe books I hadn’t read. Even if I hadn’t been married to one of the great Rex Stout fans of all time-and therefore living in a house more littered with Wolfian tributes than with cats-I would have been destined to encounter a good deal of the Wolfe canon in childhood. I was born and brought up in a small Connecticut town abutting the one in which Stout spent most of his life. My father’s law partner drew up Stout’s will and his estate, High Meadow, is legendary there. So is Stout himself, of course, and for more reasons than the simple fact that he produced a number of excellent light mysteries about the most eccentric master detective of them all. Like most other states, Connecticut prides herself on the accomplishments of the men and women she takes to be her own. Stout was an enormously successful banker long before he became a bestselling author. He was a respected public figure before he ever presented Nero Wolfe to the world. He was one of those people who seem to be successful by definition-not someone who tried but someone who accomplished, almost as a matter of course. These days, I know enough about writing to know that nothing about producing a successful book is “a matter of course,” but back then Stout seemed right up there with George Washington and Thomas Edison-one of those people so good at everything they simply couldn’t fail. After a while the images got confused. In my child’s mind, Rex Stout was perfect and Nero Wolfe was perfect and therefore Rex Stout was Nero Wolfe. (Even the names had similar rhythms and resonated against each other. Nero Wolfe was fat, and Rex’s last name was-well, Stout.) It came as quite a shock when, in my adulthood, I finally came across a good picture of the novelist himself. A man who looked less like his master detective could barely be imagined.

Someone looking for a chance to spend time with Wolfe and Archie at their most vivid could hardly pick a better volume than this one. Short detective fiction is often very frustrating. Restricted to a few thousand words, even the best of authors choke. Characters strongly drawn in the longer fictional forms become thin. Plots made intricate by twists and turns over the course of two hundred pages turn out to be obvious and feeble when confined to twenty. Maybe my third-grade teacher was right. Maybe Mr. Rex Stout was perfect. There are none of the weaknesses of your run-of-the-mill mystery story here.

What you will find are four very good stories, two of which have curious histories. “Easter Parade,” for instance, was originally published in Look magazine with color pictures to accompany the text. The fair-play clues to the puzzle were supposed to be in the photographs. Although I have not seen these photographs, I know from report that there is a hardcover edition of And Four to Go that includes them, but in black and white. Having read the story without them, I can say that they are not strictly necessary. Stout was too careful to leave all the responsibility for planting clues up to some camera.

Then there is “Murder Is No Joke,” the only one of these four stories not set during a holiday. A version of that one appears in Death Times Three -with a little difference. The difference is the female lead, Flora Gallant in both, who appears as an old and ugly woman in the book you are now holding, but as a young and beautiful one-and subplot romance for Archie-in the slightly longer version in the other volume. For those of you who like to play these games, I note that this change is a wonderfully demonstrative indication of the diverse socialization of men and women. My husband prefaced his explanation of the differences between the two versions by saying that, in lengthening the story, Stout had made “one minor change.” I’ve never met a woman yet who thought that change was minor.

Curiosities aside, however, both these stories are good solid mysteries more than worthy of the deductive efforts of their readers, and so are the other two. They are also fine vignettes of life in the brownstone on Thirty-fifth Street. When I read my first Nero Wolfe novel, I identified with Wolfe-the genius, the eccentric-who seemed to me to be all the things I wanted to grow up to be, except fat. Now I identify with Archie, who is most of the things I have actually grown up to be, meaning the mother hen to a lot of people who seem quite determined not to make any sense whatsoever (but often do). I know I’m not supposed to be able to do this-Nero and Archie are men; I am a woman-but I always have and I probably always will. Given the number of novels published each year by women whose female detectives take more than a little from the personality of Archie Goodwin, I suspect I am not alone. There is enough opportunity to empathize with Archie in these four stories to last a good long vacation, or more. It’s worse than usual because in this volume Nero Wolfe spends an unprecedented amount of time out of his house. It’s not safe.

Never mind. In the world of Nero Wolfe nothing is ever safe for very long. It’s time to stop reading this introduction by me and get what you came for. After all, I don’t write half as well or a tenth as humorously as Stout. I don’t live a life a quarter as crazy as Wolfe’s either, in spite of the fact that I once shared a very small house with eight kittens and a totally fed-up mother cat. Maybe that’s because nobody ever kills anybody around here.

They just think about it.

–Jane Haddam

CHRISTMAS PARTY

Chapter 1

I’M SORRY, SIR,” I said. I tried to sound sorry. “But I told you two days ago, Monday, that I had a date for Friday afternoon, and you said all right. So I’ll drive you to Long Island Saturday or Sunday.”

Nero Wolfe shook his head. “That won’t do. Mr. Thompson’s ship docks Friday morning, and he will be at Mr. Hewitt’s place only until Saturday noon, when he leaves for New Orleans. As you know, he is the best hybridizer in England, and I am grateful to Mr. Hewitt for inviting me to spend a few hours with him. As I remember, the drive takes about an hour and a half, so we should leave at twelve-thirty.”

I decided to count ten, and swiveled my chair, facing my desk, so as to have privacy for it. As usual when we have no important case going, we had been getting on each other’s nerves for a week, and I admit I was a little touchy, but his taking it for granted like that was a little too much. When I had finished the count I turned my head, to where he was perched on his throne behind his desk, and darned if he hadn’t gone back to his book, making it plain that he regarded it as settled. That was much too much. I swiveled my chair to confront him.

“I really am sorry,” I said, not trying to sound sorry, “but I have to keep that date Friday afternoon. It’s a Christmas party at the office of Kurt Bottweill-you remember him, we did a job for him a few months ago, the stolen tapestries. You may not remember a member of his staff named Margot Dickey, but I do. I have been seeing her some, and I promised her I’d go to the party. We never have a Christmas office party here. As for going to Long Island, your idea that a car is a death trap if I’m not driving it is unsound. You can take a taxi, or hire a Baxter man, or get Saul Panzer to drive you.”