And Four to Go
Encyclopedia
And Four to Go is a collection of Nero Wolfe
mystery
novella
s by Rex Stout
, published by the Viking Press
in 1958. The book comprises four stories — three appearing previously in periodicals, and one making its debut in print:
Wolfe is incredulous, but hires a limousine to take him to Long Island as Archie attends the party. There, a conversation between Archie and Margot reveals that Margot has been trying to get her employer and paramour, Kurt Bottweill, to quit procrastinating and marry her. She has suggested to Archie, who is no more to her than a friend and dancing partner, that a marriage license might motivate Bottweill to propose and follow through. Archie gave her the license on Thursday, and now Margot tells him that the plan worked perfectly, that she and Bottweill are to marry.
Also attending the party are Bottweill; his business manager Alfred Kiernan; an artisan named Emil Hatch who turns Bottweill's designs into marketable merchandise; Cherry Quon, an East Asian who is the office receptionist; and Mrs. Perry Jerome and her son – Mrs. Jerome is a wealthy widow who is the source of Bottweill's business capital. The Bottweill-Jerome business relationship is apparently based on intimacy, which her son Leo is bent on disrupting. Santa Claus is also present, tending bar.
Bottweill starts to toast the season but before he can do so Kiernan interrupts. Everyone has champagne, but Bottweill's drink is Pernod – he keeps an entire case of it in his office. Kiernan brings Bottweill a glass of Pernod. Bottweill finishes his toast, tosses back the Pernod, and promptly dies of cyanide poisoning.
As Archie is issuing instructions – call the police, don't touch anything, nobody leave – he notices that Santa has already left. Hatch says no one has left via the elevator, and the only other exit is to Bottweill's office. There's nothing unusual there, and Archie pushes a button that calls Bottweill's private elevator. When it arrives, Archie finds Santa's wig, mask, jacket and breeches on its floor.
The police arrive, led by Sergeant Purley Stebbins, and after several hours of questioning he dismisses the partygoers. Purley's first task is to try to find Santa, and if that approach leads nowhere then he'll start after the others. Archie heads back to the brownstone, where Wolfe, having returned from his errand, is eating dinner. Wolfe has heard on the radio a report of Bottweill's death, and after discussing it briefly, Wolfe sends Archie to his room to bring him a book. Archie finds the book, and also finds, draped over it, a pair of white gloves that appear to be identical to the gloves that Santa was wearing while tending bar.
Stunned at first, Archie works it out that Wolfe was the bartender in a Santa costume. He must have arranged the charade in order to judge for himself whether Archie and Margot were genuinely involved or the marriage license was flummery. For Wolfe to have gone to such an extreme must mean that Wolfe regarded the situation as potentially desperate. Finally, Wolfe left the gloves for Archie to find so that he would reason it all out for himself, thus sparing Wolfe the necessity of admitting how much he depends on Archie.
Archie returns to the office and, skipping the issue of Wolfe's motives, reports on the events that followed Wolfe's escape. Stebbins has established that all the partygoers knew that Bottweill drank Pernod and kept a supply in his office. All knew that a supply of cyanide was kept in the workshop one floor down from the studio: Hatch uses it in his gold-plating work. Any of them could have found an opportunity to get some cyanide from the workshop and, unobserved, put it in Bottweill's current bottle of Pernod. But none of them ran when Bottweill died. Only Santa ran, and the police are concentrating for the moment on finding whoever played Santa.
When Archie finishes reporting the doorbell rings. It's Cherry Quon, without appointment, wanting to speak with Wolfe. It comes out that Miss Quon recently became engaged to marry Bottweill. She is convinced that Margot murdered Bottweill in a rage at being thrown over for Miss Quon. And she delivers a bombshell: she knows it was Wolfe who played Santa at the party. Bottweill had told her that morning at breakfast.
Miss Quon has a demand. She wants one of Wolfe's men to confess to having played Santa. As he was putting on the costume, in the bathroom attached to Bottweill's office, Wolfe's man heard something, peeked out, and saw Margot putting something in the Pernod bottle. Miss Quon is not blatant about it, but she implies strongly that if Wolfe does not comply with her demand she will tell the police that Wolfe himself was Santa.
That's the last thing Wolfe wants – Cramer would lock him up as a material witness and possibly for withholding evidence, and the publicity would be humiliating. But Wolfe refuses to go along with Miss Quon's script. Instead, he sends notes to all the partygoers, inviting the murderer to identify himself.
, and he strongarmed Lewis Hewitt
to get those black orchids. Now he's learned that Millard Bynoe has hybridized a pink Vanda orchid, a unique plant. He wants to examine one and Bynoe has turned him down.
Wolfe has also learned that Mrs. Bynoe will sport a spray of the pink Vanda at this year's Easter parade in New York, and wonders if Archie knows anyone who would steal it from her. Archie does have a suggestion, a shifty character nicknamed Tabby, who would probably commit petty larceny in public for a couple of hundred bucks. Archie suggests that in addition to arranging for Tabby's services, it might be wise to get a photograph of the orchids. Archie offers to attend the parade too, with Wolfe's new camera.
So it's decided: Tabby will position himself outside the church where Mr. and Mrs. Bynoe will attend Easter services and will try to snatch the orchid corsage from her shoulder as they exit the church. Archie will be across the street with the camera, attempting to get a good photo of the corsage in case Tabby's attempted theft fails.
Easter morning arrives. Both Tabby and Archie are in place – Archie's sharing some wooden crates with several other photographers so as to see over the crowd. One of them is a comely young woman named Iris Innes, who is there as a staff photographer for a magazine.
The Bynoes exit the church in the company of another man. Tabby tries to grab the orchids but the Bynoes' companion wards him off. So Tabby ducks away into the crowd and begins to stalk them as the three walk up the avenue. Archie has been able to capture much of the action on film.
Suddenly, Mrs. Bynoe collapses. As her companions try to help her, Tabby dashes up to them, snatches the orchid corsage, and sprints away. Archie takes off after him, and catches up just as Tabby gets into a cab. Archie joins him, hushes him, and tells the cabbie to take them to 918 West 35th.
Only after Wolfe has had time to examine the orchids, and to announce that he would pay $3,000 (in 1958) for the full plant, does Archie get a chance to point out that if necessary the police will identify and track Tabby down, and that inevitably Tabby will give up Wolfe and Archie. Archie phones Lon Cohen and learns that Mrs. Bynoe is dead. Wolfe wants to avoid any public mention of his association with the incident, and offers Tabby $10 a day to remain incommunicado at the brownstone. After trying unsuccessfully to raise the per diem, Tabby accepts.
Archie prudently removes the film from the camera, and his foresight soon pays off when Inspector Cramer arrives. A needle containing strychnine has been found in Mrs. Bynoe's abdomen, and the theory is that the needle was shot from a spring-loaded mechanism such as a camera. Cramer appropriates the camera, but doesn't ask whether the film is still in it. Monday morning, Archie takes the film to a camera store to be developed.
Then he spends much of the day trying futilely to reach the other photographers, including Miss Innes. Archie spends the remaining hours at the District Attorney's office, answering questions and refusing to answer questions that he contends are immaterial to the investigation of Mrs. Bynoe's murder. He is dismissed in time to get the developed pictures from the store and return to the brownstone before dark.
There he finds Mr. Bynoe, Inspector Cramer, DA Skinner and several others, including the photographers Archie's been looking for. Wolfe asks to see the photos. He arranges a re-enactment of the scene in front of the church, and shows Cramer how the photos that Archie took demonstrate the murderer's identity.
Wolfe and Archie arrive at the meadow and work their way through a tent to a raised platform from which the speakers will address the thousands of union members. One of the organizers, Phil Holt, has eaten some bad snails and is lying in misery on a cot in the tent. He has been seen by a doctor but is too weak to participate in the festivities. He is shivering and Wolfe tells Archie to tie the tent flap closed, to help stop the draft blowing through.
One by one, as the scheduled speakers address the throng, those on the speakers' platform go back into the tent to see to Holt. Eventually Wolfe goes to check on Holt and shortly calls to Archie to join him. Holt is dead, lying on the cot, covered by a blanket that conceals the knife in his back.
It is Wolfe's habit, when he is away from home and confronted by a murder, to tell Archie to take him back to the brownstone immediately, before the police arrive. It is Archie's habit to refuse and he does so now, pointing out that they'd simply be hauled back to Long Island. Wolfe concedes the point and returns to the platform to deliver his speech.
Archie has noticed that the tent flap is no longer tied shut. He glances out the back of the tent and sees a woman sitting in a car parked by the tent. Archie gets her name, Anna Banau, and asks her if she has seen anyone enter the tent since the speeches started. Mrs. Banau says that she has not. Archie is impressed by her calm certainty, and concludes that no one entered the tent from the back. Someone must have gone in from the platform, stabbed Holt, and then opened the rear flap to make it appear as though the killer came from that direction, not from the platform.
The body is soon discovered and the police are called. It's clear that the local District Attorney would love to hold Wolfe and Archie as material witnesses, but he can't find a legitimate reason, so Wolfe returns home after all. The next day, though, Mr. Banau comes calling. He knows of his wife's discussion with Archie on the prior afternoon, and can't understand why the papers report that the police are proceeding on the assumption that the murderer entered the tent from the rear. His wife saw no one enter the tent from that side, and that's what she told Archie – surely Archie passed that along to the police. When Wolfe tells Banau that Mrs. Banau's information was not passed along, Banau becomes upset and leaves the brownstone, stating that he must tell the police.
Wolfe sees that he and Archie will be arrested and must scoot. They head for Saul Panzer's apartment, where they have arranged to meet with the others who were on the speakers' platform. Wolfe as yet has no idea who the murderer was, nor the motive for the crime. But when the principal suspects arrive at Saul's, Wolfe finds it important that he and Archie share autobiographical sketches with them. Then he bluffs the murderer into identifying himself.
Gallant came to the United States in 1945 and rejoined his sister Flora, who had immigrated from France several years earlier. Gallant became a highly regarded couturier (as Wolfe later terms him, "an illustrious dressmaker") with a studio employing several staff, including Flora. A successful Broadway actress, Sarah Yare, is a valued customer, one who is well liked by all of Gallant's employees.
Into this happy mix comes Bianca. She has changed her surname to Voss and insinuated herself into Gallant's operation, making decisions about company strategy, apparently with Gallant's approval. Gallant has kept information about his past with Bianca to himself, hiding it not only from the staff but also from sister Flora. Everyone at Alec Gallant Incorporated is mystified that Gallant is putting up with Bianca's odd and counterproductive decisions, particularly because she seems to have no formal title or position at the company.
Fearing for her brother's career, Flora calls at Wolfe's office and asks him to investigate the situation. She has only $100 to pay Wolfe's fee, but she says that her brother would be grateful to be rid of Miss Voss, and he is a generous man. Wolfe points out, though, that it's not Mr. Gallant who would be hiring him. Flora suggests that they phone Bianca, and invite her to Wolfe's office where he can ask questions of her, and then, "We shall see." In reporting this exchange, Archie claims that it is Flora's choice of phrasing, instead of an informal "We'll see" or "We will see," that moves Wolfe to acquiesce.
Flora uses Archie's phone to call Miss Voss, and gives Archie the handset as Wolfe picks up his own phone. After identifying himself to Miss Voss, Wolfe becomes the target of a string of insults hurled by Miss Voss – "You are scum, I know, in your stinking sewer." – and then both Wolfe and Archie hear a thud, a groan, a crash, and a dead phone line.
Archie calls Gallant's offices back, and asks for Miss Voss. Archie and Wolfe learn that Miss Voss has just been found dead in her office. When they inform Flora, she seems stunned, and hurries from the office.
Later, discussing the situation with Inspector Cramer, Wolfe agrees it's very neat that Wolfe and Archie were on the phone with Miss Voss just as she was being assaulted, and thus can fix the time of the attack within a minute or two. That makes it difficult, because everyone at Gallant's studio has a strong alibi for that time.
The next day, Archie is summoned to the District Attorney's office to go over his statement once again. When he returns to the brownstone, he is astonished to see that Wolfe has exerted himself to the point of getting the phone book from Archie's desk and taking it to his own. Wolfe has no explanation of the phone book for Archie, but he does have instructions.
(2001–2002). Directed by Holly Dale
from a teleplay by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, the episode made its debut July 1, 2001, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton
is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin
is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) include Bill Smitrovich
(Inspector Cramer), Colin Fox
(Fritz Brenner), Kari Matchett
(Lily Rowan), Francie Swift
(Margot Dickey), Conrad Dunn
(Saul Panzer), M.J. Kang
(Cherry Quon), David Schurmann (Alfred Kiernan), Richard Waugh (Emil Hatch), Jodi Racicot (Leo Jerome), Nicky Guadagni
(Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome), Robert Bockstael (Kurt Bottweil) and R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins).
In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small
, the soundtrack includes music by Bill Novick and Paul Lenart (opening sequence), Ludwig van Beethoven
, Brian Morris and Dick Walter.
In international broadcasts, the episodes "Door to Death" and "Christmas Party" are linked and expanded into a 90-minute widescreen telefilm titled "Wolfe Goes Out."
A Nero Wolfe Mystery began to be released on Region 2 DVD in December 2009, marketed in the Netherlands by Just Entertainment. The third collection released in April 2010 made the 90-minute features "Wolfe Goes Out" and "Wolfe Stays In" available on home video for the first time; until then, the linked episodes "Door to Death"/ "Christmas Party" and "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo"/"Disguise for Murder" were available only in the abbreviated form sold in North America by A&E Home Video (ISBN 0-7670-8893-X). The A&E and Just Entertainment DVD releases present the episodes in 4:3 pan and scan
rather than their 16:9
aspect ratio for widescreen
viewing.
as Nero Wolfe and Don Francks
as Archie Goodwin. Written by Ron Hartmann, the hour-long adaptation aired on CBC Stereo April 10, 1982.
"Christmas Party" was adapted as the fifth episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 13-part radio series Nero Wolfe (1982), starring Mavor Moore
as Nero Wolfe and Don Francks
as Archie Goodwin. Written by Ron Hartmann, the hour-long adaptation aired on CBC Stereo February 13, 1982.
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created in 1934 by the American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin narrates the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe's...
mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s by Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...
, published by the Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
in 1958. The book comprises four stories — three appearing previously in periodicals, and one making its debut in print:
- "Christmas Party" (Collier's, January 4, 1957, as "The Christmas-Party Murder")
- "Easter Parade" (LookLook (American magazine)Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
, April 16, 1957, as "The Easter Parade Murder") - "Fourth of July Picnic" (LookLook (American magazine)Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
, July 9, 1957, as "The Labor Union Murder") - "Murder Is No Joke," later expanded as "Frame-Up for MurderDeath Times ThreeDeath Times Three is a collection of Nero Wolfe novellas by Rex Stout, published posthumously by Bantam Books in 1985. The book contains three stories, one never before published:...
" and serialized in three issues of The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
(June 21–July 5, 1958)
Christmas Party
Plot summary
Wolfe occasionally riles Archie when he takes Archie's services too much for granted. On Wednesday he tells Archie to change his personal plans of two weeks standing so that he can drive Wolfe to Long Island for a meeting on Friday with an orchid hybridizer. After counting ten, Archie explains that he cannot and will not chauffeur Wolfe on Friday. He has promised his fiancee that he will attend her office Christmas party, at a furniture design studio. To substantiate his claim, Archie shows Wolfe a marriage license, duly signed and executed: the State is willing for Archie Goodwin and Margot Dickey to wed.Wolfe is incredulous, but hires a limousine to take him to Long Island as Archie attends the party. There, a conversation between Archie and Margot reveals that Margot has been trying to get her employer and paramour, Kurt Bottweill, to quit procrastinating and marry her. She has suggested to Archie, who is no more to her than a friend and dancing partner, that a marriage license might motivate Bottweill to propose and follow through. Archie gave her the license on Thursday, and now Margot tells him that the plan worked perfectly, that she and Bottweill are to marry.
Also attending the party are Bottweill; his business manager Alfred Kiernan; an artisan named Emil Hatch who turns Bottweill's designs into marketable merchandise; Cherry Quon, an East Asian who is the office receptionist; and Mrs. Perry Jerome and her son – Mrs. Jerome is a wealthy widow who is the source of Bottweill's business capital. The Bottweill-Jerome business relationship is apparently based on intimacy, which her son Leo is bent on disrupting. Santa Claus is also present, tending bar.
Bottweill starts to toast the season but before he can do so Kiernan interrupts. Everyone has champagne, but Bottweill's drink is Pernod – he keeps an entire case of it in his office. Kiernan brings Bottweill a glass of Pernod. Bottweill finishes his toast, tosses back the Pernod, and promptly dies of cyanide poisoning.
As Archie is issuing instructions – call the police, don't touch anything, nobody leave – he notices that Santa has already left. Hatch says no one has left via the elevator, and the only other exit is to Bottweill's office. There's nothing unusual there, and Archie pushes a button that calls Bottweill's private elevator. When it arrives, Archie finds Santa's wig, mask, jacket and breeches on its floor.
The police arrive, led by Sergeant Purley Stebbins, and after several hours of questioning he dismisses the partygoers. Purley's first task is to try to find Santa, and if that approach leads nowhere then he'll start after the others. Archie heads back to the brownstone, where Wolfe, having returned from his errand, is eating dinner. Wolfe has heard on the radio a report of Bottweill's death, and after discussing it briefly, Wolfe sends Archie to his room to bring him a book. Archie finds the book, and also finds, draped over it, a pair of white gloves that appear to be identical to the gloves that Santa was wearing while tending bar.
Stunned at first, Archie works it out that Wolfe was the bartender in a Santa costume. He must have arranged the charade in order to judge for himself whether Archie and Margot were genuinely involved or the marriage license was flummery. For Wolfe to have gone to such an extreme must mean that Wolfe regarded the situation as potentially desperate. Finally, Wolfe left the gloves for Archie to find so that he would reason it all out for himself, thus sparing Wolfe the necessity of admitting how much he depends on Archie.
Archie returns to the office and, skipping the issue of Wolfe's motives, reports on the events that followed Wolfe's escape. Stebbins has established that all the partygoers knew that Bottweill drank Pernod and kept a supply in his office. All knew that a supply of cyanide was kept in the workshop one floor down from the studio: Hatch uses it in his gold-plating work. Any of them could have found an opportunity to get some cyanide from the workshop and, unobserved, put it in Bottweill's current bottle of Pernod. But none of them ran when Bottweill died. Only Santa ran, and the police are concentrating for the moment on finding whoever played Santa.
When Archie finishes reporting the doorbell rings. It's Cherry Quon, without appointment, wanting to speak with Wolfe. It comes out that Miss Quon recently became engaged to marry Bottweill. She is convinced that Margot murdered Bottweill in a rage at being thrown over for Miss Quon. And she delivers a bombshell: she knows it was Wolfe who played Santa at the party. Bottweill had told her that morning at breakfast.
Miss Quon has a demand. She wants one of Wolfe's men to confess to having played Santa. As he was putting on the costume, in the bathroom attached to Bottweill's office, Wolfe's man heard something, peeked out, and saw Margot putting something in the Pernod bottle. Miss Quon is not blatant about it, but she implies strongly that if Wolfe does not comply with her demand she will tell the police that Wolfe himself was Santa.
That's the last thing Wolfe wants – Cramer would lock him up as a material witness and possibly for withholding evidence, and the publicity would be humiliating. But Wolfe refuses to go along with Miss Quon's script. Instead, he sends notes to all the partygoers, inviting the murderer to identify himself.
Cast of characters
- Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
- Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
- Kurt Bottweill — Owner of a studio specializing in modern metallic designs
- Margot Dickey — Bottweill's sales representative
- Alfred Kiernan — Bottweill's business manager
- Emil Hatch — Artisan in Bottweill's employ
- Cherry Quon — Bottweill's receptionist
- Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome — Wealthy widow and apparently intimate source of Bottweill's capital
- Leo Jerome — Her son
- Saul Panzer — A free-lance operative, Wolfe's first choice when he can't or won't spare Archie
- Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins — Representing Manhattan Homicide
Easter Parade
Plot summary
When Wolfe's envy is aroused he'll go to any length to satisfy it. He embarrassed Archie in his pursuit of Jerome Berin's recipe for saucisse minuitToo Many Cooks
Too Many Cooks is the fifth Nero Wolfe detective novel by American mystery writer Rex Stout. The story was serialized in The American Magazine before its publication in book form in 1938 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc...
, and he strongarmed Lewis Hewitt
Black Orchids
Black Orchids is a Nero Wolfe double mystery by Rex Stout published in 1942 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. Stout's first short story collection, the volume is composed of two novellas that had appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine:...
to get those black orchids. Now he's learned that Millard Bynoe has hybridized a pink Vanda orchid, a unique plant. He wants to examine one and Bynoe has turned him down.
Wolfe has also learned that Mrs. Bynoe will sport a spray of the pink Vanda at this year's Easter parade in New York, and wonders if Archie knows anyone who would steal it from her. Archie does have a suggestion, a shifty character nicknamed Tabby, who would probably commit petty larceny in public for a couple of hundred bucks. Archie suggests that in addition to arranging for Tabby's services, it might be wise to get a photograph of the orchids. Archie offers to attend the parade too, with Wolfe's new camera.
So it's decided: Tabby will position himself outside the church where Mr. and Mrs. Bynoe will attend Easter services and will try to snatch the orchid corsage from her shoulder as they exit the church. Archie will be across the street with the camera, attempting to get a good photo of the corsage in case Tabby's attempted theft fails.
Easter morning arrives. Both Tabby and Archie are in place – Archie's sharing some wooden crates with several other photographers so as to see over the crowd. One of them is a comely young woman named Iris Innes, who is there as a staff photographer for a magazine.
The Bynoes exit the church in the company of another man. Tabby tries to grab the orchids but the Bynoes' companion wards him off. So Tabby ducks away into the crowd and begins to stalk them as the three walk up the avenue. Archie has been able to capture much of the action on film.
Suddenly, Mrs. Bynoe collapses. As her companions try to help her, Tabby dashes up to them, snatches the orchid corsage, and sprints away. Archie takes off after him, and catches up just as Tabby gets into a cab. Archie joins him, hushes him, and tells the cabbie to take them to 918 West 35th.
Only after Wolfe has had time to examine the orchids, and to announce that he would pay $3,000 (in 1958) for the full plant, does Archie get a chance to point out that if necessary the police will identify and track Tabby down, and that inevitably Tabby will give up Wolfe and Archie. Archie phones Lon Cohen and learns that Mrs. Bynoe is dead. Wolfe wants to avoid any public mention of his association with the incident, and offers Tabby $10 a day to remain incommunicado at the brownstone. After trying unsuccessfully to raise the per diem, Tabby accepts.
Archie prudently removes the film from the camera, and his foresight soon pays off when Inspector Cramer arrives. A needle containing strychnine has been found in Mrs. Bynoe's abdomen, and the theory is that the needle was shot from a spring-loaded mechanism such as a camera. Cramer appropriates the camera, but doesn't ask whether the film is still in it. Monday morning, Archie takes the film to a camera store to be developed.
Then he spends much of the day trying futilely to reach the other photographers, including Miss Innes. Archie spends the remaining hours at the District Attorney's office, answering questions and refusing to answer questions that he contends are immaterial to the investigation of Mrs. Bynoe's murder. He is dismissed in time to get the developed pictures from the store and return to the brownstone before dark.
There he finds Mr. Bynoe, Inspector Cramer, DA Skinner and several others, including the photographers Archie's been looking for. Wolfe asks to see the photos. He arranges a re-enactment of the scene in front of the church, and shows Cramer how the photos that Archie took demonstrate the murderer's identity.
Cast of characters
- Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
- Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
- Millard Bynoe — Wealthy philanthropist and orchid fancier
- Mrs. Millard Bynoe — His young wife
- Henry Frimm — Executive Secretary of the Bynoe Rehabilitation Fund
- Tabby — An unsavory character who is comfortable with petty larceny
- Iris Innes, Joe Herrick, Alan Geiss, Augustus Pizzi — Magazine photographers
- Inspector Cramer — Representing Manhattan Homicide
Fourth of July Picnic
Plot summary
A restaurant workers' union is having a Fourth of July picnic in a remote meadow on Long Island. Time has been set aside during the afternoon for a few speeches from prominent figures in the restaurant business, and also one from Nero Wolfe. Wolfe has been the trustee for Rusterman's Restaurant since the death of his old friend Marko Vukcic, and because the restaurant is so highly regarded the union wants Wolfe to speak. As an added inducement, the union has also promised to stop trying to get Fritz, Wolfe's personal chef, to join.Wolfe and Archie arrive at the meadow and work their way through a tent to a raised platform from which the speakers will address the thousands of union members. One of the organizers, Phil Holt, has eaten some bad snails and is lying in misery on a cot in the tent. He has been seen by a doctor but is too weak to participate in the festivities. He is shivering and Wolfe tells Archie to tie the tent flap closed, to help stop the draft blowing through.
One by one, as the scheduled speakers address the throng, those on the speakers' platform go back into the tent to see to Holt. Eventually Wolfe goes to check on Holt and shortly calls to Archie to join him. Holt is dead, lying on the cot, covered by a blanket that conceals the knife in his back.
It is Wolfe's habit, when he is away from home and confronted by a murder, to tell Archie to take him back to the brownstone immediately, before the police arrive. It is Archie's habit to refuse and he does so now, pointing out that they'd simply be hauled back to Long Island. Wolfe concedes the point and returns to the platform to deliver his speech.
Archie has noticed that the tent flap is no longer tied shut. He glances out the back of the tent and sees a woman sitting in a car parked by the tent. Archie gets her name, Anna Banau, and asks her if she has seen anyone enter the tent since the speeches started. Mrs. Banau says that she has not. Archie is impressed by her calm certainty, and concludes that no one entered the tent from the back. Someone must have gone in from the platform, stabbed Holt, and then opened the rear flap to make it appear as though the killer came from that direction, not from the platform.
The body is soon discovered and the police are called. It's clear that the local District Attorney would love to hold Wolfe and Archie as material witnesses, but he can't find a legitimate reason, so Wolfe returns home after all. The next day, though, Mr. Banau comes calling. He knows of his wife's discussion with Archie on the prior afternoon, and can't understand why the papers report that the police are proceeding on the assumption that the murderer entered the tent from the rear. His wife saw no one enter the tent from that side, and that's what she told Archie – surely Archie passed that along to the police. When Wolfe tells Banau that Mrs. Banau's information was not passed along, Banau becomes upset and leaves the brownstone, stating that he must tell the police.
Wolfe sees that he and Archie will be arrested and must scoot. They head for Saul Panzer's apartment, where they have arranged to meet with the others who were on the speakers' platform. Wolfe as yet has no idea who the murderer was, nor the motive for the crime. But when the principal suspects arrive at Saul's, Wolfe finds it important that he and Archie share autobiographical sketches with them. Then he bluffs the murderer into identifying himself.
Cast of characters
- Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
- Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
- Phil Holt — Union organizer and murder victim
- James Korby — Union president; speaker
- Flora Korby — His daughter
- Paul Rago — Sauce chef at the Churchill; speaker
- H. L. Griffin — Food and wine importer; speaker
- Dick Vetter — Television emcee; speaker
- Alexander Banau — Captain at Zoller's Restaurant
- Anna Banau — His wife
- James R. Delaney — District Attorney on Long Island
- Saul Panzer — A free-lance operative, Wolfe's first choice when he can't or won't spare Archie
Murder Is No Joke
Plot summary
Alec Gallant was a member of the French Resistance during World War II and at that time married another member, Bianca. After the war, he learned that his wife and her two brothers had been traitors to the Resistance. He murdered both men, but Bianca escaped him.Gallant came to the United States in 1945 and rejoined his sister Flora, who had immigrated from France several years earlier. Gallant became a highly regarded couturier (as Wolfe later terms him, "an illustrious dressmaker") with a studio employing several staff, including Flora. A successful Broadway actress, Sarah Yare, is a valued customer, one who is well liked by all of Gallant's employees.
Into this happy mix comes Bianca. She has changed her surname to Voss and insinuated herself into Gallant's operation, making decisions about company strategy, apparently with Gallant's approval. Gallant has kept information about his past with Bianca to himself, hiding it not only from the staff but also from sister Flora. Everyone at Alec Gallant Incorporated is mystified that Gallant is putting up with Bianca's odd and counterproductive decisions, particularly because she seems to have no formal title or position at the company.
Fearing for her brother's career, Flora calls at Wolfe's office and asks him to investigate the situation. She has only $100 to pay Wolfe's fee, but she says that her brother would be grateful to be rid of Miss Voss, and he is a generous man. Wolfe points out, though, that it's not Mr. Gallant who would be hiring him. Flora suggests that they phone Bianca, and invite her to Wolfe's office where he can ask questions of her, and then, "We shall see." In reporting this exchange, Archie claims that it is Flora's choice of phrasing, instead of an informal "We'll see" or "We will see," that moves Wolfe to acquiesce.
Flora uses Archie's phone to call Miss Voss, and gives Archie the handset as Wolfe picks up his own phone. After identifying himself to Miss Voss, Wolfe becomes the target of a string of insults hurled by Miss Voss – "You are scum, I know, in your stinking sewer." – and then both Wolfe and Archie hear a thud, a groan, a crash, and a dead phone line.
Archie calls Gallant's offices back, and asks for Miss Voss. Archie and Wolfe learn that Miss Voss has just been found dead in her office. When they inform Flora, she seems stunned, and hurries from the office.
Later, discussing the situation with Inspector Cramer, Wolfe agrees it's very neat that Wolfe and Archie were on the phone with Miss Voss just as she was being assaulted, and thus can fix the time of the attack within a minute or two. That makes it difficult, because everyone at Gallant's studio has a strong alibi for that time.
The next day, Archie is summoned to the District Attorney's office to go over his statement once again. When he returns to the brownstone, he is astonished to see that Wolfe has exerted himself to the point of getting the phone book from Archie's desk and taking it to his own. Wolfe has no explanation of the phone book for Archie, but he does have instructions.
Cast of characters
- Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
- Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
- Alec Gallant — Couturier
- Flora Gallant — His sister
- Bianca Voss — Murder victim
- Carl Drew — Gallant's business manager
- Anita Prince — Fitter
- Emmy Thorne — In charge of promotions
- Sarah Yare — Broadway actress and Gallant client
- Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins— Representing Manhattan Homicide
The unfamiliar word
In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is at least one unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. Those found in these novellas include:- Mogok ruby. "Easter Parade" Chapter 1.
- Found. "Easter Parade" Chapter 2. Chiefly British usage, postpositive.
- Peculated. "Easter Parade" Chapter 7.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery (A&E Network)
"Christmas Party" was adapted for the first season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe MysteryA Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's classic series of detective stories that aired for two seasons on the A&E Network. Set in New York City in the early 1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin...
(2001–2002). Directed by Holly Dale
Holly Dale
Holly Dale is a Canadian film and television director and film producer. She received a Gemini Award in 2008 for Best Direction in a Dramatic Series ....
from a teleplay by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, the episode made its debut July 1, 2001, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...
is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...
is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) include Bill Smitrovich
Bill Smitrovich
-Personal life:Bill Smitrovich was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Anna and Stanley William Zmitrowicz, a tool and die maker. Bill is a graduate of the University of Bridgeport and holds an MFA from Smith College . He is married to Shaw Purnell from Pittsburgh, PA...
(Inspector Cramer), Colin Fox
Colin Fox (actor)
Colin Fox is a Canadian actor. His acting credits include playing Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi Des Mondes in Strange Paradise , as well as voice work in various animated series, and in other roles in film, television and on the stage...
(Fritz Brenner), Kari Matchett
Kari Matchett
Kari Matchett is a Canadian television and film actress. She played Mariel Underlay in Invasion, Lisa Miller in 24, and Kate Filmore in the cult favorite science fiction movie Cube 2: Hypercube. She currently appears in the USA television series Covert Affairs.-Early years:Matchett was born in...
(Lily Rowan), Francie Swift
Francie Swift
Francie Swift is an American actress best known for her versality and the wide variety of roles she has played.Swift was born in Amarillo, Texas and attended Tascosa High School...
(Margot Dickey), Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn is an American actor. He began his screen career with the role of Francis "Psycho" Soyer in Stripes . Working for some ten years under the name George Jenesky, he achieved soap-opera stardom in Days of our Lives as Nick Corelli, a misogynistic pimp who evolved from bad guy to romantic...
(Saul Panzer), M.J. Kang
M. J. Kang
M.J. Kang is a playwright and actress. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she later immigrated to Toronto, Canada.Her plays include Noran Bang: The Yellow Room , Blessings and dreams of blonde & blue....
(Cherry Quon), David Schurmann (Alfred Kiernan), Richard Waugh (Emil Hatch), Jodi Racicot (Leo Jerome), Nicky Guadagni
Nicky Guadagni
Nicky Guadagni is a Canadian actress who has worked on stage, radio, film and television.-Career:Originally from Montreal, Nicky Guadagni majored in drama at Dawson College and went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Her first role after graduation was playing Miranda, with...
(Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome), Robert Bockstael (Kurt Bottweil) and R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins).
In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small
Michael Small
Michael Small was an American film score composer best known for his scores to thriller movies such as The Parallax View, Marathon Man, and The Star Chamber. Relatively few of his scores are available on compact disc...
, the soundtrack includes music by Bill Novick and Paul Lenart (opening sequence), Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Brian Morris and Dick Walter.
In international broadcasts, the episodes "Door to Death" and "Christmas Party" are linked and expanded into a 90-minute widescreen telefilm titled "Wolfe Goes Out."
A Nero Wolfe Mystery began to be released on Region 2 DVD in December 2009, marketed in the Netherlands by Just Entertainment. The third collection released in April 2010 made the 90-minute features "Wolfe Goes Out" and "Wolfe Stays In" available on home video for the first time; until then, the linked episodes "Door to Death"/ "Christmas Party" and "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo"/"Disguise for Murder" were available only in the abbreviated form sold in North America by A&E Home Video (ISBN 0-7670-8893-X). The A&E and Just Entertainment DVD releases present the episodes in 4:3 pan and scan
Pan and scan
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
rather than their 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
aspect ratio for widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
viewing.
Nero Wolfe (CBC Radio)
"Murder is No Joke" was adapted as the final episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 13-part radio series Nero Wolfe (1982), starring Mavor MooreMavor Moore
James Mavor Moore, CC, OBC was a Canadian writer, producer, actor, public servant, critic, and educator.-Biography:...
as Nero Wolfe and Don Francks
Don Francks
Donald Harvey Francks or Iron Buffalo is a Canadian actor, vocalist and jazz musician.- Life and work :Francks was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a drummer, poet, native nations champion, motorcyclist, author and peace activist...
as Archie Goodwin. Written by Ron Hartmann, the hour-long adaptation aired on CBC Stereo April 10, 1982.
"Christmas Party" was adapted as the fifth episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 13-part radio series Nero Wolfe (1982), starring Mavor Moore
Mavor Moore
James Mavor Moore, CC, OBC was a Canadian writer, producer, actor, public servant, critic, and educator.-Biography:...
as Nero Wolfe and Don Francks
Don Francks
Donald Harvey Francks or Iron Buffalo is a Canadian actor, vocalist and jazz musician.- Life and work :Francks was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a drummer, poet, native nations champion, motorcyclist, author and peace activist...
as Archie Goodwin. Written by Ron Hartmann, the hour-long adaptation aired on CBC Stereo February 13, 1982.
"Christmas Party"
- 1957, Collier'sCollier's WeeklyCollier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
, January 4, 1957 (as "The Christmas-Party Murder")
- "Christmas Party" appeared in the final issue of Collier's, a venerable magazine founded in 1888. On February 4, 1957, Herbert BlockHerblockHerbert Lawrence Block, commonly known as Herblock , was an American editorial cartoonist and author best known for his commentary on national domestic and foreign policy from a liberal perspective.-Career:...
wrote Rex Stout: "One thing about the demise of Collier's — it ended in fine style, with the cover proudly proclaiming a 'Nero Wolfe thriller.' And a thriller it certainly was; but I don't think anyone else could have got the added special thrill that I did when I came to the lines about Here and Now!"- 1965, Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
, January 1965 (as "The Christmas Party Murder") - 1971, Ellery Queen's Anthology, 1971 (as "The Christmas Party Murder")
- 1999, Canada, Durkin Hayes Publishing, DH Audio ISBN 1-55204-627-3 December 1999, audio cassette (read by Saul RubinekSaul RubinekSaul Rubinek is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage.-Early life:...
)
- 1965, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
"Easter Parade"
- 1957, LookLook (American magazine)Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
, April 16, 1957 (as "The Easter Parade Murder")
"Fourth of July Picnic"
- 1957, LookLook (American magazine)Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
, July 9, 1957 (as "The Labor Union Murder") - 1965, Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
, August 1965 (as "The Fourth of July Murder") - 1979, Ellery Queen's Wings of Mystery, ed. by Ellery QueenEllery QueenEllery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
, New York: Davis Publications, 1979
"Murder is No Joke"
- 1958, The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, June 21 + June 28 + July 5, 1958 (expanded as "Frame-Up for MurderDeath Times ThreeDeath Times Three is a collection of Nero Wolfe novellas by Rex Stout, published posthumously by Bantam Books in 1985. The book contains three stories, one never before published:...
") - 1961, The Delights of Detection, ed. by Jacques BarzunJacques BarzunJacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
, New York: Criterion Books, 1961 - 1964, Three Times Three: Mystery Omnibus (volume three), ed. by Howard Haycraft and John Beecroft, New York: Doubleday, 1964
- 1970, Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
, November 1970 - 1978, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Spring–Summer 1978
- 1978, Ellery Queen's Masks of Mystery, New York: Davis Publications, 1978, hardcover
And Four to Go
- 1958, New York: The Viking PressViking PressViking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
, April 29, 1958, hardcover. In the printing of "Easter Parade," a page presenting black-and-white versions of the four Look magazine photographs is placed between pages 96 and 97.
- In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto PenzlerOtto PenzlerOtto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.-Biography:...
describes the first editionEdition (book)The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...
of And Four to Go: "Blue cloth, front cover and spine printed with red; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly brick red dust wrapper." - In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of And Four to Go had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.
- 1958, New York: Viking (Mystery GuildBook of the Month ClubThe Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
), August 1958, hardcover. In the printing of "Easter Parade," a page presenting black-and-white versions of the four Look magazine photographs is placed between pages 96 and 97.
- 1958, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild
- The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:
-
- The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
- Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
- Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).
- 1959, London: Collins Crime ClubCollins Crime ClubThe Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...
, May 25, 1959, hardcover (as Crime and Again) - 1959, New York: BantamBantam BooksBantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
#A-2016, November 1959, paperback - 1962, London: Fontana #629, 1962 (as Crime and Again)
- 1992, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 0-553-24985-1 November 1, 1992, paperback
- 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-4059-2 October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
- 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75569-8 July 21, 2010, e-bookE-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
- 1959, London: Collins Crime Club
-
External links
- A Nero Wolfe Mystery — "Christmas Party" at The Wolfe Pack, official site of the Nero Wolfe Society