And they do.
In this respect Nero Wolfe is sort of a porky two legged Club Med: an antidote for the strident intrusiveness and chaos of civilization.
Reality for most of us is ringing phones, boisterous kids, mountains of bills, and demanding bosses. Most of our existences are liberally sprinkled with dark dreams and rude awakenings. Our paths are marred by potholes and sudden detours. Even when things feel settled, we face constant reminders that cataclysmic change can occur at any moment. Much of today's news is a litany of tragic accidents, natural disasters, and unthinkable violence. Life, I tell my sons, is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
That uncertainty invades most contemporary novels of mystery and suspense, often driving the narrative (sometimes off the road). Evil explodes on the fictional scene with all the subtlety of Howard Stern or Madonna. The hapless protagonist is derailed tike a sabotaged train. Amateur sleuths spring into frantic action. Law-enforcement professionals haul out their fuB bags of high- and low-tech forensic tricks and pursue the bad guys like a stampede of crazed buffalo.
. Introduction vii
Pyrotechnics can dazzle. Car chases and literal cliffhangers do raise the blood pressure and squeeze out the gasps. But the reader manipulated by such shameless Hollywood devices is being distracted from the heart and soul of the mystery form: the puzzle.
Wolfe's world, on the other hand, is refined, prescribed, predictable. Even when crime presses its noisome finger at his doorbell, Nero Wolfe remains in perfect, unflinching control.
Rex Stout recognized that the smallest detail can speak volumes. He relied solely on intricate plot twists and dazzlingly quiet feats of detection. He had no need or desire to distract his readers from the story's central strand.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Curtains for Three, a trio of novelettes first published in 1950. Unsolved crimes are delivered handily to the detective's door. Witnesses and likely perpetrators present themselves and compliantly await Wolfe's audience. In one case the murder conveniently occurs in his office.
If you think that sounds dull, think again. The seventy-three Nero Wolfe mysteries have intrigued and entertained millions of readers and inspired countless writers to tackle the form. Rex Stout has become a virtual synonym for the term classic mystery. Mention West Thirty-fifth Street to a mystery fan and the response is sure to be a look of instant recognition and a smile.
If Rex Stout and his stout detective have become a reading addiction, you have plenty of company. If this is your first experience in puzzle solving with the great Nero Wolfe, prepare to settle in and savor. You have plenty of tasty treats yet to enjoy.
--Judith Kelman
isi?Contents
The Gun with Mugs
page 1
Bullet for One
page 73
Disguise for Murder
page 143
1.
Curtains for Three
The Gun with Wings
The young woman took a pink piece of paper from her handbag, got up from the red leather chair, put the paper on Nero Wolfe's desk, and sat down again. Feeling it my duty to keep myself informed and also to save Wolfe the exertion of leaning forward and reaching so far, I arose and crossed to hand the paper to him after a glance at it. It was a check for five thousand dollars, dated that day, August fourteenth, made out to him, and signed Margaret Mion. He gave a look and dropped it back on the desk.
'I thought,' she said, 'perhaps that would be the best way to start the conversation.'
In my chair at my desk, taking her in, I was readjusting my attitude. When early that Sunday afternoon, she had phoned for an appointment, I had dug I up a vague recollection of a picture of her in the paper some months back, and had decided it would be no treat to meet her, but now I was hedging. Her appeal wasn't what she had, which was only so-so, but what r&he did with it. I don't mean tricks. Her mouth wasn't ^attractive even when she smiled, but the smile was.
2 Sex Stout
Her eyes were just a pair of brown eyes, nothing at all sensational, but it was a pleasure to watch them move around, from Wolfe to me to the man who had come with her, seated off to her left. I guessed she had maybe three years to go to reach thirty.
'Don't you think,' the man asked her, 'we should get some questions answered first?'
His tone was strained and a little harsh, and his face matched it. He was worried and didn't care who knew it. With his deep-set gray eyes and well-fitted jaw he might on a happier day have passed for a leader of men, but not as he now sat. Something was eating him. When Mrs. Mion had introduced him as Mr. Frederick Weppler I had recognized the name of the music critic of the Gazette, but I couldn't remember whether he had been mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the event that had caused the publication of Mrs. Mion's picture.
She shook her head at him, not arbitrarily. 'It wouldn't help, Fred, really. We'll just have to tell it and see what he says.' She smiled at Wolfe--or maybe it wasn't actually a smile, but just her way of handling her lips. 'Mr. Weppler wasn't quite sure we should come to see you, and I had to persuade him. Men are more cautious than women, aren't they?'
