The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe

by Josh Pachter

  “How is easy. What’s a little harder, but I’m sure you’ve worked most of it out yourself. After you left this afternoon for the vacant field, I just sat here and thought about the case. I wasn’t satisfied with our conclusion that the hit-and-run driver had stolen Caesar’s body to avoid being identified. The more I thought about that possibility, the less sense it made. But it still seemed obvious that the body was stolen because there was something wrong with it, something that someone didn’t want us to see.”

  “What could be wrong?”

  “Well, the only thing I knew about Caesar’s body was that it had been struck by a car and there was lots of blood. What could be wrong with that? And then the whole thing came rushing at me like a swimming pool does after you’ve jumped off the high diving board. Smack! I had it!

  “We weren’t supposed to see the body because there wasn’t any blood on it! Once we saw it, we’d know that Caesar hadn’t been hit by a car at all. So Sam had lied about the car, lied about the blood—in fact, Sam had even lied about burying Caesar in the vacant field. Caesar’s body wasn’t stolen from the field—it just wasn’t there to begin with! Once I’d worked all of this out, I called my brother Perry Mason in, and asked him to go get Sam. When Sam got here, I told him I knew his story was a pack of lies and demanded that he tell me the truth. Sam, tell Artie what you told me.”

  “I—I’m sorry it worked out this way, Ar-Artie,” Sam began, “but Nero’s right. You see, I was playing with my chemistry set this morning and I mixed a lot of the things together—calcium carbonate, tannic acid, all kinds of chemicals. Then I decided to do an experiment and feed the mixture to Caesar. I didn’t think anything would happen! I just stirred it into his water dish and watched him lap it up. He seemed to really like it.”

  Sam wiped the back of his hand across his sunburnt nose and sniffled.

  “Nothing much happened for a few minutes,” he continued, “but then Caesar started to whine, like. I tried to get him to stop, but he kept whining and moaning and everything, and finally he just lay down and closed his eyes and started shivering.

  “In a little while he stopped shivering, and I felt for his heartbeat, but it was gone. I’d killed him.

  “I was scared, Artie, real scared! Then I thought about telling everyone that a car hit him and killed him. If I made up a description of some out-of-state car, I figured everybody would look for it for a while and then give up and forget all about it.

  “But I realized that when you saw Caesar you’d know no car had hit him because there was no blood. And I knew I couldn’t hit him myself and make him bleed—I just couldn’t hit Caesar.”

  “But you gave him that junk from the chemistry set,” I said, disgusted.

  “I didn’t think it would hurt him! It’s not the same thing, don’t you understand?”

  Sam’s small skinny frame started quivering and I turned away. I don’t like to see fellows cry, and I wasn’t feeling any too sympathetic toward Sam in the first place.

  “All right,” I said. “So it was an accident. What happened next?”

  Sam kept on sobbing.

  “Nero?” I said.

  “I accused Sam of killing Caesar in a way that left no visible marks. He then told me about the chemistry set. But, you see, I had already deduced—”

  “I believe you!” I shouted. “Just tell me what happened!”

  “Well,” Nero harrumphed, “let me see. Sam buried his dog in his back yard, then went to the vacant field at Berkshire and Hoover and dug a hole. When he had filled in the hole, he noticed the difference in color between where he’d dug and the dirt all around, so he went home and watered down the strawberry patch, just to play it safe. He didn’t want anyone noticing that someone had been digging in his back yard, not with Caesar’s body supposedly missing. But he didn’t notice that the dirt was a little higher where he had buried Caesar than anywhere else. And then he came to us with his story.”

  “And by the time I finally realized that no blood on Berkshire meant that Caesar hadn’t been run over and found the body and figured that Sam had killed him, you’d already doped it all out. So what do we do now, Chief?”

  “Well, Artie, Caesar’s death was an accident, and you can see how badly Sam feels about it. I told him we’d keep our mouths shut and help spread the story of a hit-and-run. It’ll keep Sam out of trouble.”

  “You mean we play it like we couldn’t find the killer?”

  “Right. And since our taking money for keeping quiet sounds too much like blackmail, I’ve given back Sam’s retainer. Now, as I said before, when you got here Sam and I were about to test our theories about how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I …”

  So Nero Wolfe had solved the case, refused payment, let the criminal off, and was now getting ready to feed him. All without lifting his slightly pudgy ninety-five pounds from his chair. And what did I have to show for it? A wasted afternoon, dirty clothes, and a lot of bruises.

  I sighed, and went out to fetch peanut butter, jelly, and bread.

  One last thing.

  Our ruse worked real good, and pretty soon people stopped looking for the nonexistent off-white convertible. Sam’s parents even bought him another dachshund, a female this time, which Sam named Cleopatra.

  And when Cleo had pups, months later, I strolled into our office one afternoon after school to find Nero playing with the pride of the litter.

  “Sam give you that?” I asked.

  “Yes. As a token of his thanks.”

  “What are you going to call it?”

  “Him,” Nero corrected. “I can’t decide.”

  “How about Fido?”

  “How about shutting up? I want his name to have something to do with what he looks like. Like you’d call a spotted dog Spot or a red one Red.”

  I looked at Cleo’s pride. It—I mean he—was a small, dark-brown, very fat puppy.

  “How about Fat Fido?” I suggested.

  “Artie.”

  “Plump Prince?” I asked meekly.

  “Pfui,” Nero Wolfe replied.

  “Hey, I’ve got it! Call him Stout Rex,” I said, and ran for cover.

  Chapter 24 from Rasputin’s Revenge

  by John Lescroart

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: Long before I began writing my legal thrillers set in San Francisco and featuring Dismas Hardy, Abe Glitsky, and Wyatt Hunt, I became addicted first to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon (particularly the William S. Baring-Gould annotated edition of the complete works), and then in short order to the Nero Wolfe books of Rex Stout. Immersed in these series, I decided to explore the idea that these two towering detective heroes were, in fact, related: during the “lost years” of 1892 to 1894, Holmes had an affair with Irene Adler, and this liaison produced a son they named Auguste Lupa. After World War I, when he moved to New York from the European theater and became a consulting detective, Lupa changed his name to Nero Wolfe. (Augustus and Nero were both Caesars, of course, and lupa is Latin for she-wolf.) My first hardcover book, Son of Holmes, helped established the legitimacy of this theory, and the sequel, Rasputin’s Revenge, made the connection between Holmes and Wolfe all but undeniable.

  [KREMLIN FILE NO. JG 0665-5095-5100; PSS ACCESS, OPEN] JANUARY 2, 1917

  Sherlock Holmes looked up from his first bite of woodcock. “Delicious, Auguste, absolutely delicious.”

  Lupa nodded solemnly, allowing only the slightest turn of his lips as he accepted his father’s compliment. He could not so well control his eyes, however—they shone with pleasure.

  “Where did you get woodcock here in St. Petersburg?” Dr. Watson asked.

  “Monsieur Muret has his connections,” Lupa answered, nodding graciously at our host.

  Muret took his cue. “Who would not have done so? It’s a great honor to have Auguste Lupa in one’s restaurant.” He paus
ed. “And, of course, you other gentlemen.”

  In the background, a trio of gypsy guitarists played softly. Lupa had spent the afternoon in the Villa Rhode’s kitchen preparing the excellent dinner we were enjoying. Holmes, Watson, Muret, and I were sharing a couple of bottles of Cornas, while Lupa chose to drink Muret’s good dark beer.

  It was our first evening out since we’d been pardoned, and the celebration was most welcome. After several days of embassy cooking, we were doubly appreciative of Lupa’s talent, and fell to the meal with a vengeance.

  When we’d all but finished, Dr. Watson was the first to speak. “There’s still one thing I don’t quite understand.”

  Holmes, his own humor completely restored by the successful conclusion of the case, mopped up the last of his sauce and ate it on a bit of Lupa’s fresh bread, leaned back into the booth’s upholstery and patted his stomach happily. “And all’s right with the world,” he said.

  “Really, Holmes, there’s no need for sarcasm.”

  Holmes wore a mild look of surprise, which seemed feigned to me. “My dear fellow,” he said, “I’m afraid that came out wrong. Please forgive me. What is it you don’t understand?”

  Muret refilled the good doctor’s glass and he sipped, then continued in his blustery way. “All of Rasputin’s motives are clear to me—the revenge and so forth—but I don’t quite see how he convinced Miss Ripley to do his bidding. After all, she didn’t need him. She had her own career. What could persuade her to do his terrible work? What could he give her to make it worth the risk?”

  Lupa didn’t give his father a chance to respond. “Love!” he blurted out, as though it were a curse word. “Love, the most powerful force in the world.”

  “Just so,” Holmes agreed. “When the only goal is to please a lover, anything else, everything else, is secondary.”

  “Even murder?”

  “Anything,” Lupa said, “it doesn’t matter what”—he stopped to take a drink of his beer—“which is why the damned emotion ought to be avoided at all costs.”

  I had to speak up. My infatuation with Elena may have nearly killed us, and her love for Rasputin was surely turned to the wrong ends, but I wasn’t willing to propose a loveless world as the solution. “To the contrary, Auguste. It may make us either fools or heroes, but surely it’s worth it. A life without it is an empty life, indeed.”

  I must have touched a nerve, for Lupa appeared about to say something, then bit it back. Sherlock Holmes, though, leapt into the breach. “Let’s not forget that love can also lead people to do the right thing.” He looked directly at his son, and his hard eyes softened. “It is, after all, what brought Watson and me here to Russia. In more ways than one, Auguste, it’s why you’re alive.”

  Lupa, obviously grappling with strong emotion, swallowed hard, then looked down, finally reaching for his beer. For me, the admission of love from father to son is the most natural thing in the world, but clearly that hadn’t been the case between Holmes and Lupa.

  A fanfare of strummed guitars accompanying an outbreak of applause gave my friend a moment of respite. The lights were turned down, and from the stage I heard the haunting strains of Varya Panina as she began singing, almost whispering, a ballad to an insistent rhythm like that of a heart beating. As I had been the other time I had seen her, I was captivated by her artistry, her passion, even though I couldn’t understand the words.

  While she sang, the restaurant was quietly rapt in its attention, and if ever I was grateful that the world was through with the vulgarity and the evil of Gregory Rasputin, it was at that moment. When the chanteuse finished, the room exploded again with applause. There were few dry eyes in the house, and none at our table.

  As the applause continued, Muret got up and went to the stage. Seconds later, he escorted a smiling Varya Panina back to our booth. Upon being introduced to Lupa and me, she stopped. “But surely you two … the night the tyemniy—Rasputin—was here … .”

  “That’s right,” Lupa said.

  She smiled, and her face, with such unattractive features, became a thing of its own rare beauty. She reached out her hand, first to me, then to Lupa. “I know now who you are.” She paused. “Thank you.”

  Lupa, most uncharacteristically, held on to her hand. “Could I ask you a question, madam?”

  “Surely, anything.”

  “That last song—what was it about?”

  She shrugged, then answered in her deep, rich voice. “The same as always: love. That is all my songs. Love. What else is there? That is life, eh?”

  Lupa nodded and let go of her hand, and she went back toward the stage.

  He hung his head for a moment, and I could see him pursing his lips in and out, out and in. Then, straightening up, he looked across the table at his father.

  “I’m thinking of going to England from here. I was wondering if I might stay awhile with you?” he asked. “If you’re too busy, I’ll understand, but—”

  “No, not at all. Capital idea!” Watson exclaimed, bursting in before Holmes could respond. “Holmes, don’t you agree?”

  The great detective nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I’d like that.” He nodded again, and smiled. “I’d like that very much. Stay as long as you wish.”

  Lupa leaned back in the booth and looked from his father to Dr. Watson and back to his father again. The corners of his mouth turned up a centimeter in what was for him his broadest grin. Behind us, the guitarists began the introduction to another song. He lifted his half-full beer glass and, raising it to his lips, drained it in one gulp. Putting the glass down gently, he wiped his lips with his napkin and sighed deeply.

  “Satisfactory,” he said. “Very satisfactory.”

  A scene from Might as Well Be Dead

  by Joseph Goodrich

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: After adapting Ellery Queen’s Calamity Town for the stage, I wanted to bring another of the Golden Age detectives to life. Nero Wolfe was an obvious choice—his popularity is undiminished in mystery circles, and he’s still recognized in the larger world of nonmystery fans. As of autumn 2018, I’ve adapted two Wolfe stories: The Red Box and Might as Well Be Dead.

  Both Queen and Wolfe are supersleuths and descendants of Sherlock Holmes, the king of all gifted (and eccentric) detectives. Ellery Queen’s character went through a number of changes over the years, moving from a bloodless intellectual to a much more human figure who becomes involved in the lives of the people who need his help. Nero Wolfe’s character, though, remains essentially the same, which is one of the continuing pleasures of the series; his foibles endear him to readers. Rex Stout created a world as palpable for Wolfe fans as Victorian London is for the devotees of Sherlock Holmes.

  Readers feel passionately about Wolfe and his world, so I tried to be true to the spirit of the stories, even though I altered something here and cut something there. Any dialogue I invented had to match the language and feel of the books.

  One of the great pleasures of moving Queen and Wolfe from the page to the stage is the opportunity to introduce them to readers and audience members who may not have heard of them before. They’re classic sleuths, part of a great tradition, and they deserve to be celebrated.

  (The curtain rises. The stage is in darkness. Lights up on ARCHIE GOODWIN, a well-dressed young man. He addresses the audience.)

  ARCHIE: Goodwin’s the name. Archie Goodwin. I work for Nero Wolfe. If you’ve got a problem, he’s the man to solve it. It’s got to be a special kind of problem, though, to get him interested, and you have to be willing and able to pay for his time—which doesn’t come cheap. I would say “pay for his time and effort,” but it’s mostly my effort you’re paying for. He’s the brains of the operation, I’m the legs. He thinks, I move. It’s a good combination. (Lights up on NERO WOLFE, seated behind a large desk.) Couple things you should know about Mr. Wolfe. One: He’s the greatest private detective so
uth of the North Pole. Two: He hates to leave home, because fresh air clogs the lungs. Scientific fact. Three: He’d die if anything happened to Fritz Brenner. Fritz is our chef—mighty skillful with a skillet. I blame him for getting us involved in the Herold case.

  Here’s what happened. It was Monday, May 22nd, 1956. Mr. Wolfe and I were in the office. He was reading The New York Times. I was going over the books—which were in good shape for once. A big case had come through, and we were sitting pretty as far as mazuma goes. So it wasn’t the prospect of some extra cash that made Wolfe let a visitor in. No, I think it was the lunch. Fritz had outdone himself: the lightest, goldenest fried chicken with gravy, home-made corn bread hot from the oven, raspberries in sherry cream for dessert, a crisp white wine for Mr. Wolfe and a tall, cool glass of milk for yours truly. My theory is that the meal affected Mr. Wolfe’s temperament to such a degree that, when a knock came at the door, he didn’t tell me to send the caller away. No. What he said was—

  WOLFE: Find out who he is, and what he wants.

  (ARCHIE crosses to the door and opens it, revealing MRS. HEROLD, a stolid Midwestern housewife.)

  MRS. HEROLD: The name is Herold. Mrs. Shirley Herold. I need to see Nero Wolfe.

  ARCHIE: I’m Archie Goodwin, Mr. Wolfe’s assistant.

  MRS. HEROLD: I know who you are. They told me all about you. You’re what they call a live wire.

  ARCHIE: That’s a new one—and a clean one. Who says I’m a live wire?

  MRS. HEROLD: The fella from the Missing Persons Department. He also says you’re a pain in the—neck.

  ARCHIE: Who is this fella? I’d like to give him a great big kick in the—neck.

  (WOLFE looks up from his newspaper.)

  WOLFE: Mrs. Herold, what brings you here today?

  MRS. HEROLD: I’m not sure where to begin.

  WOLFE: At the beginning is always best.

  ARCHIE (to audience): Mr. Wolfe was almost … friendly. It must have been the lunch. That’s all I can say.