For today's excursion into the vault, we're going back to 1936, and The Rubber Band, the third in Rex Stout's excellent series of adventures for Nero Wolfe and his top-notch assistant, Archie Goodwin. It's always fun to go back to the early Nero Wolfe books to see how the characters of Wolfe and Goodwin changed over the years. Here's the transcript of my audio review done for the Classic Mysteries podcast, nearly a decade ago. As always, minor editing has been done.
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The peculiar story of the Rubber band began in 1895, in a small and lawless Nevada mining town. It was an unedifying story of a shooting and a near-lynching as well as some arson…and a promise made of potential riches – a promise apparently not kept. Forty years later, in New York City, the pledge of the Rubber band led to multiple murders, potential blackmail and general mayhem – and the whole thing ended up in the very ample lap of one of America’s largest detectives, Nero Wolfe. It is the story of The Rubber Band, by Rex Stout. Originally published in 1936, it was the third of Rex Stout’s mysteries to feature Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin.
It’s a fascinating and – by Wolfean standards – a complex story. It begins with a wealthy businessman trying to hire Wolfe to investigate the theft of thirty thousand dollars from one of his company’s executives – a theft which appears to have been the work of a young woman named Clara Fox. But before that investigation gets very far, Clara Fox herself comes to Wolfe, seeking to hire him to collect on a very old promise made to a group of men who called themselves the Rubber band. It was a play on words, for the leader of the group at the time was a man named "Rubber" Coleman. Coleman and the others had helped save the life of a man accused of murder – who was about to be lynched by a group of vigilantes. In return, the man whom they helped to escape had promised them a share of his wealth.
Apparently, that never happened – but, forty years later, Clara Fox (the daughter of one of the original members of the Rubber band) and several others want to try to collect some of that pledge. You see, they have found that long-missing escapee from the lynch mob, who turns out to be a very wealthy British peer.
What happens next is murder. And – with police now very interested in finding Clara Fox and the other members of her group – Nero Wolfe is forced to hide the young woman in his brownstone house. If you are at all familiar with any of the Nero Wolfe stories, you probably have a good idea just how much Wolfe will fail to enjoy the presence of a woman living in his home. And there are some absolutely priceless scenes – particularly one in which Archie’s long-time nemesis, Police Lieutenant Rowcliff, searches the brownstone, with a search warrant, looking for Clara Fox.
Naturally, there are all kinds of complications – including another murder – and the distinct possibility that Wolfe himself will be hauled off to jail. And Wolfe himself nearly becomes a murder victim before the plot is brought to an extremely satisfying solution in one of Nero Wolfe’s classic office confrontations. And – it is worth noting – Wolfe takes the case on Monday and solves the whole thing…by Wednesday.
The Rubber Band is a well-told story – but it is quite clear on reading it that Rex Stout was still working on the development of his key characters. Archie in particular seems a lot rougher around the edges than he will become in later books. It is interesting to hear Archie – who, in the later books, can at least appreciate Fritz Brenner’s gourmet cooking – raging that he had failed to be on the scene of a murder, saying – in his words –
"instead of going where I belonged I had sat and eaten guinea chicken Brazilisomething and listened to Wolfe hum folk tunes."
The later Archie would never say that – he always knew what he (and Wolfe) were eating. And – speaking of character development – it is worth noting that The Rubber Band contains one of the only instances of Inspector Cramer actually lighting – and puffing on – one of his cigars, which are usually merely chewed and discarded.
But The Rubber Band is, I think, a very good early entry in the Nero Wolfe series. If the relationship between Wolfe and Goodwin is occasionally a bit strained, we can see where the two play off each other’s strengths. Wolfe could not have solved this case without Archie’s help…and Archie is smart enough to know his own limitations and how Wolfe can transcend them. The characters in The Rubber Band seem more fleshed out to me than they do in some of the later books. It will take an astute reader to pick out the real clues scattered through the book and – like Nero Wolfe – to put them together into the only total and rational solution. Rex Stout’s The Rubber Band is a thoroughly entertaining book.
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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.
Next: Any Shape or Form, by Elizabeth Daly.
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