This week, our regular excursion into the Classic Mysteries vault has yielded a particularly good mystery by Rex Stout featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. It's called Champagne for One, and, in addition to featuring two of my favorite American detectives, it has the added attraction of providing a seemingly impossible murder. This gives both Wolfe and Archie a fine opportunity to show off, although the police certainly aren't as happy about it as I am. Here's a lightly edited transcript of my audio review of Champagne for One, as presented nearly eight years ago on the Classic Mysteries podcast:
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There was general agreement on one point: the young woman at the party had died, in front of a roomful of witnesses, after drinking champagne laced with cyanide. Beyond that point, however, it became confusing: was it suicide or murder? Well, Archie Goodwin – Nero Wolfe’s assistant – was there when it happened, and he insisted there was no way it could have been suicide. But the police insisted just as strongly that it would have been impossible for anyone to tamper with the champagne – so how could it be murder? That conflict is at the heart of Champagne for One, by Rex Stout.
Fans of the Murder She Wrote TV series will undoubtedly recognize what has been called “Jessica Fletcher syndrome” – defined by the Urban Dictionary as “Condition of a place or person that seems to attract a large number of murders without having an active part in that crime.” In other words, on that show, being a friend of Jessica Fletcher could lead to your untimely demise as a murder victim, as she seemed to serve as a magnet for murders.
Reading Rex Stout’s Champagne for One, I couldn’t help but think that Archie Goodwin is often an example of Jessica Fletcher syndrome in action. In a fair number of the novels and novellas, Archie is on hand when murder is committed, which, of course, involves Nero Wolfe and others in the plot of the story. That’s what happens in Champagne for One.
Archie receives a phone call from a friend, who is pleading illness: would Archie mind going to a party to fill in for his sick friend? So Archie agrees and goes off to the home of the fabulously wealthy Mrs. Robert Robillotti – a woman, by the way, who detests him, a sentiment which Archie returns whole-heartedly. The party at her in-town mansion is an annual event on behalf of a charity that helps what were called at the time simply "unwed mothers." The invited guests each year include a trio of those unwed mothers from a home founded by Mrs. Robilotti’s late first husband.
Archie goes to the party and meets the young women and the other guests at the party. One of the women, Faith Usher, always carries a small bottle of cyanide with her, telling her friends that she will, one of these days, commit suicide. If that sounds like a cheerful start to the story, you’re not alone in your reaction. What happens, however, is that Archie is told about the poison – in Faith Usher’s handbag, and so he is watching it closely and watching Faith. And, while he is watching, she drinks a glass of poisoned champagne and dies.
But Archie has been watching and will swear that Faith did not put poison in her own glass, nor had anyone been near her handbag. She can not have committed suicide.
That verdict does not sit well with Mrs. Robilotti and the other guests at the party, who are eager to have Faith’s death declared a suicide. The police investigation turns up clues which seem to indicate that it would have been impossible for anyone to tamper with Faith’s glass of champagne – so how could it possibly be murder?
In the end, of course, Nero Wolfe becomes involved, having been hired by one of the other guests at the party. And Wolfe finds that he will have to figure out how a seemingly impossible crime could have been committed, and for what reason.
The solution to this one strikes me as a bit of a stretch, I must admit, for key clues are uncovered almost by accident (not to mention a little breaking-and-entering). But the solution, if a bit far-fetched, is credible all the same.
One of the most interesting things to me in Champagne for One was the difference between the way those “unwed mothers” were regarded in 1958, when the book was written, as opposed to the way we treat those young women today. There was a real social stigma attached to unwed motherhood in 1958 that is largely missing today.
Champagne for One is up to the usual standard for Rex Stout. Archie’s dialogue, as always, is sharp and witty and the closing confrontation in Wolfe’s office is quite well done. But I still think I’d have to advise against getting too friendly with Archie. It could be bad for your health.
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As of this writing (October, 2019), Champagne for One is most readily available either in print or as an e-book as part of a two-books-in-one-volume edition along with another first-rate Wolfe novel, Too Many Cooks.
You can listen to the original audio podcast of my Champagne for One review by clicking here.
Next: Death of a Swagman, by Arthur Upfield.
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