Death Times Three by Nero Wolfe

(17. – 1042.) Death Times Three by Nero Wolfe - A trio of Wolfe stoies, novellas, written at different stages of Stout’s career.

In Bitter End (1940) Wolfe is barely coping with Frtiz Brenner being sick and out of the kitchen when his refined palate is assaulted by contaminated liver patê. After spitting out the offending patê, some of which lands upon Archie, he states the tin from Tingley’s Tidbits was poisoned.

As Archie prepares a sample to be analyzed a young woman, Amy Duncan, calls at the brownstone  to request an unsolicited interview with Wolfe. Ready to provoke the big man Archie allows her into the office.

Archie, at least, is startled when she identifies the offending contaminant as quinine. She has come to seek Wolfe’s help in determining who is sabotaging the liver patê. Arthur Tingley, the owner of Tingley’s Tidbits, is her uncle.

Miss Duncan, after a falling out with her uncle, had been working as a secretary for Leonard Cliff, the vice-president of Provisions and Beverage Corporation, whom Mr. Tingley suspected of adulterating his product.

Unfortunately, she has little money. With a satisfactory balance in his bank account Wolfe tells her she has something better than money. She is puzzled. Wolfe says she has luck for he was already determined to find out who poisoned the patê.

Soon after Archie starts investigating he finds Mr. Tingley with his throat cut in his office. Archie spirits an unconscious Miss Duncan from the building and, after a tussle, also takes Mr. Cliff with him.

As the police flounder about with conflicting evidence on the time of death Wolfe finds the flaw in the killer’s coverup of the crime.

(Bitter End was actually a re-write of a Tecumseh Fox story. Stout was enticed to do the re-write by a publisher who offered him twice the amount for a Wolfe story that he would pay for a Fox story.)

The second story, Frame-Up for Murder (1958), sees Archie picked up by an attractive young woman, Flora Gallant, who wants him to like her enough that he will arrange a meeting with Wolfe. Her charming French accent adds to her allure. Not surprisingly, the strategem works and she is soon in the office.

She is concerned over the influence Bianca Voss has upon her brother, Alec Gallant, a successful designer of haute couture. She is sure that if Wolfe questions Voss he will learn evidence that would break the hold on her brother.

In a clever scene Wolfe is talking to Voss on the phone when she is attacked and killed.

Soon thereafter Inspector Cramer is storming the brownstone. They deflate his bluster with a typed statement of what happened signed by both of them.

In that era of the dial telephone Wolfe and Archie can determine whethe a number has been called by the length of each number being turned. Such detecting is now an anachronism.

There is an attempt to flummox Wolfe. It is a foolhardy soul who attempts to deceive him. He instantly sees through the subterfuge. Cold implacable logic takes him to the killer.

(Frame-Up For Murder is also a re-write. It is an extended version of Murder is No Joke. An important difference between the stories is the lovely young Flora of Frame-Up for Murder was a middle aged frump in Murder is No Joke).

The third, Assault on a Brownstone (1961, begins on a cold New York morning as Hattie Annis, gray and fading and feisty, leaves a box with Archie who convinces Wolfe to see her. Ms. Annis and Wolfe share a distrust of the police. That she claims to have something that will draw a reward is intriguing. 

A short time later, Tamiris (Tammy) Baxter, a comely aspiring actress, inquires about her landlady, Miss Annis. She is concerned as Miss Annis rarely leaves her home.

Miss Annis does not return for her appointment. After Wolfe dines on chestnut soup, to which tarragon has been added for the first time, Archie learns Miss Annis has been killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Feeling he betrayed her by sending her away while Wolfe was with his orchids Archie is determined to investigate her death.

After authorities, with the aid of a search warrant, thoroughly check the brownstone an outraged Nero Wolfe takes over the investigation:

“Not anymore. Now it’s mine. My house has been invaded, my privacy has been outraged, and my belongings have been pawed. Sit down.”

(Assault on a Brownstone is involved in another re-write. It was the first version of the story. The re-written story was published as The Counterfeiter’s Knife. The character of Miss Annis was modeled on his aunt, Alice Todhunter Bradley, who, among her adventures in the American West, was schoolmistress to the “kin” of Brigham Young.)

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Force of Nature by Jane Harper - Harper grabs the reader and but she let go of me. As in The Dry there is a dramatic opening in rural Australia. In Force of Nature five women go into the bush as part of a team building exercise on a corporate retreat. Four return.

They all worked at BaileyTennants, a “boutique accountancy”.

Alice Russell, 45, is missing. Roughing it is not her customary style:

Her blonde hair had been pinned in a complicated style and she was wearing a silvery dress that showed off the hours she spent in the gym. She looked a good five years younger than her true age, maybe more.

Alice or someone using her phone had called a pair of numbers early in the morning she disappeared from the group. Australian federal police officer, Aaron Falk, received a 4:25 am phone message filled with static that ends with the chilling words “hurt her”. The other attempted call was to emergency.

Falk and his partner, Carmen Cooper, have been investigating generational money laundering at BaileyTennants. To avoid prosecution Alice had agreed to provide inside information.

The book shifts back and forth from the search for Alice to the ill fated camping expedition.

I found it striking that it was considered safe to send into the bush on their own 5 women with limited, decades earlier, experience in camping. Add to that risk they had no means of communicating if they encountered trouble. If the venture reflects real life Australians have a high tolerance of danger.

It was no surprise the women encountered problems on their second day in the bush. A fork in the trail and Breanna, a hungover map reader, sends them down the right fork. 

After the trek Falk and Carmen, more anxious about their source than her safety, visit Bree at the hospital . She is Alice’s administrative coordinator.

Bree’s twin sister, Beth, though only a data processing and archiving clerk was also on the trip. Her personal demons and addictions have left her much heavier and more psychologically burdened than Bree.

Mid-afternoon the hikers realize they have taken the wrong trail. There are arguments. Should they attempt to re-trace their steps? Should they move cross country to meet up with the proper trail?

Lurking in their minds are the stories of Martin Kovac. A serial killer of women who prowled this area. He has died in prison but his presence haunts the bush.

Over 150 pages into the book I knew virtually nothing of the backgrounds of the detectives or their investigation into BaileyTenants.

It is hard to sustain a story of lost hikers, especially when you know what happened at the end of the hike except for one member of the group. Further suspense evaporated when, early in the book, there was some information on what happened in the bush.

The interactions between the women were not enough to sustain the story for me. 

The secrets of the characters that worked so well in The Dry are not as effective here.

As in The Dry weather and the land were important but they could not carry the plot.

At 250 pages there was still little on Falk and less on Carmen. I appreciated Falk’s background was a theme in The Dry but I needed more in Force of Nature, especially about his experiences in the investigation of financial crime. As for Carmen I knew no more than she started by investigating crimes against children and had a fiance.

At 300 pages there was a meaningful discussion between Falk and Carmen over his life. I wish it had taken place 200 pages earlier and been followed up with more scenes on their lives and relationship.

Harper tells the story well. She drew me through the book. The paces and tension do escalate in the final 100 pages. There is a compelling ending.

Wondering how other reviewers reacted to the book I took a look around the net. I am definitely in the minority. Most reviewers loved the book.

****

Harper, Jane - (2018) - The Dry (Reviewed by reviewing Bernadette's review) and A Fictional and a Real Life Mass Murder of a Family

Hercule Poirot and Nero Wolfe Discuss the Old Man in the Corner

As I was reading The Old Man in the Corner - The Teahouse Detective I thought of Nero Wolfe, another armchair sleuth who solved cases while sitting around. As I reflected on the two sleuths, Wolfe and Hercule Poirot entered my mind:

Poirot: That old man in the corner is a lot like you.

Wolfe: Pfui, we have virtually nothing in common. He is a scarecrow of a man who spends his days sitting in a cafe.  I have a robust figure and am ensconced in an armchair custom designed to accommodate me.

Poirot: I grant you the physical distinction but …

Wolfe: And I would have to be dead to be caught wearing a check tweed suit! What an appalling choice of apparel.

Poirot: I do not disagree Nero. I shudder at the very thought of a check tweed suit. I appreciate the simple savoir faire of your rich brown suits and bright yellow shirts. Of course, to be a man of distinction a tailored three piece suit is to be preferred.

Wolfe: And drinking milk. How can anyone think while drinking milk? That bland drink dulls the senses. That Archie drinks glasses of milk daily confirms its enervating quality.  Now several botthes of Remmers beer a day both relaxes and stimulates the mind.

Poirot: You are too harsh mon ami. While I also do not favour milk I cannot recall the last time I indulged in a bottle of beer.

Wolfe: What! Surely you grew up savouring the vast selection of wonderful beers brewed in Belgium.

Poirot: Non! Beer has never been my pleasure. I find cocoa or a delicate herbal tisane enhance the reflection.

Wolfe: And when he is not in his corner that man is out watching trials. He wastes so much time in the tedium of the courtroom. Archie and my other detectives can do the listening and fact finding and then report to me. 

Poirot: I am well aware of your reluctance to leave the brownstone.

Wolfe: I cannot understand why he never talks to any witnesses. 

Poirot: Je ne sais pas. What I really want to talk about is how each of you use the little grey cells. Let me read to you a passage from a recounting of his cases written by Baroness Orczy. On his  “method of induction” she states:

First think of the one absolutely undisputed, positive fact. You must have a starting point, and not go wandering about in the realms of suppositions.

Wolfe: Hmmmmm. That approach has intellectual rigor but confound it, his infernal habit of tying and untying complicated knots while thinking would be an unbearable distraction.

Poirot: You fail to appreciate how you also have an odd, no, let me be fair, a distinctive distracting physical action while deeply engaged in thought. You will sit in silence with your eyes closed and your lips pushing out and drawing in.

Wolfe: Well, well. …….. alright, I will accept men who think deeply have individual means of achieving complete concentration.

Poirot: I think each of you excel in the analysis of crime 

Wolfe: I would accept that neither of us has ever encountered a crime we could not solve through the application of those little grey cells you mentioned but he has no sense of justice. I relish the chance at the meetings of suspects in my office to confront and expose the criminal and have the guilty face the consequences of their actions.

Poirot: As I understand it the man in the corner does not consider it his duty to advise the police of the solutions to their unsolvable crimes.

Wolfe: While I deplore his lack of civic responsibilty I would agree the police all too often falter before the demands of a challenging case. I sometimes weary of the mental effort to solve mysteries.

Poirot: Ah, I understand. Each of the three of us has been called a genius. The burdens of our intelligence are heavy. Among the consequences, we are bereft of spouse and children.

Wolfe: It is probably best for the world that there is but one of each of us.

A Case Study From the Old Man in thr Corner by Baroness Orczy

When writers dressed to impress - Baroness Orczy

Most of the stories in The Old Man in the Corner - The Teahouse Detective by Baroness Orczy involved court cases the man in the corner attended. 

There was a case of particular interest to me in the book. The Dublin Mystery involved allegations of the forgery of a will, the death of the maker of the will, Millionaire Brooks and the murder of the solicitor who prepared the will all in the same day.

Brooks had a successful “bacon curing” business in Ireland that allowed him to leave an estate of £2,500,000.

(Curious to see what £2,500,000 in 1905 would be worth today I did some internet sleuthing and found a calculator that would put the current value at £300,958,000 or $529,052,000 in Canadian dollars.) 

A lot of skulduggery can occur with such a fortune at stake.

Millionaire Brooks had two sons.

The younger, Murray, “was a refined, highly educated man, and was, moreover, the apple of his father’s eye, as he was the spoilt darling of Dublin society, good-looking, a splendid dance, and a perfect rider, he was the acknowledged ‘catch’ of the matrimonial market of Ireland …”

The older, Percival, was “good-looking, more so than his brother; he, too, rode, danced and talked well”. He had an “infatuation for Maisie Fortescue, a lady of undoubted charm but very doubtful antecedents.”

Mr. Brooks had a history of arguments with Percival over his lifestyle.

On the day of his death, Mr. Brooks, had an argument over dissolute actions. A short time later he was found with Percival. He had collapsed and his doctor pronounced the situation grave. The butler, at the request of Mr. Brooks, summoned his solicitor, Patrick Wethered. 

In the best of legal tradition to assist a client in need Mr. Wethered came at once to the residence of Mr. Brooks. I have gone to see very ill people at home about wills. Twice I have been called to hospitals to do wills for people who died that evening. 

It is a difficult time to conduct legal business. Lawyers are always concerned because the testator, the maker of the will, is making the will under the extreme pressure of it being their last living decisions.

As I would hope Mr. Wethered saw Mr. Brooks independently to do his best to ensure Mr. Brooks had testamentary capacity, that the instructions came from Mr. Brooks and that Mr. Brooks was not being unduly influenced by anyone.

In the story Mr. Wethered prepared the will, apparently at the bedside. He used a pre-printed form and entered the additional information needed for the will. I have been a lawyer long enough to have used such forms. They would normally be printed on traditional legal length - 14” - paper which would be folded so that there were 4 sides to be filled in for the will.

The butler and the head footman acted as witnesses to the new will of Mr. Brooks. I was a little surprised Mr. Wethered was not a witness. In such circumstances, I would have been a witness and had the butler as the other witness.

Prior to signing I would have gone over the terms of the will in the presence of Mr. Brooks and the witness or witnesses so that, if there were a challenge to the will, I would have  corroborating evidence that Mr. Brooks confirmed the terms were his last intentions.

That action was not taken by Mr. Wethered. Of course, had it been taken there would have been no story for there would be no mystery.

Mr. Brooks died shortly after signing and Mr. Wethered was murdered later that afternoon.

The next morning a will was found under his pillow and given to Percival who presented the will for probate. It gave him all of the estate but for a meagre allowance of £300 a year for Murray.

The previous will had bequeathed the business of Mr. Brooks to Murray with £2,000 to be paid annually to Percival from the business and the remainder of the estate to be divided equally between the sons.

There was a civil trial over the will which found forgery of the will when both witnesses to the will said the signatures upon the presented were not their own.

(Were it today there would have been experts who analyzed the handwriting to provide their opinions on whether there was forgery and potentially who had actually filled in the will and made the signatures. In the early 1900’s there were experts in handwriting analysis but I am not sure if they appeared in English courts. Then, as now, experts were not always reliable. In 1894 Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of espionage partly on the evidence of Alphonse Bertillon, a man who was allowed to give his opinions on handwriting though he was not a handwriting expert.)

A subsequent criminal trial of Percival for forgery failed when it was shown Percival had the will he presented for probate for less than half an hour before he gave it to his solicitors and that Mr. Brooks had confided to two people before he died that he had given the new will to Mr. Wethered.

Until that information appeared I was wondering why Mr. Wethered had not taken the will when he left the house. In my experience the will would return to the law office rather than be left with a desperately ill testator. Fortunately, I have never had anyone attack me while I was going back to my office carrying a newly signed will.

The solution was not difficult as I figured it out after reading all the evidence. I did think the Baroness had been a bit cute in setting up the evidence.

****

Orczy, Baroness - (2020) - The Old Man in the Corner - The Teahouse Detective

The Old Man in the Corner - The Teahouse Detective by Baroness Orczy

The Old Man in the Corner - The Teahouse Detective by Baroness Orczy (1908) - As an infrequent reader of classic crime fiction I was unfamiliar with the Old Man in the Corner, the original armchair detective. A long time ago I read The Scarlet Pimpernel by the Baroness. I  can only remember an outline of the plot. I do recall enjoying the book.

I found The Tea House Detective at the Mosaic Bookstore in Kelowna just after Christmas. I put it back on my first trip to the store but could not leave it on my second visit to the store.

Miss Polly Burton, a journalist with the Evening Observer, has her own corner table at the Norfolk Street branch of the Aerated Bread Company’s depôts in London. She becomes fascinated by the man in the corner “so pale, so thin, with such funny light-coloured hair, brushed very smoothly across the top of a very obviously bald crown. He looked so timid and nervous as he fidgeted incessantly with a piece of string; his long, lean, and trembling fingers tying and untying it into knots of wonderful and complicated proportions”.

There are a series of short stories in which the man in the corner solves unsolved crimes by the application of his mind. What is unusual is that while the crimes are solved by his inductive powers there is no attempt to arrest and convict the criminal. Modern crime fiction rarley allows the guilty to go free. He says:

As often as not my sympathies go to the criminal who is clever and astute enought to lead our entire police force by the nose.

The stories focus on human nature. The Liverpool Mystery is about a theft involving jewels and bank notes. It opens:

“A title - a foreign title, I mean - is always very useful for purposes of swindles and frauds,” remarked the man in the corner to Polly one day. “The cleverest robberies of modern times were perpetrated by a man who dubbed himself Lord Seymour; whilst over here the same class of thief calls himself Count Something ending in ‘l’, or Prince the other, ending in ‘off’”.

A young clerk taking jewels worth thousands of pounds to a Russian prince is advised to be wary of the purported royalty and be provided payment before giving possession of any jewels purchased. Unfortunately, the clerk was not as wary of a man in a “magnificient fur coat” identifying himself as a member of the Czarist police who convinces the clerk the notes were fakes. Upon being given the notes the officer undertakes to convince the prince to return the jewels in exchange for avoiding prosecution by British authorities. With but little variation the same scam is fleecing vulnerable people around the world over a century later. As to the thief, the man in the corner logically identifies him.

The story also illustrates the use in the book of makeup and clothing for disguise and distraction. While clever, credibility is stretched at times that the criminal would not have been recognized

Following the money was as solid an investigating strategy early in the 20th Century as it is 20 years into the 21st Century.

There is not an impossible locked room in the book.

There is only the odd twinge of discomfort over the prejudices of the time. The Baroness was an excellent storyteller.

The very deft ending caught me totally by surprise. It was a striking and appropriate conclusion to a collection of good stories.

The Fourth Sacrifice by Peter May

The Fourth Sacrifice by Peter May (2000) - Dr. Margaret Campbell, is upset. It is a few months after she raised the alarm on “super-rice” in The Firemaker. Calamity has been averted but Bejing detective Li Yan has not kept in contact with her. Having become lovers  she is hurt and has decided to return to America.

Li is occupied by an investigation into Bejing’s first serial killer. In four weeks four men have been beheaded. Personally, Li has been ordered not to contact Campbell.

When the 4th victim Yuan Tao turns out to be an American citizen the U.S. embassy asks Campbell to do the autopsy. To the shock of everyone she determines the 4th killing was committed by a different killer. Where the earlier victims were decapitated by a right handed murderer the last was slain by someone who is left handed.

The murder weapon, a bronze sword, is distinctive in that bronze swords have not been used for centuries. Why would a bronze sword or swords be used?

While the murder weapon looks back hundreds of years there are modern political issues. Yuan Tao was born in China and left for America shortly before the Cultural Revolution. Right wing American zealots suspect he was killed for leaving China 30 years earlier and adopting America.

Campbell stays to participate in the investigation.

When Li confirms all 4 victims were schoolmates the question of whether there were 2 killers is fascinating.

The investigation takes Li back to the Cultural Revolution when life in China was turned into chaos and violence with the Red Guards. Yet those events were decades ago.

Why would Yuan Tao, a respected academic in America, give up his position to work in the visa section of the American embassy? What connects him to the schoolmates who stayed in China?

Li carefully examines the threads of evidence. His advances come from reflecting on that evidence.

Margaret considers the evidence in broader terms and has flashes of insight. 

While their emotions for each other remain tangled their personal lives move on separately.

Adding spice to Margaret’s life is Michael Zimmerman, a famous archaeologist, who is in China to film a documentary. He is very interested in Margaret. Her trip to see the terracotta warriors made me want to experience them.

The romantic relationships did become a bit of a soap opera.

There is a powerful examination of the personal implications of China’s One-Child Policy in Li’s immediate family and the desire for a son. I found wrenching, almost incomprehensible as a father and grandfather, what individuals would do to have a son.

The combination of archaeology, life in swiftly changing Bejing, an intriguing quartet of murders and complex personal relationships made The Fourth Sacrifice an excellent book. 

****

May, Peter - (2003) - Snakehead; (2014) - The Blackhouse; (2014) - The Lewis Man; (2015) - The Chessmen; Bookmark Inspiration for the Outer Hebrides; (2020) - Firemaker