Three at Wolfe's Door

Three at Wolfe's Door
Author(s)	Rex Stout
Cover artist	Bill English
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Nero Wolfe
Genre(s)	Detective fiction
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	April 29, 1960
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	186 pp. (first edition)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Plot It Yourself
Followed by	Too Many Clients

Three at Wolfe's Door is a collection of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1960. The book comprises three stories, one of them published previously:

• "Poison à la Carte"
• "Method Three for Murder" (previously serialized in three issues of The Saturday Evening Post, January 30–February 13, 1960)
• "The Rodeo Murder"

Poison à la Carte

A group of gourmets, who call themselves the Ten for Aristology, invite Wolfe's chef Fritz to cook their annual dinner. Wolfe and Archie are included by courtesy. Twelve young women, one per guest, serve the food — they are actresses supplied by a theatrical agency, and are termed "Hebes," after the cupbearer to the gods in the Greek pantheon (later replaced by Ganymede). A member of the Ten, Vincent Pyle, is poisoned and Wolfe quickly concludes that arsenic was administered by a server. Pyle is a Broadway angel, and it's clearly possible that he knew one or more of the Hebes.

Plot devices used in "Poison à la Carte" appear in other Wolfe stories. For example, the list of possible murderers (here, the Hebes) gaining access to the victim one by one recalls Too Many Cooks, Fourth of July Picnic and The Silent Speaker. Then the murderer is trapped into making incriminating statements at John Piotti's restaurant, a location used for an identical purpose in Gambit. And Fritz cooks dinner for the Aristologists on another occasion, in The Doorbell Rang, an experience that leaves him considerably more chagrined than does the one described here.

Method Three for Murder

After discovering a body in the back seat, Mira Holt drives the taxi she has borrowed for the evening to 918 West 35th Street. She walks up the front steps of the brownstone just as Archie is walking down -- having just told Nero Wolfe that he's quit.

The Rodeo Murder

A party at Lily Rowan's Park Avenue penthouse includes a roping contest between some cowboy friends, with a silver-trimmed saddle as the prize. One of the contestants is at a disadvantage when his rope is missing. When it is found wound more than a dozen times around the neck of the chief backer of the World Series Rodeo, Lily asks Wolfe to sort out the murder.

Adaptations

A Nero Wolfe Mystery (A&E Network)

"Poison à la Carte" was adapted for the second season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002). Directed by George Bloomfield from a teleplay by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, the episode made its debut May 26, 2002, on A&E.

Timothy Hutton is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) include Colin Fox (Fritz Brenner), Bill Smitrovich (Inspector Cramer), R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins), Hrant Alianak (Zoltan Mahany), Carlo Rota (Felix Courret), David Hemblen (Louis Hewitt), Dominic Cuzzocrea (Vincent Pyle), James Tolkan (Adrian Dart), David Schurmann (Emil Kreis), Gary Reineke (Mr. Leacraft), Jack Newman (Mr. Schriver), Michelle Nolden (Helen Iacono), Emily Hampshire (Carol Annis), Hayley Verlyn (Fern Faber), Sarain Boylan (Nora Jaret), Dina Barrington (Lucy Morgan) and Lindy Booth (Peggy Choate). Choreographer Vanessa Harwood appears, uncredited, in the introductory sequence.

In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small, the soundtrack includes music by W. C. Handy (titles), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn and Dick Walter.^[1]

In international broadcasts, the 45-minute A&E version of "Poison a la Carte" is expanded into a 90-minute widescreen telefilm.^[2] Boyd Banks, Christine Brubaker and Nicky Guadagni make uncredited appearances in the international version.

A Nero Wolfe Mystery is available on DVD from A&E Home Video (ISBN 0-7670-8893-X).

Publication history

"Poison à la Carte"

• 1968, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, April 1968^[3]
• 1973, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Spring–Summer 1973

"Method Three for Murder"

• 1960, The Saturday Evening Post, January 30 + February 6 + February 13, 1960^[4]
• 1970, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 1970
• 1976, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Spring–Summer 1970
• 1976, Giants of Mystery: Ellery Queen's Anthology, New York: Davis Publications, 1976, hardcover

"The Rodeo Murder"

• 1961, Argosy, January 1961 (as "The Penthouse Murder")
• 1958, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September 1968
• 1973, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Fall–Winter 1973

Three at Wolfe's Door

• 1960, New York: The Viking Press, April 29, 1960, hardcover^[5]

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Three at Wolfe's Door: "Orange cloth, front cover and spine printed with dark brown. Issued in a mainly green-brown dust wrapper."^[6]

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Three at Wolfe's Door had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.^[7]

• 1960, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), July 1960, hardcover

The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:

• The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
• Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
• Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).^[8]

• 1961, London: Collins Crime Club, January 20, 1961, hardcover
• 1961, New York: Bantam #A-2276, August 1961
• 1995, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 0-553-23803-5 August 1, 1995, paperback
• 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-4060-6 October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
• 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75622-0 June 9, 2010, e-book

References

1. ^ W.C. Handy, "St. Louis Blues". Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, "Turkish March (Alla Turca)," from Piano Sonata No. 11; KPM Music Ltd. KPM CS 7, Light Classics Volume One (track 4). Felix Mendelssohn, "Spinning Song," from Songs without Words, Op. 67, No. 4; KPM Music Ltd. KPM CS 7, Light Classics Volume One (track 9). Dick Walter, "Pathos"; KPM Music Ltd. KPM 369, Cinema, Storytelling and Adventure – Part Three (tracks 32.1 and 32.2). Additional soundtrack details at the Internet Movie Database and The Wolfe Pack, official site of the Nero Wolfe Society
2. ^ Sky Movies (UK) summary retrieved October 4, 2007; run length is recorded as 90 minutes. Program listings for Tuesday, November 9, 2004, broadcast on Sky Movies 8 records broadcast as widescreen format.
3. ^ Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980, New York: Garland Publishing; ISBN 0-8240-9479-4), pp. 74–75. John McAleer, Judson Sapp and Arriean Schemer are associate editors of this definitive publication history.
4. ^ Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980, New York: Garland Publishing; ISBN 0-8240-9479-4), p. 74
5. ^ Townsend, Guy M., Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980, New York: Garland Publishing; ISBN 0-8240-9479-4), p. 84. John McAleer, Judson Sapp and Arriean Schemer are associate editors of this definitive publication history.
6. ^ Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II (2001, New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, limited edition of 250 copies), p. 11
7. ^ Smiley, Robin H., "Rex Stout: A Checklist of Primary First Editions." Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine (Volume 16, Number 4), April 2006, p. 34
8. ^ Penzler, Otto, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, pp. 19–20

External links

• A Nero Wolfe Mystery — "Poison a la Carte" at the Internet Movie Database
• A Nero Wolfe Mystery — "Poison a la Carte" at The Wolfe Pack, official site of the Nero Wolfe Society
• Script (PDF) for "In Bad Taste," written by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, a draft combining the episodes "Poison a la Carte" and "Murder Is Corny" into a two-hour movie (December 15, 2001)