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Title: Champagne for One
Series: Nero Wolfe #31
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 155
Words: 59K
I enjoyed reading this, but at the same time, it felt really, really, REALLY sameold/sameold.
I also had a serious problem with who was murdered and why, once it was all revealed. I could understand the Murderess and why she wanted to kill, but why did she go after her late husband’s illegitimate daughter instead of against the woman who he allegedly knocked up? It’s like blaming the cake for being burned instead of blaming the chef who forgot to set the timer.
And for the first time, Archie annoyed me. I get that he and Wolfe have a complicated relationship where they trust each other yet get on each other’s nerves, but that’s no reason for Archie to act like a total child because Wolfe won’t let him take part in another part of the case. He really gets petulant this time around. I don’t know why it bothered me so much this time around, but it did.
All the elements of a good Wolfe mystery were here and like I said at the beginning, I enjoyed this. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have.
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia
Synopsis – click to open
Archie Goodwin receives a phone call from an acquaintance, Austin “Dinky” Byne, asking for a favour. Byne routinely acts as a chaperone for an annual dinner hosted by his aunt, Louise Grantham Robilotti, which is given in honour of four young unwed mothers living at Grantham House, a charity supported by her late husband. Byne claims to have a cold and is unable to attend; although skeptical, Archie agrees to stand in for him, despite Mrs. Robilotti’s being a former client of Nero Wolfe’s who bears him a personal dislike. During the dinner, Archie learns from one of the unwed mothers that another, Faith Usher, has a bottle of cyanide in her purse; Faith has been suffering from depression, and her friend fears that she might attempt suicide. Archie promises to watch over her, but towards the end of the evening Faith collapses and dies from cyanide poisoning after drinking a glass of champagne.
Alone of the guests, Archie maintains that Faith Usher did not commit suicide, claiming that he observed her constantly throughout the evening and that she never had an opportunity to pour the cyanide from her bottle into her glass. Although the authorities and the other guests pressure Archie into changing his story, Nero Wolfe believes him and decides to settle the matter by solving the case himself. He is given further incentive to do so when Edwin Laidlaw, another of the chaperones, approaches him to hire his services; Laidlaw is the father of Faith Usher’s child after a brief affair they had the previous year and, ashamed of his conduct, is desperate that his secret is not revealed.
Although Wolfe’s investigation begins unpromisingly, he becomes convinced that his suspicions are correct when the police receive an anonymous tip revealing Laidlaw’s secret. Although the police are skeptical due to the tip’s anonymous nature, it suggests to Wolfe that someone else knows Laidlaw’s secret and has become agitated by the ongoing investigation. His investigations begin to focus on both Faith Usher’s estranged mother Elaine, herself an unwed mother, and Dinky Byne, whose false reasons for canceling on the party look increasingly suspect given the events. He assigns Saul Panzer and Archie to investigate the two respectively, leading to a break in the case when both Archie and Saul tail their respective targets to the same location: a nightclub where Elaine Usher and Dinky Byne are meeting with each other.
When confronted by Wolfe, both Byne and Elaine Usher attempt to lie their way out of the situation, but their stories are inconsistent. Byne admits that he knew that Laidlaw was the father of Faith Usher’s child, and claims that he had them both invited to the dinner without their knowledge as a spiteful prank. During their conversation, however, Orrie Cather infiltrates Byne’s apartment and discovers a letter revealing that Mrs. Robilotti’s deceased first husband, Albert Grantham, was the father of Faith Usher. This, coupled with some unwittingly suggestive comments from Byne, leads Wolfe to identify the murderer.
Summoning the guests to his office, he has them reenact the circumstances under which Faith Usher received the poisoned champagne multiple times. This demonstrates that Mrs. Robilotti’s son Cecil, who gave Faith the poisoned champagne, had a routine way of handing over a glass that someone who knew his habits would be able to predict. He accuses Mrs. Robilotti of poisoning Faith Usher; Byne was blackmailing her with the knowledge that her former husband was Faith’s father and invited Faith to the dinner as a threat. Mrs. Robilotti murdered Faith to conceal the secret and out of resentment over her husband’s affair and, learning that she was in the habit of carrying cyanide, acquired some from another source to make it look like a suicide. Archie is vindicated, and Mrs. Robilotti is taken into custody.
