Trio for Blunt Instruments
Rex Stout
Trio for Blunt Instruments
Contains the next three short stories:
- Murder is Corny
- Kill Now Pay Later
- Blood Will Tell
IInformation about Trio for Blunt Instruments taken from Amazon
Synopsis
Murder is Corny
Inspector Cramer comes to Wolfe’s front door unannounced and unexpectedly on a Tuesday evening in September, carrying a carton of freshly picked corn, normally provided by a farmer named Duncan McLeod up in Putnam County, with many questions about the death of Kenneth Faber, a part-time helper of McLeod’s who should have delivered the corn much earlier that day, along with 9 other similar cartons to Rusterman’s Restaurant, previously owned and run by Wolfe’s childhood friend Marko Vukčič, but now in trusteeship to Wolfe under the terms of Marko’s will (for the circumstances of Marko’s death see The Black Mountain).
Archie Goodwin, who answered the door, tells Cramer he has met Faber briefly only, since he has been delivering Duncan’s corn for the past 5 weeks, which Wolfe (and Rusterman’s) order according to exacting standards. However, Archie knows that Faber likes Duncan’s daughter Susan McLeod. Faber is actually a free-lance cartoonist, but prevailed on his friend to have her father give him a job at the farm. Later on, it transpires that real motive was not the extra money but the chance to see Sue on weekends.
Wolfe
Meanwhile, Wolfe, in an apparent disdain for Archie’s situation, unpacks the carton of corn right on his desk, and informs Cramer that the corn is substandard: of the 16 ears of corn, 8 are substandard, 8 are acceptable.
Cramer asks Archie for an alibi for certain times in the afternoon just past. Archie says that he was with Saul Panzer (a long-time Wolfe operative, but independent) at a ball game at Yankee Stadium. Cramer discounts the alibi saying Panzer would lie for Archie and Wolfe.
Eventually it develops that Susan McLeod found Faber’s dead body, skull smashed in at the loading bay of Rusterman’s, in the time in question, and has given a statement saying she had arranged to meet Archie there.
On the strength of her statement, Cramer takes him in as a material witness, with a hint that the charge will be escalated to first-degree murder soon.
Synopsis taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_Is_Corny
Kill Now, Pay Later
Pete Vassos is the Greek shoe shiner who regularly visits Wolfe’s brown stone house. On this occasion he has left Mercer’s Bobbins offices earlier, as Dennis Ashby, one of his regular clients and a company manager, has died when he fell through a window.
After a brief time when he is considered a suspect, since Ashby was trying to seduce his daughter Elma, a stenographer in the company, Pete is killed and Elma hires Wolfe.
Wolfe agrees to investigate since he feels obligated to Pete. Apparently, he listened enthusiastically to Wolfe’s dissertations on ancient Greece during each shoe cleaning session and had also told police that «Wolfe is a great man»
Blood Will Tell
Archie receives by mail an elegant cream-colored envelope with the sender engraved. This is one James Neville Vance of Horn Street 219. It is a bulky envelope that contains something soft. Inside there is a note that says:
«Keep this until you receive news from me. JNV»
«This» is a tie stained with what looks like blood.
.
Without understanding anything, he puts it in a drawer and finds out who Vance is. A wealthy single man in his sixties with numerous properties. Among them is the building where he lives on Horn Street.
Later, after eleven and once Wolfe has already come down from the greenhouse, Archie receives a call from someone who says he is Vance and asks him to destroy what he has mailed to him. Already quite annoyed Archie informs Wolfe of the whole thing and goes to Vance’s house to clarify things.
Vance recognizes that it is his card paper and that the tie is his, after verifying that it is missing from the closet. The problem is that he didn’t send it or call him on the phone to destroy it.
While they are clearing things up, the doorman of the building appears accompanied by a policeman. He has been sent there to see why the second floor tenant does not answer her husband’s calls. Nor has he opened the door when the police knocked.
Vance gives permission to open the neighbor’s apartment, Bonny Kirk. When they enter the house they find Bonny’s body that has been killed. Archie takes advantage of the shock of the moment to leave without the others noticing, although he knows that the police will find out that he was present when the body was found.
After informing Wolfe he goes to a laboratory where they confirm that the stain on the tie is human blood.
Serie: Nero Wolfe; 39
Editorial: Crimeline
Año: 2010
ISBN 9780307756299
Idioma: Inglés