What flummery is this? I have not written about Nero Wolfe since last Summer? There has not been a 3 Good Reasons in four years? What kind of mystery blogger is this Bryne fellow? Most unsatisfactory. So…

Welcome to another installment of 3 Good Reasons. With a goal of eventually tackling every tale of the Corpus, I’ll give three reasons why the particular story at hand is the best Nero Wolfe of them all. Since I’m writing over seventy ‘Best Story’ essays, the point isn’t actually to pick one – just to point out some of what is good in every adventure featuring Wolfe and Archie. And I’ll toss in one reason it’s not the best story. Now – These essays will contain SPOILERS. You have been warned!

The Story

Today’s story is “Black Orchids,” it’s the first of two in a collection of the same name. Lewis Hewitt has three unique black orchids on display at the annual NYC Flower Show. Wolfe’s envy rivals his desire for Millard Bynoe’s flamingo-colored Vanda in “Easter Parade.”

Wolfe orders Archie to scout the enclosed-in-a-case black orchids, over multiple days. It’s not surprising that Archie is smitten by Anne Tracy; a young woman working in a display at the show. Naturally, he finds a murdered body, which is right out in plain sight. Wolfe spends part of this story ‘in the wild,’ as his covetousness leads him to the show.

3 GOOD REASONS

ONE – The Green-Eyed Monster

Nero Wolfe is not a person who can enjoy someone else’s success – certainly not in the orchid-growing world. He reaches one of his low points in “Easter Parade,” when he has Archie hire someone to steal an orchid right off of a woman’s chest, in public. That’s a pretty slimy thing to do.

But his envy of Lewis Hewitt is something to enjoy in this story. Hewitt appears in three cases, and is mentioned in more than double that. He makes his Corpus debut here. ‘Friends’ is not a word often used with Wolfe. If you take away work associates (like Inspector Cramer) and employees, it’s a very small circle. As the Corpus goes on, I think Hewitt does become a friend. Wolfe uses him to aid him on a case. He respects Hewitt’s flower-growing skills, going to great length to hire a

“I knew that the sound of that name would churn his beer for him. Lewis Hewitt was the millionaire in whose greenhouse in whose Long Island estate the black orchids had been produced. Thereby creating an agony of envy in him that surpassed any of his previous childish performances.”

Wolfe stands with his face only five inches from the glass case, staring at the orchids:

“For a quarter of an hour, His emotions didn’t show, but from the twitching of a muscle in his neck, I knew he was boiling inside.”

He even let himself be bumped by women trying to get a look at them. Wolfe very much dislikes being touched by anyone.

Wolfe sucks up to Hewitt so much, Archie can’t bear to watch. He actually turns his head away to conceal his feelings.

‘He flattered him, and yessed him, and smiled at him until I expected any minute to hear him offer to dust off his shoes.’

Hewitt gives Wolfe a couple lesser plants Wolfe doesn’t want, but accepts, thanking him as if they were ‘just what he asked Santa Clause for.’

Wolfe carries them himself, which tells you the extremes of sucking up which he’s going to. It’s funny when later Wolfe wants to dump them on Archie, but the latter evades the task and Wolfe is stuck carrying them. Physical exertion is not an activity he enjoys.

Archie says he’d like to give Wolfe a kick in the fundament, which would be an amazing thing to see actually happen. He certainly couldn’t miss!

Hewitt misplaces his walking stick, which Archie says makes Wolfe’s best Malacca one look like a fishing pole. When it’s found, Wolfe tells Archie to pick it up for Hewitt. Archie doesn’t want to cause a scene, so he resists the urge to resign on the spot. Archie picking up the cane is germane to the story.

This just isn’t Wolfe being pleasant, hoping for the best. He is in full-blown sycophant mode. Archie rarely conveys so much disgust and derision with Wolfe. It’s usually an observation -here it’s an ongoing feeling of disgust, which he expresses openly in his narration.

‘And Wolfe following him like an orderly following a colonel, his hands full of potted plants. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been disgusting.’ Archie has to lead, rather than follow, so he doesn’t have to see it.

Archie discusses the body after this, and the story shifts gears. Wolfe goes from toady to (sort of) blackmailer, with a crime to be solved. But it’s fun reading Archie’s open disgust with Wolfe sucking up (poorly) to Hewitt, to try and secure one of the black orchids.

 

TWO – Archie Goads Wolfe

I really enjoy chapter one of this story. It starts with Archie recounting that Wolfe has sent him to the Flower Show the past three days, to scout out the black orchids. Returning to the office late on day three, he drops “I’m thinking of getting married.”

He talks about the woman in the display, and Wolfe reveals info he has about her, from a story in the newspaper. Archie fatuously argues her virtues with Wolfe (you know Wolfe is unengaged in this discussion), creating a non-discussion discussion.

Having started with this tactic, he elevates it by telling Wolfe that Lewis Hewitt takes her out to dinner. Archie has scored a hit. Wolfe opens his eyes and scowls (See number One).

Wolfe had said that Anne’s legs are too long (in the newspaper picture). Archie, going over the top, puts his leg foot on the desk, lifts his trouser leg up, and tells Wolfe to imagine the result of his cross-pollinating with Anne’s leg. This is silly, but it’s funny. Wolfe tells him not to scar the desk and instructs him to return for a fourth consecutive day.

However, Archie has ratcheted up Wolfe’s desire for the orchids. At lunch, he instructs Archie to get the car – he must “look at those confounded freaks myself.”

Archie had fun goading Wolfe, and he even convinced him to make a sojourn out among a crowd of flower-lovers. If you’ve read “Disguise for Murder”, you know Wolfe’s opinion of the common flower person, as opposed to serious growers like himself.

Chapter one is only six percent of the story’s length, but the reader immediately likes Archie. Wolfe isn’t despicable, like he is in chapter one of “Easter Parade.” But we can see that envy is one of his vices. I think that the best stories often have a strong first chapter. Stout engages us with Archie and Wolfe, right from the start. Of course, middles and endings matter. But I am always happen when I really like the opening chapter, and I’m ready to dive into the rest of the story. I think that the opening in “Black Orchids” shines.

 

THREE – What Wolfe Wants, Wolfe Gets

Now, I think Wolfe is a jerk to Hewitt in this, and I often find him to be an unlikable person. Not someone I want my son to emulate. I’d like to see Wolfe lose sometimes, based on how he acts.

But he sure knows how to get what he wants. His continual sucking up to Hewitt failed miserably. Hewitt is not going to sell him one of the orchids. He’s certainly not going to just give him one. His kowtowing so repulses Archie, that he can’t even stand to look at Wolfe.

But the moment he has leverage over Hewitt, he sticks the knife in. Hewitt abhors the publicity that he might receive if it becomes known his cane was used for the murder. He could even be a suspect. And Wolfe has him right where he wants him.

For a friend like Marko Vukcic, he would help out for free. He might just soak a normal client – his fees are high. But Hewitt has something he wants. Desperately. It’s a douche move to demand ALL three black orchids, to solve the case. One, or even two, would be more appropriate. But Wolfe is brutal and greedy. Hewitt would have none to develop more from.

Hewitt pretty much goes through the five stages of grief. Wolfe is content to toss Hewitt to Inspector Cramer (there’s no proof that Hewitt did it – it’s an image issue for the rich man). Wolfe refuses to haggle, demands all three. He even insists on taking them immediately before even working on the case.

The Corpus is replete with Wolfe holding out on the police, and using his position and skills to maximize his return. And, as in Easter Parade, being not-admirable, to get what he wants. The recipe for

As I said, I wish he had gotten his nose pushed in a few times. But in this case, he went from a completely losing position, with no standing at all, to getting what he wanted, with payment in advance. Wolfe is tough to beat, in multiple ways.

ONE BAD REASON

Like a Hole in Your Head…

This section was going to be titled ‘With Friends Like These…’ and I was going to talk about what a jerk Wolfe is to Hewitt, to get him out of potential trouble. But as I mentioned above, it’s not clear yet that the two are friends. They are fellow flower growers, and as acquaintances, they get along. But if they had been friends at this point, then Wolfe would have been a miserable one, because of the price he demanded to solve the case. Not how you treat a friend.

However, since they aren’t obviously friends yet, I’ll go with Archie’s discovery of the body. It’s a short bit, but I’d NEVER do what he did. And after I did it, no way I could be so blase and low key about it. I’d quite possibly vomit on the spot.

‘On account of the shrubs and rocks, I couldn’t get around to see the top of his head. So I reached a hand to feel of it. And the end of my finger went right through into a hole in his skull. A way in. And it was like sticking your finger into a warm apple pie. I pulled away and started wiping my finger off on the grass.’

Man, I don’t even wanna eat apple pie (which I love) after reading this! I’m squeamish. I hate watching autopsy stuff in crime shows. The thought of (even unexpectedly) sticking my finger in a hole in somebody’s skull and going down into their brain? I’m squirming, just typing it right now.

And to calmly pull it out and begin wiping blood and brain off on the grass, showing no trace of what was going on? NO WAY!

“Black Orchids” is one of my favorite novellas, but I hate this part. I’m glad it’s so short, as it is an abrupt chapter end.

MISCELLANEA

The story originally appeared – abridged – in the August, 1941 issue of The American Magazine under the title, “Death Wears an Orchid.” Which is not an accurate title for this story…

It would be published with “Cordially Invited to Meet Death” (which was originally called “Invitation to Murder”) in hardcover by Farr & Rinehart the following year.

Stout had written eight Wolfe novels, published over the previous seven years. Black Orchid was the first novella or short story.

There are no definitive definitions, and the acceptable length of a novel has grown over the years (look at the length of early books in some of your favorite series’, and see them get longer. Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder is a good example). We’ll go with:

Short Story – Up to 15,000 words

Novella – 15,000 – 50,000 words

Novel – Over 50,000 words

At around 34,000 words, Black Orchids was much shorter than his earlier novels. However it is about twice as long as “Cordially Invited to Meet Death”, which followed eight months later. I much prefer the shorter form for Wolfe and Archie, and am glad Stout began writing novellas, instead of novels. This allowed him to sell the stories to magazines (including better paying ‘Slicks), and then bundle two or three together for a hardcover book.

This story features a rare, two-paragraph intro by Archie: Archie does not introduce his recountings. He mentions speculation on how ‘Nero Wolfe got hold of the three black orchids.’ The first tale in this book explains how that happened as a result of a murder. The second explains how some black orchids appeared at a funeral: and it involves a mystery that is still biting Archie.

Archie comments that the women who attend flower shows are not very attractive. He would repeat this thought nine years later at the Brownstone, in “Disguise for Murder.”

Archie being Archie, he manages to find one rose in a field of weeds. But it is clear he will not be attending flower shows to look for dates.

The Bantam intro is written by Lawrence Block. Block relates how, trying to figure out where to go with his third Chip Harrison novel. As he puts it, ‘Inspiration struck’ and he converted Harrison into an Archie Goodwin, working for Leo Haig – a poor man’s Nero Wolfe. Haig is a low-end private eye whose life goal is to be invited to dinner at Wolfe’s table – Wolfe being a real person. I enjoy the two Haig novels, and wrote an essay titled The R-Rated Nero Wolfe for award-winning website, BlackGate.com.

YOU DON’T SAY

Archie – “Will you kindly tell me,” I requested, “why the females you see at a flower show, are the kinds of females who go to a flower show? 90% of them. Especially their legs. Does it have to be like that? Is it because, never having any flowers sent to them, they have to go to see any? Or is it because -”

Wolfe – “Shut up. I don’t know.”

 

Wolfe – “Where are you going?”

Hewitt – “The water nymph. The pool episode. I thought you might-”

Wolfe – “Bosch. That bedlam.”

Hewitt – “It’s really worth seeing. Charming. Perfectly Charming. Really delightful.”

Wolfe – “I’ll come too.”

 

Hewittt – “I see” – he hissed. “So that’s it. To put it plainly, blackmail. Blackmail. No, I won’t do it.”

Wolfe – He sighed. “You won’t?”

Hewitt – “No.”
Wolfe – “Very well. Then I won’t get the orchids. But I’ll be saved a lot of trouble. Archie, get Mr. Cramer in here. Tell him it’s urgent.”

More From the Brownstone

Stay at Home

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 1 and 2
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home- Days 3 and 4
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home- Days 5, 6, and 7
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home- Days 8, 9, and 10
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home- Days 11, 12, and 13
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home Days 14 and 15
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home Days 16 and 17
Nero Wolfe’s Browsnstone: Stay at Home – Days 18 and 19
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 20 and 21
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 22 and 23
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 24 and 25
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 26
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 27
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 28 and 29
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 30
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 31
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 32 and 33
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 34 and 35
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 36
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 37
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 38
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 39
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 40 & 41
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 42 & 43
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 45 & 46
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 50 and 52
Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 55

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone

Meet Nero Wolfe
The R-Rated Nero Wolfe
Radio & Screen Wolfe
A&E’s ‘A Nero Wolfe Mystery’
The Lost 1959 Pilot
The Mets in “Please Pass the Guilt”
A Matter of Identity (original story)
Death of a Doxy; and Koufax or Mays?
Hercule Poirot Visits Nero Wolfe
I Know that Actor!
The Big Store (Wolf J. Flywheel)
Welcome to Kanawha Spa – The Wolfe Pack 2024 Greenbrier Weekend
A Toast To Nero Wolfe – From the Wolfe Pack 2024 Greenbrier Weekend

3 Good Reasons

3 Good Reasons – ‘Not Quite Dead Enough’
3 Good Reasons – ‘Murder is Corny’
3 Good Reasons – ‘Immune to Murder’
3 Good Reason – ‘Booby Trap’

The Greenstreet Chronicles (Pastiches based on the Radio Show)

Stamped for Murder

The Careworn Cuff – Part One
The Careworn Cuff – Part Two
The Careworn Cuff – Part Three

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.