Murder by the Book Rex Stout Series: Nero Wolfe [19] Published: 1985 Tags: Cozy Mystery, Vintage Mystery, Early 20th Century
Cozy Mysteryttt Vintage Mysteryttt Early 20th Centuryttt
SUMMARY: Manhattan Police Inspector Cramer asks for Wolfe’s help in solving the suspicious death of a law office clerk who has been fished out of the Hudson River. His probable homicide-causing offense? Submitting a manuscript for publication! With the manuscript missing and the only two to read it dead, the only clues are a cryptic quotation from the Bible and a list of names in the dead man’s pocket.
Rex Stout
Murder By The Book
1
SOMETHING remarkable happened that cold Tuesday in January. Inspector Cramer, with no appointment, showed up a little before noon at Nero Wolfe's old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street and, after I had ushered him into the office and he had exchanged greetings with Wolfe and lowered himself into the red leather chair, he said right out, "I dropped in to ask a little favor."
What was remarkable was his admitting it. From my chair at my desk I made an appropriate noise. He sent me a sharp glance and asked if I had something.
"No, sir," I told him courteously, "I'm right on top. You just jolted that out of me. So many times I've seen you come here for a favor and try to bull it or twist it, it was quite a shock." I waved it away tolerantly. "Skip it."
His face, chronically red, deepened a shade. His broad shoulders stiffened, and the creases spreading from the cor-ners of his gray-blue eyes showed more as the eyelids tight-ened. Then, deciding I was playing for a blurt, he controlled it. "Do you know," he asked, "whose opinion of you I would like to have? Darwin's. Where were you while evolution was going on?"