For those of you who like to play these games, I note that this change is a wonderfully demonstrative indication of the diverse socialization of men and women. My husband prefaced his explanation of the differences between the two versions by saying that, in lengthening the story, Stout had made “one minor change.” I’ve never met a woman yet who thought that change was minor.

Curiosities aside, however, both these stories are good solid mysteries more than worthy of the deductive efforts of their readers, and so are the other two. They are also fine vignettes of life in the brownstone on Thirty-fifth Street. When I read my first Nero Wolfe novel, I identified with Wolfe-the genius, the eccentric-who seemed to me to be all the things I wanted to grow up to be, except fat. Now I identify with Archie, who is most of the things I have actually grown up to be, meaning the mother hen to a lot of people who seem quite determined not to make any sense whatsoever (but often do). I know I’m not supposed to be able to do this-Nero and Archie are men; I am a woman-but I always have and I probably always will. Given the number of novels published each year by women whose female detectives take more than a little from the personality of Archie Goodwin, I suspect I am not alone. There is enough opportunity to empathize with Archie in these four stories to last a good long vacation, or more. It’s worse than usual because in this volume Nero Wolfe spends an unprecedented amount of time out of his house. It’s not safe.

Never mind. In the world of Nero Wolfe nothing is ever safe for very long. It’s time to stop reading this introduction by me and get what you came for. After all, I don’t write half as well or a tenth as humorously as Stout. I don’t live a life a quarter as crazy as Wolfe’s either, in spite of the fact that I once shared a very small house with eight kittens and a totally fed-up mother cat. Maybe that’s because nobody ever kills anybody around here.