Fer-de-Lance (1934)

Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout is the first Nero Wolfe detective novel, published in 1934 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. The novel appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine (November 1934) under the title "Point of Death". The novel was adapted for the 1936 film Meet Nero Wolfe, and it was named after a venomous snake with the same name. In his seminal 1941 work, Murder for Pleasure, crime fiction historian Howard Haycraft included Fer-de-Lance in his definitive list of the most influential works of mystery fiction.

Plot introduction

In the opening chapter, Wolfe decides to give up drinking bootleg beer and sends Fritz to purchase samples of every legally available brand (49 in all) so he can select a replacement. The date set in the novel is given as June 7, Wednesday, which makes the year 1933. The Cullen–Harrison Act had just become law on April 7, 1933, legalising "3.2 beer" (3.2% alcohol by weight, approximately 4% alcohol by volume), a point mentioned in passing in the novel.

As Wolfe samples the beers and is surprised to find that none of them are unpalatable, Fred Durkin arrives and asks sheepishly if Wolfe can speak with Maria Maffei, a friend of his wife. Maria's brother Carlo, a metalworker, was unemployed (it was during the Great Depression) and was supposed to return to Italy. He suddenly seemed to come into money, and then disappeared mysteriously. Impressed by Maria Maffei, Wolfe instructs his assistant Archie Goodwin to make enquiries. Wolfe and Goodwin soon learn that Carlo's disappearance somehow involves the death of a college president while playing golf in Westchester County, New York.

As the first novel in the series, Fer-de-Lance introduces Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner, Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather and other characters who recur throughout the entire corpus. Although the characters are not as fully developed as they would become later in the series, the essential characteristics of Wolfe, Archie and several other regulars already are clearly present.

However, there are some inconsistencies with the characters and settings that would be used thereafter. In particular, the novel's descriptions of Wolfe's Manhattan brownstone conflict with the established architecture set down by Stout in all subsequent novels and stories. Likewise, the characters have slightly different personalities: Wolfe's manner of speaking is notably more baroque and long-winded than in later stories, and Archie is generally coarser and less polished in this work than in later Stout volumes, even using racial epithets at times (something that would continue into the late 1930s before being eliminated). Cramer is noticeably friendlier and much calmer around Wolfe than in future volumes, and Purley Stebbins is similarly not as wary of Archie as he would become. Finally, Orrie Cather is introduced in Fer-de-Lance as a crusty old veteran detective, who chews tobacco; in all future Stout works, he would be a younger, self-confident ladies' man with no tobacco habit.

The story's title is the common name of Bothrops atrox, a venomous South American snake. Fer-de-Lance is French for spearhead, literally iron of the lance.

In Fer-de-Lance, Stout reused a key plot point relating to the murder weapon that he had used in his early mystery The Last Drive, which was serialized in Golfers Magazine in 1916. This story had been forgotten for many years—it is not mentioned in Stout's biography or in bibliographies of his works—until it was rediscovered in 2011.

Plot summary

Archie, you have heard me say that I am an actor. I am afraid I have a weakness for dramatic statement. It would be foolish not to indulge it when a good opportunity is offered. There is death in this room.

Maria Maffei, a family friend of one of Wolfe's free-lance men, offers to hire Wolfe to locate her missing brother Carlo, a metalworker. Wolfe, affected by the Depression, decides to take the job, although it is unappealing to him. Archie locates Anna Fiore, a girl who listened in on a phone call Carlo received at his boarding-house shortly before his disappearance. Wolfe learns from her that Carlo had clipped a story from a copy of The New York Times about the sudden death (apparently by stroke) of Peter Oliver Barstow, president of Holland College. However, Anna refuses to provide any further details about Carlo, who is soon found dead in the countryside, stabbed in the back.

From reading the account of Barstow's death, which occurred during a round of golf, Wolfe conjectures that one of his clubs may have been altered to fire a poisoned needle into his belly. An autopsy proves Wolfe right, and he and Archie begin to concentrate on the Barstow family and their acquaintances, E.D. Kimball and his son Manuel, who had both been part of the golf foursome. While trying to figure out the whereabouts of Barstow's golf bag, Archie learns from the group's caddies that he had borrowed a driver from E.D. during the round. This fact, coupled with E.D.'s accounts of his past in Argentina, leads Wolfe and Archie to conclude that Manuel had intended to kill his father, not Barstow, in revenge for the death of his mother years earlier. Archie confirms Manuel's movements on the day Carlo was killed, making him a suspect in that murder as well. Manuel retaliates by having an associate plant a deadly Bothrops atrox viper in Wolfe's desk drawer, but Wolfe and Archie find and kill it.

With Maria's cooperation, Wolfe and Archie arrange a robbery in the countryside to scare Anna into telling what she knows. The trick works, and she hands over documents proving that Manuel hired Carlo to build the driver that killed Barstow. With the Kimball estate staked out, and a copy of the evidence delivered to Manuel, Archie leads the local police in so they can make an arrest. They learn that Manuel, an avid pilot, has taken E.D. up for a flight, and are shocked when the plane suddenly nose-dives into the ground; the impact kills both of the Kimballs.