Champagne for One (1958)

Champagne for One is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1958.

The back matter of the 1995 Bantam edition of this book includes an exchange of correspondence between Stout and his editor at Viking Press, Marshall Best. A letter from Stout to Best, dated July 1958, shows that Stout suggested as a title both "Champagne for One" and also "Champagne for Faith Usher." Best's reply states that Viking was quite satisfied with "Champagne for One."

Plot introduction

She danced cheerfully, and of course that was no good. You can't dance cheerfully. Dancing is too important. It can be wild or solemn or gay or lewd or art for art's sake, but it can't be cheerful. For one thing, if you're cheerful you talk too much.

Archie Goodwin fills in for a friend at a charity dinner dance for unwed mothers, and one of the guests drops dead on the dance floor.

Plot summary

Archie Goodwin receives a phone call from an acquaintance, Austin "Dinky" Byne, asking for a favor. Byne routinely acts as a chevalier, one of four male guests, for an annual dinner hosted by his aunt, Louise Grantham Robilotti. The dinner is given in honor of four young unwed mothers living at Grantham House, a charity supported by her late husband. Byne claims to have a cold and is unable to attend. Although skeptical of that cold, Archie agrees to stand in for him, despite Mrs. Robilotti's being a former client who bears him a personal dislike. During the dinner, Archie learns from one of the young women, Rose, that another, Faith Usher, has a bottle of cyanide in her purse. Faith has been talking of suicide during her pregnancy, and Rose fears that she might attempt suicide. Archie promises to watch over Faith. Towards the end of the evening Faith collapses and dies from cyanide poisoning after drinking a swallow from a glass of champagne.

Alone of the guests, Archie maintains that Faith Usher did not commit suicide, claiming that he observed her constantly throughout the evening and that she never had an opportunity to place the cyanide from her bottle into her glass. Although the authorities and the other guests pressure Archie into changing his story, Nero Wolfe believes him and decides to settle the matter by solving the case himself. He is given further incentive to do so when Edwin Laidlaw, another of the guests, approaches him to hire his services. Laidlaw says he is the father of Faith Usher's child after a brief affair they had the previous year. Ashamed of his conduct, he is desperate that his secret not be revealed.

Although Wolfe's investigation begins unpromisingly, his confidence that her death was murder grows when the police receive an anonymous tip revealing Laidlaw's secret. While the police are skeptical because it is anonymous, Wolfe says that someone else knows Laidlaw's secret and is agitated by the ongoing investigation. His investigations focus on both Faith Usher's estranged mother Elaine, herself an unwed mother, and Dinky Byne, whose reasons for canceling on the party look suspect given the event. He assigns Saul Panzer and Archie to follow the two respectively, leading to a break in the case when both Archie and Saul tail their respective targets to the same location: a restaurant where Elaine Usher and Dinky Byne are meeting with each other.

Speaking with Wolfe, both Byne and Elaine Usher lie to him. Their stories are inconsistent. Byne admits that he knew that Laidlaw was the father of Faith Usher's child, and says that he invited both to the dinner without their knowledge as a spiteful prank. During this conversation at the brownstone, Orrie Cather infiltrates Elaine’s hotel room and discovers a letter revealing that Mrs. Robilotti's deceased first husband, Albert Grantham, was the father of Faith Usher, and was supporting the mother and daughter via a trust managed by Byne. This, coupled with some comments from Byne, leads Wolfe to identify the murderer.

Summoning the hosts and the guests to his office, he has them reenact the circumstances under which Faith Usher received the poisoned champagne from Cecil Grantham multiple times. Mrs. Robilotti's son Cecil had a routine way of handing over a glass with his left hand, while taking for himself the glass in his right hand. A watchful person can see an opportunity in that.

Wolfe accuses Mrs. Robilotti of poisoning Faith Usher; Byne was perhaps blackmailing her with the knowledge that her former husband was Faith's father and invited Faith to the dinner as a threat. Mrs. Robilotti murdered Faith out of resentment over her husband's affair. Learning that Faith was in the habit of carrying cyanide, Mrs. Robilotti perhaps acquired some from another source to make it look like a suicide. The notion of the cyanide purchase is proved true by the police and Mrs. Robilotti is taken into custody, and found guilty in court. Archie is vindicated.

Themes

Changing sexual mores

The book reflects the transitional situation of American sexual mores at the time of writing, on the verge of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Unwed mothers are a major issue in the book, and constitute a large part of its cast of characters. They are presented sympathetically, but still unwed motherhood is presented as "a problem" for which they need to be helped. The preferred solution is to provide a friendly and supportive environment during pregnancy and to have the baby given over to adoption immediately upon birth. The option of the unwed mother keeping and raising her child is presented as a far more problematic idea. Indeed—as it ultimately turns out—it has much to do with the circumstances that led to the murder being investigated.