Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker (Nero Wolfe Mysteries)

ILOVE NERO WOLFE. I love his house, his orchids, his sour disposition,and his shrouded past. I love his reading habits, his unabashed fearof women, and his incredible appetite; that is to say, I love hislove of food.

WhenNero Wolfe spoke, I learned. He taught me, when I was just ateenager, to look closely at the world because what might be apparentto us everyday kind of guys was probably just fluff. Im not talkingso much about the crimes he solved as the way he exercised his mindon whatever came before him. The way he read books or the pettyarguments he had with his clients, his employees, and the police.Nero Wolfe was always thinking, always distrustful, and almost alwaysright.

Wolfewas lazy, agoraphobic, prejudiced against many different kinds ofpeople (most notably women), and a glutton. He was arrogant,vengeful, spiteful, and sometimes cruel. Any manners he had came froma personal sense of decorum and never from common civility. But Ialways knew that he had high moral values and that people sittingbefore him could trust him if they themselves could be trusted.

Wolfewas never a hero in the American sense. No gunslinger or karatemaster he. He never subdued the bad guy or ran a merry chase. As amatter of fact, Nero Wolfe was a coward when it came to thingsphysical.

Hewas afraid of traffic.

Again,instead of condemning Mr. Wolfe for his cowardice, I learned fromhim. I learned that the American ideal of heroism is no more than abad movie; that real heroes rarely exist-if, indeed, they ever do. Ilearned that life is not so much the struggle of good against evil asit is the struggle to survive.

Wolfestruggled for comfort. A great meal and a solid brownstone, that wasthe prize; a brief respite in this all too short, all too painfullife.

Wolfedidnt care about crime and its eradication. He was a philosopher.As long as there is man there will be murder, adultery, andtheft, he might have said. And he knew that his efforts wouldmake little difference in that equation. His job was to pay the rentand buy the groceries. All the liars and murderers and saints thatpassed through his house over the decades meant little or nothing toWolfes heart. He was a man doing his job.

Andnow that I think of it-what could be more heroic than that?

Allof that said, I still havent touched on why Ive read all of theNero Wolfe mysteries. As a matter of fact, you would be justified inasking why anyone would read about such a rude and unredeemedcharacter.

Theanswer is, of course, Archie Goodwin.

Archiesvoice is at once so humorous and so revealing that I often felt I wasbeing addressed by a spirit rather than just some normal human being.Archie, it seemed, was sprung fully grown from the mind of thattwentieth-century god, New York City. Hes a footloose New Yorker whosees the whole world from Thirty-fifth Street. He can tell you abouta cops gait, a pretty womans choice of a particular hue oflipstick, an unusual texture in Fritzs corn fritters, or the angleof a dead mans arm-all with wit and humor that keep you reading formore.

Archieis the leg man. Hes the one who carries out Wolfes plans anderrands. He drives the car, romances the ladies, and applies the piketo Neros rear end when the rent is due and theres a paying clientdownstairs.

Archiehas no dark moods, no real fears, and no concerns beyond what ittakes to keep three hundred and fifty pounds of genius going. Heloves women (Lily Rowan especially), but hes married to his work.

Allthe years I read the Nero Wolfe mysteries it was because of Archie.Archie talking about walking up Madison; Archie cracking wise withCramer; Archie amazed by the detecting abilities of Saul Panzer (thesecond or third greatest detective in New York- and, therefore, theworld).

ArchieGoodwin was the real gumshoe. He was willing to get out there andwork. He wasnt daunted by traffic or sunlight or possibility ofdeath.

ArchieGoodwin is the distilled optimism of America as it was for more thanhalf of this century. Ebullient and proud, he still had to be humblebecause of the great brain of his employer.

Iread about Nero Wolfe because it was Archie who told the tale. Hisvoice is the voice of all the hope and humor of a new world. Thisbright light shines upon the darkness of Wolfes deep fears andgenius and upon the craven and criminal minds that infest the world.

Thisjuxtaposition of light and dark is much more satisfying than thestruggle between good and evil. It is the essence of positive andnegative space in literature.

RexStout, through the voice of Archie telling us about his world (a fullthird of which was occupied by Nero Wolfe), raised detective fictionto the level of art with these books. He gave us genius of at leasttwo kinds, and a strong realist voice that was shot through withhope.

-Walter Mosley

SEATEDIN HIS GIANTS chair behind his desk in his office, leaning back withhis eyes half closed, Nero Wolfe muttered at me:

Itis an interesting fact that the members of the National IndustrialAssociation who were at that dinner last evening represent, in theaggregate, assets of something like thirty billion dollars.

Islid the checkbook into place on top of the stack, closed the door ofthe safe, twirled the knob, and yawned on the way back to my desk.

Yes,sir, I agreed with him. It is also an interesting factthat the prehistoric Mound Builders left more traces of their work inOhio than in any other state. In my boyhood days

Shutup, Wolfe muttered.

Ilet it pass without any feeling of resentment, first because it wasgoing on midnight and I was sleepy, and second because it wasconceivable that there might be some connection between hisinteresting fact and our previous conversation, and that was not trueof mine. We had been discussing the bank balance, the reserve againsttaxes, expectations as to bills and burdens, one of which was mysalary, and related matters. The exchequer had not swung for thethird strike, but neither had it knocked the ball out of the park.

AfterI had yawned three more times Wolfe spoke suddenly and decisively.

Archie.Your notebook. Here are directions for tomorrow.

Intwo minutes he had me wide awake. When he had finished and I wentupstairs to bed, the program for the morning was so active in my headthat I tossed and turned for a full thirty seconds before sleep came.

THATWAS A WEDNESDAY toward the end of the warmest March in the history ofNew York. Thursday it was more of the same, and I didnt even take atopcoat when I left the house on West Thirty-fifth Street and went tothe garage for the car. I was fully armed, prepared for allcontingencies. In my wallet was a supply of engraved cards reading:

ARCHIEGOODWIN

WithNero Wolfe

922West 35th Street

Proctor5-5000

Andin the breast pocket of my coat, along with the routine cargo, was aspecial item just manufactured by me on the typewriter. It was on aprinted Memo form and, after stating that it was FOR Nero Wolfe andFROM Archie Goodwin, it went on:

Okayfrom Inspector Cramer for inspection of the room at the Waldorf. Willreport later by phone.

Atthe right of the typing, scribbled in ink, also my work and worthy ofadmiration, were the initials LTC.

SinceI had got an early start and the office of the Homicide Squad onTwentieth Street was less than a mile downtown, it was only a littleafter nine-thirty when I was admitted to an inside room and took achair at the end of a crummy old desk. The man in the swivel chair,frowning at papers, had a big round red face, half-hidden gray eyes,and delicate little ears that stayed close to his skull. As I satdown he transferred the frown to me and grunted:

Imbusy as hell. His eyes focused three inches below my chin.What do you think it is, Easter?