"Over My Dead Body": a Nero Wolfe Classic Quiz

Answer: "Thank God"

Neya Tormic used the phrase when she met Wolfe and told him she wanted to hire him to investigate an incident at her workplace. Wolfe didn't ask for (or need) a translation, but Archie did.

Answer: A piece of paper, in a book

Miss Tormic evinced quite a bit of interest in the volume on the bookshelf entitled "United Yugoslavia". She asked Archie if Wolfe had read it, did he study it, or would he only read it once and then leave the book alone. The possible significance of such questions didn't really hit Archie, but they signaled to Wolfe an unusual interest in the book. Upon investigation, they found an important document had been inserted into it, presumably by Miss Tormic.

Answer: Theft of diamonds

Nat Driscoll, a customer at the fencing studio where Misses Tormic and Lovchen were employed, had brought a pocketful of diamonds to the studio and left them in a locker, from which he later reported them missing.

Answer: An épée

An épée is a dulled sword used in training fencers. By itself it could not possibly have been run through a man's body, but there are things that can be attached to an épée to render it deadly...

Answer: Someone had stuffed something into his coat pocket.

From across the room where people had been shepherded after Ludlow's body was found, Archie noticed that one of his coat pockets had been disturbed. Knowing that the investigation would get into full swing very soon, he unobtrusively collected his coat, left the room and exited the building via a basement window.

He didn't stop to inspect his pocket's contents until he reached Wolfe's, where they proceeded to do so together. In his pocket, wrapped in a canvas fencing glove, was a "col de mort" - a sharp-pointed apparatus that could be affixed to an épée, turning it into a deadly weapon.

Answer: In a loaf of bread disguised as a cake

Wolfe summoned his chef Fritz Brenner and requested a large loaf of bread and a knife. He cut a hole into the bread, placed the col de mort into the hole and covered the hole with the bread he'd removed from the loaf. He then asked Fritz to frost the bread and store it as a cake in the refrigerator.

Answer: The lovely Belinda Reade's

Archie accompanied a distressed, reluctant and belligerent Donald Barrett to an address in Manhattan, and upon entering was greeted with the vision of a tipsy Madame Zorka scantily clad and trilling out "Donnyboy"; and an even more compelling vision of Belinda Reade without benefit of clothing. The apartment turned out to belong to Miss Reade.

Answer: Miss Pansy Bupp of Ottumwa, Iowa

"Zorka" nearly fell apart when she learned her true identity had been discovered.

"What do you think would happen", she demanded of Wolfe, "to a Fifth Avenue couturiere if it came out that her name was Pansy Bupp?"

Wolfe, with characteristic compassion and charm, ordered Archie to get her out of the house before she burst into tears.

Answer: In the apartment shared by Misses Tormic and Lovchen

Archie and Miss Tormic headed to the apartment the two women shared in search of Miss Lovchen, who had disappeared. Upon arrival there, they found the body of Rudolf Faber, but no Miss Lovchen.

Answer: Disguised as a bellboy

Upon finding Miss Lovchen at Nat Driscoll's office, Archie called a house detective crony of his and fed him a story about playing a joke on someone. He asked his pal to send him a bellhop who was small and slight of build, and to have the bellhop bring along his own street clothes. When the bellhop arrived, Archie had Miss Lovchen dress in his uniform for the trip to Wolfe's office.

Answer: Inspector Cramer

Cramer was convinced that, as usual, Wolfe knew vital information he wasn't sharing with the cops, and further convinced that Wolfe would solve the case; Cramer also faced an uphill investigation on this one because he was getting pressure from above not to rock the boat, what with people like wealthy international financiers and foreign agents scattered through the list of suspects and victims.

Answer: He gave the person $100 and a ride away from the office.

The murderer turned out to be someone to whom Wolfe had an obligation; and in his value system, he had to take steps to alter the situation so that he behaved in an acceptable fashion (according to his lights) toward both the culprit and law enforcement. Shortly after getting the murderer out of the house and away, Wolfe revealed the person's identity to Inspector Cramer, who, of course was enraged at Wolfe's actions and started the manhunt posthaste.

Answer: Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin

Saul and Fred were both given jobs to do - and so was Orrie Cather, but not Johnnie Keems. They were Wolfe's second string (although Saul Panzer may be a better detective than Archie, by Archie's own admission!); Dol Bonner might be more accurately characterized as a third-string team member - she very seldom assisted Wolfe in investigations, having her own all-female agency. Nathaniel Parker, Lon Cohen and Doc Vollmer weren't detectives at all; they were, respectively, an attorney, a newspaperman and a physician whom Wolfe sometimes used in the course of his work, but not as investigators or operatives.

Answer: The murderer was killed.

Wolfe himself killed the murderer, who returned to the office and got past Archie, heading for Wolfe with a dagger drawn. Wolfe picked up two beer bottles (items very often found on his desk) and hit his attacker, striking the wrist holding the dagger with one, and cracking the person's skull with the second.

Answer: Wolfe's daughter

Carla Lovchen turned out to be Wolfe's adopted daughter. She appears again in Rex Stout's subsequent Nero Wolfe whodunit, "The Black Mountain".