The Many Quirks of Nero Wolfe Trivia Quiz

Answer: He virtually never left his house on business.

Wolfe was famously immobile, weighing in the neighborhood of 280 pounds and overly fond of the creature comforts and routines in his home. He rarely left his home for any reason, and especially not on business - with a few notable exceptions, like the time (in "The Black Mountain") he and his assistant Archie traveled to the Central European country of Montenegro to find the murderer of Wolfe's best friend, Marko Vukcic.

Answer: Forty minutes.

In "The Mother Hunt", Wolfe bets the client, Lucy Valdon, that she didn't know how long it took to scramble an egg. The conversation went as follows:

"'Do you like eggs?'
She laughed. She looked at me, so I laughed too.
Wolfe scowled. 'Confound it, are eggs comical? Do you know how to scramble eggs, Mrs. Valdon?'
'Yes, of course.'
'To use Mr. Goodwin's favorite locution, one will get you ten that you don't. I'll scramble eggs for your breakfast and we'll see. Tell me forty minutes before you're ready.'
Her eyes widened. 'Forty minutes?'
'Yes. I knew you didn't know.'"

Answer: He hated and feared them.

Wolfe rabidly distrusted cars, although he always owned one - usually a black Heron sedan, which he never drove. His assistant Archie Goodwin drove his cars; if Wolfe was riding with him, the experience was generally tense as Wolfe barked unnecessary warnings and clung to the strap by the window or the seat in front of him (he always sat in the back seat).

Answer: That "imply" and "infer" could be used interchangeably.

This occurred in the opening pages of "Gambit". When Archie entered Wolfe's brownstone with the client, Wolfe was at the fireplace, tearing pages out of the dictionary and throwing them into the fire. He asked her, "Do you use 'infer' and 'imply' interchangeably, Miss Blount?" She said she didn't. Wolfe responded, "This book says you may. Pfui."

Answer: True

Eight hours' sleep was Archie's requirement whenever he could get it, but Wolfe rose at the same time every morning no matter when he'd gotten to bed. His day then started with breakfast in bed.

Answer: It was complicated, but mostly he avoided them like the plague.

Wolfe regarded women as ticking bombs who were always a hair's breadth away from hysteria. He employed no women on his household staff. He expected his assistant Archie Goodwin to deal with any emotional displays a female might put on, and if she didn't achieve control control very quickly, Wolfe either ordered the woman out or fled the scene himself.

Answer: Yellow

Wolfe loved the color yellow. In the office there were two yellow chairs, reserved for second-tier guests (the red leather chair was for the star of the gathering). Wolfe's pajamas were made of yellow silk, and his bedding was yellow as well. On more than one occasion Archie Goodwin remarked on the spectacle Wolfe created in his bedclothes.

Answer: Beer bottle caps

Wolfe was very fond of beer, although there is no account of his ever being inebriated. One of the functions of his assistant Archie Goodwin was to monitor Wolfe's beer consumption and, on occasion, cut him off. Wolfe himself sometimes struggled with how much beer he drank. He tracked his beers by saving the bottle caps, which he kept in his desk.

Answer: Pushed his lips in and out, in and out.

Wolfe's "lip action" never failed to excite Archie, because it was a sure sign that Wolfe had something to chew on, and was working hard. Invariably, when the lip action concluded, Wolfe either had devised a stratagem to expose the culprit or had outright solved the case.

Answer: False

Absolutely not! Wolfe had an aversion to being touched, and generally avoided so much as a handshake when he encountered other people, with very few exceptions. He sometimes acknowledged this aversion openly, but often merely kept a physical distance between himself and other people so as to minimize the possibility of making contact.

Answer: His greenhouse

Wolfe was an avid grower of world-class orchids. The top floor of the his brownstone was a greenhouse and he employed a full-time horticulturalist, Theodore Horstmann. Wolfe's four hours in the plant room were an almost inviolate part of his daily schedule - and one of the few non-work related reasons Wolfe occasionally left his house was to attend plant shows, and to exhibit his orchids.

Answer: By the way he marked his place

Wolfe was an avid--although slow--reader. It wasn't unusual for him to have several books in progress simultaneously. At various points in the series he had different bookmarks--one was made of gold--and the way he marked his place in a book told a lot about how well he esteemed it. If he used a bookmark like the one made of gold, it was an exceptional read; but often he eschewed the bookmark in favor of dog-earing the page where he'd left off reading.

A dog-eared page signified that the book was nothing special.

Answer: A restaurant

Wolfe's closest friend, Marko Vukcic, owned and operated Rusterman's, an exclusive New York restaurant. Wolfe and Archie dined there monthly while Marko was alive; after Marko's murder, Wolfe continued to visit the restaurant partly in his capacity as the executor of Marko's estate, but also to make sure that the culinary standards set by his friend continued to be met.

Answer: False

Archie Goodwin noted many times that Wolfe was not expressive: if he raised one corner of his mouth a quarter inch, it was tantamount to an all-out belly laugh, and a sure sign that he was furious was when his forefinger traced a small circle on his desk.

Answer: Good food

Wolfe was a gourmet cook, and he employed a full-time Swiss chef, Fritz Brenner. Each meal was a masterpiece, and Wolfe and Brenner spent many hours in the kitchen discussing, preparing, and experimenting with food.