Rex Stout's twenty-first Nero Wolfe novel, published in 1958.
Archie accepts Austin "Dinky" Byne's invitation to substitute as one of the chevaliers at Grantham House's annual dinner for unwed mothers, run by Byne's aunt Louise Robilotti. During the post-dinner dance, however, one of the mothers, Faith Usher, drops dead of cyanide in her champagne. As Faith kept cyanide in her bag and had often spoken of killing herself, the police would be content to rule the case suicide, but Archie, who had been warned about the cyanide and had watched her from the dance floor, insists it was murder. Complicating Wolfe's efforts to satisfy himself that Archie is correct is the request of Edwin Laidlaw, another of the chevaliers, who hires Wolfe to keep the police from learning that he fathered Faith Usher's baby a year prior. With Archie's testimony keeping the police and D.A. from closing the case, Wolfe must work around a hostile force to keep a murderer from achieving the aim of disguising their homicide as the suicide of a distraught unwed mother.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery adapted Champagne for One as part of their first season, the novel split into two episodes.
Tropes in this work: (Tropes relating to the series as a whole, or to the characters in general can be found on Nero Wolfe and its subpages.)
- Acrofatic: Wolfe uses the momentum from leaning back in his chair to kick Elaine Usher in the chin when she charges at him.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted; everyone assumes that because Faith Usher carried around a bottle of cyanide in her purse that she was suicidal, and everyone other than Archie and Wolfe believes that she simply cracked at the party. The manager of the home for unwed mothers that Faith was staying in believes the opposite, however; Faith was carrying around the bottle to prove to herself that she wasn't, and that she could overcome both her unfortunate circumstances and her depression. Her faith in Faith is ultimately validated, as Wolfe is able to prove that it was murder after all.
- Hidden Depths: Sergeant Stebbins, of all people, notices the clue in Wolfe's final demonstration that shows how the murderer got the poison into Faith's glass.
- Never Suicide: The plot hinges on this; everyone believes that Faith simply took the cyanide that she was carrying, but Archie — who was alerted to the bottle by one of Faith's fellow unwed mothers and made a point of keeping her under observation — stubbornly insists that she never had an opportunity to. Given that this is a Nero Wolfe novel we're discussing, the reader presumably does not need to be told whether Archie is right or wrong about it being murder.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Wolfe becomes absolutely certain of Archie's claims when the police receive an anonymous tip that Laidlaw was the father of Faith's child. Zig-zagged, though, as Austin Byne sent the tip but was not the murderer.
- Perpetual Frowner: Helen Yarmis, according to Archie, would have a lovely face if she would only smile a little more; she even dances solemnly.
- Perpetual Smiler: On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, Rose Tuttle is invariably cheerful, though this makes for a detriment on the dance floor.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Dinky Byne changes his story due to being confronted with new evidence at least five times, usually managing to make his claims sound fairly plausible.
- Take a Third Option: Much of the mystery of the novel hinges on how someone managed to get the cyanide from Faith's bag into her glass while Archie was watching both her and the bag, leading to the conclusion that either it was a suicide or Archie just happened to look away at a fatal moment. Wolfe — somewhat scathingly — points out that everyone was so fixated on the bottle Faith was carrying that they forgot that it would be trivially easy for the murderer to acquire their own cyanide, and that the poison Faith ingested almost certainly didn't come from the bottle she was carrying.
- There Are No Coincidences:
- Wolfe is immediately suspicious that Edwin Laidlaw, who fathered Faith Usher's child during a brief dalliance, ended up attending the same gathering as her despite their paths having no reason to ever cross again. He's right; Dinky Byne set it up as both a rather cruel joke at Laidlaw / Usher's expense and as a warning to his aunt that he knew that Faith was actually her deceased husband's daughter, conceived during an adulterous relationship with Elaine Usher.
- It is also noted at several points that Dinky Byne faking an illness to get out of attending a party where a murder later occurred practically screams "so staggeringly unlikely to be a coincidence that it's practically proof of guilt, or at least involvement". Played with. It's not a coincidence and Byne knew full well what he was doing, but he's not the murderer and wasn't expecting that to happen.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Wolfe is able to make a significant break in the case when Archie, tailing Austin Byne, and Saul, tailing Elaine Usher, track their targets to the same restaurant.
