The fifth collection of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novellas, published in 1951.
"The Gun with Wings" sees Frederick Weppler and Margaret Mion seeking Wolfe's help to uncover the murderer of Margaret's husband Alberto, a tenor believed to have committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. Alberto Mion had been unable to sing after baritone Gifford James punched him in the larynx for allegedly seducing his daughter Clara, but Wolfe's clients are in love and need Wolfe to resolve the case in order to be certain of each other's innocence. While Archie uncovers lies and subterfuge, Wolfe enforces the clients' desperation by getting them arrested as material witnesses, using subterfuge of his own to figure out who moved the gun that killed Mion around the studio where he died - and who fired the shot in the first place.
In "Bullet for One," after industrial designer Sigmund Keyes is shot off his horse and killed, five of Keyes' business associates hire Wolfe, convinced that his sales agent Victor Talbott killed him. While all six suspects have feasible motives and none has an airtight alibi, Archie's investigation is hampered when the police quickly take them all into custody. Frustrated but undeterred, Wolfe sets up a demonstration, a reconstruction of the crime, to force the killer's hand.
Finally, with Wolfe hosting a gathering of the Manhattan Flower Club in "Disguise for Murder," con artist Cynthia Brown asks Archie if she can speak to Wolfe, saying she recognized the murderer of her friend Doris Hatten in the orchid rooms. But Wolfe demands Archie return upstairs, and while the final guests are departing, one comes across Cynthia's strangled corpse in the office. Wolfe spots a key fact that identifies the murderer, but when Cramer seals the office, Wolfe refuses to cooperate with him, instead concocting a scheme to expose the murderer that will put Archie's life in jeopardy.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery adapted "Disguise for Murder" as part of its first season.
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.)
- Ate His Gun: Alberto Mion's death is considered suicide because the shot went through the roof of his mouth. It was still murder.
- Broken Record: According to Archie, Broadyke (a client in Bullet for One) uses the same wordy phrase to insult his late rival four times in one conversation.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Lovable Rogue con artist Cynthia Brown recognizes the murderer of her friend, who she was too scared to turn in the first time, at the Flower Club gathering. She approaches Archie and tells him this, wanting to come clean this time, and saying that the shock from this makes her want to quit thievery and start a straight life. Archie leaves the office at Wolfe's direction, and when he comes back, she's been murdered.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Cramer takes on this role and puts his foot in it when he orders Wolfe's office, the scene of the murder in "Disguise for Murder", to be sealed off pending further investigation. While he claims it's standard practice and an attempt to prevent Wolfe from profiting from a murder in his own home, it's pretty clearly just a snide act of revenge for past embarrassments. As Archie notes, however, Cramer clearly realizes almost instantly that he's made a mistake, because Wolfe had previously hinted that he'd realized something that could clear the murder up pretty quickly, but is now so provoked and enraged at Cramer's actions that he'd sooner die than reveal it before it suits him. Any petty satisfaction Cramer may have got from temporarily getting one over on Wolfe will almost certainly be quickly outweighed by yet another humiliation when Wolfe solves the crime before and without him. And to make matters worse, solving this case also requires solving a case that the police had been stuck on for six months, thus compounding the humiliation.
- Old Windbag: Judge Arnold, an aging lawyer featured in "The Gun with Wings," spends an entire hour talking about the legal issues of a court case related to the murder. According to Archie, only about two minutes worth of it are even remotely interesting or memorable.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: In Bullet for One, Ferdinand Pohl makes a dick of himself by stubbornly accusing Vic Talbott of being the killer despite his alibi, saying Talbott must have bribed the witnesses. Talbott is faking the alibi, but the witnesses aren't lying: instead, Talbott briefly impersonated his victim to confuse everyone about the time of death.
