Rex Stout's twelfth collection of Nero Wolfe novellas, published in 1962.
"Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" opens with secretary Bertha Aaron consulting Archie about seeing one of the members of the law firm where she works meeting in secret with the opposing client. Archie deduces the case is Morton Sorell's divorce from his wife Rita, and as Wolfe will not touch divorce cases, he tries to convince Wolfe in the orchid rooms to take the case. Wolfe declines, but Archie is unable to deliver the news because Aaron is dead, strangled with a necktie Wolfe left on his desk and left lying on the office floor. Humiliated, Wolfe investigates the four members of the firm - Lamont Otis, Frank Edey, Miles Heydecker, and Gregory Jett - and quickly eliminates Otis. But when alibis get in the way of the investigation, Wolfe realizes the only remaining option and invites the murderer to a conversation in his office, a conversation all the other suspects are listening to.
"Death of a Demon" sees Lucy Hazen bringing a gun to the brownstone, promising not to shoot her husband with it, a desire she has had for weeks. But while Wolfe is showing Lucy the orchids, Archie hears a news report that Barry Hazen has been found shot dead. Archie learns from Barry's copywriter Theodore Weed that Barry was a sadist, keeping him on staff because he knew Weed loved Lucy and taking pleasure in Weed's discomfort in her presence, and that several of Barry's clients paid much more for his services than they were worth. With Barry's blackmail clear, Archie locates a metal box that Lucy had been ordered to destroy, allowing Wolfe to feign a little blackmail himself in order to draw out a murderer.
Lastly, "Counterfeit for Murder" sees landlady Hattie Annis delivering a package of counterfeit money to the brownstone, but Archie refuses her appointment. After Tammy Baxter, one of her tenants, comes to check on her, Hattie returns, having been hit by a car but able to make it to the stoop before collapsing. Treasury agent Albert Leach tries to get information on Hattie or Tammy, but Archie does not provide it. However, after a visit to Hattie's boarding house reveals Tammy's dead body behind a couch, Wolfe must balance his obligation to his client - Hattie's wishes to stick it to the police - with the information he is obligated to provide to authorities, the strongest way to accomplish both being to identify the murderer himself.
"Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" was adapted as part of the first season of A Nero Wolfe Mystery.
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.)
- Asshole Victim: Barry Hazen , the titular 'demon' from "Death of a Demon". He is quickly established to be a sadistic bully and abuser who liked to play psychological mind-games with his wife and employees, and that's before it's learned that he's also a blackmailer.
- Blackmail Backfire: Barry Hazel made the fatal mistake of being a blackmailer in a Nero Wolfe story.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Archie describes Hattie's tenant Martha Kent as "ornamental both above the neck and below."
- Cop Hater: Hattie Annis hates cops - a cop shot her father - and specifically hires Wolfe to "make the cops eat dirt."
- Evil Virtues: Despite being an extremely sadistic blackmailer, Barry Hazen did instruct his wife to burn his clients' papers after he died rather than expose them. Although considering some of those papers had evidence about the murder of his wife's father, maybe that was just another bit of cruelty.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Hattie Annis has a soft spot for struggling actors and doesn't harass her tenants for late rent (Raymond Dell hasn't paid rent in years). Wolfe singles out Paul Hannah as a suspect because he's been paying his rent on time despite not having a job.
- Giving Them the Strip: Archie strip searches Hazen's blackmail victims after catching them searching his home.
- Jurisdiction Friction: The NYPD and the Treasury Department compete for the evidence that might convict the counterfeiter and murderer.
- Riddle for the Ages: Aside from the murderer, exactly what the blackmail victims were being blackmailed over in "Death of a Demon" is never revealed. Since the victim was a cruel man who liked to taunt his victims, there are clues in the conversation he introduced at a dinner party he hosted for them the night before his murder; the subjects included the stock market, the theater, ships, poison and his wife's father, with the latter pointing directly to the murderer, with several of the blackmail victims noting that these subjects meant nothing to them — but, of course, they would say that. It's implied that there is at least one other murderer unconnected to the victim of this story, another person is likely guilty of some kind of serious financial wrongdoing, and possibly some form of adultery for another, but Archies makes it clear that exactly who is guilty of what is as much a mystery to him as he is leaving it to the reader.
- Sympathy for the Devil: The blackmail victims of Barry Hazel in "Death of a Demon" are implied to have themselves committed some serious wrongs, at least in some cases; at least one of them is implied to be guilty of murder in addition to the murderer of Hazel, and another one is implied to have committed some serious financial wrongdoing. However, it's made clear that coming into the claws of a sadist like Hazel is, in many ways, punishment by itself.
- Token Good Teammate: Mrs. Talbot comes across as the most friendly, frightened and least bullying of the blackmail victims, and it's slightly implied that her secret is less serious than the others.
- The Unreveal: It is never revealed why Hazen was blackmailing Mrs. Talbot, Perdis, and Mrs. Oliver. Archie half-jokingly speculates that Mrs. Olvier killed her husband, and there are subtle hints that Perdis is a Corrupt Corporate Executive and Mrs. Talbot cheated on her husband or has a scandalous past from before their marriage.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: Raymond Dell was a prominent actor twenty years ago, but has been reduced to working as a babysitter.
