Rex Stout's third collection of Nero Wolfe novellas, published in 1949, and the first collection to contain three stories instead of two.
"Before I Die" sees Wolfe, desperate for meat during the 1946 shortage, accept a job from notorious gangster Dazy Perrit in exchange for access to the black market. Perrit has been supporting his secret daughter Beulah Page from afar, but as his rival Thumbs Meeker has learned he has a daughter, Perrit has brought in a con artist named Angelina Murphy to pose as his daughter. However, Angelina has been blackmailing Perrit, and he wants Wolfe to put a stop to it. An overnight investigation is shattered when first Angelina, then Perrit, are brought down in drive-by shootings. Well aware that the underworld will assume he ordered their murders, Wolfe must bring the case to an end before he is brought to his.
In "Help Wanted, Male," publisher Ben Jensen requests protection after receiving a death threat in the mail; Wolfe declines the threat, but Jensen is shot down that night and Wolfe receives the same threat. As the only connection between he and Jensen is the arrest of Captain Peter Root for selling classified information, Wolfe investigates that thread while hiring a Body Double to take his place in the office. But while Root's ex-fiancée Jane Geer and Jensen's son Emil are in the front room, a bullet wounds the double's ear. With Wolfe's life at stake, he must quickly uncover a murderer under the brownstone's roof.
The final story, "Instead of Evidence," opens with Eugene R. Poor and his wife Martha hiring Wolfe to see that Poor's business partner Conroy Blaney is arrested once Poor is murdered. Later that day, Poor is killed by an exploding cigar, putting Wolfe on the job. His investigation of the firm, a manufacturer of gag items, turns up a connection with a second body, a man run over by a car, and will result in an earned fee, no matter who it is from.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery adapted both "Before I Die" and "Help Wanted, Male" during its second 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.)
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Almost. Rival gangsters Thumbs Meeker and Fabian shoot down Morton Schane, but Saul Panzer actually fired the killing shot.
- Black Market: Wolfe's desperation for a source of meat during WWII food rationing leads to him accepting Dazy Perrit's job. He demands (and gets) access to the black market as part of his fee.
- Bluff the Impostor: Wolfe trips up Morton Schane by asking if he has ever drafted a tort in his law studies, and he says he has. A tort
is an act, not a document, and cannot be drafted. - Body Double: H. H. Hackett for Wolfe. Also Arthur Howell for Eugene R. Poor.
- Contrived Coincidence: Wolfe knows that his life is being targeted, so he hires a Body Double named Hackett to sit in the office in his place. Hackett is the would-be murderer, who just happens to match Wolfe's physical description and just happens to answer Wolfe's newspaper advertisement when Archie and Wolfe are skeptical that he could have realized its purpose.
- Does Not Like Men: Martha Poor, in the denouement, shouts that she hates men. They are her final words.
- Enemy Mine: Rival mobsters Thumbs Meeker and Fabian team up to shoot down the gun-wielding murderer in Wolfe's office....it was something never seen before and surely never will be again—Fabian and Thumbs Meeker blazing away at the same target.
- Insufferable Genius: Conroy Blaney, who denies committing the murder but confidently states that if he had decided to commit one, it would have been no trouble for him. He's so obnoxious that Wolfe refuses to have him inside the brownstone for the Summation Gathering.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: Wolfe has Archie deliver the final explosive capsule to Martha Poor, well aware that she will blow herself up with it rather than face arrest.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted; Dazy Perrit's Mook is also named Archie.
