Informationen zum Autor Rex Stout (18861975) wrote dozens of short stories, novellas, and full-length mystery novels, most featuring his two indelible characters, the peerless detective Nero Wolfe and his handy sidekick, Archie Goodwin. Klappentext When a Balkan beauty gets in trouble over some missing diamonds, whom else can she turn to but the world-famous Nero Wolfe? Especially since she claims to be Wolfe's long lost daughter! The stakes are suddenly raised when a student at this woman's fencing school ends up dead after a pointed lesson. As Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, thrust and parry into a tangle of documents, identities and international intrigue, another student body turns up, expertly skewered through the heart. Is Wolfe's long lost daughter the black sheep of the family, a hot-blooded mistress of murder? "It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore."-The New York Times Book Review A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained-and puzzled-millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout. Zusammenfassung When a Balkan beauty gets in trouble over some missing diamonds! whom else can she turn to but the world-famous Nero Wolfe? Especially since she claims to be Wolfe's long lost daughter! The stakes are suddenly raised when a student at this woman's fencing school ends up dead after a pointed lesson. As Wolfe and his sidekick! Archie! thrust and parry into a tangle of documents! identities and international intrigue! another student body turns up! expertly skewered through the heart. Is Wolfe's long lost daughter the black sheep of the family! a hot-blooded mistress of murder? It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore. The New York Times Book Review A grand master of the form! Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers! and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together! Stout and Wolfe have entertainedand puzzledmillions of mystery fans around the world. Now! with his perambulatory man-about-town! Archie Goodwin! the arrogant! gourmandizing! sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself! Rex Stout. ...

Autorentext

Rex Stout (1886–1975) wrote dozens of short stories, novellas, and full-length mystery novels, most featuring his two indelible characters, the peerless detective Nero Wolfe and his handy sidekick, Archie Goodwin.

Klappentext

When a Balkan beauty gets in trouble over some missing diamonds, whom else can she turn to but the world-famous Nero Wolfe? Especially since she claims to be Wolfe's long lost daughter! The stakes are suddenly raised when a student at this woman's fencing school ends up dead after a pointed lesson. As Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, thrust and parry into a tangle of documents, identities and international intrigue, another student body turns up, expertly skewered through the heart. Is Wolfe's long lost daughter the black sheep of the family, a hot-blooded mistress of murder?

"It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore."-The New York Times Book Review

A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained-and puzzled-millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1
 
The bell rang and I went to the front and opened the door and there she was. I said good morning.
 
“Pliz,” she said, “I would like to see Misturr Nero Wolfe.”
 
Or you might have spelled it plihz or plizz or plihsz. However you spelled it, it wasn’t Middle West or New England or Park Avenue or even East Side. It wasn’t American, and naturally it irritated me a little. But I politely invited her in and conducted her to the office and got her a chair, and then extracted her name, which I had to ask her to spell.
 
“Mr. Wolfe will be engaged until eleven o’clock,” I told her, with a glance at the wall clock above my desk, which said ten thirty. “I’m Archie Goodwin, his confidential secretary. If you’d like to save time by starting on me …”
 
She shook her head and said she had plenty of time. I asked if she would like a book or magazine, and she shook her head again, and I passed her up and resumed at my desk, where I was heading up a bunch of hybridizing cards for use upstairs. Five minutes later I had finished and was checking them over when I heard her voice behind me:
“I believe I would like a book. May I?”
 
I waved at the shelves and told her to help herself and went on with the checking. Presently I looked up when she approached and stood beside me with a volume in her hand.
 
“Misturr Wolfe reads this?” she asked. She had a nice soft low voice which would have sounded all right if she had taken the trouble to learn how to pronounce words. I glanced at the title and told her Wolfe had read it some time ago.
 
“But he stoodies it?”
 
“Why should he? He’s a genius, he don’t have to study anything.”
 
“He reads once and then he is through?”
 
“That’s the idea.”
 
She started for her chair and then turned again. “Do you read it perhaps?”
 
“I do not,” I said emphatically.
 
She half smiled. “It’s too complicated for you, the Balkan history?”
 
“I don’t know, I haven’t tried it. But I understand all the kings and queens got murdered. I like newspaper murders better.”
 
She turned off the smile and went and sat down with the book, and appeared to be absorbed in it a few minutes later when, the checking finished, I jiggled the handful of cards neatly together and departed with them, and mounted the two flights of carpeted stairs to the top floor and the steeper flight to the roof level, where the entire space was glassed-in for the orchids except the potting room and the corner where Horstmann slept. Passing through the first two rooms, down the aisles with silver staging and concrete benches and thousands of pots holding everything from baby seedlings to odontoglossums and dendrobiums in full bloom, I found Nero Wolfe in the warm room, standing with his thumbs on his hips, frowning at Horstmann, who in turn was scowling reproachfully at an enormous coelogyne blossom with white petals and orange keels. Wolfe was muttering:
 
“A full two weeks. At the very least, twelve days. As Per Hansa says, I don’t know what God expects to accomplish by such management. If it were only a question of forcing—well, Archie?”
 
I handed Horstmann the cards. “For that batch of miltonias and lycastes. The germi nation dates are already in where you had them. There’s a female immigrant downstairs who wants to borrow a book. She is twenty-two years old and has fine legs. Her face is sullen …