character relationships & characterization in Nero Wolfe #5-22

[cimorene]

Bookmarking passages which speak to characterization and the relationships between the important characters is helpful, I find, when there's so much canon to get through. Possibly by stretching it out more I could make it all stay distinct better, but when I finish one book and immediately pick up the next one, they'll all run together in my head if I don't do something about it.

(And this is a really great thing about ebooks, isn't it? I can send each bookmark to the notepad, tag them, and then export the tagged notes to a Google Doc.)

So Rex Stout has written 40+ Nero Wolfe books; and #22, The Black Mountain, is a unique milestone where they make a pilgrimage to Montenegro and do some James Bond type stuff, while the typical books take place exclusively around NYC and the most salient feature of the sleuth is his refusal to leave his house in order to investigate things. (Agatha Christie wrote one Poirot story, "The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim" [incidentally it's also the Poirot remix of the classic Sherlock Holmes story "The Man with the Twisted Lip"; I love when they do that], in which Poirot stays home and solves the case sight unseen in order to win a bet with my bunny's namesake, Chief Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard. It makes for a fantastic episode of the show; but it's certainly a novelty in the detective genre, with Hastings sallying forth with his little notebook and lists of questions and tasks which he has to bring back and report carefully. Fortunately for Wolfe, Archie Goodwin is an excellent detective in his own right with a number of specialized skills.)

This collection is therefore made on the basis of the first half of Nero Wolfe canon, and is arranged more or less topically rather than chronologically.

Wolfe & Archie:

Confidential Secretary

”Yet I am not without dignity. Ask Fritz, my cook. Ask Theodore, my gardener. Ask you, my—”
“Right hand.”
“No.”
“Prime minister.”
“No.”
“Pal.”
“No!”
“Accomplice, flunkey, Secretary of War, hireling, comrade …”
—"Cordially Invited to Meet Death", in Black Orchids (#9)

There was nothing in the world I would enjoy more than watching Nero Wolfe wallowing in discomfiture, but not in the presence of outsiders. When that happy time came, which it never had yet, I wanted it to be a special command performance for Archie Goodwin and no one else around.
—Too Many Cooks (#5)

During dinner Wolfe wasn’t talkative, and I made no special effort at conversation because he didn’t deserve it. If he wanted to be charitable enough to concede Waddell a right to live, I wouldn’t have objected to that, but he might have kept within bounds. Decorum is decorum. If he wanted to admit he had made a boob of himself and prattle about forfeiting rights, that was okay, but the person to admit it to wasn’t a half-witted crime buzzard from the upstate sticks, but me. That’s what a confidential assistant is for. The only thing that restrained me from letting my indignation burst into speech was the fact that I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
—Some Buried Caesar (#6)

Archie takes their confidential relationship seriously and considers Wolfe to have the same obligation. The above are just two examples where he gets angry when he suspects Wolfe of showing weakness in front of other people on purpose.

“Any bail, any amount, I could have it arranged for by 11 o’clock in the morning. Shall I?”

“I might come high.”

“I said any amount.”

“I wouldn’t bother. It would make Wolfe jealous. Thanks just the same.”
—Lily Rowan and Archie in Some Buried Caesar (#6)

Wolfe’s self-esteem was such that he always regarded any attempt to buy me off as a personal affront, not to me but to him. I have often wondered who he would blame if I sold out once, himself or me.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

Wolfe's financial responsibility for Archie is unquestioned by both of them, just like Archie's loyalty.

"Who's Wolfe working for?"

"There is never," I told him, "any question about that. He is working first, last, and all the time for Wolfe. Come to think of it, so am I. Boy, am I loyal."
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

I tossed a coin: heads I stick, tails I quit. It landed tails, but I had to veto it because I had already talked to Orrie Cather and he was coming at noon, and I had left messages for Fred Durkin and Saul Panzer. I tossed again, tails again. I tossed once more and it was heads, which settled it. I had to stick.
—In the Best Families (#16)

“I don’t suppose you realize what a pippin she is, because you seem to be immune. And of course I haven’t spoken to her yet, because I couldn’t very well ask her to marry a—well, a detective. But I think if I can get into some other line of work and prove that I can make myself worthy of her—”

“Archie.” He was sitting up now, and his tone was a menacing murmur. “You are lying. Look at me.”

I gave him as good a gaze as I could manage, and I thought I had him. But then I saw his lids begin to droop, and I knew it was all off. So the best I could do was grin at him.

“Confound you!” But he sounded relieved at that. “Do you realize what marriage means? Ninety percent of men over thirty are married, and look at them! Do you realize that if you had a wife she would insist on cooking for you? Do you know that all women believe that the function of food begins when it reaches the stomach? Have you any idea that a woman can ever—what’s that?”
—Too Many Cooks (#5)

The joke is that of course Archie wouldn't want to get married and quit his job! Hilarious, right?

Wolfe shook his head regretfully. “Apparently you’ll never learn. Confound you, you can’t badger me. No one on earth can badger me except Mr. Goodwin."
—"Black Orchids" (#9)

“But—but, sir—Archie always brings people here—”

“Pay it yourself. You are not Archie. Thank God. One Archie is enough. I sent you to get facts, not Miss Tracy—certainly I didn’t send you to coerce her with preposterous threats and fables about my relations with the police. Go to the kitchen—no. Go home.”

“But, sir—”

“Go home. And for God’s sake quit trying to imitate Archie. You’ll never make it. Go home.”
Johnny went.
—"Cordially Invited to Meet Death", in Black Orchids (#9)

Archie is unique in having Wolfe's full confidence, and being the only badgerer he deigns to pay attention to.

In the room upstairs Wolfe was still reading the book. As I closed the door behind me he started to scorch me with an indignant look for being gone so long, but when he saw my face, which he knows better than I do, he abandoned it.
—The Second Confession (#14)

Evidently he knew himself nearly as well as I knew him.
—”Door to Death” in Three Doors to Death (#17)

Their confidence is mutual; and they each know the other better than themselves.

”You’re not taking that,” he stated.

“Sure I am.” I slipped the gun into my shoulder holster and dropped the boxes into a pocket. “The registration for it is in my wallet.”

“No. It may make trouble at the customs. You can buy one at Bari before we go across. Take it off.”

It was a command, and he was boss. “Okay,” I said, and took the gun out and returned it to the drawer. Then I sat down in my chair. “I’m not going. As you know, I made a rule years ago never to leave on an errand connected with a murder case without a gun, and this is a super errand. I’m not going to try chasing a killer around a black mountian in a foreign land with nothing but some damn popgun I know nothing about.”

“Nonsense.” He looked up at the clock. “It’s time to go.”

“Go ahead.”

Silence. I crossed my legs. He surrendered. “Very well, If I hadn’t let you grow into a habit I could have done this without you. Come on.”
—The Black Mountain (#22)

When the matter is serious Wolfe doesn't hesitate to acknowledge Archie's importance and accomodate his requests.

”I can’t expect you to translate as you go along, but you will afterward, the first chance we get. I’ll try to be reasonable about it, but when I ask for it I want it. Otherwise I might as well ride this thing back to Rome.”

His teeth were clenched. ”This is a choice spot for an ultimatum.”

“Nuts. You might as well have brought a dummy. I said I’ll be reasonable, but I’ve been reporting to you for a good many years and it won’t hurt you to report to me for a change.”

“Very well. I submit.”

“I want to be kept posted in full.”

“I said I submit.”
—The Black Mountain (#22)

After lunch it was more of the same, with Wolfe being so patient and uncomplaining it was painful, and I would have welcomed a couple of nasty remarks.
—Prisoner’s Base (#20)

A fondness for recreational bickering makes sense for a guy who would take a job as a professional eccentric genius badgerer.

Wolfe wouldn’t budge[: t]hat was the plan, no matter what I said, or how often I said it, about the risks involved or the defects in Wolfe’s character that made him hatch it. I admit that my remarks about the defects got fairly pointed by the twelfth day, and that morning as we packed, him with his bag on his bed and me with mine on mine, our relations were so strained that when he had prolonged trouble with his zipper he didn’t call for help and I didn’t offer any.
—The Black Mountain (#22)

Archie has the complete confidence to do whatever his judgement decrees on Wolfe's behalf, but Wolfe is unaccustomed to dealing with finicky zippers alone.

'Being Sweet'

I backed out again without bruising anyone seriously and circled around to the rose garden to rejoin Wolfe.

He wasn’t there.

He was gone. The two pots were there on the floor, but he wasn’t anywhere.

The damn hippopotamus, I thought. He’ll get lost. He’ll be kidnapped. He’ll fall in a hole. He’ll catch cold.
—"Black Orchids" (#9)

This is humor, but Archie is genuinely alarmed.

“You’d better get back up there,” he said. “I regret it and I resent it, but I gave Mr. Cramer my word. Theodore will attend to the plants. Get back for dinner if you can. We’re having saucisse minuit.”

He was being sweet. “I didn’t give Cramer my word,” I suggested.

“No.” He wiggled a finger at me. “Archie! No shenanigan.”
—"Black Orchids" (#9)

It's typical of Wolfe's character that when being 'sweet', he doesn't want Archie to miss Wolfe's favorite meal (the recipe for which plays a role in the plot of Too Many Cooks).

When I returned to the office after seeing the visitor to the door, Wolfe was out of his chair. There was nothing alarming about that, since it was one minute to four and therefore time for him to go up to the orchids, but what froze me in my tracks was the sight of him stooping over, actually bending nearly double, with his hand in my waste-basket.

He straightened up.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I inquired anxiously.

Ignoring that, he moved nearer the window to inspect an object he held between his thumb and forefinger. I stepped over and he handed it to me and I took a squint at it.
—"Cordially Invited to Meet Death", in Black Orchids (#9)

“Where the devil are you?” he demanded. “It’s eight minutes past eleven!”

I didn’t resent it because I knew he wasn’t being critical. He regards going from one place to another place in New York City as being one of the most hazardous feats a man can undertake, and he was worried about me.
—Too Many Women (#12)

“It’s like this, boss. I’m in a bad hole. I admit it. I am innocent, but my honor is involved. A good lawyer may pull me through. I had to grit my teeth last night to keep from waking you up to tell you about it. I knew you didn’t want—”

“Apparently, Archie,” he said grimly, “you forget how well I know you. Enough of this flummery. What are your terms?”

He had me flustered for a second. I stammered, “My what? Terms?”

“Yes. For the information I’ll have to have to clean up this mess. First to get you out of here. Do you realize, when Fritz brought me that paper and I saw that headline—”
—Archie and Wolfe after Archie has framed himself to force Wolfe to work in "Not Quite Dead Enough" (#10)

Archie was expecting Wolfe to know something was up but go along with his charade until he figured out exactly what, but Wolfe already knew what was up was Archie deliberately framing himself before he even spoke to him. On the other hand, he also doesn't balk at all, but instantly agrees to do whatever Archie wants. Evidently he's not mad about it because of the initial moment of shock when he learned Archie was in jail from the newspaper.

I seldom sputter, but I sputtered. “That suitcase—from under their noses—listen. Will you settle for the moon? Glad to get the moon for you. Do you realize—”

“Certainly I realize. It’s a difficult errand. I doubt if there is another man anywhere, in the Army or out, who could safely be entrusted with it.”

He sure wanted that suitcase, to be ladling it out like that.

“Bushwah,” I said, and opened my door and crawled out, and headed for the stoop.

He snapped after me. “Where are you going?”

“To get a receptacle!” I called over my shoulder. “Do you think I’m going to hang it around my neck?”
—"Booby Trap", in Not Quite Dead Enough (#10)

Flattery will get you everywhere.

He was gazing at Wolfe with a certain expression, an expression I had often seen on the faces of people sitting in that chair looking at Wolfe. It reminded me of what so many out-of-town folks say about New York: that they love to visit the place, but you couldn’t pay them to live there. Me, I live there.
—"Booby Trap", in Not Quite Dead Enough (#10)

Proudly.

"I guess that’s about all. I just wanted you to know that I resent your making contemptuous remarks about your brain.”

Wolfe grunted. There was a silence. Then his eyes opened half way and he rumbled: “You’ve left one thing out.”
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

Archie has deduced that Wolfe was pretending to be clueless to catch the killer here, and lays out the proof to rebuke Wolfe if he thought he could fool Archie too.

“Archie. If I need to tell you, I do, that I have unqualified confidence in you and am completely satisfied with your performance in this case, as I have been in all past cases and expect to be in all future ones. Of course you tell lies and so do I, even to clients when it seems advisable, but you would never lie to me nor I to you in a matter where mutual trust and respect are involved. Your lack of brilliance may be regrettable but is really a triviality, and in any event two brilliant men under one roof would be intolerable. Your senseless peccadillocs, such as your refusal to use a noiseless typewriter, are a confounded nuisance, but this idiotic accusation that you lied in that report to Mr. Pine has put me in a different frame of mind about it. Keep your typewriter, but for heaven’s sake oil it.”
—Too Many Women (#12)

Since they share an office and Wolfe frequently requires full transcripts of every conversation related to a case be typed up, one might think a desire for a noiseless typewriter would be fairly reasonable, especially since he was going to pay for it. Archie was digging in his heels about that, but the cops taking the client's side in accusing Archie of falsifying a report to the client needles Wolfe in his pride so hard that he tells Archie to keep his typewriter in front of all of them.

“I believe this is about the worst I’ve ever done for you. Or for anybody.”

“That could still be true,” Wolfe said handsomely, “even if you had done well.”
—Too Many Women (#12)

“Satisfactory, Archie,” he muttered.

Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It’s childish.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

Evidently Wolfe isn't ignorant of the power of 'satisfactory', either.

”Incidentally, I noticed you gave yourself a chance to call it off, and also Sperling, but not me. You merely said that your base of operations will be known only to Mr. Goodwin, taking Mr. Goodwin for granted. What if he decides he’s not as vain as you are?”

Wolfe, who had put down a book by Laura Hobson to listen to my end of the talk with Fritz, and had picked it up again, scowled at me.

“You’re twice as vain as I am,” he said gruffly.

“Yeah, but it may work different. I may be so vain I won’t want me to take such a risk. I may not want to deprive others of what I’ve got to be vain about.”

“Pfui. Do I know you?”

“Yes, sir. As well as I know you.”

“Then don’t try shaking a bogy at me. How the devil could I contemplate such a plan without you?” He returned to the book.

I knew he thought he was handing me a compliment which should make me beam with pleasure, so I went and flopped on the bed to beam.
—The Second Confession (#14)

”It is satisfactory to have you back.” He got up and went.

I finished breakfast and looked through the morning paper, and went to the office. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a stack of unopened mail, but apparently he had worked his head off during my absence. Bills and other items, out of their envelopes, were neatly arranged on my desk, and the exposed sheet of my desk calendar said March ninth, today. I was touched.
—Murder by the Book (#18)

When we proceeded to the warm room there was a sight I really enjoyed: Wolfe’s face as he gazed at the P. Aphrodite sanderiana with its nineteen sprays. The admiration and the envy together made his eyes gleam as I had seldom seen them.
—”Door to Death”, in Three Doors to Death (#17)

When you get to watch a superfan nerd out about their fandom.

When I went to the hall for my hat and raincoat, Wolfe came along, and I was really touched, since he wasn’t through yet with his afterdinner coffee.

“I still don’t like the idea,” he insisted, “of your having that thing in your pocket. I think you should slip it inside your sock.”

“I don’t.” I was putting the raincoat on. “If I get frisked, a sock is as easy to feel as a pocket.”

“You’re sure that gun is loaded?”

“For God’s sake. I never saw you so anxious. Next you’ll be telling me to put on my rubbers.”

He even opened the door for me.
—”Disguise for Murder” in Curtains for Three (#19)

This was tough. I even found myself wishing I had got away two minutes sooner, and then, realizing that that would have been tougher—for him, at least—I went to the hall, crossed it to the dining room, entered and spoke.
—The Black Mountain (#22)

"There are good reasons why it would be better for you to stay here, but confound it, you’ve been too close to me too long. I’m too dependent on you. However, the decision is yours. I don’t claim the right to drag you into a predicament of mortal hazard and doubtful outcome.”
—The Black Mountain (#22)

He probably didn't doubt that Archie would come, though.

Characters:

1. Nero Wolfe

[A]dmiring Wolfe’s gall would be like admiring ice at the North Pole or green leaves in a tropical jungle.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

"I admit you're a great detective, the best orchid-grower in New York, a champion eater and beer-drinker, and genius.”
—”Help Wanted, Male” in Trouble in Triplicate (#15)

As Wolfe signed them he folded and inserted them, and even sealed the envelopes. Sometimes he has bursts of feverish energy that are uncontrollable.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

I was good and sore. For ten years I had been accustomed to being as sure of finding Nero Wolfe where I had left him as if he had been the Statue of Liberty, unless his house had burned down, and it was upsetting, not to mention humiliating, to find him flitting around like a hummingbird for a chance to lick the boots of a [...] sausage cook.
—Too Many Cooks (#5)

The extent of Wolfe's food-motivatedness is capable of surprising even Archie.

“You know very well what life consists of, it consists of the humanities, and among them is a decent and intelligent control of the appetites which we share with dogs. A man doesn’t wolf a carcass or howl on a hillside from dark to dawn; he eats well-cooked food, when he can get it, in judicious quantities; and he suits his ardor to his wise convenience.”
—Wolfe to Vukcic in Too Many Cooks (#5)

Easy for an ace person to say, Wolfe.

Wolfe’s lips twitched, but whether with amusement or fierce indignation I couldn’t tell. The way he takes an insult never depends on the insult but on how he happens to be feeling. At the peak of one of his lazy spells he wouldn’t have exerted himself to bat an eyelash even if someone accused him of specializing in divorce evidence.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

When it was over and I had turned the radio off Wolfe muttered:

“That’s an extremely dangerous woman.”

I would have been more impressed if I hadn’t known so well his conviction that all women alive are either extremely dangerous or extremely dumb.
—And Be a Villain (#13)

“Archie. That woman is a wanton maniac. It would be foolhardy to accept baseball tickets—”

The doorbell rang.

“If it’s her again,” Wolfe commanded me in quick panic, “don’t let her in!”
—Too Many Women (#12)

We have been given ample demonstration that Wolfe isn't jealous or threatened by Archie's extreme poly dating tendencies; his panic about a cougar giving Archie season tickets to baseball games is thus apparently just being scared by how overly handsy she was.

He stopped and opened his eyes to glare at the wife. “May I ask, madam, what you are looking so pleased about?” Wolfe couldn’t stand to see a woman look pleased.
—”Instead of Evidence” in Trouble in Triplicate (#15)

Wolfe wasn’t lifting a finger. It was not, properly speaking, a relapse. Relapse is my word for it when he gets so offended or disgusted by something about a case, or so appalled by the kind or amount of work it is going to take to solve it, that he decides to pretend he has never heard of it, and rejects it as a topic of conversation. This wasn’t like that. He just didn’t intend to work unless he had to. He was perfectly willing to read the pieces in the papers, or to put down his book and listen when I returned from one of my visits to Homicide. But if I tried to badger him into some mild exertion like hiring Saul and Fred and Orrie to look under some stones, or even thinking up a little errand for me, he merely picked up his book again.
—And Be a Villain (#13)

“Bosh.” He arose. “You would sentimentalize the multiplication table.”
—And Be a Villain (#13)

I didn’t like it at all, but when Wolfe has broken into a gallop what I like has about the weight of an undersized feather from a chicken’s neck.
—”Omit Flowers”, in Three Doors to Death (#17)

He couldn’t bear the idea of even his bitterest enemy missing a meal.
—"Bullet for One” in Curtains for Three (#19)

A trait that is repeatedly demonstrated by his urgently pressing meals and snacks on people who have visited his office to be interviewd.

Wolfe disliked motion, detested bumps, and had a settled notion that all the other cars had turned out for the express purpose of colliding with his.
—”Help Wanted, Male” in Trouble in Triplicate (#15)

He was showing off, and I approved. Only two days earlier I would have given ten to one that up in an airplane he wouldn’t have been able to remember the date of anything whatever, and here he was rattling off one twenty-two centuries back.
—The Black Mountain (#22)

1a. Wolfe making out with Lily Rowan in In the Best Families is the most 'Touch-Repulsed Acespec Queer Making Out with Their Queerplatonic Soulmate Partner's Girlfriend/BFF' thing that has ever happened

“Archie,” she said, “I knew darned well that something would happen someday to make up for all the time I’ve wasted on you. I just felt it would.”

I nodded. “Certainly. You’ll show a profit on the night even if you feed us sandwiches, especially since Pete is a light eater. He’s on a diet.”

“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t mean money, and you can go the limit on sandwiches. I meant the distinction you’ve brought me. I’m the only woman in America who has necked with Nero Wolfe. Nightmare, my eye. He has a flair.”
—In the Best Families (#16)

She moved to Wolfe, looking down at him. “Don’t be upset, Pete. I wouldn’t have known you from Adam, no one would; that wasn’t it. It’s my hero here. Archie’s an awful prude. He has been up against some tough ones, lots of them, and not once has he ever called on me to help. Never! A proud prude. Suddenly he calls me away from revelry—I might have been reveling for all he knew—to get into a car and be intimate with a stranger. There’s only one person on earth he would do that for: you. So if I was pretty ardent in the car, I knew what I was doing. And don’t worry about me—whatever you’re up to, my lips are sealed. Anyway, to me you will always be Pete. The only woman in America who has necked with Nero Wolfe—my God, I’ll treasure it forever. Now I’ll go make some sandwiches. What kind of a diet are you on?”

Wolfe said through his teeth, “I care for nothing.”
—In the Best Families (#16)

2. Archie

"To give you an idea how tricky I am, some people look under the bed at night, but I look in the bed, to make sure I’m not already there laying for me. Is the minute up?”

“You sound really dangerous."
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

This may be a slight factual exaggeration but is wholly in character as far as his tendency to quip.

"What I have in mind is a quality in you which I don’t at all understand but which I know you have. Its frequent result is a willingness on the part of young women to spend time in your company.”
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

Sounds kinda ace there, although Wolfe's imperviousness to charm and flirting may have other contributing factors too.

Since it said keep out, naturally my impulse was to go on in, but I restrained it and knocked.
—”Not Quite Dead Enough” (#10)

One of the few traits Archie has that I can relate to...

Saturday nights I usually take some person of an interesting sex to a hockey or basketball game, or maybe a fight at the Garden.
—Too Many Women (#12)

2a. The reason Archie isn't bi (or pan) is that people didn't know about bisexuality

I had just pushed the button when who should appear, mounting the steps to join us on the stoop, but the Army officer that they use for a model when they want to do a picture conveying the impression that masculine comeliness will win the war. I admit he was handsome; I admitted it to myself right then, when I first saw him.
—”Help Wanted, Male” in Trouble in Triplicate (#15)

I was surprised to realize that you could make out a case for calling Joe Groll handsome. They had overdone it a little on the ears, but on the whole he was at least up to grade if not fancy.
—”Instead of Evidence” in Trouble in Triplicate (#15)

Wolfe knocked on the door, and it opened, and facing us was a blond athlete not much older than me, with big bright blue eyes and his whole face ready to laugh. I never completely understand why a girl looks in any other direction when I am present, but I wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought if this specimen had been in sight.
—”Door to Death”, in Three Doors to Death (#17)

3. Saul

There in the small parlor sat a little guy with a big nose, in need of a shave, with an old brown cap hanging on his knee. He stood up and stuck out his hand and I took it with a grin.

“Hello, darling, I never would have thought that the time would come when you would look handsome to me. Turn around, how do you look behind?”
—Too Many Cooks (#5)

This is the first time Archie jokes with (well, at) Saul. Saul is all business, of course.

Saul Panzer, who was under size, who had a nose which could be accounted for only on the theory that a nose is all a face needs, and who always looked as if he had shaved the day before, was the best free-lance operative in New York. He was the only colleague I knew that I would give a blank check to and forget it.
—Too Many Women (#12)

one of the faces I like best, Saul Panzer’s
—Too Many Women (#12)

Saul, in a suit that didn’t fit, and needing a shave as usual, could do almost anything better than anyone I knew—even talk. They discussed plant germination, the meat shortage, books about Roosevelt, and the World Series.
—”Before I Die” in Trouble in Triplicate (#15)

Saul Panzer, the one guy I want within hearing the day I get hung on the face of a cliff with jet eagles zooming at me. With his saggy shoulders and his face all nose, he looks one-fifth as strong and hardy, and one-tenth as smart, as he really is.
—”Home to Roost” in Triple Jeopardy (#21)

“Saul will smell it. He’ll know.”

“Let him. He won’t know where she is, and even if he did, no matter. Who is more trustworthy, Saul or you?”

“I would say Saul. I have to watch myself pretty close.”
—The Black Mountain (#22)

Evidently Archie was in earnest about his trickiness.

I don’t think Fred and Orrie suspected they were just stringing beads, but Saul did, and Wolfe knew it. Thursday morning Wolfe told me it wouldn’t be necessary for Saul to report direct to him, that I could take it and relay it.

“No, sir,” I said firmly. “I’ll quit first. I’ll play my own part in the goddam farce if you insist on it, but I’m not going to try to convince Saul Panzer that I’m a halfwit. He knows better.”
—The Black Mountain (#22)

4. Fritz

Fritz, who understands me, had fresh hot oatmeal ready, the chill off my bottle of cream, the eggs waiting in the pan, the ham sliced thin for the broiler, the pancake batter mixed, the griddle hot, and the coffee steaming. I made a pass as if to kiss him on the cheek, he kept me off with a twenty-inch pointed knife, and I sat down and started the campaign against starvation with the Times propped up in front of me.
—Too Many Women (#12)

“If you need any help with all the ladies, Archie, for my age I am not to be ignored. A Swiss has a long usefulness.”
—Murder by the Book (#18)

5. Cramer & co

“No, thanks. I’m nervous.”

“You are,” Cramer growled. “The day you’re nervous I’ll shave with a butter knife."
—"Black Orchids" (#9)

It was a sign we were all good friends when Wolfe, speaking to Cramer, called me Archie. Usually it was Mr. Goodwin.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

So that was the state of mind the Inspector was in. As I proceeded to obey his command I tried to remember another occasion on which he had called me Archie, and couldn’t, in all the years I had known him. Of course after he had got some sleep and had a shower he would feel differently about it, but I put it away for some fitting moment in the future to remind him that he had called me Archie.
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

Cramer started for the door. I called after him:

“Hey, your package!”

He said over his shoulder, barely halting. “Oh, I forgot, that’s for you, Wolfe, hope you like it,” and was on his way. Judging from the time it took him to get on out and slam the door behind him, he must have double-quicked.

I went over and lifted the package from the floor, put it on Wolfe’s desk, and tore the green paper off, exposing the contents to view. The pot was a glazed sickening green. The dirt was just dirt. The plant was in fair condition, but there were only two flowers on it. I stared at it in awe.

“By God,” I said when I could speak, “he brought you an orchid.”

“Brassocattleya thorntoni,” Wolfe purred. “Handsome.”

“Nuts,” I said realistically. “You’ve got a thousand better ones. Shall I throw it out?”

“Certainly not. Take it up to Theodore.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. “Archie. One of your most serious defects is that you have no sentiment.”
—The Silent Speaker (#11)

A memorable incident that really sticks out. Cramer is often more irritating than the combative police Holmes and Poirot, for example, deal with, but this gesture is also further in the other direction than they go.

He not only wasn’t truculent; he was positively mushy. Usually he called me Goodwin. He called me Archie only when he wanted to peddle the impression that he regarded himself as one of the family, which he wasn’t.
—And Be a Villain (#13)

“It’s against Department regulations.”

“Indeed? I beg your pardon. It would be mutually helpful to share information, and it would waste my time and my client’s money to collect again the facts you already have, but of course a violation of regulations is unthinkable.”

Cramer glared at him. “You know,” he said, “one of the many reasons you’re hard to take is that when you’re being sarcastic you don’t sound sarcastic. That’s just one of your offensive habits.”
—Murder by the Book (#18)

”Have you ever known me to have to eat my words?”

“I’ve seen times when I would have liked to shove them down your throat.”

“But you never have.”
—”The Gun with Wings” in Curtains for Three (#19)

There were some city employees I liked, some I admired, some I had no feeling about, some I could have done without easy—and one whose ears I was going to twist someday. That was Rowcliff. He was tall, strong, handsome, and a pain in the neck.
—”Disguise for Murder” in Curtains for Three (#19)

I'm still earnestly waiting for this guy to get egg all over his face.

It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins. “Archie? Purley. I’m at the barber shop. We want you here quick.”

Two things told me it was no hostile mandate: his tone and the “Archie.” The nature of my encounters with him usually had him calling me Goodwin, but occasionally it was Archie.
I responded in kind. “I’m busy but I guess so. If you really want me. Do you care to specify?”

“When you get here. You’re needed, that’s all. Grab a cab.”
—"The Cop-Killer” in Triple Jeopardy (#21)

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Thanks for these; really fun to read these highlights.

Wasn't The Black Mountain weird?

[cimorene]

So weird. I liked it, but dang.

I had forgot The Golden Spiders because I have it in an omnibus, so I'm just starting it now and Wolfe interacting with a child is hilarious 🤣

[princessofgeeks]

\o/

[cimorene]

I'm mostly through Might As Well Be Dead. This has way more of Saul, although he's being loyal and efficient rather than exchanging quips so far. But this book could probably be the foundation for people's shippy fic by itself.

A really good one, also!

I was kinda expecting Keems to disappear, but I had no idea he was gonna get killed off for stakes!!

[princessofgeeks]

I can't bring to mind the plot of that one... will have to revisit! I have pretty much all of them in my Kindle account.

[cimorene]

Their missing person turns out to have just been convicted of murder but he was framed. He was in love with the victim's wife, but the victim was in some shady embezzlement and his conspirator kills Johnny Keems as well as two other people with incriminating evidence.

[princessofgeeks]

I am definitely going to have to reread this one. Usually a sentence or two of the plot and they come right back.