A Nero Wolfe Mystery

Archie:
Nero Wolfe gets what Nero Wolfe wants, or he throws a tantrum and I get fired.

Nero Wolfe:
May I sit down?

All:
NO!

Nero Wolfe:
I must overrule you.

[Wolfe fakes a nervous breakdown for Dr. Vollmer]

Nero Wolfe:
Do you want to pay two dollars a pound for butter? Fifty cents for shoestrings? A dollar for a bottle of beer? Hmph. Well? Confound it, answer me!

Archie:
I don't know if it's the willies or what, but as you can see -

Nero Wolfe:
Just because I ask you to lend me five dollars until the beginning of the next war, does not mean that I'm a frugal person.

Dr. Vollmer:
Who wrote this script for him?

Archie:
It's been like this ever since I brought him home.

Dr. Vollmer:
He's been out of the house?

Nero Wolfe:
Archie tells me that you're masquerading as a doctor. Bah! They'll take your clothes off too! Oh, yes, they'll examine every inch of your skin, and they'll find the mark. The one that entitles you to a discount.

[Wolfe pretends to have lost his mind]

Nero Wolfe:
Aren't you a physician? Don't you know a nervous breakdown when you see one?

Dr. Vollmer:
Yes. Yes, I do.

Nero Wolfe:
Well, then, what's the matter with it?

Dr. Vollmer:
It doesn't seem, um, typical.

Nero Wolfe:
That's a faulty observation! That's a defect in your training! Specifically, it's a persecution complex, you idiot!

Dr. Vollmer:
And who's been doing the persecuting?

[Feigning a nervous breakdown]

Nero Wolfe:
You're not going to cut me! They're coming in hordes! I see them on chariots with spiked wheels, waving insolent banners of inflation! Oh! Archie! They're pelting me with worthless coins!

[repeated line]

Archie:
Nuts!

[repeated line]

Nero Wolfe:
Pfui!

Archie Goodwin:
That afternoon I had all of Nero wolfe that I could stand. I wasn't blaming him. We were two months into the great meat shortage. The boys overseas needed the rations, and there was nothing left for the loyal homefront. But to Nero Wolfe a meal without meat is an insult.

Archie 2:
[as Archie opens the door] Your name's Goodwin.

Archie Goodwin:
Thanks. How much do I weigh?

Inspector Cramer:
How are you?

Nero Wolfe:
I am the way I always am before lunch - hungry!

Archie Goodwin:
[to Dazy] Listen, uh, whatever it is you wanted, Wolfe wants no part of it. Now, I know that I'm not laughing it off. People that laugh things off with you end up at funerals playing the lead.

Archie:
I never implied that I had the slightest notion who did it, how or why. I'm only saying Faith Usher put nothing whatsoever in her glass of champagne.

Inspector Cramer:
So you won't discuss it, hmm?

Archie:
I won't? [looks around, puzzled]

Archie:
What are we doing?

Inspector Cramer:
[looks cranky]

Archie:
As a dancing partner, Rose was not a bargain. She was equipped for it physically, but she danced cheerfully. You can't dance cheerfully. Dancing's too important.

Nero Wolfe:
Nothing is as pitiable as a man afraid of a woman. Is he guiless?

Archie:
Anybody who takes Wolfe down a peg renders a service to nature.

Austin 'Dinky' Byne:
To tell the truth, I'm in a bit of a mess myself, or I will be if you like to see me squirm.

Archie:
Depends on what kind of squirmer you are.

Archie:
She was a good dancer, but she was also a very good drinker.

Archie:
[narrating as he oils his pistols and then his typewriter] Nero Wolfe is a creature of habit. Every morning, from nine until eleven, he tends his 10,000 orchids and I, Archie Goodwin, his confidential secretary and legman extraordinaire, tend to business. And since there wasn't any business to tend to, I was preparing for action - if and when it ever came.

Margot Dickey:
[cattily interrupting Lily and Archie dancing] Archie's such a good dancer. Are you his Monday night partner?

Lily Rowan:
Ah, yes.

Margot Dickey:
I'm Wednesdays.

Lily Rowan:
Monday nights - regular as pot roast in a diner.

Nero Wolfe:
Christmas - an excuse for wretched excess aptly symbolized by an elephantine elf who delivers gifts to the whole world in one night.

Archie Goodwin:
I'd rather have to eat all the snow that had fallen since noon than explain the wedding license to Stebbins and Cramer.

Archie Goodwin:
I got Margot a license to marry, not a license to kill.

Kurt Bottweil:
I always have a Pernot after lunch. It's my secret public vice.

Archie Goodwin:
Cramer wasn't buying any part of it, which was unjustified, since some of it was true.

Carl Vardas:
You're not a serious person.

Archie Goodwin:
And proud of it!

Archie Goodwin:
[about Janet] Well, I don't have to ask if you heard it all. If you shoot her, send her brain to Johns Hopkins.

Sergeant Purley Stebbins:
[referring to Janet] You know, I ain't sold she's as unfurnished in her head as she lets on.

Nero Wolfe:
Archie, don't try to think. You'll injure yourself.

Mrs. Ballou:
I love wolfhounds. They love me.

Archie Goodwin:
[humoring her] Yes.

Mrs. Ballou:
When I'm in the country, my eight favorites sleep in my bedroom.

Archie Goodwin:
Really? Your husband, uh, allows that, huh?

Mrs. Ballou:
I doubt he even knows it.

Archie Goodwin:
[to Julie] I doubt you could be smooth-tongued into anything that you wouldn't want to be smooth-tongued into... but more on that later.

Archie Goodwin:
What do you swear on? The Bible?

Julie Jaquette:
No, some of the men in it are awful. So are the women. We'll shake.

Julie Jaquette:
[describing her dead friend] She had a good, big heart, but she never let it bleed.

Nero Wolfe:
If Orrie killed that woman, we are not obliged to thwart the agents of justice. If he didn't kill her, I have an obligation I can't ignore. You know I have no affection for him. The question is, is he capable of murder? Did he kill this woman? Fred. You have known Orrie longer than I have. What do you say?

Fred Durkin:
Jesus.

Archie Goodwin:
Oh, that's helpful. Did he kill her?

Fred Durkin:
I say he didn't.

Nero Wolfe:
Is that your considered opinion?

Fred Durkin:
To be honest, no. Orrie has always done whatever he felt like with women, and they've let him. So if this Isabel Kerr got in his way, really blocked it... Well, I don't know. I mean I think I know. He didn't.

Nero Wolfe:
That's hardly decisive. Saul?

Saul Panzer:
No.

Nero Wolfe:
Is that an opinion, or a gesture?

Saul Panzer:
A conclusion. Make it fifty to one. I'm not saying I'm superior to Archie. He's just not conceited enough to see it.

Nero Wolfe:
Pfui. That is flummery.

Saul Panzer:
No, sir. Say he did plan to kill her. That means when he planned the break-in with Archie on Friday night, he was setting Archie up to find the body. There's no way that he would deliberately arrange to sit facing him and frame a deal like that.

Archie Goodwin:
All right, cross it off. Let's say he went there Saturday morning, no matter why. And she stung him. And he flipped.

Saul Panzer:
And he killed her. Okay. He goes back to his tailing job. Mr. Wolfe, did Archie get any phone calls yesterday?

Nero Wolfe:
No.

Saul Panzer:
Yeah. That's what settles it.

Archie Goodwin:
Good. Wonderful. Explain.

Saul Panzer:
What is Orrie's worst fault?

Archie Goodwin:
He pushes.

Saul Panzer:
Exactly. And you called him. If he had killed her he wouldn't wait for you to call, he would have pushed. He would have called you. Damn it, he's not some stranger that we have to guess about; we know him like a book. Mr. Wolfe, if you want to use me, it's on me, expenses included. I have no more affection for Orrie than you have, but I would want to back up my vote.

Fred Durkin:
Me too. I voted no.

Archie Goodwin:
The trouble is, I'm personally involved. But I would hate to embarrass Saul, so I guess I'll have to switch and vote no, too.

Nero Wolfe:
Grrrhhh.

Archie Goodwin:
[voiceover] It was hard to take. The idea of working for nothing.

Sergeant Purley Stebbins:
[referring to Jet] He should have bit you when you kidnapped him.

Archie Goodwin:
Ah, you got it wrong, Purley. It's women who bite me. You know, I've often wondered who bites you. What bites you? Where do they bite you?

Archie Goodwin:
[referring to Jewel] She had the damsel-in-distress bit down to a science.

Saul Panzer:
[speaking of security at the flower show] You should put your foot down, Archie. From the security standpoint with all his enemies in New York, just let people walk in?

Archie Goodwin:
Security's simple. You just don't let in anyone who's not wearing pearls.

Archie Goodwin:
[after speaking on the phone] That's Mr. Wolfe. He needs me upstairs for protection. He apparently didn't realize there's women in the Manhattan Flower Club.

Nero Wolfe:
Pay no attention, Fritz! We still have plenty of ham left?

Fritz Brenner:
Yes, sir!

Nero Wolfe:
Good!

[lividly angry]

Nero Wolfe:
Sandwiches for us, for the guests in the front room...

[screaming]

Nero Wolfe:
but not for the police! The police shall receive no sandwiches!

Nero Wolfe:
I nearly cracked my head using my brains.

Nero Wolfe:
The police shall receive NO SANDWICHES!

Saul Panzer:
I was watching Archie talking to a man. Archie asked the man his name; the man stormed out. It was Malcolm Vedder.

Inspector Cramer:
How did you know what his name was?

Saul Panzer:
I checked him in.

Inspector Cramer:
You saw him once.

Saul Panzer:
I was working the door. I did my job.

Inspector Cramer:
[pauses and puts unlit cigar in his mouth, then growls around it] I don't believe you.

Saul Panzer:
[With finality] Mr. Wolfe does. Archie does.

Archie Goodwin:
[waiting for an apprehensive Wolfe to get out of the car and step in the snow] Let's do it! C'mon while we're young! [sarcastically commenting on Wolfe's awkwardness walking in the snow] Indeed, just like Ray Bolger!

Archie Goodwin:
[reacting to a proposed bribe by Mrs. Pitcairn] I was liking this more and more. We had our pick of goin' to jail and taking fifty grand.

Nero Wolfe:
[affronted] I fully expect you to lie! A fool could solve a case if everyone told the truth!

Nero Wolfe:
All I want is a talk with you people. May I sit down?

Mr. Joseph Pitcairn, Donald Pitcairn, Sybil Pitcairn:
No!

Nero Wolfe:
I must overrule you.

Nero Wolfe:
[after he has fallen while tangled in brush] It was as if a serpent had entangled my legs!

Archie Goodwin:
Get up. Get up. GET UP!

Nero Wolfe:
Did you see that? Did you witness that? Saul?

Saul Panzer:
Yeah, I saw it, Mr. Wolfe. He went for 'ya.

Archie Goodwin:
As I entered the front room, there were words on the tip of my tongue - apparently that's as far as they got.

Archie Goodwin:
I decided not to waste the first lie of the day and tell her the absolute truth.

Rita Ramsey Sorrell:
You mentoned my husband. Are you brave?

Archie Goodwin:
Well, I would be if you were watching.

Archie Goodwin:
If you're a real top flight detective like me, you'd rather go after an alibi than the truth.

Saul Panzer:
[During poker game] Why do you always do that?

Orrie Cather:
What?

Saul Panzer:
You lose, you keep losing, and yet you bet.

Lon Cohen:
You know why? [faking Irish accent] As me old mother used to say, "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her [glares at Orrie] think."

Jane Geer:
Fat coward!

Nero Wolfe:
I hired this man, not out of cowardice but conceit. I am insufferably conceited. Should I be killed, I doubted that the murderer would ever be caught.

Archie Goodwin:
Now listen, Tiger Eyes, do you see me sneaking up behind you?

Jane Geer:
I should have known you have so many women you have to issue ration coupons, and yet you find so much time for me.

Archie Goodwin:
Well, you know why?

Jane Geer:
Do I?

Archie Goodwin:
Tou've got a mirror.

Jane Geer:
[pleased and purring] Mmmmm.

Archie Goodwin:
[to Wolfe] Look, I admit that you're a great detective, a champion beer drinker, and a genius, but this is a hell of a way to spend a war. If Carpenter calls, and you tell him you can't do without me, I am going to put gristle in your crabmeeat and sugar in your beer.

Spiros Papps:
You know, there is nothing as petty as a big man. Little men are rarely as petty as big men.

Adria Kelefy:
[to Archie as he's fishing] Who's the biggest fish you ever caught?

Archie Goodwin:
The biggest fish I ever caught - that'd have to be, uh, Frankie the, uh, Shark D'Angelo.

Adria Kelefy:
Was he difficult to catch?

Archie Goodwin:
Yes, he put up quite a struggle.

Nero Wolfe:
[to Police Captain Jasper Colvin] I resent your tone, your diction, your manner and your methods!

Lucy Valdon:
My only controversial hobby is killer fog.

Archie Goodwin:
[taken aback] Fog kills?

Lucy Valdon:
32 people in 1948 - small little coal town in Pennsylvania.

Archie Goodwin:
[sarcastically] What'd they do? Get lost in the fog and fall into the mine? Something like that?

Lucy Valdon:
There is no humor in it.

Archie Goodwin:
[Chastened] Um, oh, none really.

Archie Goodwin:
Miss Tenzer probably aroused in men the feelings necessary for the propagation of the species.

Anne Tenzer:
That's my one fault. I'm not really interested in anything that doesn't involve me.

Nero Wolfe:
[addressing the suspects] To get rid of the baby, she enlisted the help of a friend - a man. Let's call him X.

Manuel Upton:
[sarcastically] Make it Z. X is overworked.

Lucy Valdon:
Were you followed?

Archie Goodwin:
Only if he was very good.

Archie Goodwin:
[on seeing Lucy's mansion] It was a modest little cottage with just enough room for the Russian army.

Lucy Valdon:
It is nonsense to suspect me.

Nero Wolfe:
Nothing is nonsense concerning the vagaries of human conduct.

Lon Cohen:
Goodwin, you've got the nerve of a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

Nero Wolfe:
Nothing corrupts a man so deeply as writing a book.

Sergeant Purley Stebbins:
[nastily as he sees Archie with a plate of jail food] What's the matter, Goodwin? Not gourmet enough for you?

Archie Goodwin:
[sardonically] Edible would have been enough.

Archie Goodwin:
It's un-American not to earn as much money as you can.

Nero Wolfe:
As soon as I heard that girl's voice, I knew the devil was around.

Archie Goodwin:
[referring to Neya] She was a queer combination of don't-touch-me and come-hither. Right now it was all come-hither.

Archie Goodwin:
[referring to Madame Zorka] She looked like the picture in my mother's old Bible of the dame that cut off Samson's hair.

Nat Driscoll:
I like this place, Miltan. I've been overweight for years, and this is the only thing I can do to sweat that is any fun.

Inspector Cramer:
I hate these foreign mixups. Give me an American murder, an American motive.

Nero Wolfe:
Cicero warns us that the more laws a country has, the less justice there will be.

Nero Wolfe:
I carry this fat to insulate my feelings.

Sergeant Purley Stebbins:
So watcha got in the package?

Archie Goodwin:
Oh, uh, daggers, uh, narcotics, smuggled goods, and a small illegal immigrant. You wanna have a look?

Sergeant Purley Stebbins:
Go to Hell!

Archie Goodwin:
Alrighty, well, see ya on the corner of Fire and Brimstone.

Nero Wolfe:
Money and morals are barely on speaking terms.

Nero Wolfe:
[gleefully to the murderer] This is not the trap. The trap has already been sprung and you are caught in it. My rancor is appeased.

Inspector Cramer:
[impatiently, taking the prisoner away] That's enough of that! I didn't agree to let you preach all night!

Lieutenant Rowcliff:
And you had the gall to come here and try to cover for him by telling another outrageous lie.

Archie Goodwin:
You know, I've taken great pleasure in lying to you in the past and surely will lie to you again

Archie Goodwin:
If you get disbarred for this operation, I can get you a job folding napkins.

Bernard Quest:
I have been in this company 62 years. In 1933, when I was made Vice-President by Nathan Eads, he promised me that one day I would be given a substantial share in the corporation. In 1942 he died, and when his will was read, I found he had broken his promise to me, and so I decided to kill his daughter Priscilla. She was 15 years old. I decided to strangle her.

Viola Duday:
[screaming] Bernie!

Sarah Jaffee:
[shocked] My God!

Nero Wolfe:
I even worked out the details - where to find a rope, how to employ it, what to do with afterward, and I practiced... I practiced by strangling myself.

Nero Wolfe:
[coughs while Wolfe nods in understanding] But that was ten years ago, and in the end, I finally came to my senses. I didn't kill her then and... Oh, what's the point? I'm too old, my children are grown, and I have everything I need.

Nero Wolfe:
[laconically] Oh, perhaps you should have strangled yourself.

Nero Wolfe:
So what happens today? Mr. Rowcliff took advantage of the absence of Mr. Goodwin whom he fears and petulantly envies and entered my house by force.

Lieutenant Rowcliff:
That's a lie! I rang - !

Nero Wolfe:
SHUT UP!

Nero Wolfe:
[pauses] He was ass enough to think I would speak with him. Naturally, I ordered him out. And when I persisted in my refusal, I turned to leave...

Nero Wolfe:
[growling]... and he put a hand on me! He then took me into custody, under warrant, conducted me out of my home, and in a rickety old police car, with a headstrong and paroxysmal driver, brought me to this building. I had assumed charitably that it was some major misapprehension that had driven Mr. Rowcliff to this frenzied zeal. But I learned from you, Mr. Bowen, that it was merely a fit of nincompoopery! That you - you think that I have a client. That I know something you don't know and would like to and that you can bully it out of me. Well, you can't! I haven't got it! But you are correct in assuming that I have a client, I do.

Lieutenant Rowcliff:
I knew it!

Nero Wolfe:
As you may know, Mr. Goodwin is not indifferent to those attributes of young women which constitute the chief reliance of our race in our gallant struggle against the menace of the insects. He is also... especially vulnerable to young women who have a knack for stimulating his love of chivalry and adventure. Priscilla Eads was such a woman. Within hours of her eviction by him at my behest, she was brutally murdered. He then bounded out of my house, like a man obsessed, after telling me he was going single-handedly after the murderer. It was... pathetic. But also, thoroughly admirable. And your callous and churlish treatment of him leave me with no alternative: I am at his service.

Lieutenant Rowcliff:
You mean Archie Goodwin is your client?

District Attorney T. Bowen:
All that rigamarole was leading up to that?

Archie Goodwin:
[kicks door open] I'm hungry. I had a soda fountain lunch. I could eat a porcupine with quills on it. Let's go home.

[Wolfe and Goodwin walk to the door. Wolfe taps Archie on the shoulder. They stop and turn around]

Nero Wolfe:
[to Rowcliff and Bowen] A paradise for puerility!

Nero Wolfe:
You are disheveled.

Archie:
Also dislumbered. Also disgruntled.

Nero Wolfe:
You say, "stop him." I take it you mean, compel the FBI to stop annoying you?

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
Yes.

Nero Wolfe:
How?

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
I don't know.

Nero Wolfe:
Nor do I. No, madam. You invited it, and you have it.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
[trying to goad Wolfe] I thought you were afraid of nobody and nothing.

Nero Wolfe:
[unruffled] I can dodge folly without backing into fear.

Sarah Dacos:
Say, Mr. Goodwin, you could have gone upstairs. I can't hear through walls.

Archie:
No? You might be wired for sound and there's only one way to find out and... I'm not sure you'd enjoy it.

Sarah Dacos:
How do you know I wouldn't?

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
[gushing] Is there anything you can't do?

Nero Wolfe:
Yes, madame, there is. I couldn't put sense into a fool's brain if I tried.

[first lines]

Archie:
[narrating] Since it was the deciding factor, I might as well begin by describing it. It was a pink slip of paper three inches wide and seven inches long, and it told the First National City Bank to pay to the order of Nero Wolfe fifty thousand dollars. Signed, Rachel Bruner, the widow of Lloyd Bruner. At least eight of the several dozen buildings Bruner left his wife were more than twelve stories high.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
Do I need to tell you who I am?

Nero Wolfe:
Mr. Goodwin named you, and I read newspapers.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
I know you do. I know a great deal about you. That's why I'm here. I want you to do something perhaps no other man alive could do. You read books too? Have you read one entitled "The F.B.I. Nobody Knows?"

Nero Wolfe:
Yes.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
Did it impress you?

Nero Wolfe:
[pausing] Yes.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
Favorably?

Nero Wolfe:
Yes.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
My goodness, you're curt.

Nero Wolfe:
I answered your questions, madam.

Mrs. Rachel Bruner:
I know you did. I can be curt, too.

Nero Wolfe:
[demanding to know about the Van Gogh painting on the wall] I'm the inquisator, Miss Hart, not you! Where did you get that piece?

Alice Hart:
That's none of yer business!

Nero Wolfe:
[indignantly] It most certainly is not, but I will tell you that there will be no limit to my impertinence with you!

Archie Goodwin:
Naturally the first time Wolfe was under his roof Saul wanted to give him good grub. Okay! But three kinds of cheese was pounding it on!

Archie Goodwin:
By 8 o'clock Wolfe had put away three orders of chili con carne at a little dump in Harlem, where a guy named Dixie knew how to make it.

Nero Wolfe:
Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter. It begins...

D.A. Mandelbaum:
Did Leonard Ashe say anything else to you? [pause as Wolfe is contemplating his answer] Mr. Wolfe?

Nero Wolfe:
I would like to be sure I understand the question. Do you mean, what he said that day, or on a later occasion?

D.A. Mandelbaum:
That day, of course. But... what other occasion?

Nero Wolfe:
Are you asking me?

D.A. Mandelbaum:
In your deposition, you swore you hadn't met Leonard Ashe before or after July 13th.

Nero Wolfe:
That was true then. We met again.

D.A. Mandelbaum:
When?

Nero Wolfe:
In this building at half past eight this morning.

D.A. Mandelbaum:
You met and spoke with the defendant in this building at half past eight this morning, today?

Nero Wolfe:
His wife arranged to see him, and she allowed me to accompany her.

D.A. Mandelbaum:
Was Mr. Donovan, the defense counsel, present?

Nero Wolfe:
No,sir.

Jimmy Donovan:
Your Honor, I would like to state for the record that I knew nothing of this.

D.A. Mandelbaum:
Don't you know that it's a misdemeanor for a witness for the state to speak with a defendant charged with a felony?

Nero Wolfe:
We didn't discuss my testimony.

D.A. Mandelbaum:
What did you discuss?

Nero Wolfe:
Matters which I thought would be of interest to him.

D.A. Mandelbaum:
What exactly did you say, Mr. Wolfe?

Archie Goodwin:
*narrating* The fat son of a gun had put it over. Having asking him directly, Mandelbaum couldn't possibly keep Wolfe's theories from the jury unless Jimmy Donovan was a sap.

Judge Corbett:
Do you wish to withdraw the question, Mr. Mandelbaum?

D.A. Mandelbaum:
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm absolutely fascinated, you didn't discuss your testimony, what did you discuss?

Archie Goodwin:
In the land of the secretaries a moment can mean anything from ten seconds to ten minutes.

Phoebe Gunther:
I have nothing to lie about.

Nero Wolfe:
Phooey! Everybody has something to lie about!

Nero Wolfe:
A woman who is not a fool is dangerous.

Archie Goodwin:
The scientific name for that disease of you got is acute malignant optimism.

Frank Erskine Sr.:
What opinions have you formed about it?

Nero Wolfe:
Opinions from experts cost money, Mr. Erskine.

Nero Wolfe:
I resent your tone, your diction, your manners, and your methods.

Nero Wolfe:
Of all the species, man is the only species who knows in advance what will kill him... his insatiable curiosity.

Austin Hough:
Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out. Treason doth never prosper. Fear not, Mr. Goodwin, I am laden with neither.

Meg Duncan:
I wish I had clawed your eyes out!

Archie Goodwin:
[nonplussed] Can I get your autograph?

Archie Goodwin:
Do you like to watch?

Meg Duncan:
[pausing in a sexy tone] I like to BE watched.

Archie Goodwin:
[casually] Yeh? Well, watch out.

Archie Goodwin:
[after Lon refers to him as Wolfe's lacky] Hold on! The whole world knows I'm not a lacky. I'm a, uh, flunkie.

Archie Goodwin:
If you forget my curiosity about Thomas Yaeger...

Lon Cohen:
Okay.

Archie Goodwin:
...I will put you on my Christmas list.

Lon Cohen:
Christmas? Cohen is spelled C - O - H - E - N.

Archie Goodwin:
Too many clients are worse than too few.

Nero Wolfe:
A modern satyr is part man, part pig, part jack-ass. He hasn't even the charm of the roguish; he doesn't lean gracefully against a tree with flute in hand. The only quality he has preserved from his Attic ancestors is his lust, and he gratifies it in the dark corners of other men's beds or hotel rooms, not in the shade of an olive tree on a sunny hillside. The preposterous bower of carnality you have described is a sorry makeshift, but at least Mr. Yeager tried. A pig and a jack-ass yes, but the flute strain was in him too, as it once was in me, in my youth. No doubt he deserved to die, but I would welcome a sufficient inducement to expose his killer.

"I can dodge folly, without backing into fear."

"The Doorbell Rang"