Death of a Doxy
Death of a Doxy is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by Viking Press in 1966.
Plot introduction
Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest. He is arrested when she turns up dead.Orrie is the only one of Wolfe's operatives to have the plot of two Stout books turn on his actions: Death of a Doxy and Stout's final work, A Family Affair.
Plot summary
Orrie is finally going to tie the knot. He's engaged to marry Jill Hardy, a stewardess. But for months, Orrie's also been keeping company with Isabel Kerr, an ex-showgirl. Orrie has some time available because Jill works international flights. Isabel has time available because she no longer performs: rather, she occupies a plush apartment that's paid for by another gentleman friend who visits her just two or three times a week.Isabel objects to Orrie's marriage plans. She has taken some of his personal and professional belongings and stashed them in her apartment. Isabel threatens to show them to Jill and thus quash the marriage. So, Orrie asks Archie to get into Isabel's apartment, find his possessions, and get them back. When Archie does enter the apartment, he finds not Orrie's belongings but Isabel's body. Archie withdraws to meet with Orrie, but otherwise keeps the news to himself.
Isabel's sister Stella later discovers the body. The police find Orrie's possessions in the apartment and arrest him on suspicion of murder. In a meeting to consider whether Orrie is guilty, Wolfe, Archie, and Fred are all unsure, but Saul—via some convoluted reasoning—concludes that he is innocent, and Wolfe undertakes to demonstrate it.
Wolfe must determine who knew about Isabel's apartment. Orrie has given Archie some names—Avery Ballou, who pays the bills, Stella Fleming and her husband Barry, and a nightclub singer named Julie Jaquette. Archie visits Stella and Barry, and learns that Stella is frantic to keep a lid on the nature of her sister's living arrangements. Stella's concern for Isabel's reputation is such that she tries to claw Archie's face when he refers to Isabel as a "doxy".
Archie corrals a reluctant Ballou, and Wolfe coerces his cooperation by threatening disclosure of his relationship with Isabel. It turns out that Ballou has already been subjected to blackmail, by someone named Milton Thales. Ballou thinks that Thales is really Orrie, but Wolfe deduces Thales' true identity and assumes that he is Isabel's murderer.
Wolfe sends Saul to bring Julie Jaquette. When she dances into Wolfe's office, Miss Jaquette puts on a performance, first singing and then demanding to see Wolfe's orchids. She displays a cynicism regarding human behavior that Wolfe regards as similar to his own. Julie agrees to act as bait for the murderer and is nearly killed herself. For her protection, she is moved into the brownstone, where she helps Wolfe and Archie force Thales' hand after Wolfe offers $50,000 cash for her assistance.
The unfamiliar word
"Like all of us, Wolfe has his favorite words, phrases, and sayings," wrote William S. Baring-Gould. "Among the words, many are unusual and some are abstruse."Nero Wolfe's erudite vocabulary is one of the hallmarks of the character. Examples of unfamiliar words—or unfamiliar uses of words that some would otherwise consider familiar—are found throughout the corpus. Death of a Doxy contains several examples, including the following:
- "Incumbency". Chapter 7; perhaps unfamiliar in the sense that Wolfe uses it: "Mr. Cather has worked for me, on occasion, for years, and I am under an incumbency."
- "Strephon". Chapter 7. "Strephon is the lover of Urania in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia," wrote Rev. Frederick G. Gotwald in The Nero Wolfe Companion. "It became the conventional name for a lover in literature." Dating to 1580, the character later appears in Jonathan Swift's "Strephon and Chloe" ; Happy Arcadia, a one-act musical play with libretto by W. S. Gilbert; and Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe.
- "Juridically". Chapter 13.
- "Chaldean". Chapter 16.
Cast of characters
- Nero Wolfe: The private investigator
- Archie Goodwin: Wolfe's assistant
- Orrie Cather: An operative frequently in Wolfe's employ, along with Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin. Orrie's activities in this book are very limited, but the plot centers on his dalliance with Isabel Kerr.
- Jill Hardy: An airline attendant, then termed "stewardess", and Orrie's fiancée
- Isabel Kerr: The murder victim, occupant of a plush apartment, of whom a newspaper wrote, "It does not appear that Miss Kerr was employed anywhere or engaged in any regular activity."
- Stella Fleming: Isabel's sister, whose greatest fear is that Isabel's lifestyle will be publicized
- Barry Fleming: Stella's husband, a mathematics professor
- Avery Ballou: A CEO, a devotee of the works of Rudyard Kipling, and the source of Miss Kerr's rent and other living expenses
- Julie Jaquette : A successful nightclub singer and Isabel Kerr's best friend
- Inspector Cramer: Representing Manhattan Homicide
Reviews and commentary
- Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime—First-rate Stout done at the age of 80. The tightness of the plot, the wit, and the people are done with sureness and speed, so that the book, though short, gives one the sense of having lived through a long stretch of tense expectation. New roles, too, for Orrie Cather, Cramer, and Wolfe in relation to a murder which they are not asked to investigate. Wolfe gets his $50,000 fee, which one hopes he splits with the author.
- Terry Teachout, About Last Night, —Rex Stout's witty, fast-moving prose hasn't dated a day, while Wolfe himself is one of the enduringly great eccentrics of popular fiction. I've spent the past four decades reading and re-reading Stout's novels for pleasure, and they have yet to lose their savor ... It is to revel in such writing that I return time and again to Stout's books, and in particular to The League of Frightened Men, Some Buried Caesar, The Silent Speaker, Too Many Women, Murder by the Book, Before Midnight, Plot It Yourself, Too Many Clients, The Doorbell Rang, and Death of a Doxy, which are for me the best of all the full-length Wolfe novels.
Adaptations
''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' (A&E Network)
An adaptation of Death of a Doxy opened the second season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery. Directed by Timothy Hutton from a teleplay by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, "Death of a Doxy" aired April 14, 2002, on A&E.Timothy Hutton is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast include Colin Fox, Bill Smitrovich, Conrad Dunn, Trent McMullen, Fulvio Cecere, Kari Matchett, James Tolkan, Christine Brubaker, Carlo Rota, Nicky Guadagni, Hayley Verlyn, Janine Theriault, George Plimpton and Julian Richings.
In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small, the soundtrack includes music by Rick Cassman and Vyv Hope-Scott, Graham de Wilde, Antonín Dvořák, Ken Miller and David Steinberg.
In North America, A Nero Wolfe Mystery is available on Region 1 DVD from A&E Home Video. The DVD release presents the 4:3 pan and scan version of "Death of a Doxy" rather than A&E's letterbox version.
"Death of a Doxy" is one of the Nero Wolfe episodes released on Region 2 DVD in the Netherlands by Just Entertainment, under license from FremantleMedia Enterprises. A Nero Wolfe Mystery—Serie 2 was the first DVD release of the international version of the episode, which includes a brief closing scene in which Orrie visits the brownstone. The Netherlands release has optional Dutch subtitles and, like the A&E DVD release, presents the episode in 4:3 pan and scan rather than its aspect ratio for widescreen viewing.
''Nero Wolfe'' (Paramount Television)
Death of a Doxy was adapted as "What Happened to April", the ninth episode of Nero Wolfe, an NBC TV series starring William Conrad as Nero Wolfe and Lee Horsley as Archie Goodwin. Other members of the regular cast include George Voskovec, Robert Coote, George Wyner and Allan Miller. Guest stars include Richard Anderson, Deborah Fallender and Laurie Heineman. Directed by Edward M. Abroms from a teleplay by Stephen Downing, "What Happened to April" aired March 20, 1981.Publication history
- 1966, New York: The Viking Press, August 19, 1966, hardcover
- 1966, New York: Viking, October 1966, hardcover
- 1966, Toronto Star Weekly, abridged, October 1966
- 1966, Toronto: Macmillan, 1966, hardcover
- 1967, London: Collins Crime Club, June 5, 1967, hardcover
- 1967, Argosy, June 1967
- 1967, New York: Bantam #F3476, August 1967, paperback
- 1969, London: Fontana, 1969, paperback
- 1995, New York: Bantam Crime Line October 1995, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Sandra West Prowell
- 2002, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters July 2002, audio cassette
- 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline July 21, 2010, e-book