REX STOUT – Champagne for One. Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin #31. Viking, hardcover, 1958. Bantam, paperback, April 1960. Reprinted many times since.

   Not only was this a long-delayed return visit to the brownstone mansion on West 35th Street for me, it’s also an impossible crime murder mystery — double the pleasure! And the only reason the cops cannot call the death of Faith Usher a suicide is that Archie Goodwin is there and watching as the dead girl is served a single glass of champagne with (apparently) no one else at the party able to drop the fast-acting cyanide into it between the time it was poured and it was served to her.

   This all takes place at a “coming out” party for a group of unwed mothers, guests of a large philanthropic organization. Nero Wolfe’s investigation, provoked in part to stand up to Inspector Cramer and the District Attorney, who want nothing more to whitewash the affair, shows that the dead girl had no friends, no acquaintances, only a mother she hated and wanted nothing to do with. And hence, no motive.

   It’s a baffling case, but if not needing to leave his house, not even once, is a criterion, this is an easy case for Nero Wolfe to solve, culminating in bringing all of the suspects together in the final chapters and having the scene of the crime re-created. That and Stout’s usual smooth and witty way of telling the story — through the lips and mind’s eye of Wolfe’s most trusted assistant — makes this a treat I’ve neglected for far too long.