Champagne For One




Champagne For One was published first in 1958, placing it almost smack-dab in the middle of the series. The plot line is as follows: A friend of Archie's, Austin "Dinky" Byne, calls him and asks him to attend a party in his place, since he is sick. Archie doubts that Dinky is really sick, but agrees to go anyhow. The party was set up by Mrs. Robilotti, who has the party at the same time every year in honor of her deceased husband Albert Grantham (Mrs. Robilotti was married to Albert Grantham, but remarried after he died). The guests at the party consist of unmarried women who have had children and young men who are considered to be from "high society", in other words, rich. The idea is to get them to mingle, perhaps leading to a romance or at the least showing these women what they should aspire to. This is one of the little quirks about the Wolfe books--at times they really reflect upon the time in which they were written. These types of parties would never happen today, because single, unmarried women are not looked down upon as people who need to be taught how to act properly. Also, before Mr. Robilotti died, he established a "home" for unwed women who were about to give birth. The thought at the time was that to be an unwed mother was shameful, and these women needed safe havens until they could have their child and get back on their feet. These type of "homes" are rare in today's society, and are in place for other reasons, such as parenting classes, ect.

But back to the plot...

Once Archie is at the party, he is informed by one of the women there that another woman, Faith Usher, has a bottle of cyanide in her purse and that she might use it to kill herself at the party. Archie says that he'll watch her purse, which is where the bottle of cyanide is being kept, to make sure Faith does not go for it and use it for the purpose of suicide. As Archie is watching, Cecil Gantham, Mrs. Robilotti's son by her first husband, walks to the bar, gets two glasses of champagne, walks to Faith Usher, and hands her one of the glasses. Faith drinks from it, and promptly falls over. She dies is a few short minutes. Archie is on the scene, and feeling confident that he absolutely DID NOT SEE Faith Usher put anything, such as cyanide, into her glass, he states that Faith Usher must have been murdered.

Everyone wants to call it a suicide. Faith had told many people that she kept the cyanide for that purpose. But since Archie had flatly refused to go along with the suicide hypothesis, the police were obligated to start an investigation. Mrs. Robilotti wanted to call it a suicide, partly because perhaps she really did think it so, and partly because she did not want the attraction of a murder investigation following her around for a long while. Most of the other guests felt the same way, and all are angry with Archie for causing the police to start the murder investigation. We later find out that Ethel Varr, another guest at the party, has also told the police she believes it was murder, because she too did not see Faith place anything into the drink.

One of the men who was present at the party, Edwin Laidlaw, comes to Wolfe and asks him to take on his case. It seems that Laidlaw has a tie to Faith Usher that he would like to keep quiet. Laidlaw is afraid that if the police keep poking around, they will uncover his secret. So what Wolfe must do is find out if Faith Usher committed suicide, and if not, who killed her. Hopefully he can figure this out before Mr. Laidlaw's secret is found out, and if he can not, then at least Wolfe can keep the police from concentrating on Laidlaw as a suspect by finding out who the real murder was.

This book is the exact opposite of Too Many Cooks. By that I mean in Too Many Cooks there were so many motives for murder flying around it was hard to keep track of them all. In Champagne For One, there are no motives to be found, and thus the trick is to uncover them. Generally, I really enjoyed this book. I did not enjoy it as much as Too Many Cooks, but I enjoyed it at least as much as Fer-De-Lance. It was an extremely quick read, as my copy clocks in at 153 pages, and I especially liked that the beginning of the book because it more-or-less just featured Archie apart from Wolfe. Here is picture of my copy of the book:

Not considering my hardbacks, it is in the best shape of all of my Wolfe books. The spine is straight and without crease. It almost looks unread! I got it at the same place I got my copy of Too Many Cooks, and I paid just under three dollars for it.



Here are some interesting facts and quotes from Champagne For One:

--In the book we learn how much Wolfe pays Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin for their services. Saul Panzer makes 70 dollars a day. Fred Durkin makes 35 dollars a day.

--Elaine Usher to Wolfe: "You hit me!"

--Wolfe, to Edwin Laidlaw: "I don't pretend to make things easier. I only make them manageable--when I can"

--Wolfe, to Archie: "They know me"