"Help Wanted, Male" is a
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a brilliant, obese and eccentric fictional armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in ...
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) fact ...
by
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout (; December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and ...
, first published in the August 1945 issue of ''
The American Magazine
''The American Magazine'' was a periodical publication founded in June 1906, a continuation of failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie. It succeeded '' Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'' (1876–1904) ...
''. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection ''
Trouble in Triplicate
''Trouble in Triplicate'' is a collection of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1949, and itself collected in the omnibus volume ''All Aces'' (Viking 1958). The book contains three stories that first appeare ...
'', published by the
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquir ...
in 1949.
Plot summary

Publisher Ben Jensen pays a visit to Wolfe's office, intent on buying protection for himself after receiving a death threat in the mail.
Wolfe declines the offer, giving Jensen some advice on how to look out for his own safety, and Archie provides him with the name of an agency that does bodyguard work. Jensen had been involved in one of Wolfe's earlier cases, in which an Army captain named Peter Root had offered to sell him classified information. Root was brought before a
court martial
A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of me ...
and sentenced to three years in prison.
The following morning's newspaper carries a report that both Jensen and the bodyguard he hired have been shot and killed; Wolfe denies to Inspector Cramer that he is taking any interest in the case. That day's mail brings a death threat addressed to Wolfe, identical to the one Jensen received. Since the Root case is all that Wolfe and Jensen had in common, Wolfe and Archie track down current information on everyone connected to it, including Root's family and fiancée, Jane Geer. Archie hurries to fill his end of the order before he must leave for a meeting in Washington, D.C. with his superiors in Army Intelligence. He locates Jane and brings her to the brownstone, but they are both surprised to find Jensen's son Emil—an Army major—waiting at the door. Wolfe does not come down to meet them, but instead orders Archie over the in-house telephone to send them away.
While in Washington, Archie notices a help-wanted advertisement in a New York paper, calling for male applicants who are the same height and weight as Wolfe. Sneaking out of his meeting and hurrying back to Manhattan, Archie is surprised to see someone other than Wolfe in the detective's custom-built chair. Wolfe introduces the man as H.H. Hackett, who has responded to the ad and is being paid $100 per day to impersonate him at home and in public. He is using Hackett as a decoy to draw the fire of would-be killers so that he can determine who might want him dead.

Wolfe has determined, from information provided by Army Intelligence, that Root and his parents had no apparent involvement in the murders. He asks Archie to bring Jane in for an interview, with Hackett doubling for him while he observes from the peephole in the office wall. Archie now understands why Wolfe sent her away earlier; he did not want her to see him in person so that she would be fooled by Hackett as a stand-in. Jane and Emil arrive for the appointment together, having developed a close relationship since Archie last saw them. He puts them in the front room and goes to consult with Wolfe about Emil's unexpected presence, but the sound of a gunshot startles everyone.
Rushing into the office, Archie finds that a bullet has been fired through Wolfe's chair and into the wall behind it, apparently from the front room, and that Hackett's ear is nicked. Archie finds an old, recently fired revolver hidden in the front room, and Wolfe reveals himself to the visitors and takes charge. He calls Cramer to inform him about the weapon, which turns out to be the one that killed Jensen and the bodyguard, and pits Jane and Emil against each other in an effort to draw out the killer. However, the case turns in a new direction when he notices a cushion missing from the front room's couch. It is soon found in the bottom drawer of Wolfe's desk; this discovery, along with the fact that one of the guns in Archie's desk has been recently fired, allows him to solve the case and turn the culprit over to Cramer.
The murderer is Hackett, actually Root's father Thomas, bent on revenge against everyone he blames for his son's imprisonment. After killing Jensen and the bodyguard, and sending the death threat to Wolfe, he responded to Wolfe's ad and smuggled the murder weapon inside. During a time when he was alone in the office, he took a cushion from the couch, wrapped it around the gun to muffle the report, and fired a shot through the chair and into the wall. He hid the cushion in the desk and the gun in the front room, and made sure to sit in the chair so that his head would cover the bullet hole. While Jane and Emil were waiting in the front room, he took a gun from Archie's desk, fired into the cushion, and used a pocketknife to cut a gash in his ear before returning the gun. Given one more day, Hackett/Thomas would have been able to kill Wolfe and focus suspicion on Jane and Emil.
Cast of characters
*Nero Wolfe — The private investigator
*Archie Goodwin — Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories
*Ben Jensen — Publisher and a witness in a prior case against Captain Peter Root
*Major Emil Jensen — Ben Jensen's son, an Army major
*Jane Geer — Peter's ex-fiancée
*H. H. Hackett — A retired architect whom Wolfe hires to act as a body-double
*Inspector Cramer and Sgt. Purley Stebbins — Representing Manhattan Homicide
Publication history
"Help Wanted, Male"
*1945, ''
The American Magazine
''The American Magazine'' was a periodical publication founded in June 1906, a continuation of failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie. It succeeded '' Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'' (1876–1904) ...
'', August 1945
[Townsend, Guy M., ''Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography''. New York: Garland Publishing, 1980. John McAleer, Judson Sapp and Arriean Schemer are associate editors of this definitive publication history. ]
*1946, ''Rex Stout's Mystery Monthly'', June 1946
*1948, ''
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fict ...
'', February 1948
*1963, ''Ellery Queen's Anthology'', 1963
*1969, ''Ellery Queen's Shoot the Works'', New York: Pyramid T-2129, November 1969
*1976, ''Masterpieces of Mystery: The Grand Masters'', ed. by
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve ...
, New York: Davis Publications, 1976
''Trouble in Triplicate''
* 1949, New York: The
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquir ...
, February 11, 1949, hardcover
:Contents include "
Before I Die
''Before I Die'' is a young adult novel written by Jenny Downham, first published by David Fickling Books in 2007. The novel follows the shortly ending life of Tessa, from her perspective.
Plot
Tessa is diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leuk ...
", "Help Wanted, Male" and "
Instead of Evidence
"Instead of Evidence" is a Nero Wolfe Mystery fiction, mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in the May 1946 issue of ''The American Magazine'' under the title "Murder on Tuesday". It first appeared in book form in the short-story collecti ...
".
:In his limited-edition pamphlet, ''Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I'',
Otto Penzler
Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a German-born American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Biography
Born in Germany to a German-American mother and a German father, Penzler moved to The B ...
describes the
first edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants.
First edition
According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...
of ''Trouble in Triplicate'': "Yellow cloth, front cover and spine printed with red; rear cover blank. Issued in a pink, black and white dust wrapper."
[Penzler, Otto, ''Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I''. New York: The Mysterious Bookshop, 2001. Limited edition of 250 copies.]
:In April 2006, ''Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine'' estimated that the first edition of ''Trouble in Triplicate'' had a value of between $300 and $500. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.
* 1949, Toronto:
Macmillan
MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to:
People
* McMillan (surname)
* Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan
* Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician
* James MacMillan, Scottish composer
* William Duncan MacMillan ...
, 1949, hardcover
* 1949, New York: Viking (
Mystery Guild
Bookspan LLC is a New York–based online bookseller, founded in 2000.
Bookspan began as a joint endeavor by Bertelsmann and Time Warner. Bertelsmann took over control in 2007, and a year later, sold its interest to Najafi Companies, an Arizo ...
), August 1949, hardcover
:The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:
::* The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
::* Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
::* Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).
* 1949, London:
Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club was an imprint of British book publishers William Collins, Sons and ran from 6 May 1930 to April 1994. Throughout its 64 years the club issued a total of 2,012in "The Hooded Gunman -- An Illustrated History of Collins Crime ...
, August 22, 1949, hardcover
* 1951, New York:
Bantam #925, September 1951, paperback
* 1958, New York: The Viking Press, ''All Aces: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus'' (with ''
Some Buried Caesar
''Some Buried Caesar'' is a detective novel by American writer Rex Stout, the sixth book featuring his character Nero Wolfe. The story first appeared in abridged form in ''The American Magazine'' (December 1938), under the title "The Red Bull", it ...
'' and ''
Too Many Women''), May 15, 1958, hardcover
* 1993, New York: Bantam Crimeline June 1, 1993, paperback
* 1996, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. January 25, 1996, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
* 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline May 19, 2010,
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...
Adaptations
''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' (A&E Network)
"Help Wanted, Male" was adapted for the second season of the A&E TV series ''
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
''Nero Wolfe'' is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's series of detective stories that aired for two seasons (2001–2002) on A&E. Set in New York City sometime in the 1940s–1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as N ...
'' (2001–2002). Directed by
John L'Ecuyer
John L'Ecuyer (born November 15, 1964) is a Canadian film and television director.
Biography
John L'Ecuyer's first feature, ''Curtis's Charm'' (1995), was an adaptation of a Jim Carroll story. The film received a Special Jury Citation as Best Cana ...
from a teleplay by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, "Help Wanted, Male" made its debut June 23, 2002, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He is the youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at age 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in '' Ordinary Peopl ...
is Archie Goodwin;
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin (July 27, 1949 – July 27, 2010) was an American–Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, as well as for his work as a character actor in many films and television programs.
Personal lif ...
is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) include
Colin Fox (Fritz Brenner),
Bill Smitrovich
William Stanley Zmitrowicz Jr. (born May 16, 1947), known professionally as Bill Smitrovich ( ), is an American actor.
Personal life
Smitrovich was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Anna (née Wojna) and Stanley William Zmitrowicz, a ...
(
Inspector Cramer
The Nero Wolfe stories are populated by a cast of supporting characters who help sustain the sense that each story takes place in familiar surroundings.
Household
Fritz Brenner
Fritz Brenner is an exceptionally talented Swiss cook who prepares ...
),
R.D. Reid
R. D. Reid (September 22, 1944 - June 20, 2017) was a Canadian character actor known for his portrayal of Sergeant Purley Stebbins in the A&E TV original series, ''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' (2001–2002), and the series pilot, '' The Golden Spiders: ...
(Sergeant Purley Stebbins),
James Tolkan
James Stewart Tolkan (born June 20, 1931) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Mr. Strickland in ''Back to the Future'' (1985) and ''Back to the Future Part II'' (1989), and as Marshall Strickland in ''Back to the Future Part ...
(Ben Jenson),
Richard Waugh (Major Emil Jensen),
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
(General Carpenter), Robert Bockstael (Colonel Dickey), Steve Cumyn (Peter Root),
Kari Matchett (Jane Geer),
Larry Drake
Larry Richard Drake (February 21, 1950 – March 17, 2016) was an American actor and comedian. He was best known as Benny Stulwicz in '' L.A. Law'', for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards. He also appeared as Robert G. Durant in both ''Dark ...
(Hackett) and Randy Butcher (Doyle).
In addition to original music by ''Nero Wolfe'' composer
Michael Small
Michael Small (May 30, 1939 – November 24, 2003) was an American film score composer known for his scores to the movies ''Klute'', ''The Parallax View'', '' Marathon Man'', and '' The Star Chamber''.
Personal life
Small was born in New York ...
, the soundtrack includes music by Alan Moorhouse (titles),
Tony Kinsey
Cyril Anthony Kinsey (born 11 October 1927) is an English jazz drummer and composer.
Early life
Kinsey was born in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. He held jobs on trans-Atlantic ships while young, studying while at port with Bill West ...
and Dick Walter.
In North America, ''A Nero Wolfe Mystery'' is available on Region 1 DVD from A&E Home Video (). The A&E DVD release presents "Help Wanted, Male" in 4:3
pan and scan
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown in fullscreen proportions of a standard-definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focu ...
rather than its
16:9 aspect ratio for
widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
viewing.
[VHS recording created for NW Production Services, Inc., labelled as follows: NERO WOLFE II: EPS206B "HELP WANTED, MALE" A&E Version Duration: 50:20:22 Mins 16:9 Letterbox Downconvert of HD Master]
The episode is faithful to the story except for a major change at the end. Instead of Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins leading Thomas Root away and Wolfe asking Emil Jensen to make a donation to the
National War Fund
The National War Fund was the joint financing of war appeals during World War II for the United Service Organizations (USO), United Seamen's Service, and about twenty other overseas relief programs. The National War Fund operated from 1943 to 194 ...
instead of paying him, Stebbins escorts Root out while Cramer stays behind in Wolfe's office. When Jensen is about to offer Wolfe payment for finding his father's killer, Cramer grumpily informs Jensen that Wolfe had refused to provide his father with protection after he came to him for help, prompting Jensen to close his checkbook and leave with Jane Geer.
References
External links
*
{{Nero Wolfe
1945 short stories
Nero Wolfe short stories
Works originally published in The American Magazine