 | |
| Author | Rex Stout |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bill English |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
Publication date | October 12, 1962 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 188 pp. (first edition) |
| OCLC | 747582 |
| Preceded by | Homicide Trinity |
| Followed by | The Mother Hunt |
Gambit is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1962.
She was staring up at me. "He's burning up a dictionary?"
"Right. That's nothing. Once he burned up a cookbook because it said to remove the hide from a ham end before putting it in the pot with lima beans. Which he loves most, food or words, is a tossup."— Archie, explaining Wolfe's reaction to a dictionary that allows the use of "infer" in place of "imply," in Gambit, chapter 1.
A chess prodigy is poisoned during a club tournament, and the police arrest the member who served the victim hot chocolate. Wolfe is hired to exonerate the suspect, but finds that no one else has either an adequate motive or the requisite opportunity.
Gambit employs three distinctive plot elements found in other Wolfe stories. The means by which poison is administered is very similar to the means used in "Cordially Invited to Meet Death". A tape recording is made in an Italian restaurant, one which also appears in "Poison à la Carte". And the part that a gambit plays in a murder echoes "Method Three for Murder".
Sally Blount's father, Matthew Blount, has been arrested for the murder of Paul Jerin, a chess master. Blount had arranged for Jerin to play twelve simultaneous games of blindfold chess at his club. Well into the contest, Jerin complains of physical discomfort and cannot continue. Shortly thereafter, Jerin dies of what tests show to be arsenic poisoning.
During the contest, Jerin had been sitting by himself in a small library off the chess club's main game room. He had nothing to eat or drink except a pot of hot chocolate, brought to him by Blount. After Jerin fell ill, he was diagnosed by a doctor who was playing in the contest; the doctor called for an ambulance but Jerin died at a hospital.
Not only had Blount brought the hot chocolate to Jerin, he had washed out the pot and the cup after Jerin complained that he didn't feel well. Blount is charged with murder.
The only people to enter the library where Jerin sat, other than Blount, were four messengers, who relayed the moves between the main game room and the library. The messengers apparently had no good opportunity to put arsenic in Jerin's chocolate.
Dan Kalmus is Blount's corporate lawyer, and represents Blount after he has been jailed without bail. Blount's daughter Sally is convinced, however, that Kalmus is in love with Blount's wife Anna, and that he won't be inclined to give Blount his best legal efforts. Furthermore, Kalmus' specialty is business law, not criminal law, and he might not have the needed background.
But Sally is certain that her father is innocent, so she hires a reluctant Wolfe to investigate on her father's behalf. Neither Wolfe nor Archie seems to have his heart in the case because the circumstances point so clearly at Blount. And Wolfe learns from the police that their own inquiries discovered no connection between the messengers and Jerin, whereas Blount was unhappy that Jerin had been seeing Sally.
Because none of the messengers could have a motive to kill Jerin, and because he has assumed that Sally is correct that her father didn't, Wolfe conjectures that Jerin was poisoned not because the murderer had it in for Jerin, but to get at Blount, whose apparent motive would surely get him arrested. Wolfe's hypothesis, then, is that Jerin was a pawn, sacrificed in a gambit to get rid of Blount.
Wolfe speaks with each of the messengers as the best alternative suspects, to try to determine which of them might have wanted Blount, not Jerin, out of the way. Each of the four has a possible motive: Sally thinks Kalmus is in love with her mother, Farrow would like to take over Blount's firm, Yerkes wants Blount's vote in a board election but won't get it, and Hausman resents Blount for going easy on him in chess games but winning anyway.
Wolfe learns that there is, in Blount's words, "a certain fact" known only to Blount and to Kalmus that will demonstrate his innocence. The fact turns out to be that Blount really did put something in Jerin's chocolate, but it was sedative in effect, not poisonous. This puts a very different face on things, and as a result Wolfe and Archie, independently, are able to infer both the murderer's identity and how the arsenic got into Jerin.
In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is at least one unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. Gambit contains these three (the page references are to the Bantam edition):
In Gambit, Piotti's restaurant is located on 13th Street, east of Second Avenue (of course, in Manhattan). [1] In "Poison à la Carte", published two years earlier, the restaurant is on 14th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, thus west of Second Avenue. [2] Stout was not known for consistency in minor plot matters.
There is a description, in Chapter 3, of the interior of the Gambit chess club. "In a corner was a chess table with a marble top, with yellow and brown marble for the squares, and the men spread around, not on their home squares. The Gazette had said that the men were of ivory and Kokcha lapis lazuli and they and the table had belonged to and been played with by Louis XIV, and that the men were kept in the position after the ninth move [3] of Paul Morphy's most famous game, his defeat of the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard in Paris in 1858,"
In the same chapter, Archie Goodwin tried to guess the next moves of a game that he was watching. After failing every time, he "conceded that I would never be a Botvinnik...."
In Chapter 7, Morton Farrow says, "I'm all right the first three or four moves, any opening from the Ruy Lopez to the Caro–Kann, but I soon get lost. My uncle got me started at it because he thinks it develops the brain. I'm not so sure. Look at Bobby Fischer, the American champion. Has he got a brain?"
Dr. Victor Avery, in Chapter 8, claimed that he didn't hear any conversations during a chess game because he "was concentrating on my reply. I was trying the Albin Counter Gambit. Houghteling had used it against Dodge in 1905 [4] and had mated him on the sixteenth move."
Throughout the story, one of Wolfe's diversions is the reading of Robert Ardrey's African Genesis . This book promulgated the Killer ape theory which claims that humans are naturally murderous.
Gambit was adapted for a series of Nero Wolfe films produced by the Italian television network RAI. Directed by Giuliana Berlinguer from a teleplay by Vladimiro Cajoli, Nero Wolfe: Sfida al cioccolato first aired February 14, 1971.
The series of black-and-white telemovies stars Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner), Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer), Roberto Pistone (Saul Panzer), Mario Righetti (Orrie Cather) and Gianfranco Varetto (Fred Durkin). Other members of the cast of Sfida al cioccolato include Micaela Esdra (Sally Blount), Mario Maranzana (Matthew Blount), Silvia Monelli (Anna Blount), Paolo Carlini (Daniel Kalmus), Giampiero Albertini (Ernst Hausman), Renato Campese (Morton Farrow), Renato Turi (Charles Yerkes) and Mario Laurentino (Piotti).
Grazia Giardiello adapted Gambit for the fifth episode of the RAI TV series Nero Wolfe (Italy 2012), starring Francesco Pannofino as Nero Wolfe and Pietro Sermonti as Archie Goodwin. Set in 1959 in Rome, where Wolfe and Archie reside after leaving the United States, the series was produced by Casanova Multimedia and Rai Fiction and directed by Riccardo Donna. "Scacco al Re" aired May 3, 2012. [7] [8]
Before Midnight is a novel by American author Rex Stout, published in 1955 by Viking Press. It is the 18th detective novel featuring curmudgeonly New York sleuth Nero Wolfe, as narrated by sidekick Archie Goodwin. The story was also collected in the omnibus volume Three Trumps.
And Be a Villain is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1948. The story was collected in the omnibus volumes Full House and Triple Zeck.
Champagne for One is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1958. The back matter of the 1995 Bantam edition of this book includes an exchange of correspondence between Stout and his editor at Viking Press, Marshall Best. A letter from Stout to Best, dated July 1958, shows that Stout suggested as a title both "Champagne for One" and also "Champagne for Faith Usher." Best's reply states that Viking was quite satisfied with "Champagne for One."
Fer-de-Lance is the first Nero Wolfe detective novel written by Rex Stout, published in 1934 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. The novel appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine under the title "Point of Death". The novel was adapted for the 1936 film Meet Nero Wolfe, and it was named after a venomous snake with the same name. In his seminal 1941 work, Murder for Pleasure, crime fiction historian Howard Haycraft included Fer-de-Lance in his definitive list of the most influential works of mystery fiction.
The Red Box is the fourth Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. Prior to its first publication in 1937 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., the novel was serialized in five issues of The American Magazine. Adapted twice for Italian television, The Red Box is the first Nero Wolfe story to be adapted for the American stage.
Plot It Yourself is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1959, and also collected in the omnibus volume Kings Full of Aces.
The Mother Hunt is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by Viking Press in 1963.
Death of a Dude is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1969.
Please Pass the Guilt is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1973. Unusually for a Nero Wolfe story, which mostly take place very near the time of publication, this novel is set in 1969, though it was originally published in 1973.
A Family Affair is a Nero Wolfe detective novel published by the Viking Press in 1975. It is the last Nero Wolfe book written by Rex Stout who died less than six months after the publication of the book.
"Method Three for Murder" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first serialized in three issues of The Saturday Evening Post. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three at Wolfe's Door, published by the Viking Press in 1960.
"The Rodeo Murder" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in April 1960 in the short-story collection Three at Wolfe's Door.
"Immune to Murder" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in the November 1955 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three for the Chair, published by the Viking Press in 1957.
"Too Many Detectives" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published September 14, 1956, in Collier's. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three for the Chair, published by the Viking Press in 1957.
"Invitation to Murder" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "Will to Murder" in the August 1953 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three Men Out, published by the Viking Press in 1954.
"Poison à la Carte" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in April 1960 in the short-story collection Three at Wolfe's Door.
"Murder Is Corny" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in April 1964 in the short-story collection Trio for Blunt Instruments. It was the last Nero Wolfe novella to be written, and the last published in Stout's lifetime.
"Easter Parade" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "The Easter Parade Murder" in the April 16, 1957, issue of Look magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection And Four to Go, published by the Viking Press in 1958.
"Booby Trap" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in the August 1944 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form as the second novella in the short-story collection Not Quite Dead Enough, published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1944.
"Home to Roost" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "Nero Wolfe and the Communist Killer" in the January 1952 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Triple Jeopardy, published by the Viking Press in 1952. This novella and the 1949 novel The Second Confession are notable expressions of Stout's contempt for both Communism and McCarthyism.
The unfamiliar word
