Cordially Invited to Meet Death

Bess Huddleston, arranger of parties for New York society, asks Nero Wolfe to put an end to a campaign of anonymous letters that imply she has been gossiping about her clients' private lives. She suspects Janet Nichols, her assistant, but does not specify the reason to Wolfe. After Bess leaves, Wolfe summons Janet and Maryella Timms, Bess' secretary, to the office; while Archie reclaims a hexagonally-cut picture of Janet that Bess dropped, swiped by Janet from Archie's desk, Maryella charms Wolfe by helping him and Fritz properly cook corned beef hash. Apart from the culinary, though, Wolfe obtains no useful information from Nichols and Timms, and sends Archie to Bess' house and place of business to investigate further. After being bedeviled by a playful chimpanzee, Archie meets her brother Daniel, her nephew Larry, and Alan Brady, a doctor who has been spending time with Janet. While those involved are having cocktails on the terrace, the chimpanzee startles the butler, who drops a tray of glasses that crash to the ground and break. Most of the broken glass is cleaned up, but Bess cuts her foot on a shard in her slipper; because of the presence of the animals, Dr. Brady treats the cut with iodine. Less than one week later, Bess is dead, having undergone an excruciatingly painful and drawn out death from tetanus. That, as far as Wolfe is concerned, ends his involvement, but Daniel Huddleston pesters the police as he believes his sister was murdered. Daniel is insistent enough that Inspector Cramer comes to Wolfe looking for information. Wolfe has none for him, but after Cramer leaves he drops Archie an exiguous hint: he thinks there is one thing that Cramer should have done during his investigation, and wonders if it has rained during the past week. Archie works out the clue and drives to the Huddlestons' to see if traces of tetanus can be found in the grass between the stones on the terrace, but when he arrives, he finds Daniel cutting the piece of turf out. Archie follows him all the way to Wolfe’s house, where Wolfe agrees to pay to have the samples tested. Daniel later returns with a report showing that the sample on which the chimpanzee poured the bottle contained tetanus germs; the bottle actually contained silver argyrol infected with tetanus. While he is there, however, Inspector Cramer arrives and takes Daniel in for questioning, infuriating Wolfe. The next day, Janet cuts her arm on a piece of glass wedged in her bath brush, and since she has already treated the small cut with bogus iodine, Archie sends her to Dr. Vollmer to get a shot of antitoxin. Archie and Janet return to Wolfe's office, where Wolfe has already invited the relevant parties in order to reveal the murderer. Wolfe reveals that the photograph of Janet which Bess had dropped fits in Larry's wristwatch, revealing the two had been lovers. After Larry confirms that Bess forced him to break the engagement, Wolfe identifies Janet as the letter-writer and murderer. She faked the attack on herself in order to divert suspicion, but she made the cut too short; if she had been using her bath brush normally, the cut should have been much longer. Having extracted a confession, Wolfe delivers Janet to Cramer, humiliating the inspector for taking an invited guest from his house by force. (1883–1963, photograph by Carl Van Vechten) is considered the likely inspiration for Rex Stout's Bess Huddleston. ==Cast of characters==