I
made one mistake, as Archie Goodwin might have said. To himself, of
course, never to his boss—at least not without putting an ironic
spin on it in the hope of being sufficiently artful to mitigate his
shame with an ambiguous grunt from Nero Wolfe instead of Wolfe's
otherwise definitive pfui.
As I have already admitted to you straight out I made the mistake it
would be folly for me to try to put any sort of spin on it so I
shan't, as, again, Goodwin might have put it.
My
mistake? I picked the wrong mystery to read for Rex Stout Week on
Patti Abbott's Friday's
Forgotten Books
blog feature. Oh, the one I read was a Rex Stout mystery alright—Over
My Dead Body—and
it was a good one. Just the wrong one, which I discovered afterward
while reading some bio information on Mr. Stout. What I learned was
that of the seventy-some mysteries featuring Goodwin and Wolfe (he
wrote others, as well, in his prolific career) the one I should have
picked for Rex Stout Week was his most controversial. Here's what
Wiki
says about it:
Stout
was one of many American writers closely watched by J. Edgar Hoover's
FBI. Hoover considered him an enemy of the bureau and either a
Communist or a tool of Communist-dominated groups. Stout's leadership
of the Authors League of America during the McCarthy era was
particularly irksome to the FBI. About a third of Stout's FBI file is
devoted to his 1965 novel The
Doorbell Rang.
 |
| Rex Stout 1931 |
Perhaps
you can understand my explosive “pfui!” when I read that last
sentence. Wouldn't anyone have uttered such an expletive combining
surprise and total disgust had they been in my place? Having just
finished reading a Rex Stout mystery other than The
Doorbell Rang
for
a special occasion
without
first having read the bio?
Who among you reading this now would not immediately have fetched and
devoured The
Doorbell Rang
to learn what all the hoohah had been about? Be honest now! Anyway,
that's precisely what I did, and it is why you are reading this
flummery instead of some other about Over
My Dead Body,
which, as I've mentioned, is also good. Damned good, if you will. I
have yet to read a Rex Stout mystery that isn't.
So
what can I tell you about The
Doorbell Rang
you might not already have guessed just knowing it irked the FBI,
that obviously Wolfe and Goodwin deeply irk the fictional FBI and, in
particular the man all special agents were known in real life to
refer to in hushed tones as The Director? Consider this exchange
between Goodwin and Wolfe's gourmet chef, Fritz Brenner:
I picked up the fork. “You know what the FBI is.”
“But certainly. Mr. Hoover.”
“That’s what he thinks. On behalf of a client
we’re going to push his nose in. Just a routine chore, but he’s
touchy and will try to stop us. So futile.” I put a bite of cake
where it belonged.
“But he—he’s a great man. Yes?”
“Sure. But I suppose you’ve seen pictures of
him.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of his nose?”
“Not good. Not exactly épaté,
but broad. Not bien fait.”
“Then
it should be pushed,” I forked sausage.
Rex
Stout didn't just push noses in his novels. During World War II he
wrote anti-Nazi propaganda and conducted more than 60 broadcasts on a
CBS program called Our Secret Weapon. After the war he was active in
a group called United World Federalists, drawing the ire of Martin
Dies, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee. After
Dies called him a Communist, Stout is said to have responded, "I
hate Communists as much as you do, Martin, but there's one difference
between us. I know what a Communist is and you don't."
 |
| Rex Stout 1975 |
The
title. Your curiosity would not be untoward to wonder what in hell it
means. I can tell you this:
it, the title, comprises the very last sentence in The
Doorbell Rang.
Neither my nose nor imagination was pushed the least little bit to
deduce, with undoubtedly startling accuracy, who did the ringing. So,
I daresay, with yours.
Speaking
of noses, I've gone and poked mine into The
Doorbell Rang's
only one-star Amazon “reader review,” which says simply, “I
[sic] childish screed against the FBI. Typical liberal crap. Stout
must have been senile.”
Clicking
on the reviewer's name, Frank J. Habic, of Osprey, Florida, I learned
this was the only review Amazon has credited to Mr. Habic for
anything, ever. I left a tongue-in-cheek comment saying, “You
forgot to add 'Special Agent (ret.)' to your name.” I posted the
comment yesterday, and immediately began keeping an eye out for
ensembles of fedoras, dark glasses, cheap suits, and shiny black
shoes.
