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."
Plot introduction
Archie Goodwin fills in for a friend at a charity dinner dance for unwed mothers, and one of the guests drops dead on the dance floor.
Plot summary Archie Goodwin receives a phone call from an acquaintance, Austin "Dinky" Byne, asking for a favor. Byne routinely acts as a chevalier, one of four male guests, for an annual dinner hosted by his aunt, Louise Grantham Robilotti. The dinner is given in honor of four young unwed mothers living at Grantham House, a charity supported by her late husband. Byne claims to have a cold and is unable to attend. Although skeptical of that cold, Archie agrees to stand in for him, despite Mrs. Robilotti's being a former client who bears him a personal dislike. During the dinner, Archie learns from one of the young women, Rose, that another, Faith Usher, has a bottle of cyanide in her purse. Faith has been talking of suicide during her pregnancy, and Rose fears that she might attempt suicide. Archie promises to watch over Faith. Towards the end of the evening Faith collapses and dies from cyanide poisoning after drinking a swallow from a glass of champagne.
Alone of the guests, Archie maintains that Faith Usher did not commit suicide, claiming that he observed her constantly throughout the evening and that she never had an opportunity to place the cyanide from her bottle into her glass. Although the authorities and the other guests pressure Archie into changing his story, Nero Wolfe believes him and decides to settle the matter by solving the case himself. He is given further incentive to do so when Edwin Laidlaw, another of the guests, approaches him to hire his services. Laidlaw says he is the father of Faith Usher's child after a brief affair they had the previous year. Ashamed of his conduct, he is desperate that his secret not be revealed.
Although Wolfe's investigation begins unpromisingly, his confidence that her death was murder grows when the police receive an anonymous tip revealing Laidlaw's secret. While the police are skeptical because it is anonymous, Wolfe says that someone else knows Laidlaw's secret and is agitated by the ongoing investigation. His investigations focus on both Faith Usher's estranged mother Elaine, herself an unwed mother, and Dinky Byne, whose reasons for canceling on the party look suspect given the event. He assigns Saul Panzer and Archie to follow the two respectively, leading to a break in the case when both Archie and Saul tail their respective targets to the same location: a restaurant where Elaine Usher and Dinky Byne are meeting with each other.
Speaking with Wolfe, both Byne and Elaine Usher lie to him. Their stories are inconsistent. Byne admits that he knew that Laidlaw was the father of Faith Usher's child, and says that he invited both to the dinner without their knowledge as a spiteful prank. During this conversation at the brownstone, Orrie Cather infiltrates Elaine’s hotel room and discovers a letter revealing that Mrs. Robilotti's deceased first husband, Albert Grantham, was the father of Faith Usher, and was supporting the mother and daughter via a trust managed by Byne. This, coupled with some comments from Byne, leads Wolfe to identify the murderer.
Summoning the hosts and the guests to his office, he has them reenact the circumstances under which Faith Usher received the poisoned champagne from Cecil Grantham multiple times. Mrs. Robilotti's son Cecil had a routine way of handing over a glass with his left hand, while taking for himself the glass in his right hand. A watchful person can see an opportunity in that.
Wolfe accuses Mrs. Robilotti of poisoning Faith Usher; Byne was perhaps blackmailing her with the knowledge that her former husband was Faith's father and invited Faith to the dinner as a threat. Mrs. Robilotti murdered Faith out of resentment over her husband's affair. Learning that Faith was in the habit of carrying cyanide, Mrs. Robilotti perhaps acquired some from another source to make it look like a suicide. The notion of the cyanide purchase is proved true by the police and Mrs. Robilotti is taken into custody, and found guilty in court. Archie is vindicated.
Themes Changing sexual mores The book reflects the transitional situation of American sexual mores at the time of writing, on the verge of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Unwed mothers are a major issue in the book, and constitute a large part of its cast of characters. They are presented sympathetically, but still unwed motherhood is presented as "a problem" for which they need to be helped. The preferred solution is to provide a friendly and supportive environment during pregnancy and to have the baby given over to adoption immediately upon birth. The option of the unwed mother keeping and raising her child is presented as a far more problematic idea. Indeed—as it ultimately turns out—it has much to do with the circumstances that led to the murder being investigated.
In chapter 2 Archie Goodwin is rather shocked to discover that one of the young women, Rose Tuttle, had given birth outside marriage not once but twice. He recounts at length his moral dilemma at hearing this: "I had on my shoulders the responsibility for the moral and social position of the community, at least in part (...). To list my objections would have been fine if I had been ordained, but I hadn't, and anyway she had certainly heard these objections before and hadn't been impressed. (...) While it was none of my business if she kept on having babies, I absolutely wasn't going to encourage her."
On the other hand, in chapter 6 Archie is surprised to learn that Edwin Laidlaw seriously expects his bride-to-be to remain a virgin until their wedding night. His reaction to this is scathing: "Laidlaw turned out to have an old-fashioned streak (...) an old fogey at thirty-one."
The unfamiliar word In most Nero Wolfe novels and novellas, there is at least one unfamiliar word, usually spoken by Wolfe. Champagne for One contains but one example, apart from the legalese respondeat superior found in Chapter 9. (In Chapter 2 the reader is also treated to a discussion of the derivation of protocol from the Greek proto, "first," and kollon, "glue".)
On page 202 of the 1996 Bantam edition, in Chapter 16, Wolfe says, "You have trimmed long enough." The word "trimmed" is not itself unfamiliar, but the usage may be.
Characters Nero Wolfe – the private investigator Archie Goodwin – Wolfe's assistant (and the narrator of all Wolfe stories) Mr. and Mrs. Robert Robilotti – a wealthy heiress who inherited the fortune of her first husband, Mr. Grantham, and her current husband Faith Usher, Helen Yarmis, Rose Tuttle, and Ethel Varr – the four unwed-mother guests at a dinner party given by Mrs. Robilotti Elaine Usher – Faith's estranged mother Austin "Dinky" Byne – Mr. Grantham's nephew Edwin Laidlaw – a publisher who is terrified that his prior relationship with Faith Usher will be exposed by the investigation into her death Cecil and Celia Grantham – Mrs. Robilotti's twin son and daughter from her first marriage Paul Schuster and Beverly Kent – along with Edwin Laidlaw and Archie Goodwin, dinner partners for the young women at the party, called chevaliers Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins – Manhattan homicide police Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Cather – freelance detectives often employed by Wolfe
Reviews and commentary Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime – "Archie and Nero shine, once again, on the question: Who slipped the cyanide into the glass of the girl attending the unwed mothers' annual party at the house of their benefactress? Two small queries: would the dead philanthropist write the odd letter of gift that provides no better control of large funds than someone's probity? And how was the poison actually administered? One can't buy ready-mixed KCN."Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. A Catalogue of Crime. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. Nancy Pearl, Book Lust – "When Stout is on top of his game, which is most of the time, his diabolically clever plotting and his storytelling ability exceed that of any other mystery writer you can name, including Agatha Christie, who invented her own eccentric genius detective Hercule Poirot. Although in the years since Stout's death I find myself going back and rereading his entire oeuvre every year or two, I return with particular pleasure to these five novels: The Doorbell Rang; Plot It Yourself; Murder by the Book; Champagne for One; and Gambit."Pearl, Nancy, Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason (Seattle, Washington: Sasquatch Books, 2003, ); p. 226
Adaptations
Nero Wolfe (A&E Network) Screenwriters Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin adapted Champagne for One for the second episode of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002), a Jaffe/Braunstein Films coproduction with the A&E Network. The second of four Nero Wolfe episodes directed by executive producer and star Timothy Hutton, "Champagne for One" made its debut in two one-hour episodes airing April 29 and May 6, 2001, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) are Bill Smitrovich (Inspector Cramer), Colin Fox (Fritz Brenner), James Tolkan (Mr. Hackett). Marian Seldes (Louise Grantham Robilotti), Kari Matchett (Celia Grantham), Conrad Dunn (Saul Panzer), Nicky Guadagni (Elaine Usher), Kathryn Zenna (Helen Yarmis), Alex Poch-Goldin (Edwin Laidlaw), Robert Bockstael (Paul Schuster), R. D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins), Christine Brubaker (Rose Tuttle), Steve Cumyn (Cecil Grantham), Boyd Banks (Austin "Dinky" Byne), David Schurmann (Robert Robilotti), Michael Rhoades (Beverly Kent), Janine Theriault (Ethel Varr) and Patricia Zentilli (Faith Usher).
Based on music by Dmitri Shostakovich, the episode's signature waltz is a 1991 recording by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly. The soundtrack also includes music by Antonio Vivaldi, Danny Baker, Rick Krive Alan Moorhouse, and Luigi Boccherini. In North America, A Nero Wolfe Mystery was released on Region 1 DVD by A&E Home Video (). "Champagne for One" is divided into two parts as originally broadcast on A&E.
"Champagne for One" is one of the Nero Wolfe episodes released on Region 4 DVD in Australia under license by FremantleMedia Enterprises. Nero Wolfe — Collection One (2008) presents "Champagne for One" as a 90-minute film with a single set of titles and credits. In 2009 the film was released on Region 2 DVD in the Netherlands, by Just Entertainment. In October 2012 a region-free set of the complete series was released by independent Australian DVD distributor Shock Entertainment, which also made the series available through Australian iTunes. All of these DVD releases present "Champagne for One" in 4:3 pan and scan rather than its 16:9 aspect ratio for widescreen viewing.
Nero Wolfe (Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A.)