Instead of Evidence: SPOILERS

Has anyone read this recently? It was in a collection of mystery stories I'm reading right now. This is the one where Archie says he was a Major in the Army, but got no blood on his neck. It takes place shortly after the war (WWII). I thought it had some very fine Archie witticisms in it and easily demonstrated the difference between Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout. Archie is full of optimism, Marlowe is a pessimist through and through.

Good Heavens! (A phrase Wolfe uses, and becomes very irritated when an annoying character points it out) The victim in this smokes 10 - 15 cigars a day! The poor man probably didn't have long to live anyway.

Wolfe does something very unprecedented in this story, he stands up to make a point to Cramer. Wow. Archie leaves before it happens again, it is unsettling to him. :)

This is a nice little story. Very clever female villain, the clues are there, but so obvious you miss them, at least I missed the most important one, even though I tagged the murderer.

Now, how do we feel about the ending? Wolfe provides the means for the criminal to commit suicide. Me, I'm O.K. with it. His reasoning reminds me of conversations I've seen written "by" demons (Screwtape Letters, Good Omens), "We provide the means, they make the choice." Morally, I should probably be against this, but somehow it seems practical. At least in fiction with a detective who is sure to be right! Real life is sometimes not so plain as fiction.

I can't recall this exact story - not the one with the cigars, is it? - but Wolfe's personal brand of justice has always worried me, especially when it serves his own ends. In Death of a Doxy, he engineers the suicide/murder of Isabel's killer (allegedly) in order to protect the identity of a wealthy man. I thought that was rather repulsive, as the only advantage was money!

Yes, this was the story with the cigars.* I agree with you about his motives. I can conceive of a possible scenario for his solutions, for instance, if the revelation/trial, etc. would ruin the life of an innocent person who happened to be connected to the murderer in some way, even then, I don't think I could do what Wolfe does. However, in this story, it seemed that Wolfe did what he did because he didn't want to sit in a courtroom and give evidence. Eh. Still, technically, all he did was provide the means, the murderess made the choice to use that rather than stand trial. In my opinion, if she had fought it with a good lawyer, she would probably have gotten off.

*Interesting sidelight, the Monk I watched last night stole the idea of this story a bit. A woman went to Monk, said she knew her husband would kill her and wanted to pay him to prove that her husband did kill her. From there on it was different.