1The Doorbell Rang
Idiosyncratic millionairess Mrs Rachel Brunner is sure that the FBI is bugging, following, and generally harassing her because she bought 10,000 copies of an infamous book criticizing J. Edgar Hoover and his organization and distributed them by mail to friends. During the course of their investigation Archie and Nero uncover a murder for which a G-man may or may not be guilty. Nero contrives to entrap the Bureau into a compromising situation in order to get them to cease and desist in their actions against the eccentric Mrs. Brunner.
2Champagne for One: Part 1
Mrs. Louise Robilotti, a well-meaning but judgmental socialite, hosts a charity dance where she tries to introduce four young women from a home for unwed mothers to prospective husbands. Although not the marrying kind, Archie agrees to fill in for a casual ne'er-do-well acquaintance complaining of a cold and proceeds to have a good time with the attractive women, the hostess' alcoholic daughter, and the free-flowing champagne. The evening suddenly comes to an abrupt end when one of the young women collapses and dies on the dance floor. Because the dead girl carried cyanide with her and openly talked about a death wish, suicide is initially suggested by Mrs. Robilotti who dreads the bad publicity a murder would bring. Along with Archie, Nero suspects that the death is indeed murder and together they expose the means, the motive, and the murderer.
3Champagne for One: Part 2
4Prisoner's Base: Part 1
An anonymous young woman approaches Archie with the proposition that she be allowed to spend a week at the Wolfe complex incommunicado, and she is willing to pay well for the privilege. Taken by her beauty, the chivalrous Goodwin agrees to argue her case with Nero, who is characteristically angered to find a female tenant under his roof. The next morning, lawyer Perry Helmar tries to hire Wolfe to locate his missing ward, Priscilla Eads, who stands to inherit her father's factory and considerable fortune when she turns 25 in a week. Archie recognizes her picture as his young guest, but neither man reveals the truth to her guardian. When the young heiress cannot agree to terms with Wolfe, she leaves his protection and shortly thereafter is found bludgeoned and strangled. A guilt-ridden Archie looks for the murderer in the board room of the dead girl's company and is subsequently arrested for impersonating a policeman. Before Nero can free his friend and solve the crime, the killer strikes again.
6Eeny, Meeny, Murder, Moe
The always fastidious Nero Wolfe inadvertently stains his tie while eating lunch alone in his study. While Archie is upstairs in the plant room trying to convince him to take on the prospective client, the beautiful young legal secretary is strangled in Nero's study using his abandoned tie by person or persons unknown. During the investigation Archie gets involved with a beautiful actress Rita Ramsey Sorrell.
7Disguise for Murder
Noted orchid fancier Nero Wolfe hosts a flower show at his New York brownstone. A beautiful but inebriated young woman desperately wants to speak to the busy host but is diverted to his office by Archie, who is doing security duty. She confesses to him that she's a grifter and has recognized the killer of murdered socialite Doris Hatten at the exhibition. Archie does not take her seriously as he leaves her to help the boss, but when he returns, he finds the attractive young woman bludgeoned and strangled to death in Nero's den.
8Door to Death
The "Door of Death" in the title refers to a warning sign on a greenhouse dioor referring to the lethal gas used in the cultivation of orchids. Because his regular gardener has taken a leave of absence and orchid lover Nero Wolfe is desperate to find a replacement, the rotund investigator leaves his brownstone and takes a rare car trip to an estate in Westchester. He is anxious to close the deal with an expert orchidist to become caretaker of his beloved plant room. He is so impressed with the gardener's expertise that misogynistic detective even agrees to house the man's fiancee under his roof as well. Unfortunately they find her under one of the plant tables in the greenhouse dead from poison gas. Suspects include the gardener and the eccentrically dysfunctional family living in the manor house.
9Christmas Party
Archie shocks Nero by informing him of his forthcoming engagement to beautiful Margot Dickey. The announcement will be made officially at a Christmas party hosted by avant-garde designer Kurt Bottweil. To Archie's surprise at the party, Margot now intends to marry Bottweil, not him, but before the evening is over, the designer lies dead, poisoned after drinking his favorite liquor. Although everyone at the party is a potential suspect, immediate suspicion falls on the unknown actor in the Santa Claus suit who mysteriously disappeared during the excitement. After Archie returns to the brownstone, Wolfe reveals to him that he was the enigmatic figure in the Santa outfit.
10Over My Dead Body: Part 1
11Over My Dead Body: Part 2
1Death of a Doxy: Part 1
Orrie Cather, a private investigator employed by Wolfe, is engaged to be married but is cheating on his fiancee with a sexy ex-showgirl who is the "doxy," or kept mistress, of a rich man. After she steals his P.I. license and uses it to blackmail him, Cather asks Archie to help him out by getting it back. Entering her apartment, he discovers that she has been bludgeoned to death with an ashtray. Archie, Saul, Fred, and Nero all agree to work without compensation to try to clear their associate of the inevitable murder charges. When it is revealed that the dead girl kept a diary, involved parties are desperate to keep their names out of court. Archie then teams up with vivacious showgirl Julie Jaquette, a friend of the murdered girl, to ferret out the real killer.
3The Next Witness
Wolfe and Archie are subpoenaed to testify in the murder trial of businessman Leonard Ashe, accused of strangling a phone operator whom he had asked to spy on his wife. Wolfe resents having to give testimony against a man he believes to be innocent as well as being uncomfortable having to sit next to a heavily perfumed woman in court. He suddenly bolts out of the courtroom in order to find the evidence necessary to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case. His suspicions are confirmed when he discovers that one of the dead woman's co-workers is able to afford an original Van Gogh on her $80 a week salary.
4Die Like a Dog
Photographer Richard Meegan angrily storms out of Wolfe's brownstone when the investigator declines to look for his runaway wife and mistakenly puts on Archie's raincoat when he leaves. When the gumshoe goes to his apartment to retrieve the outergarment, he finds the apartment house surrounded by reporters and passersby and learns that one of the tenants has been murdered. The dead man's black Labrador retriever attaches himself to Archie and follows him back to the residence. Surprisingly, Wolfe allows him to stay, naming his new pet "Jet" over the objections of Archie, who prefers the name, "Inkie." The animal and artist's model Jewel Jones, Meegan's ex-wife, help the detectives expose the killer.
5Murder Is Corny
When a farm delivery man is found bludgeoned to death with a pipe near a local restaurant, a box of the specially grown corn grown and picked to Wolfe's specification is brought to the detective's brownstone by Inspector Cramer. He considers Archie the prime suspect because both he and the delivery man were rivals for the affections of the corn farmer's daughter now turned fashion model. Although Wolfe initially tells Goodwin that he is on his own in clearing himself, the inconvenience of doing without his indispensable assistant causes him to get involved.
6Motherhunt: Part 1
When rich, beautiful widow Lucy Valdon finds an abandoned baby on her doorstep, she is led to believe that her late promiscuous husband, a successful novelist who died in an accident, is the father. She hires Nero Wolfe to discover the identity of the the infant's mother and during the course of the investigation she and Archie find themselves increasingly attracted to each other. One of the clues he finds is an unusual handmade horsehair button, but when he tracks down the craftswoman who made it, she is uncooperative and soon after is found strangled. When Wolfe orders his operatives to set up a sting in Washington Square Park using the baby as bait, the operation finally bears fruit.
8Poison à la Carte
The gourmet group, Ten for Aristology, meets for its annual celebration of haute cuisine prepared by Fritz and two chefs from Rusterman's. When one of the members, a lecherous Broaway producer, becomes ill at the table, his symptoms lead Wolfe to suspect arsenic poisoning. He narrows the suspects down to five of the twelve showgirls who have been hired for the evening as seductively-clad servers but needs the help of Rusterman chef Zoltan Mahany to identify the culprit.
9Too Many Clients: Part 1
Archie agrees to help corporate executive Thomas Yaeger find out who's been following him to a certain address in one of the seedier area of town but later finds that his new client's dead body has been found in an alley near that address. After seeing Yaeger's picture, he realizes that the man who hired him was an impostor. Archie investigates the address and discovers a lavish penthouse apartment atop the otherwise run-down building. He quickly learns that the real Yaeger was a philandering womanizer who held virtually nonstop liaisons with a parade of beautiful women in this garish love nest decorated with erotic art. Wolfe is hired by Yaeger's employer, the Puerto Rican family that superintends the building, and the dead man's materialistic widow, all of whom have separate agendas and are all viewed as suspects by the detective.
10Too Many Clients: Part 2
11Before I Die
Wartime food shortages leave Wolfe desperate for red meat in his meals, so when notorious criminal Dazy Perrit, the so-called King of the Black Market, wants to hire Wolfe, the detective accepts a case he would have turned down under normal circumstances. Perrit's real daughter is an altruistic medical student studying medicine at Columbia and doesn't know who her father is. As a diversion in order to protect her from his enemies, Perrit hires a petty criminal to pose as his daughter, but she has been blackmailing him. When both the bogus daughter and Perrit are murdered, suspicion falls on Archie.
12Help Wanted, Male
Wolfe turns away a frightened prospective client who desperately wants Wolfe to defend him after receiving a threatening letter. When the man is murdered hours thereafter, Wolfe fears for his own life after he receives an identical letter. He hires a lookalike to impersonate him at $100 per diem and waits for the murderer to reveal him or herself.
13The Silent Speaker: Part 1
In 1946 post-War America, shortages and price controls are in the hands of the the controversial Bureau of Price Regulations (BPR). The organization is very much at odds with the National Industrial Association (NIA), which opposes its policies. When Cheney Boone, the leader of the BPR, is bludgeoned to death by a monkey wrench just prior to a speech addressing the organizations, NIA members are suspected. A broke and nearly bankrupt Wolfe is forced to take the case out of financial necessity, so he feigns a mental breakdown in order to but himself the time that he needs. After Boone's secretary, Phoebe Gunther, is also murdered, Wolfe is convinced that a stolen Dictaphone cylinder holds the key to solving the homicides.
14The Silent Speaker: Part 2
15Cop Killer
After a deadly hit-and-run accident, a police officer questions two barber shop employees about the crime. Because Carl and Tina Vardas are unlawful immigrants fleeing Communist oppression with a conditioned fear of police, they panic and run. When the policeman is later found stabbed to death with scissors in the shop, they become wanted fugitives. Archie grants them temporary asylum in the brownstone and finds to his surprise that Wolfe, himself an emigrant from Eastern European tyranny, makes them feel welcome long enough for he and Archie go about exposing the real killer.
16Immune to Murder
The State Department asks Wolfe to help them out at the Adirondack lodge of oil magnate O. V. Bragan, hosting a trout-fishing weekend for South American diplomat Theodore Kelefy, who has requested Wolfe be on hand to prepare his famous gourmet trout recipe. Other oil tycoons are also in attendance in hope of securing coveted oil leases from the ambassador. Although Wolfe characteristically takes no part in the fishing component of the excursion, Archie is only too happy to try his hand at landing a prize brook trout. He is distracted by the beautiful and overly flirtatious Mrs. Kelefy, who is not shy about using her considerable charms on men other than her husband. Initially excited when he thinks he's landed a big one, Archie hooks the lifeless body of the Assistant Secretary of State on his line. Wolfe had hoped to exit the lodge immediately after preparing the fish but now finds himself with a more daunting task - hooking and landing the murderer.
