Death of a Doxy
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| Author | Rex Stout |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bill English |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Nero Wolfe |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
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Publication date
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August 19, 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 186 pp. (first edition) |
| OCLC | 12137566 |
| Preceded by | The Doorbell Rang |
| Followed by | The Father Hunt |
Death of a Doxy is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by Viking Press in 1966.
"My sister was a what?"
"D,O,X,Y, doxy. I happen to like that better than concubine or paramour or mistress. I don't —"
I stopped because I had to, to protect my face.
Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest. He is arrested when she turns up dead.
Orrie is the only one of Wolfe's operatives to have the plot of two Stout books turn on his actions: Death of a Doxy and Stout's final work, A Family Affair.
Orrie is finally going to tie the knot. He's engaged to marry Jill Hardy, a stewardess. But for months, Orrie's also been keeping company with Isabel Kerr, an ex-showgirl. Orrie has some time available because Jill works international flights. Isabel has time available because she no longer performs: rather, she occupies a plush apartment that's paid for by another gentleman friend who visits her just two or three times a week.
Isabel objects to Orrie's marriage plans. She has taken some of his personal and professional belongings and stashed them in her apartment. Isabel threatens to show them to Jill and thus quash the marriage. So, Orrie asks Archie to get into Isabel's apartment, find his possessions, and get them back. When Archie does enter the apartment, he finds not Orrie's belongings but Isabel's body. Archie withdraws to meet with Orrie, but otherwise keeps the news to himself.
Isabel's sister Stella later discovers the body. The police find Orrie's possessions in the apartment and arrest him on suspicion of murder. In a meeting to consider whether Orrie is guilty, Wolfe, Archie, and Fred are all unsure, but Saul — via some convoluted reasoning — concludes that he is innocent, and Wolfe undertakes to demonstrate it.
Wolfe must determine who knew about Isabel's apartment. Orrie has given Archie some names — Avery Ballou, who pays the bills, Stella Fleming and her husband Barry, and a nightclub singer named Julie Jaquette. Archie visits Stella and Barry, and learns that Stella is frantic to keep a lid on the nature of her sister's living arrangements. Stella's concern for Isabel's reputation is such that she tries to claw Archie's face when he refers to Isabel as a "doxy."
Archie corrals a reluctant Ballou, and Wolfe coerces his cooperation by threatening disclosure of his relationship with Isabel. It turns out that Ballou has already been subjected to blackmail, by someone named Milton Thales. Ballou thinks that Thales is really Orrie, but Wolfe deduces Thales' true identity and assumes that he is Isabel's murderer.
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