Nero Wolfe

While in class with two students - the Russian Ludlow and the American Faber - in the prestigious sports club in which she is a fencing instructor, Neya Tormic is accused by Mrs Falchi of the theft of a jewel. The cousin and colleague Carla asks for help from Nero Wolfe: Neya is none other than the daughter of the only woman whom the investigator has loved. Despite noticing that Carla also went to him to hide a microfilm, Wolfe is astonished and almost moved; that's why he sends Archie Goodwin to the club to investigate.

In a fashion studio, a wearer eats a candy contained in a red box and dies poisoned. Nero Wolfe and Archie are called into question by Enrico Frost, cousin of one of the models investigated for murder (Elena). Wolfe quickly realizes that the main suspect is Elena who gave the tailor Lello De Angelis the box of candy, but did not take. While Elena's family proves to be very hostile to Wolfe, the girl reveals that in a month (when she reaches the age of majority) she will inherit a fortune ... She also tells him she is very attached to De Angelis: her family has known him since the war and then they lost sight of them for years and then found themselves in Rome.

The clerk Otto Bertola hires Nero Wolfe to prove that the woman who has circuit and married the fragile son Lapo, the seductive Susanna, damaged his business together with Silk, just dismissed secretary. To investigate Archie Goodwin moved to the villa of Otto under cover as a new assistant; so he knows what Bertola calls "parasites": Lapo and Susanna, who seem to really love each other; his second wife, Trina, dedicated to alcohol and men; her brother, Ruggero, maintained with a passion for the game. And then Zanna, laido "family friend" who teases Otto, boasting of having blown him a contract. The death of the friend-rival, killed with a pistol shot, throws shadows on the fixer, who owned a recently stolen Beretta. But also other members of the family are equally suspect: Trina had been used by Zanna as a sex object for one night and Roger himself had money problems that he could lend to him. When even Silk, the former secretary, is found lifeless, killed by the same weapon of the first crime, Wolfe has further evidence against Otto, but he is not at all convinced that he is the culprit ...

The immediate intervention of dr. Malaspina, who gave him an antidote: the chess genius Valerian died poisoned in the middle of an exhibition with which he would pay the transfer to America with his girlfriend Rossana Ferri. The police nailed the girl's father, the entrepreneur Matteo Ferri, guilty of having passed to the young the toxic drink, but it is precisely the daughter to hire Nero Wolfe, convinced of his innocence. To the detriment of Ferri, who in public had shown to dislike the relationship between Valerian and her daughter, there is the motive and the dynamics of the murder; but his wife Esther and the lawyer Guastalla say they possess a detail that will exonerate the accused. Wolfe is inspired by the investigation of Graziani to understand that Ferri was framed: among the exhibitors, few knew Valerian, while everyone was in contact with the entrepreneur. Suspicion of Guastalla, that Rossana accuses of having a story with her mother, but when Archie goes to the lawyer's house to look for traces of the poison she finds only her body. Matthew, then, reveals to Archie the detail that exonerates him: he can show that in the Valerian drink he had only put a sleeping pill. Wolfe immediately understands who the culprit is, but he must be flushed out ...