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''Murder by the Book'' is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout published in 1951 by the Viking Press, and collected in the omnibus volume ''Royal Flush'' (1965). ==Plot summary== On a cold January night, Inspector Cramer takes the unprecedented step of approaching Nero Wolfe for his help on a stalled murder investigation. Leonard Dykes, a clerk for a small law partnership, has been bludgeoned and drowned in the East River, with no leads other than a list of names in his pocket. Wolfe is unable to help, but by chance a month later Wolfe is approached by John Wellman, a Peoria businessman, to investigate the death of his daughter Joan. Joan, a reader for a small fiction publisher, was killed in a hit-and-run incident in Van Cortlandt Park, and Wellman, convinced his daughter was murdered, is dissatisfied with the investigation. After reading a recent letter that Joan had written to her parents, Wolfe is struck by the appearance of the name ‘Baird Archer’, an author whose novel Joan was reading for her employer; the same name had appeared on the list found in Leonard Dykes’ pocket. This convinces Wolfe that Joan Wellman was also murdered, and he agrees to take the case. Wolfe orders Archie Goodwin to explore the link between Archer’s novel and the two murder victims. While investigating potential typing agencies that Archer may have used to transcribe his novel, Archie arrives at the office of Rachel Abrams, a stenographer, mere minutes after she has been thrown out of a window to her death. Confirming a hunch, in the moments before the police arrive Archie confirms that Baird Archer was one of her clients. With little else to go on, Wolfe begins to focus on Leonard Dykes, the first victim, and in order to find out more about him Archie arranges a gathering at Wolfe’s office with the female employees of Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs, the law partnership Dykes worked for. After Archie produces John Wellman and Rachel Abrams's mother, who plead with the women to help identify the murderer, pent-up tensions between the women boil over, and during the resulting argument the name of Conroy O’Malley comes up. O’Malley, the former senior partner of the firm, was disbarred after bribing a jury foreman to fix a case. While Dykes was blamed for exposing him to the Bar Association, it quickly becomes apparent that all four of the firm’s partners—James Corrigan, Emmet Phelps, Louis Kustin and Frederick Briggs—have motive to have betrayed O’Malley. Soon after, the five lawyers—whose reputations have been damaged by recent events—approach Wolfe, keen to avoid further scandal. The men agree to send Wolfe all correspondence relating to Dykes, including a resignation letter he submitted. When Wolfe and Archie receive the letter, they are intrigued by an odd notation -- ‘Ps146-3’—that has been scribbled on it in pencil. They discover that the notation corresponds to the third verse of Psalm 146 of the Book of Psalms -- “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help”. As Baird Archer’s novel was titled ''Put Not Your Trust'', this confirms Wolfe’s theory that ‘Baird Archer’ was a nom de plume used by Leonard Dykes. Archie learns from Blanche Duke, one of the female employees, that the handwriting of the notation matches that of James Corrigan. When Wolfe learns that Dykes had a sister, Peggy Potter, who lives in California, Archie is dispatched to Los Angeles to persuade Peggy to help them trap her brother’s murderer. Archie writes a letter to the law firm of Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs purportedly from Peggy asking for advice over the legal rights of her brother’s novel, and hires a local private detective to pose as ‘Walter Finch’, a literary agent interested in acquiring her brother’s novel and selling it to a movie studio. Soon after, James Corrigan contacts Peggy, announcing that he is flying out to Los Angeles. Corrigan meets 'Finch' in a hotel room, unaware that Archie is present, and desperately insists on seeing Dykes’ manuscript, unsuccessfully resorting to violence when ‘Finch’ refuses. Archie remains in the hotel room while Corrigan and ‘Finch’ return to Peggy’s home for Corrigan to continue his negotiations—and so is present in the room when Corrigan later breaks in, trying to find the manuscript. Corrigan flees back to New York, closely tailed by Archie. The night after their return, Wolfe receives a rambling phone call apparently from James Corrigan, which is abruptly ended with the sound of a gunshot. After calling the police, Archie is dispatched to Corrigan’s apartment where Corrigan has apparently committed suicide. The next day, Wolfe receives an unsigned letter purporting to be written by Corrigan in which he confesses to the murders. The letter claims that Corrigan was the one who exposed O'Malley and murdered Dykes after discovering Dykes’s manuscript, which exposed the truth of the affair as a Roman a clef. The letter also confesses to the murders of Joan Wellman and Rachel Abrams, claiming that Corrigan murdered them to conceal his secret. Although the authorities are willing to rule Corrigan the murderer and his death a suicide, Wolfe summons the major players to his office, where he reveals that Corrigan’s supposed suicide note was flawed in one crucial respect; it claimed that Corrigan was aware of the contents of Dykes’ novel, when in fact Corrigan’s actions in Los Angeles clearly demonstrated that he had never seen the manuscript before. In fact, the suicide was staged and the letter forged by Conroy O’Malley, who also intercepted Leonard Dykes’s resignation letter before it was sent to Wolfe and wrote the notation in Corrigan’s hand to implicate him. Wolfe reveals that although Corrigan actually was responsible for O’Malley’s disbarment, it was in fact O’Malley who discovered Dykes’ manuscript, through which he learnt of Corrigan’s betrayal. O’Malley preemptively murdered the other victims both to frame Corrigan and to prevent them from exposing his reasons for murder, and then murdered Corrigan and staged his death to look like suicide. After Saul Panzer exposes holes in O’Malley’s alibi, O’Malley is charged and convicted of murder. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Murder by the Book」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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