Help Wanted, Male

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Help Wanted, Male is a Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout. Publisher Ben Jensen visits Wolfe’s office to hire protection after a death threat, but Wolfe declines and suggests he look after his own safety, even pointing Jensen to a bodyguard agency. Jensen had earlier worked with Wolfe in a case involving Army Captain Peter Root, who offered to sell classified information. The next day Jensen and the bodyguard are shot, and Wolfe denies any involvement when questioned by Inspector Cramer. That same day, Wolfe receives a death threat identical to Jensen’s.

Wolfe and Archie dig into the Root connection, tracing people connected to Root’s life, including his family and fiancée Jane Geer. Archie brings Jane to Wolfe’s townhouse, but they’re surprised to find Jensen’s son, Emil, waiting there. Wolfe stays away, ordering Archie to send them away. In Washington, Archie spots a help-wanted ad in a New York paper for a man with Wolfe’s height and build. Archie hurries back to Manhattan and finds that someone has replaced Wolfe in his own chair: H. H. Hackett, who is being paid to impersonate Wolfe at home and in public to lure would-be killers and learn who wants Wolfe dead.

From Army Intelligence, Wolfe has learned that Root and his parents weren’t involved in the murders. He asks Archie to bring Jane in for an interview, with Hackett pretending to be Wolfe and watching from a peephole. Jane and Emil arrive together, and the scene is shaken by a gunshot that kills Jensen’s impersonator’s cover and nickes Hackett’s ear. Wolfe then reveals himself to the visitors and proceeds with the investigation. A missing couch cushion from the front room, found in Wolfe’s desk drawer, along with a gun recently fired from Archie’s desk, point to the killer. The murderer is Hackett, actually Thomas Root’s father, bent on revenge for his son’s imprisonment. He had killed Jensen and the bodyguard and sent the death threat to Wolfe, using the disguised assault to test Wolfe’s defenses. He planned to kill Wolfe and frame Jane and Emil.

Wolfe turns Hackett over to Inspector Cramer. The story ends with the case solved and Wolfe safe. The tale was later adapted for the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002), with some changes to the ending.