The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe — 1950

Wolfe has just sunk nearly $4,000 into orchids, so Archie is desperate for a paying client -- and one is waiting. Gloria Kent's father spent the $10,000 she inherited from her mother on a treasure map she knows to be a swindle, and she wants it recovered without scandal.

Charles Porter telephones the dozing Wolfe with the one proposition guaranteed to interest him: a thousand dollars to do absolutely nothing.

Down from the orchids and midway through an extravagant order to the delicatessen, Wolfe has bills to pay and no intention of working for the money. Archie sets about changing his mind.

A stabbing in a gentlemen's club -- the victim a woman, which is the first thing wrong with it. Wolfe is broke again, so Archie argues the fee rather than the puzzle.

Archie hangs up the telephone with peculiar news: a rabbit is about to commit a murder, or else become one. Wolfe has a case either way.

A charity Santa is ringing his bell on a freezing Thirty-Fourth Street corner and packing up for the night when a car with its headlights switched off comes down the street at speed.

A telephone call sends Archie to a florist's shop, where a killing has been prepared with roughly the patience Wolfe gives his orchids.