4/6/1950 Nero Wolfe lurches toward the Reichenbach

April 6, 1950.  (What an ugly cover, by the way.)  On this date the action begins in Rex Stout's novel In The Best Families.  This is the third of the Arnold Zeck trilogy, in which master detective Nero Wolfe confronts the master criminal.  In this book Zeck is so threatening that Wolfe flees, abandoning his beloved brownstone (leaving the door open, because with him gone there is nothing valuable left, the insufferable egotist).  His loyal assistant Archie Goodwin is left to cope on his own with no knowledge of where his boss has gone (although no one believes that he doesn't know, which makes it all the more frustrating).  But Wolfe hasn't surrendered, he's merely plotting, and months later...