"Blood Will Tell" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published in the December 1963 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Trio for Blunt Instruments, published by the Viking Press in 1964.

Plot summary

Archie Goodwin receives a blood-stained tie in the mail from the owner of a small walk-up apartment building in lower Manhattan, who also lives on the top floor. Archie investigates, only to find yet another dead body^[1] and now has to sort out the mess, preferably collecting a fee along the way since the other adventures in this volume have not earned the costly Nero Wolfe operation a cent.

Publication history

"Blood Will Tell"

• 1963, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 1963^[2]: 78
• 1971, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Fall–Winter 1971

Trio for Blunt Instruments

• 1964, New York: The Viking Press, April 24, 1964, hardcover^[2]: 86

Contents include "Kill Now—Pay Later", "Murder Is Corny" and "Blood Will Tell".

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Trio for Blunt Instruments: "Orange cloth, front cover and spine printed with blue rules; the front cover printed with blue lettering; the spine is printed with black lettering; rear cover blank. Issued in a mainly red pictorial dust wrapper."^[3]: 17

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Trio for Blunt Instruments had a value of between $150 and $300. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.^[4]

• 1964, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), June 1964, hardcover

The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:

• The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
• Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
• Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).^{[5]: 19–20}

• 1965, London: Collins Crime Club, January 1965, hardcover
• 1967, New York: Bantam #F-3298, January 1967
• 1997, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 0-553-24191-5 January 1, 1997, paperback
• 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-4061-4 October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
• 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75629-9 July 21, 2010, e-book