"Method Three for Murder" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first serialized in three issues of The Saturday Evening Post (January 30–February 13, 1960). It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three at Wolfe's Door, published by the Viking Press in 1960.

Plot summary

After discovering a body in the back seat, Mira Holt drives the taxi she has borrowed for the evening to 918 West 35th Street. She walks up the front steps of the brownstone just as Archie Goodwin is walking down — having just told Nero Wolfe that he's quit.

Publication history

"Method Three for Murder"

• 1960, The Saturday Evening Post, January 30 + February 6 + February 13, 1960^[1]: 74
• 1970, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 1970
• 1976, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Spring–Summer 1970
• 1976, Giants of Mystery: Ellery Queen's Anthology, New York: Davis Publications, 1976, hardcover

Three at Wolfe's Door

• 1960, New York: The Viking Press, April 29, 1960, hardcover^[1]: 84

Contents include "Poison à la Carte", "Method Three for Murder" and "The Rodeo Murder"

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #10, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part II, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Three at Wolfe's Door: "Orange cloth, front cover and spine printed with dark brown. Issued in a mainly green-brown dust wrapper."^[2]: 11

In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Three at Wolfe's Door had a value of between $200 and $350. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.^[3]

• 1960, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild), July 1960, 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).^{[4]: 19–20}

• 1961, London: Collins Crime Club, January 20, 1961, hardcover
• 1961, New York: Bantam #A-2276, August 1961
• 1995, New York: Bantam Crime Line ISBN 0-553-23803-5 September 1995, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Margaret Maron
• 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-4060-6 October 31, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
• 2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75622-0 June 9, 2010, e-book