The Last Drive by Rex Stout

fact that publishing history suggests that the primary literary inspiration for Stout’s greatest characters (Wolfe and Goodwin) was his own earlier story, Justice Ends at Home , and that the primary literary inspiration for the plot of his first great detective story ( Fer-de-Lance ) was his own earlier story, The Last Drive . Stout was, in other words, demonstrably his own best source of inspiration.”
    The Last Drive seems to have been completely forgotten by 1934. It was certainly forgotten by the 1970s, when McAleer wrote Stout’s biography. The two men never discussed The Last Drive or Golfers Magazine. But although McAleer knew nothing of The Last Drive , he did speculate that elements of Fer-de-Lance might have been inspired by earlier works of mystery fiction. Perhaps, he suggested, Stout might have drawn the idea of a golf-course killing from Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Links (1923), or Ronald Knox’s Murder at the Viaduct (1926). Now we know it was not so. Stout came up with the idea himself, used it once, and consciously or otherwise, memory-­banked it to use again two decades later. The second time was the charm.

The Paisley
    This short romance story, one of Stout’s first, features three main charac­ters: a lonely man, a lonely woman, and a paisley dog who helps bring man and woman together, at least to the point of sharing tea at the Plaza. The story appeared in Young’s Magazine , a general-fiction pulp magazine aimed primarily at a female audience.
    S ammis Thrawn was lonely. Anyone who knew Thrawn would have declared this to be impossible; but it was true. As he sauntered aimlessly along an unknown path in Central Park he made a lazy mental survey of the possibilities of an amusing afternoon, and heaved a deep sigh at the hopelessness of it all.
    It was four o’clock of one of those days which June holds up to the remainder of the calendar with an air of serene superiority. By its witchery the clanging of street cars is made musical and the smoke from automobiles becomes fragrant. Everything is as it should be.
    But still, Sammis Thrawn was lonely. It is all very well to have a host of friends and a disgracefully large income, but there are times—
    Thrawn heaved another sigh, glared angrily at a robin perched on an overhanging branch, and, I am ashamed to say, even went so far as to strike at it with his walking stick. Of course, he was careful to miss; and the robin, retreating hurriedly to a little grassy mound, barely removed from the path, turned her back on poor Thrawn, every feather on her plump, round body expressive of resentment.
    Thrawn eyed the robin with severe disapproval, clenched his stick more tightly—and then, sighing once more, continued on his way down the path.
    â€œWhat the devil!” he mused. “I am bored! Actually bored!” He poked his stick lazily toward a little blue terrier that had stationed itself directly in his way and stood blinking up at him in the sunlight.
    Thrawn suddenly turned and surveyed the path to the rear, then to the front. No one was in sight. He stooped deliberately, took the terrier in his arms, and hanging the stick over his wrist, proceeded down the path with an almost eager step.
    As he turned a rounding corner in the path, and saw a girl seated on a park bench some dozen paces ahead, the idea that had been dimly revolving in his brain crystallized into a definite intention.
    The girl’s face, shaded from the sun by a large, filmy, lacy hat and a still more lacy parasol above that, was turned directly toward him. Its creamy whiteness was half hidden by a coat of tan that reached clear to that delightful curve where the top of the lacy collar appeared as a jealous shield; and the effect was one of which Thrawn thoroughly approved.
    As he approached nearer and read on her face the expression of a mood that exactly matched his own, Thrawn hesitated. Then, with a reflection that sympathy would