Rex Stout, Three at Wolfe's Door

Rex Stout, Three at Wolfe’s Door
Viking Press, 1960.  Bantam reprint 1995.
© Rex Stout 1960

Theree novellas, all originally published in 1960:  "Poison ala Carte," "Method Three for Murder," and "The Rodeo Murder."  All three are excellent, but there was one thing about "The Rodeo Murder" that made me wonder.  As Wolfe is about to disclose the murderer, he deals with motive, and addresses Harvey Greve (one of the cowboys in town as a performer for the rodeo; Harvey will return in Death of a Dude):

“Mr. Greve, you told Mr. Panzer that in the past two years you have purchased some three hundred horses, two hundred steers, and a hundred and fifty calves. In behalf of my Dunning.  Is that correct?”

Harvey didn’t look happy either.  “That’s about right, He said.  “That’s just rough figures.”

“From how many people did you buy them?”

“Maybe a hundred maybe more.  I scouted around.”
…
“You are exposing a man who made you a party to a swindle and who is almost certainly a murderer.  Did he tell you not to divulge the amounts?”
…
“…and I have the names of three other men who made similar purchases under similar arrangements…”

Now, I know next to nothing about professional rodeos. But if four men were buying livestock in that quantity, we have over 1,000 horses and nearly 1,000 steers and around 600 calves in two years.  Based on a little google research, I’m coming up with around $200-$300 for the steers, $50-75 for the calves, and $100 - $200 for the horses.  So (taking the mid-range values), Greve paid $150,000 for horses, $250,000 for the steers, and $37,500 for the calves—over $400,000 in a 2 year period.  With 3 others presumably doing the same, that’s about $1.2 million in livestock purchases.  Presumably these guys got paid for this (let’s say a 10% commission, around $120,000 in total).  And the promoter presumably marked the animals up enough not just to make a reasonable profit, but an unreasonable one.

All of that’s well and good.  But we have 4,000 horses, 4,000 steers, and 2,400 calves…over two years…for rodeos?  And presumably all (or mostly) sold to a NYC theatrical promoter?  Color me skeptical.  Surely he had lawyers.  Surely he had people who could talk to people.  What in god’s name did he do with all the damned animals?