A lot of people want their holiday entertainment to be all sweetness and light with emphasis on sentimentality, but us mystery aficionados like to have some murder and mayhem mixed in with our traditional fare. The next five television episodes on this countdown will all fall into this category.

Christmas Party (originally broadcast on July 1, 2001) was an episode of A&E’s marvelous (but, alas, short lived) series Nero Wolfe based on the stories by Rex Stout. Not only were the scripts faithful adaptations of the original stories, but the show retained the proper early 1950s setting and the period details (costumes, cars, props) were flawless.

Directed by Holly Dale and adapted from Stout’s story by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, the episode opens with the great private detective Nero Wolfe (Maury Chaykin) at loggerheads with his legman Archie Goodwin (Timothy Hutton). Wolfe wants Archie to drive him to an appointment with a fellow horticulturist the next day and Archie has an invitation to a ritzy Christmas party that same afternoon that he would rather attend. Since Wolfe doesn’t particularly care for the holiday season, he is not interested in Archie’s preference. (Wolfe: “Christmas, an excuse for wretched excess aptly symbolized by an elephantine elf who delivers gifts to the whole world in one night.”)

Exasperated, Archie plays his trump card: a wedding license. As Wolfe sits there, stunned with disbelieve, Archie explains that he is betrothed to Margot Dickey (Francie Swift), secretary to wealthy interior designer Kurt Bottweil (Robert Bockstael), who is throwing the party at his office suite, and that his attendance is necessary so they can announce their engagement.

The next day, Wolfe leaves his Manhattan brownstone townhouse to go to his appointment without Archie who shows up at Bottweil’s for the festivities. It’s an elaborate affair complete with a bartender dressed up as Santa Claus with appropriate costume and Santa mask. In addition to Margot, the other attendees also include fellow Bottweil employees, receptionist Cherry Quon (M.J. Kang), business manager Alfred Kiernan (David Schurmann), designer Emil Hatch (Richard Waugh), Bottweil’s partner Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome (Nicky Guadagni) and her weasel of a son Leo (Jody Recicot).

When Archie and Margot slip away for a private chat, we learn that they are not really engaged. The wedding license was just a ruse to goose Bottweil into popping the question to Margot. It seems the bluff was successful. Bottweil finally puts in an appearance and is about to propose a champagne toast, when Kiernan suggests that Bottweil should be drinking his favorite beverage Pernot. (As Bottweil puts it, “It’s my secret public vice.”)

Kiernan fetches the office bottle and, glass of Pernot in hand, Bottweil takes a sip and begins his holiday toast, but he never gets to finish it. He falls down dead and Archie can tell by the scent on Bottweil’s lips that there was arsenic in the Pernot. Before Inspector Cramer (Bill Smitrovich) and Sgt. Purley Stebbins (R.D. Reid) arrive at the scene of the crime, the bartender bolts which suggests that Santa is the culprit.

But, as Archie discovers later that night, that was no ordinary Santa. It was Wolfe in disguise so he could spy on his assistant! Now it is up to Wolfe to solve the crime, not only because he’s in danger of being arrested for fleeing the crime scene, but, more importantly, he’s not about to subject himself to public ridicule. So, per tradition, with Cramer’s help, he summons the suspects to his office and correctly deduces the guilty party.

Nero Wolfe: Christmas Party is available from Netflix (Season One, Disc Three) and Amazon.