An Extraordinary Largesse - a Nero Wolfe Mystery, or, Someone Asks A Question And My Mind Goes For A Walk

Nero Wolfe (Maury Chaykin) and Archie Goodwin (Timothy Hutton) from the A&E TV series 'The Nero Wolfe Mysteries' (2000-2002)

    My friend, Aaron, asked the following question: "[Based] on what Wikipedia says about [Nero Wolfe], I don't understand how he didn't die of heart disease thanks to his sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet."

    For those unfamiliar with the character, Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective in a series of novels, novellas and short stories written by Rex Stout between the years of 1934 and 1975. Standing 5'11" and weighing (in the words of his assistant, Archie Goodwin) "A seventh of a ton", he has an extreme aversion to physical exertion and activity and conducts almost all of his investigations from within his Brownstone on West 35th Street, New York City.     Should his investigations require legwork, he employs an assistant, Archie Goodwin, and, when circumstances call for it, a small handful of others employed on a case-by-case basis. He is gruff, argumentative, stubborn, egotistical and absolutely fixated on his day-to-day schedule. In the author's original notes, his age is listed as 56 and despite his stories all being set contemporaneously will the books' release date, that age does not seem to change in the 40+ years covered by his adventures.     Now, most people would respond to the original question with, "He's a fictional character and can, like other similar characters, simply hand-wave such concerns away". However, questions like that can occasionally set my mind fizzing, and so...     Nero Wolfe (like other fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Doc Savage, Modesty Blaise, and so on) is an accepted part of Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Family, a lineage suggesting that many fictional adventure or detective characters share an elaborate familial lineage (See here for more details).     The most commonly accepted theory regarding Wolfe's position in the Family is that he is the illegitimate child of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, conceived during Holmes' wanderings across Europe following the events of 'The Final Problem', so I'll be jumping off from there.     Let me say up front that this is NOT a meticulously-researched work of literary archaeology. I have not pored over countless books, dotting my t's and crossing my i's. This is pure flight of fancy... my mind (as the title indicates) going for a bit of a wander. Join me, won't you?

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    In the original books, we are informed that Wolfe is passionate about, and has a large collection of, orchids. He maintains an 'orchid room' in which he spends four hours a day. He regards this time as inviolate and he is never as enraged as when this time is intruded upon. His collection is vast and he has never been known to part with a specimen. One of these specimens, hidden away amongst all the others, is an extremely rare and exotic Perrinnia Immortalis, or Blood Orchid.
    This plant can only be found naturally in certain isolated wetlands deep in the heart of the jungles of Borneo and, when treated correctly and certain elements properly distilled, can create an elixir which will grant the user an extended lifespan and enhanced health. Unfortunately, a side-effect of this distillation is a tendency towards increased physical size. One of the reasons why the plant is so rarely seen outside of its native jungle is that the area is inhabited by a mutant strain of reticulated python which has grown huge due to the influence of the orchid. These snakes have occasionally been misidentified by travellers fortunate enough to see them and escape as anacondas (a species native to South America). They are uncharacteristically ferocious and territorial. Another species similarly affected is a large water rodent, possibly related to the Bornean Water Shrew (Chimarrogale phaeura). 
    This species was encountered by Sherlock Holmes early in his career. In this case, a number of the creatures had smuggled themselves into the hold of the cargo ship, Matilda Briggs, sailing from Indonesia to England. Anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate that these creatures had, centuries earlier, managed to find their way to the small, Middle European nation of Guilder. There, they had found a suitable environment in that country's notoriously treacherous swamplands.

    Holmes made a study of the creatures but, finding limited usefulness in his career as a consulting detective, thought no more of it, however, the creatures' odd properties were of considerable interest to his older brother, Mycroft. Mycroft managed to deduce that the creatures had been subjected to some sort of mutagenic agent and dispatched a team to identify and recover that agent. Alas, the events of that mission or even the make-up of the team are as yet unrevealed, but that their mission was a success is undisputed as Mycroft soon began making use of the distillation, reasoning that his longevity and continued health would be necessary to guide the British Empire through the turbulent decades of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

    Mycroft would subsequently offer the use of the elixir to his brother, Sherlock, however, Sherlock refused, stating that his business required a certain degree of physical vitality and lightness of step. Later, in his retirement, Sherlock would go on to develop a variant on the original formula which maintained the life and health-enhancing properties without the side effects. This was done by having the orchid's pollen collected by bees and distilled into a form of royal jelly.

    Why Sherlock would not share the improved formula with his offspring is unknown. Or perhaps he did, but Wolfe, whose palate was notoriously sensitive may have found the honey-based distillate unpalatable, preferring Mycroft's original formula.

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So there you are, the weird fruits of my brane. REFERENCES:

• The life-extending Perrinnia Immortalis is taken from the film 'Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid' (2004).
• Holmes mentions the Matilda Briggs and the affair of The Giant Rats of Sumatra in 'The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1924).
• The nation of Guilder, with its Treacherous Fire Swamp and Rodents of Unusual Size are taken from the novel, 'The Princess Bride' by William Goldman (1973).
• Sherlock Holmes is shown having retired to a small farm on the Sussex Downs and taken up beekeeping in 'His Last Bow' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1904).
• I really, REALLY wanted to fit the Giant Rats from the Doctor Who serial 'The Talons of Weng Chiang' (1977) in there, but I couldn't shoe-horn in a time-travelling 51st Century Supervillain. Though that particular story WAS written by Robert Holmes (1977)... seriously? Robert HOLMES? Gods, if he wasn't a real person, I'd make him a pseudonymous 123 year old Sherlock obfuscating real world events with malarkey about 51st Century Supercriminals... *sigh*