Disclaimer: Kidou Senshi (Mobile Suit) Gundam SEED and its characters are copyright 2000-2004 Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and MBS. English language adaptation produced under license by Bandai Entertainment.

In other words, I don't own the original intellectual property.

Too Many Women is an adaptation of a Rex Stout novel by the same name. If you're unaware of the genius that is Rex, I encourage you to hunt for any of his Nero Wolfe mysteries. And hunt you will, as the vast majority of Nero Wolfe mysteries are out of print. I think they're going to reissue them all in shiny new paperbacks, as I've seen five or so fairly recently in my local Books-A-Million. The new editions come with fancy forwards by todays most popular mystery writers, and they naturally sing the praises of the legendary, if forgotten, author Rex Stout.

The A&E show Nero Wolfe is an entertaining, if somewhat lacking, interpretation of Stout's work, but the books are infinitely better. If perchance Timothy Hutton comes across this, Archie Goodwin should never have been portrayed as a clown!

In the part of Nero, we will have Yzak as he's the most irritable of our SEED characters. For Archie, our protagonist, we will have the suave Dearka. The others . . . well, read the book and you'll find out who's who. Since I doubt anyone else here is a fan, it probably won't matter much to you anyway. The story will be told entirely from Dearka's point of view.

With all the babbling out of the way, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to read this little mystery. I hope it is every bit as entertaining, charming and utterly hilarious as the original.You'll have to forgive me if everyone's a little out of character as it'll be unbearably difficult giving attention to that and making the story work at the same time. Hopefully it will all work out in such a way as to not tick everybody off.

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I found it funny at first, but then I usually did. This time, it developed in such a way as to give me a pronounced pain in my side. Trying to get Yzak Joule to take a job can be hard work.

It all started with a midmorning call from a Mr. Mu la Flagga, the president of Azriel-Ramius Enterprises, 901 S. Williams St. That's a block of Augustus 3 colony where a thirty story building is considered a shack. The inhabitants of such meager buildings were likely homeless people in well tailored suits.

But I digress. Mr. la Flagga was a busy man and kindly requested that Mr. Joule come to his offices and have a chat about something. I kindly explained that my boss was too lazy, was too much of a genius, and had too big of an ego to fit through the front door of the four story home that doubled as his office.

The fourth floor contained the orchids he had spent twenty some odd years collecting and breeding, along with a room for a gardener named Nicol Amalfi who was under the mistaken belief that anything green that was not an orchid was most certainly a weed. The third floor contained Mr. Joule's living quarters. The second, mine and a couple of guest rooms. The first, the offices, the dining room, a drawing room, and a well stocked kitchen. The basement contained the only television in the building as well as a pool table, a dart board, and the living quarters of the cook; one Kuzzey Buzkirk. In addition to his inability to make it through the front door, Mr. Joule's ego also made travel by stairs impossible. He had a private elevator, custom made specifically to haul the bulk of his genius between floors. Mr. Joule never left the premises except under the most unusual circumstances. Like a fire.

Undaunted, Mr. la Flagga called again in the afternoon and demanded on speaking to Mr. Joule personally. His request for an audience was flatly denied. In keeping with his schedule, Mr. Joule rode the elevator upstairs to pass the time with his orchids at promptly two o'clock. An hour later, I took the liberty of calling Mr. la Flagga myself, to which he responded, "And who the heck are you?"

"Dearka Elsman," I enthusiastically responded, "the heart, liver, lungs, and pancreas of the Yzak Joule private detective business. Mr. Joule being merely the brains. I could come down now."

"Fine. I think I can work you in," he responded.

II

Though the name Azriel-Ramius was vaguely familiar to me, it wasn't exactly a household name. The executive offices were located on the thirty-sixth floor and had been decked out with thick carpets, wood panels, and plenty of space. A receptionist greeted me upon my exit from the elevator. She had reached the age where it was better to receive than to give. Thus she received me at 3:45 pm and escorted me to the office of one Mu la Flagga.

Having a keen eye for these things, it wasn't difficult to determine that Mr. la Flagga was in his mid fifties, much like the receptionist. And like any well-aged president, he had a corner office. The windows looked less like windows than anything I had ever seen. Instead, it appeared that two walls of the room were made of a single L-shaped piece of glass. Corporate decadence never ceases to amaze me sometimes.

After shaking hands, I took the offered seat across the desk from the prospective client. After his having declined to give me the details by phone, I was briefly trying to size him up. If this was a case of missing office supplies, then it was well beneath us. We don't chase lead pencil thieves. And wife-tailing was always out of bounds for Yzak Joule. There are only two women for whom he ever had anything resembling a fondness. One was my on-again off-again girlfriend Miriallia Haw because she had both the intellect for conversation and the courage to face Joule down. The other was his former wife. I say former, though the circumstances of their relationship are rather murky. All I know of it is that Joule was a spy in the Great War in southern Europe about the time I was learning how to flush my father's keys down the toilet. The marriage wasn't meant to be as she had apparently been an agent for the other side and tried to feed him poisoned sausages. I often wonder if his current dislike for the female sex is due to his fear of them in general or the fear of what they could do to his food.

"I'll sketch the situation out for you," Mr. la Flagga began. "I noticed that staff turnover was abnormally high for the last fiscal year so I decided to look into it. Every department head was given a similar memo to this and asked to fill out a form on each person who had quit between July 1st of last year and June 30th of this one. Take a look."

He handed me a sample. It was a fairly quick read, being evenly spaced and all the blanks filled with type. One Sai Argyle. Included in the blanks were his living arrangements, marital status, age and starting and ending salaries.

At the bottom of the page there was a rather large space to explain the reason for turnover. In this case, it only took one word: Murdered.

III

"This is definitely not a lead pencil leak," I muttered.

"I didn't quite catch that," Mr. la Flagga raised an eyebrow.

"This is a good idea," I handed the form back. "Now you can find the weak spots and fix them, keeping in valued employees. Mr. Argyle's case is probably the exception. Naturally I keep up with local murders for business purposes. I'm afraid I don't remember this one. What were the circumstances?

I watched with some interest as Mr. la Flagga explained, "Sai was hit by a car somewhere uptown. Hit-and-run. The police never found the driver. I thought the term manslaughter would be more appropriate, as there appeared to be no evidence of intent. Being curious, I looked up the definition of manslaughter in the dictionary. Causing death without the forethought of malice. I asked Sai's supervisor if he agreed with my definitions of manslaughter and murder, which he did. He refused to change it to manslaughter, as well as to explain his reasons for believing that it was murder. I would like to hire Mr. Joule to find the driver."

This was all terribly fascinating. A mere department head refusing to the president of the company? "I see. This supervisor must be quite the refuser. Tell me, is he Mr. Azriel or Mr. Ramius?"

That question caused Mr. la Flagga some measure of embarrassment. To try and play it smooth, he covered his mouth in lighting a cigar. "His name is Azriel Ramius. He is the son of one of the founders and named after the other. He is also my wife's brother."

"I see."

He continued, "Mr. Ramius likes to make gossip. His report is starting up a lot of office gossip that we executives don't need. There have been enough distractions to business already."

"Okay," I sighed. "Now you want us to stop the gossip. I suggest you make up your mind. Do you want us to find the killer or stop the gossip."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

"Not necessarily," I explained. "If we find the killer, the gossip will likely go through the roof."

Mr. la Flagga impatiently looked at his watch. "I don't have time for this. Azriel Ramius's father is still chairman of the board, so this matter is getting extremely complicated. The directors and executives, including myself, want this cleared up as soon as possible. I want to hire Mr. Joule to find the determine the justification for the word murder on this piece of paper."

"So, we make that word good or make Mr. Ramius eat the paper it's printed on?"

"Something like that," Mr. la Flagga took a quick puff of the cigar before snuffing it out.

"And it's the corporation itself that wants to hire Mr. Joule?" I asked merely for clarification purposes. Joule never liked having murderers for clients, though there was only the slimmest possibility that la Flagga could have actually done it.

"Yes," he clarified. "I was hoping Mr. Joule could work undercover as a stock clerk in Mr. Ramius's department - what's so funny?"

"It's nothing." Just picturing Mr. Joule punching a time card nearly had my ribs cracking from trying to stifle the laughter. "I'll put it up to Mr. Joule this evening, but I should warn you that his fees are rather exorbitant."

Not only was Yzak Joule a legendary genius, he also had legendary fees. I always chalked it up to his extreme laziness. Fewer jobs mean higher fees to pay the bills. Luckily for my wallet, Mr. Joule was damn good at earning his fees.

"Of course. We never expect good work for low pay," Mr. la Flagga stood to shake my hand.

IV

The atmosphere in our home was rather frigid. Downright arctic, really. Being an eccentric ass, there were times I just didn't want to be around the boss. And so I found myself considering staying out of the cold. Perhaps I could handle the job myself, taking the undercover position as a stock clerk. It would be a great chance to rub elbows and gather lots of juicy gossip but then again, it could take months to get anywhere. I didn't have months. Mr. Joule probably wouldn't even like me trying it out for a week. He needed me there every hour, if not every minute. I had to be on call to get the mail, bounce unwanted customers, or even to shoot customers. That had been known to happen, by the way.

Still, I was rather reluctant to head immediately home. I decided it might be a good idea to stop by the police station and look into some detail about our victim. As I was learning that Sai's head and legs had been crushed nearly beyond recognition, Mr. Joule's best friend in the world walked in on me.

Police inspector Shinn Asuka's face turned bright red, "What the hell are you doing here? Is it the Minato case? Is Joule trying to horn in on another one of my cases?"

"No sir," I grinned broadly. "I just came by to see if there were any positions available. With my experience, I figured I could start out as a patrolman and work my way up to . . ." But by then he was already walking away pronouncing words not quite fit for print.

V

That evening in the office, I gave Joule the story in full. Word for word, really. He sat with his eyes closed, smirking as usual.

"I also took the liberty of checking with their bank. Azriel-Ramius could write us a check for $40 million without flinching." I thought that might get his attention.

"Satisfactory. Take out your pad." Still with his eyes closed, Joule began to dictate an acceptance letter. "Mr. la Flagga, President, blah blah. Mr. Elsman had reported the conversation with you. I accept the job of investigating the death of Sai Argyle on behalf of your company. As I understand it, the purpose of the investigation is to establish, with satisfactory evidence, the manner of his death, whether it be accidental or otherwise with the intent of some person or persons. The job does not extend to the disclosure of the identity of the murderer, if there was a murder, nor to the procurement of proof of guilt. Should you require it otherwise, you may notify me in regards to an extension of this contract. Paragraph. As for payment, . . ."

VI

Mr. la Flagga eagerly accepted the terms of Joule's contract, even going so far as to admit that Joule's plan was the better of the two. Thus on Wednesday morning at 9 am sharp, I entered the offices of Azriel-Ramius. Mr. la Flagga introduced me to all the heads of departments as a personnel specialist here to correct the turnover problem. My method would be to mingle among anyone and everyone I saw fit to mingle with. Mr. la Flagga also kindly suggested that I begin work in the stock department, seeing as that was where our victim had been employed. That was a great idea, since I preferred to disassociate myself with the potential murder in the eyes of those out of the loop.

Sai had been a correspondence checker. Learning what that was, it was easy to see why someone would want to kill him. He probably had every bit the popularity of an MP in the army. A correspondence checker, as the name implies, checks correspondence. They can snatch any letter out of anyone's hands at any time and check it for tone, spelling, grammar, and any number of other annoying corporate niceties.

Azriel-Ramius had been a minor corporation involved in the construction of the PLANT cluster colonies. They built the bridges and support cables and all that other stuff that holds these hourglasses together. Thus, I had always assumed that the stock department would have just that, a stock of something. And boy did they have something in stock.

Instead of parts, all they had was women happily working away at their desks. It looked like an arena of women, lined with supervisory offices on two sides, windows on the another, and the elevator wall on the last.

Being a fan of baseball, I am very familiar with the Aquarian Knights baseball stadium. It's only fifty blocks from my home, as a matter of fact. This single department on the thirty-first floor looked every bit as long and wide as the aforementioned stadium. And it was full of women. If I had two years, I'm sure I could find a few of these to be substandard. Possibly grade B material; too many freckles, a little too old, etc. But at 9:49 am Wednesday morning, I was still awestruck at the collection of girls at my disposal. If I didn't pinch myself, I might have thought I'd died and went to heaven.

"There's not a single virgin among them," a voice said from behind.

"Not one?" I turned to see the man himself, Azriel Ramius.

"Come with me." He took me to his office which was considerably less in every way from Mr. la Flagga's.

"So, do you have a hiring policy against virgins?"

"No, it was just a meaningless remark." Then he started talking about what they do and other terribly uninteresting material. Still, I took it all in with the photographic memory Joule paid me to use. He often found subtle clues that non geniuses like myself would miss. One thing of note: The department is divided into twelve sections, each of which have a section head. Bureaucracy can be so predictable.

Unwilling to accept that the virgin thing was just an offhand comment, I tried again. "Who picked all the flowers?"

Apparently it really was just an offhand comment as he ignored my question entirely. "I suggest you start with the case of Sai Argyle. He was murdered."

There it was. He was throwing me a curve ball. Most people would show a little reaction to such a revelation, so that's what I did. Foregoing the poker face I spent lots of time and money gambling to develop, I widened my eyes a bit. "Gee, murdered? Right here in the department?"

"No," Azriel laughed. "A few blocks away. He was run over. I was one of those called in to identify the body. It was like trying to identify an orange after it had been flattened into a pancake. An interesting experience that I wouldn't care to go through again."

"I'll bet," my eyes were still unnaturally wide. "So, did they find the guy that did it and string him up?"

"Unfortunately, no. The police have labeled it an accident and forgotten the matter."

"So, I take it you have reason to believe that they're wrong." I watched very carefully for any reaction.

The only one I got was him looking impatiently at the clock behind me. "I'm afraid not and I have other business to attend to. As should you. You are being paid to talk to others, not sit in here and chat with me."

That prickly bastard. I glanced at my watch. "Golly, its 10:20. I should be docked an hour's pay for this. I've been told that I'm quite the talker. Thanks for listening to me."

I got up and politely exited the slimy weasel's office and headed out into the stock of women to soothe my nerves. I saw lots of eyes, noses, and arms to tickle my fancy, not to mention the rest of them.

It didn't take long before I came across one particular girl with blond hair and blue eyes. There must have been two hundred women in here, but I could have picked her out of a crowd of a thousand. Her eyes indicated that she was every bit an angel and a virgin, in direct contradiction to Mr. Ramius's earlier assertions. She also had the exquisite form of a girl recently fired from a modeling agency for making her coworkers look like substandard material.

The angel stopped typing to say, "Hello." Her voice was a musical contralto. My favorite.

I pulled up a chair to sit next to this perfect example of the feminine gender. "Good morning, miss. I was wondering if you've heard any gossip about a man named Sai Argyle."

"Why no, sir. I just started here last week and I'll be leaving Friday."

"Oh my. What a disappointment. I'd hate to lose you," I responded with perfect honestly.

"I'm afraid it can't be helped. I'm a bad speller." She placed her hands on my knees and leaned forward to whisper with that hypnotic voice, "Do you know of a job out there for a girl like me who can't spell?"

To this very day, I have no idea how I escaped her trap.

A/N

Well, what did you think?

Unfortunately, this is a lot of work. A lot more than my usual stuff, since its an adaptation. The whole mystery thing complicates things more so, as I'd hate to leave out some important clue. Thus it'll take some time before an update. Heck, I might have to take this down and start all over.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.

End A/N