"John Archer's Nose" is a short story by the African American author Rudolph Fisher. The story was originally published in 1935 in the Metropolitan Magazine. The story is the sole companion work of his most famous novel, The Conjure-Man Dies. In that book, Detectives Perry Dart and John Archer take over a case in which a corpse disappears from a room. In "John Archer's Nose", the pair is back at a case, this time relying of the scent that Archer can pick up with his exquisite sense of smell to provide clues to the details of a murder.
Rudolph Fisher was born in 1897, in Washington, D.C. He was a popular African American writer during the Harlem Renaissance while he lived in New York City. Some of his more popular works include When the Conjure-Man Dies and The Walls of Jericho. Fisher was a physician, author, and dramatist - his lines of work play important roles in some of his other short stories and novels.
