Curtains For Three (15 page)

“You will be glad to know,” I told Wolfe late that afternoon, “that none of these bills we are sending to our clients will have to be addressed care of the county jail. That would be embarrassing.”

It was a little after six, and he was down from the plant rooms and had beer in front of him. I was at my typewriter, making out the bills.

“Broadyke,” I went on, “claims that he merely bought designs that were offered him, not knowing where they came from, and he can probably make it stick.

Dorothy has agreed on a settlement with Pohl and will press no charge. As for Dorothy, it’s hers now anyway, as you said, so what the hell. And Safford and Audrey can’t be prosecuted just for going to ride in the park, even if they omitted it in their statements just to avoid complications. By the way, if you wonder why they allocated fifteen per cent of our fee to a stable hand, he is not a stable hand. He owns that riding academy, by gum, so Audrey hasn’t sold out cheap at all - anything but. They’ll probably be married on horseback.”

Wolfe grunted. “That won’t improve their chances any.”

“You’re prejudiced about marriage,” I reproached him. “I may try it myself someday. Look at Saul, staked down like a tent but absolutely happy. Speaking of Saul, why did you waste money having him and Orrie phoning and calling on New York tailors?”

“It wasn’t wasted,” Wolfe snapped. He can’t stand being accused of wasting money. “There was a slim chance that Mr. Talbott had been ass enough to have his costume made right here. The better chance, of course, was one of the cities he had recently visited, and the best of all was the one farthest away. So I telephoned Los Angeles first, and the Southwest Agency put five men on it. Also Saul and Orrie did other things. Saul learned, for instance, that Mr. Talbott’s room at the hotel was so situated that, by using stairs and a side entrance, he could easily have left and returned at that time of day without being recognized.” Wolfe snorted. “I doubt if Mr. Cramer even considered that. Why should he'He had taken that policeman’s word that he had seen Mr. Keyes on a horse, alive and well, at ten minutes past seven.”

“Good here,” I agreed. “But, assuming that it might have been the murderer, not Keyes, the cop had seen alive on a horse, why did you immediately pick Talbott for it?”

“I didn’t. The facts did. The masquerade, if there was one, could have helped no one but Mr. Talbott, since an alibi for that moment at that spot would have been useless for any of the others. Also the greeting exchanged at a distance with the policeman was an essential of the plan, and only Mr. Talbott, who often rode with Mr. Keyes, could have known there would be an opportunity for it.”

“Okay,” I conceded. “And you phoned Pohl to find out where Talbott had been recently. My God, Pohl actually helped on it! By the way, the Southwest Agency put an airmail stamp on the envelope containing their bill, so I guess they want a check. Their part of the charge is reasonable enough, but that tailor wants three hundred bucks for making a blue jacket and a pair of yellow breeches.”

“Which our clients will pay,” Wolfe said placidly. “It isn’t exorbitant. It was five o’clock in the afternoon there when they found him, and he had to be persuaded to spend the night at it, duplicating the previous order.”

“Okay,” I conceded again. “I admit it had to be a real duplicate, label and all,

to panic that baby. He had nerve. He gets his six-o’clock call at his hotel,

says to wake him again at seven-thirty, beats it to the street without being seen, puts on his act, and gets back to his room in time to take the seven-thirty call. And don’t forget he was committed right from the beginning,

at half-past six, when he shot Keyes. From there on he had to make his schedule.

Some nerve.”

I got up and handed the bills, including copies of the itemized expense account,

across to Wolfe for his inspection.

“You know,” I remarked, sitting down again, “that was close to the top for a shock to the nervous system, up there this morning. When he got picked to double for Keyes that must have unsettled him a little to begin with. Then he gets ushered into the other room to change, and is handed a box that has on it ‘Cleever of Hollywood.’ He opens it, and there is an outfit exactly like the one he had had made, and had got well rid of somehow along with the gun, and there again is a label in the jacket, ‘Cleever of Hollywood.’ I’m surprised he was able to get it on and buttoned up, and walk out to the horse and climb into the saddle. He did have nerve. I suppose he intended just to keep on going, but as he rounded the bend there were the four mounted cops and flup went his nerves,

and I don’t blame him. I admit I hadn’t the faintest idea, when I was phoning you that list of towns Pohl had given me - hey! Good God!”

Wolfe looked up. “What’s the matter?”

“Give me back that expense list! I left out the ninety-five cents for Pohl’s sandwiches!”

DISGUISE FOR MURDER AKA The Affair Of The Twisted Scarf Rex Stout My problems hit a new high that day. What I really felt like doing was to go out for a walk but I wasn’t quite desperate enough for that. So I merely beat it down to the office, shutting the door from the hall behind me, and went and sat at my desk with my feet up, leaned back and closed my eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths.

I had made two mistakes. When Bill McNab, garden editor of the Gazette, had suggested to Nero Wolfe that the members of the Manhattan Flower Club be invited to drop in some afternoon to look at the orchids, I should have fought it.

And when the date had been set and the invitations sent, and Wolfe had arranged that Fritz and Saul should do the receiving at the front door and I should stay up in the plant-rooms with him and Theodore, mingling with the guests, if I had had an ounce of brains I would have put my foot down. But I hadn’t, and as a result I had been up there a good hour and a half, grinning around and acting pleased and happy… “No, sir, that’s not a brasso, it’s a laelia.” … “Quite all right, madam - your sleeve happened to hook it. It’ll bloom again next year.”

It wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been something for the eyes. It was understood that the Manhattan Flower Club was choosy about whom it took in, but obviously its standards were totally different from mine. The men were just men;

okay as men go. But the women! It was a darned good thing they had picked on flowers to love, because flowers don’t have to love back.

There had, in fact, been one - just one. I had got a glimpse of her at the other end of the crowded aisle as I went through the door into the cool - room. From ten paces off she looked absolutely promising, and when I had maneuvered close enough to make her an offer to answer questions if she had any, there was simply no doubt about it - no doubt at all.

The first quick, slanting glance she gave me said plainly that she could tell the difference between a flower and a man, but she just smiled and shook her head, and moved on with her companions, an older female and two males. Later, I had made another try and got another brush-off, and still later, too long later,

feeling that the grin might freeze on me for good if I didn’t take a recess, I went AWOL by worming my way to the far end of the warm-room and sidling on out.

All the way down the three flights of stairs new guests were coming up, though it was then four o’clock. Nero Wolfe’s old brownstone house on West 35th Street had seen no such throng as that within my memory, which is long and good. One flight down, I stopped off at my bedroom for a pack of cigarettes; and another flight down, I detoured to make sure the door of Wolfe’s bedroom was locked.

In the main hall downstairs I halted a moment to watch Fritz Brenner, busy at the door with both departures and arrivals, and to see Saul Panzer emerge from the front room, which was being used as a cloakroom, with someone’s hat and topcoat. Then, as aforesaid, I entered the office, shutting the door from the hall behind me, went and sat at my desk with my feet up, leaned back and closed my eyes, and took some deep breaths.

I had been there maybe eight or ten minutes, and was getting relaxed and a little less bitter, when the door opened and she came in. Her companions were not along. By the time she had closed the door and turned to me I had got to my feet, with a friendly leer, and had begun, “I was just sitting here thinking -“

The look on her face stopped me. There was nothing wrong with it basically, but something had got it out of kilter. She headed for me, got halfway, jerked to a stop, sank into one of the yellow chairs, and squeaked, “Could I have a drink?”

“Sure thing.” I said. I went to the cupboard and got a hooker of old whiskey.

Her hand was shaking as she took the glass, but she didn’t spill any, and she got it down in two swallows.

“Did I need that!”

“More?”

She shook her head. Her bright brown eyes were moist from the whiskey, as she gave me a full, straight look with her head tilted up.

“You’re Archie Goodwin,” she stated.

I nodded. “And you’re the Queen of Egypt?”

“I’m a baboon,” she declared. “I don’t know how they ever taught me to talk.”

She looked around for something to put the glass on, and I moved a step and reached for it. “Look at my hand shake,” she complained.

She kept her hand out, looking at it, so I took it in mine and gave it some friendly but gentle pressure. “You do seem a little upset,” I conceded.

She jerked the hand away. “I want to see Nero Wolfe. I want to see him right away, before I change my mind.” She was gazing up at me, with the moist brown eyes. “I’m in a fix now, all right! I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to get Nero Wolfe to get me out of this somehow.”

I told her it couldn’t be done until the party was over.

She looked around. “Are people coming in here?”

I told her no.

“May I have another drink, please?”

I told her she should give the first one time to settle, and instead of arguing she arose and helped herself. I sat down and frowned at her. Her line sounded fairly screwy for a member of the Manhattan Flower Club, or even for a daughter of one. She came back to her chair, sat, and met my eyes. Looking at her straight like that could have been a nice way to pass the time if there had been any chance for a meeting of minds.

“I could tell you,” she said.

“Many people have,” I said modestly.

“I’m going to.”

“Good. Shoot.”

“Okay. I’m a crook.”

“It doesn’t show,” I objected. “What do you do - cheat at Canasta?”

“I didn’t say I’m a cheat.” She cleared her throat for the hoarseness. “I said I’m a crook. Remind me some day to tell you the story of my life - how my husband got killed in the war and I broke through the gate. Don’t I sound interesting?”

“You sure do. What’s your line - orchid-stealing?”

“No. I wouldn’t be small and I wouldn’t be dirty - That’s what I used to think,

but once you start it’s not so easy. You meet people and you get involved. Two years ago four of us took over a hundred grand from a certain rich woman with a rich husband. I can tell you about that one, even names, because she couldn’t move, anyhow.”

I nodded. “Blackmailers’ customers seldom can. What -?”

“I’m not a blackmailer!”

“Excuse me. Mr. Wolfe often says I jump to conclusions.”

“You did that time.” She was still indignant. “A blackmailer’s not a crook; he’s a snake! Not that it really matters. What’s wrong with being a crook is the other crooks - they make it dirty whether you like it or not. It makes a coward of you, too - that’s the worst. I had a friend once - as close as a crook ever comes to having a friend - and a man killed her, strangled her. If I had told what I knew about it they could have caught him, but I was afraid to go to the cops, so he’s still loose. And she was my friend! That’s getting down toward the bottom. Isn’t it?”

“Fairly low,” I agreed, eying her. “Of course, I don’t know you any too well. I don’t know how you react to two stiff drinks. Maybe your hobby is stringing private detectives.”

She simply ignored it. “I realized long ago,” she went on, as if it were a one-way conversation, “that I had made a mistake. About a year ago I decided to break loose. A good way to do it would have been to talk to someone the way I’m talking to you now, but I didn’t have sense enough to see that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“So I kept putting it off. We got a good one in December and I went to Florida for a vacation, but down there I met a man with a lead, and we followed it up here just a week ago. That’s what I’m working on now. That’s what brought me here today. This man - “She stopped abruptly.

“Well?” I invited her.

She looked dead serious, not more serious, but a different kind. “I’m not putting anything on him,” she declared. “I don’t owe him anything, and I don’t like him. But this is strictly about me and no one else - only, I had to explain why I’m here. I wish to heaven I’d never come!”

There was no question about that coming from her heart, unless she had done a lot of rehearsing in front of a mirror.

“It got you this talk with me,” I reminded her.

She was looking straight through me and beyond. “If only I hadn’t come! If only I hadn’t seen him!”

She leaned toward me for emphasis. “I’m either too smart or not smart enough;

that’s my trouble. I should have looked away from him, turned away quick, when I realized I knew who he was, before he turned and saw it in my eyes. But I was so shocked I couldn’t help it! I stood there staring at him, thinking I wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t had a hat on, and then he looked at me and saw what was happening. But it was too late.

“I know how to manage my face with nearly anybody, anywhere, but that was too much for me. It showed so plain that Mrs. Orwin asked me what was the matter with me, and I had to try to pull myself together. Then, seeing Nero Wolfe gave me the idea of telling him; only of course I couldn’t right there with the crowd. Then I saw you going out, and as soon as I could break away I came down to find you.”

She tried smiling at me, but it didn’t work so good. “Now I feel somewhat better,” she said hopefully.