Curtains for Three
[.'For nine months of the year Inspector Cramer of fHomicide, big and broad and turning gray, looked the , well enough, but in the summertime the heat kept pris face so red that he was a little gaudy. He knew it Piaid didn't like it, and as a result he was some harder to deal with in August than in January. If an occasion
* arises for me to commit a murder in Manhattan I hope fit will be winter.
Tuesday at noon he sat in the red leather chair and f looked at Wblfe with no geniality. Detained by another f appointment, he hadn't been able to make it at eleven, fithe hour when Wolfe adjourns the morning session | with his orchids up in the plant rooms. Wblfe wasn't ^exactly beaming either, and I was looking forward to j some vaudeville. Also I was curious to see how Wolfe I would go about getting dope on a murder from Cramer
without spilling it that there had been one, as Cramer
was by no means a nitwit.
'I'm on my way uptown,' Cramer grumbled, 'and
haven't got much time.'
That was probably a barefaced lie. He merely didn't want to admit that an inspector of the NYPD would call on a private detective on request, even though it was Nero Wolfe and I had told him we had something hot.
'What is it,' he grumbled on, 'the Dickinson thing? Who brought you in?'
Wolfe shook his head. 'No one, thank heaven. It's about the mu*der of Alberto Mion.'
I goggled at him. This was away beyond me. Right off he had let the dog loose, when I had thought the whole point was that there was no dog on the place.
40 Rex Stout
'Mion?' mine.'
Cramer wasn't interested. 'Not one of
'It soon will be. Alberto Mion, the famous opera singer. Four months ago, on April nineteenth. In his studio on East End Avenue. Shot--'
'Oh.' Cramer nodded. 'Yeah, I remember. But you're stretching it a little. It was suicide.'
'No. It was first-degree murder.'
Cramer regarded him for three breaths. Then, in no hurry, he got a cigar from his pocket, inspected it, and stuck it in his mouth. In a moment he took it out again.
'I have never known it to fail,' he remarked, 'that you can be counted on for a headache. Who says it was murder?'
'I have reached that conclusion.'
'Then that's settled.' Cramer's sarcasm was usually a little heavy. 'Have you bothered any about evidence?'
'I have none.'
'Good. Evidence just clutters a murder up.' Cramer stuck the cigar back in his mouth and exploded, 'When did you start keeping your sentences so goddam short? Go ahead and talk!'
'Well--' Wolfe considered. 'It's a little difficult. You're probably not familiar with the details, since it was so long ago and was recorded as suicide.'
'I remember it fairly well. As you say, he was famous. Go right ahead.'
Wolfe leaned back and closed his eyes. 'Interrupt me if you need to. I had six people here for a talk last evening.' He pronounced their names and identified them. 'Five of them were present at a conference in Mion's studio which ended two hours before he was found dead. The sixth, Miss James, banged on the stu
Curtains for Three 41
> door at a quarter past six and got no reply, presum My because he was dead then. My conclusion that was murdered is based on things I have heard 1. I'm not going to repeat them to you--because it take too long, because it's a question of empha and interpretation, and because you have already
them.'
'I wasn't here last evening,' Cramer said dryly. 'So you weren't. Instead of *y?u/1 should have said i Police Department. It must all be in the files. They s questioned at the time it happened, and told their i as they have now told them to me. You can get Have you ever known me to have to eat my
B?'
i've seen times when I would have liked to shove t down your throat.'
it you never have. Here are three more I shall : Mion was murdered. I won't tell you, now, how that conclusion; study your files.'
was keeping himself under restraint. 'I i-have to study them,' he declared, 'for one detail he was killed. Are you saying he fired the gun ' but was driven to it?'
The murderer fired the gun.' must have been quite a murderer. It's quite a i pry a guy's mouth open and stick a gun in it .getting bit. Would you mind naming him?'
shook his head. 'I haven't got that far yet. t isn't the objection you raise that's bothering me; |?an be overcome; it's something else.' He leaned Sand was earnest. 'Lookhere, Mr. Cramer. It ijtot have been impossible for me to see this i alone, deliver the murderer and the evidence ^ and flap my wings and crow. But first, I have no i to expose you as a zany, since you're not; and
