to last you've got to be sure.'
'That was it,' Fred agreed. They were looking at each other. 'That was it exactly.'
'M right, I'll take this,' Wolfe said curtly. 'I think you've told the truth, Mr. Weppler.'
'I know damn well I have.'
Wolfe nodded. 'You sound like it. I have a good ear for the truth. Now take Mrs. Mion home. I've got to work, but first I must think it over. As I said, there were two details, and you've disposed of only one. You can't help with the other. Go home and eat something.'
'Who wants to eat?' Fred demanded fiercely. 'We want to know what you're going to do!'
'I've got to brush my teeth,' Peggy stated. I shot her a glance of admiration and affection. Women's saying things like that at times like that is one of the reasons I enjoy their company. No man alive, under those circumstances, would have felt that he had to brush his teeth and said so.
Besides, it made it easier to get rid of them without being rude, Fred tried to insist that they had a right to know what the program was, and to help consider the prospects, but was finally compelled to accept Wolfe's mandate that when a man hired an expert the only
Curtains for Three 53
authority he kept was the right to fire. That, combined with Peggy's longing for a toothbrush and Wolfe's assurance that he would keep them informed, got them on their way without a ruckus.
When, after letting them out, I returned to the office, Wolfe was drumming on his desk blotter with a paperknife, scowling at it, though I had told him a hundred times that it ruined the blotter. I went and got the checkbook and replaced it in the safe, having put nothing on the stub but the date, so no harm was done.
'Twenty minutes till lunch,' I announced, swiveling my chair and sitting. 'Will that be enough to hogtie the second detail?'
No reply.
I refused to be sensitive. 'If you don't mind,' I inquired pleasantly, 'what is the second detail?'
Again no reply, but after a moment he dropped the paperknife, leaned back, and sighed clear down.
'That confounded gun,' he growled. 'How did it get from the floor to the bust? Who moved it?' I stared at him. 'My God,' I complained, 'you're hard to satisfy. You've just had two clients arrested and worked like a dog, getting the gun from the bust to the floor. Now you want to get it from the floor to the bust again? What the hell!'
'Not again. Prior to.'
'Prior to what?'
'To the discovery of the body.' His eyes slanted at me. 'What do you think of this? A man--or a woman, no matter which--entered the studio and killed Mion in a manner that would convey a strong presumption of suicide. He deliberately planned it that way: it's not as difficult as the traditional police theory assumes. Then he placed the gun on the base of the bust, twenty
54 Rex Stout
feet away from the body, and departed. What do you think of it?'
'I don't think; I know. It didn't happen that way, unless he suddenly went batty after he pulled the trigger, which seems farfetched.'
'Precisely. Having planned it to look like suicide, he placed the gun on the floor near the body. That is not discussible. But Mr. Weppler found it on the bust. Who took it from the floor and put it there, and when and why?'
'Yeah.' I scratched my nose. 'That's annoying. I'll admit the question is relevant and material, but why the hell do you let it in? Why don't you let it lay? Get him or her pinched, indicted, and tried. The cops will testify that the gun was there on the floor, and that will suit the jury fine, since it was framed for suicide. Verdict, provided you've sewed up things like motive and opportunity, guilty.' I waved a hand. 'Simple. Why bring it up at all about the gun being so fidgety?'
Wolfe grunted. 'The clients. I have to earn my fee. They want their minds cleared, and they know the gun wasn't on theJJoor when they discovered the body. For the jury, I can't leave it that the gun was on the bust, and for the clients I can't leave it that it stayed on the floor where the murderer put it. Having, through Mr. Weppler, got it from the bust to the floor, I must now go back and get it from the floor to the bust. You see that?'
'Only too plain.' I whistled for help. 'I'll be damned. How're you coming on?'
'I've just started.' He sat up straight. 'But I must clear my own mind, for lunch. Please hand me Mr. Shanks's orchid catalogue.'
That was all for the moment, and during meals Wolfe excludes business riot only from the conversa
Curtains for Three 55
tion but also from the air. After lunch he returned to the office and got comfortable in his chair. For a while he just sat, and then began pushing his lips out and in, and I knew he was doing hard labor. Having no idea how he proposed to move the gun from the floor to the bust, I was wondering how long it might take, and whether he would have to get Cramer to arrest someone else, and if so who. I have seen him sit there like that, working for hours on end, but this time twenty minutes did it. It wasn't three o'clock yet when he pronounced my name gruffly and opened his eyes.
'Archie.'
'Tes, sir.'
'I can't do this. You'll have to.'
'You mean dope it? I'm sorry, I'm busy.'
