be popportunity for it.'
jpOkay,' I conceded. 'And you phoned Pohl to find where Talbott had been recently. My God, Pohl helped on it! By the way, the Southwest icy put an airmail stamp on the envelope contain 140 Rex Stout
ing 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 tune 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
Curtains for Three 141
flup went his nerves, and I don't blame him. I
I hadn't the faintest idea, when I was phoning
jat list of towns Pohl had given me--hey! Good
ifolfe looked up. 'What's the matter?' Jive me back that expense list! I left out the f-five cents for Pohl's sandwiches!'
Disguise for Murder
I felt like doing was go out for a walk, but I quite desperate enough for that, so I merely down to the office, shutting the door from the id me, went and sat at my desk with my feet ied back and closed my eyes, and took some reaths.
made two mistakes. When Bill McNab, gar itor of the Gazette, had suggested to Nero Wolfe le members of the Manhattan Flower Club be to drop in some afternoon to look at the I should have fought it. And when the date ? set and the invitations sent, and Wolfe had that Fritz and Saul should do the receiving at it door and I should stay up in the plant rooms jjpm and Theodore, mingling with the guests, if I an ounce of brains I would have put my foot But I hadn't, and as a result I had been Up there hour and a half, grinning around and acting and happy. 'No, sir, that's not a brasso, it's a 'No, madam, I doubt if you could grow that in a living room--so sorry.' 'Quite all right,
144 Rex Stout
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 who 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 oh flowers to love, because flowers don't have to love back. I didn't object to their being alive and well, since after all I've got a mother too, and three aunts, and I fully appreciate them, but it would have been a relief to spot just one who could have made my grin start farther down than the front of my teeth.
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 from the cool room into the moderate room, after showing a couple of guys what a bale of osmundine looked like in the potting 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, and 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 by with her companions, an older female and two males. Later I had made another try and got another brushoff, and still later, too long later, feeling that the damn grin might freeze on me for good if I didn't take a recess, I had gone AWOL by worming my way through 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
Curtains for Three 145
ty-fifth Street had seen no such throng as that my memory, which is long and good. One flight I stopped off at my bedroom for a pack of cigaes, and another flight down I detoured to make the door of Wolfe's bedroom was locked. In the i hall downstairs I halted a moment to watch Fritz tier, busy at the door with both departures and ? als, and to see Paul Panzer emerge from the front which was being used as a cloakroom, with one's hat and top- coat. Then, as aforesaid, I en1 the office, shutting the door from the hall behind | went and sat at my desk with my feet up, leaned : and closed my eyes, and took some deep breaths, 'had been there eight or ten minutes, and getting sed and a little less bitter, when the door opened !she came in. Her companions were not along. By tie she had closed the door and turned to me I |got to my feet, with a friendly leer, and had begun, i just sitting here thinking--' look on her face stopped me. There was nothong with it basically, but something had got it 'kilter. She headed for me, got halfway, jerked to sank into one of the yellow chairs, and ted, 'Could I have a drink?' Jpstairs her voice had not squeaked at all. I had
otch?' I asked her. 'Rye, bourbon, gin--' I just fluttered a hand. I went to the cupboard t a hooker of Old Woody. Her hand was shaking i took the glass, but she didn't spill any, and she down in two swallows, as if it had been milk, i wasn't very ladylike. She shuddered all over and 1 eyes. In a minute she opened them again and fptoarsely, the squeak gone, 'Did I need that!' lore?'
146 Rex Stout
She shook her head. Her bright brown eyes were moist, from the whisky, as she gave me a full straight look
