'Yes,' Wolfe agreed, and added, 'Thank heaven.'
She nodded. 'I suppose so.' She gestured. 'I brought that check with me to show that we really mean it. We're in trouble and we want you to get us out. We want to get married and we can't. That is--if I should just speak for myself--I want to marry him.' She looked at Weppler, and this time it was unquestionably a smile. 'Do you want to marry me, Fred?'
'Yes,' he muttered. Then he suddenly jerked his chin up and looked defiantly at Wolfe. 'You understand
Curtains for Three 3
this is embarrassing, don't you? It's none of your business, but we've come to get your help. I'm thirty-four years old, and this is the first time I've ever been--' He stopped. In a moment he said stiffly, 'I am in love with Mrs. Mion and I want to marry her more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.' His eyes went to his love and he murmured a plea. 'Peggy!'
Wolfe grunted. 'I accept that as proven. You both want to get married. Why don't you?'
'Because we can't,' Peggy said. 'We simply can't. It's on account--you may remember reading about my husband's death in April, four months ago? Alberto Mion, the opera singer?'
'Vaguely. You'd better refresh my memory.'
'Well, he died--he killed himself.' There was no sign of a smile now. 'Fred--Mr. Weppler and I found him. It was seven o'clock, a Tuesday evening in April, at our apartment on East End Avenue. Just that afternoon Fred and I had found out that we loved each other, and--'
'Peggy!' Weppler called sharply.
Her eyes darted to him and back to Wolfe. 'Perhaps I should ask you, Mr. Wolfe. He thinks we should tell you just enough so you understand the problem, and I think you can't understand it unless we tell you everything. What do you think?'
'I can't say until I hear it. Go ahead. If I have questions, we'll see.'
She nodded. 'I imagine you'll have plenty of questions. Have you ever been in love but would have died rather than let anyone see it?'
'Never,' Wolfe said emphatically. I kept my face straight.
'Well, I was, and I admit it. But no one knew it, not even him. Did you, Fred?'
4 Rex Stout
'I did not.' Weppler was emphatic too.
'Until that afternoon,' Peggy told Wolfe. 'He was at the apartment for lunch, and it happened right after lunch. The others had left, and all of a sudden we were looking at each other, and then he spoke or I did, I don't know which.' She looked at Weppler imploringly. 'I know you think this is embarrassing, Fred, but if he doesn't know what it was like he won't understand why you went upstairs to see Alberto.'
'Does he have to?' Weppler demanded.
'Of course he does.' She returned to Wolfe. 'I suppose I can't make you see what it was like. We were completely--well, we were in love, that's all, and I guess we had been for quite a while without saying it, and that made it all the more--more overwhelming. Fred wanted to see my husband right away, to tell him about it and decide what we could do, and I said all right, so he went upstairs--'
'Upstairs?'
'Yes, it's a duplex, and upstairs was my husband's soundproofed studio, where he practiced. So he went--'
'Please, Peggy,' Weppler interrupted her. His eyes went to Wolfe. 'You should have it firsthand. I went up to tell Mion that I loved his wife, and she loved me and not him, and to ask him to be civilized about it. Getting a divorce has come to be regarded as fairly civilized, but he didn't see it that way. He was anything but civilized. He wasn't violent, but he was damned mean. After some of that I got afraid I might do to him what Gif James had done, and I left. I didn't want to go back to Mrs. Mion while I was in that state of mind, so I left the studio by the door to the upper hall and took the elevator there.'
He stopped.
Curtains for Three 5
'And?' Wolfe prodded him. 'I walked it off. I walked across to the park, and after a while I had calmed down and I phoned Mrs. Mion, and she met me in the park. I told her what I Mion's attitude was, and I asked her to leave him and come with me. She wouldn't do that.' Weppler paused, | and then went on, 'There are two complications you Jjought to have if you're to have everything.' 'If they're relevant, yes.'
'They're relevant all right. First, Mrs. Mion had Hand has money of her own. That was an added attraction for Mion. It wasn't for me. I'm just telling you.' 'Thank you. And the second?' 'The second was Mrs. Mion's reason for not leaving fion immediately. I suppose you know he had been i top tenor at the Met for five or six years, and his piroice was gone--temporarily. Gifford James, the bari|ft0ne, had hit him on the neck with his fist and hurt his sc-- that was early in March--and Mion couldn't the season. It had been operated, but his voice in't come back, and naturally he was glum, and Mrs. ilBon wouldn't leave him under those circumstances. I ied to persuade her to, but she wouldn't. I wasn't ; like normal that day, on account of what had ened to me for the first time in my life, and on nt of what Mion had said to me, so I wasn't rea Iflpnable and I left her in the park and went downtown > a bar and started drinking. A lot of time went by I had quite a few, but I wasn't pickled. Along seven o'clock I decided I had to see her again 1 carry her off so she wouldn't spend another night That mood took me back to East End Avenue up to the twelfth floor, and then I stood there in t hall a while, perhaps ten minutes, before my finger ent to the pushbutton. Finally I rang, and the maid
6 Rex Stout
let me in and went for Mrs. Mion, but I had lost my nerve or something. All I did was suggest that we should have a talk with Mion together. She agreed, and we went upstairs and--'
'Using the elevator?'
