'Yes.'
'It's a pretty good script,' I acknowledged. 'Are you sure--'
'It's no script! I wish to God it was!'
'Okay. Are you sure he knows you recognized him?'
'Yes. He looked straight at me, and his eyes--'
She was stopped by the house phone buzzing. Stepping to my desk, I picked it up and asked it, 'Well?'
Nero Wolfe's voice, peevish, came. 'Archie!'
'Yes, sir.'
Curtains for Three 153
'What the devil are you doing? Come back up
il'
'Pretty soon. I'm talking with a prospective cli
'This is no time for clients! Come at once!' The connection went. He had slammed it down. I ig up and went back to the prospective client. 'Mr. ?olfe wants me upstairs. He didn't stop to think in ie that the Manhattan Flower Club has women in it well as men. Do you want to wait here?' 'Yes.'
'If Mrs. Orwin asks about you?' 'I didn't feel well and went home.' 'Okay. I shouldn't be long--the invitations said
thirty to five. If you want a drink, help yourself, it name does this murderer use when he goes to & at orchids?'
She looked blank. I got impatient. 'Damn it, what's his name? This bird you recoged.' 'I don't know.' 'You don't?' 'No.'
'Describe him.'
She thought it over a little, gazing at me, and then liook her head. 'I don't think--' she said doubtfully, lie shook her head again, more positive. 'Not now. I tit to see what Nero Wolfe says first.' She must are seen something in my eyes, or thought she did, suddenly she came up out of her chair and moved to s and put a hand on my arm. 'That's all I mean,' she aid earnestly. 'It's not you--I know you're all right.'
fingers tightened on my forearm. 'I might as well fell you--you'd never want any part of me anyhow-- Rhis is the first time in years, I don't know how long,
154 Rex Stoat
that I've talked to a man just straight--you know, just human? You know, not figuring on something one way or another. I--' She stopped for a word, and a little color showed in her cheeks. She found the word. 'I've enjoyed it very much.'
'Good. Me too. Call me Archie. I've got to go, but describe him. Just sketch him.'
But she hadn't enjoyed it that much. 'Not until Nero Wolfe says he'll do it,' she said firmly.
I had to leave it at that, knowing as I did that in three more minutes Wolfe might have a fit. Out in the hall I had the notion of passing the word to Saul and Fritz to give departing guests a good look, but rejected it because (a) they weren't there, both of them presumably being busy in the cloakroom, (b) he might have departed already, and (c) I had by no means swallowed a single word of Cynthia's story, let alone the whole works. So I headed for the stairs and breasted the descending tide of guests leaving.
Up in the plant rooms there were plenty left. When I came into Wolfe's range he darted me a glance of cold fury, and I turned on the grin. Anyway, it was a quarter to five, and if they took the hint on the invitation it wouldn't last much longer.
II
They didn't take the hint on the dot, but it didn't bother me because my mind was occupied. I was now really interested in them--or at least one of them, if he had actually been there and hadn't gone home.
First there was a chore to get done. I found the three Cynthia had been with, a female and two males, over by the odontoglossum bench in the cool room.
Curtains for Three 155
ugh to them, I asked politely, 'Mrs.
at me and said, 'Yes?' Not quite tall plenty plump enough, with a round full laarrow little eyes that might have been bet- r had been wide open, she struck me as a lead owing. Just the pearls around her neck and stole over her arm would have made a good I doubted if that was the kind of loot specialized in. I Archie Goodwin,' I said. 'I work here.'
have gone on if I had known how, but I [?a lead myself, since I didn't know whether to Brown or Mrs. Brown. Luckily one of the E'horned in.
sister?' he inquired anxiously, was a brother-and-sister act. As far as looks I wasn't a bad brother at all. Older than me b, but not much, he was tall and straight, with a mouth and jaw and keen gray eyes. 'My sis i repeated.
I: guess so. You are--' Colonel Brown. Percy Brown.' ifeah.' I switched back to Mrs. Orwin. 'Miss l asked me to tell you that she went home. I gave la little drink and it seemed to help, but she decided ave. She asked me to apologize for her.'
i perfectly healthy,' the colonel asserted. He ied a little hurt. 'There's nothing wrong with
'l^Is she all right?' Mrs. Orwin asked. Tor her,' the other male put in, 'you should have 3e it three drinks.
