Curtains For Three (21 page)

The guy in the sedan was not the strangler, as I soon learned. On 27th Street there was space smack in front of Number 814, and I saw no reason why I shouldn’t use it. The sedan went to the curb right behind me. After locking my car I stood on the sidewalk a moment, but my chaperon just sat tight, so I kept to the instructions, mounted the steps to the stoop of the rundown old brownstone, entered the vestibule, and knocked five times on the door. Through the glass panel the dimly-lit hall looked empty. As I peered in, I heard footsteps behind and turned. It was my chaperon.

“Well, we got here.” I said cheerfully.

“You almost lost me at one light,” he said. “Give me them notes.”

I handed them to him - all the evidence I had. As he unfolded them for a look, I took him in. He was around my age and height, skinny but with muscles, with outstanding ears and a purple mole on his right jaw.

“They look like it,” he said, and stuffed the notes in a pocket. From another pocket he produced a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. “Follow me.”

As we ascended two flights, with him in front, it would have been a cinch for me to reach and take a gun off his hip if there had been one there, but there wasn’t. He may have preferred a shoulder holster, like me. The stair steps were bare, worn wood, the walls had needed plaster since at least Pearl Harbor, and the smell was a mixture I wouldn’t want to analyze. On the second landing he went down the hall to a door at the rear and signaled me through.

There was another man there, but still it wasn’t my date - anyway, I hoped not.

It would be an overstatement to say the room was furnished, but I admit there was a table, a bed, and three chairs, one of them upholstered. The man, who was lying on the bed, pushed himself up as we entered, and as he swung around to sit, his feet barely reached the floor. He had shoulders and a torso like a heavyweight wrestler, and legs like an underweight jockey. His puffed eyes blinked in the light from the unshaded bulb as if he had been asleep.

“That him?” he demanded.

Skinny said it was.

The wrestler-jockey, W-J for short, got up and went to the table, picked up a ball of thick cord. “Take off your hat and coat and sit there.” He pointed to one of the straight chairs.

“Hold it,” Skinny commanded him. “I haven’t explained yet.” He faced me: “The idea is simple. This man that’s coming to see you don’t want any trouble. He just wants to talk. So we tie you in that chair and leave you, and he comes and you have a talk, and after he leaves we come back and cut you loose, and out you go. Is that plain enough?”

I grinned at him. “It sure is, brother. It’s too plain. What if I won’t sit down?”

“Then he don’t come and you don’t have a talk.”

“What if I walk out now?”

“Go ahead. We get paid anyhow. If you want to see this guy there’s only one way:

We tie you in the chair.”

“We get more if we tie him,” W-J objected. “Let me persuade him.”

“Lay off,” Skinny commanded.

“I don’t want any trouble either,” I stated. “How about this'I sit in the chair and you fix the cord to look right, but so I’m free to move in case of fire.

There’s a hundred bucks in the wallet in my breast pocket. Before you leave, you help yourselves.”

“A lousy C?” W-J sneered. “Shut up and sit down.”

“He has his choice,” Skinny said reprovingly.

I did, indeed. It was a swell illustration of how much good it does to try to consider contingencies in advance. In all our discussions that day none of us had put the question, what to do if a pair of smooks offered me my pick of being tied in a chair or going home to bed. As far as I could see, standing there looking them over, that was all there was to it, and it was too early to go home to bed.

“Okay,” I told them, “but don’t overdo it. I know my way around, and I can find you if I care enough.”

They unrolled the cord, cutting pieces off, and went to work. W-J tied my left wrist to the rear left leg of the chair, while Skinny did the right. They wanted to do my ankles the same way, to the bottoms of the front legs of the chair, but I claimed I would get cramps sitting like that. It would be just as good to tie my ankles together. They discussed it, and I had my way. Skinny made a final inspection of the knots and then went over me. He took the gun from my shoulder holster and tossed it on the bed, made sure I didn’t have another one, and left the room.

W-J picked up the gun, and scowled at it. “These things,” he muttered. “They make more trouble.” He went to the table and put the gun down on it. Then he crossed to the bed and stretched out on it.

“How long do we have to wait?” I asked.

“Not long. I wasn’t to bed last night.” He closed his eyes.

He got no nap. His barrel chest couldn’t have gone up and down more than a dozen times before the door opened and Skinny came in. With him was a man in a gray pinstripe suit and a dark-gray homburg, with a gray topcoat over his arm. He had gloves on. W-J got off the bed and onto his toothpick legs. Skinny stood by the open door. The man put his hat and coat on the bed, came and took a look at my fastenings, and told Skinny, “All right; I’ll come for you.” The two rummies departed, shutting the door. The man stood facing me.

He smiled. “Would you have known me?”

“Not from Adam,” I said, both to humor him and because it was true.

I wouldn’t want to exaggerate how brave I am. It wasn’t that I was too fearless to be impressed by the fact that I was thoroughly tied up and the strangler was standing there smiling at me; I was simply astounded. It was an amazing disguise. The two main changes were the eyebrows and eyelashes; these eyes had bushy brows and long, thick lashes, whereas yesterday’s guest hadn’t had much of either one. The real change was from the inside. I had seen no smile on the face of yesterday’s guest, but if I had it wouldn’t have been like this one. The hair made a difference too, of course, parted on the side and slicked down.

He pulled the other straight chair around and sat. I admired the way he moved.

That in itself could have been a dead giveaway, but the movements fitted the get - up to a T.

“So she told you about me?” he said.

It was the voice he had used on the phone. It was actually different, pitched lower, for one thing, but with it, as with the face and movements, the big change was from the inside. The voice was stretched tight, and the palms of his gloved hands were pressed against his kneecaps with the fingers straight out.

I said, “Yes,” and added conversationally, “When you saw her go in the office why didn’t you follow her in?”

“I had seen you leave, upstairs, and I suspected you were in there.”

“Why didn’t she scream or fight?”

“I talked to her. I talked a little first.” His head gave a quick jerk, as if a fly were bothering him and his hands were too occupied to attend to it. “What did she tell you?”

“About that day at Doris Hatten’s apartment - you coming in and her going out.

And of course her recognizing you there yesterday.”

“She is dead. There is no evidence. You can’t prove anything.”

I grinned. “Then you’re wasting a lot of time and energy and the best disguise I ever saw. Why didn’t you just toss my note in the wastebasket'… Let me answer. You didn’t dare. In getting evidence, knowing exactly what and who to look for makes all the difference. You knew I knew.”

“And you haven’t told the police?”

“No.”

“Nor Nero Wolfe?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I may not put it very well,” I said, “because this is the first time I have ever talked with my hands and feet tied, and I find it cramps my style. But it strikes me as the kind of coincidence that doesn’t happen very often. I’m fed up with the detective business, and I’d like to quit. I have something that’s worth a good deal to you - say, fifty thousand dollars. It can be arranged so that you get what you pay for. I’ll go the limit on that, but it has to be closed quick. If you don’t buy, I’m going to have a tough time explaining why I didn’t remember sooner what she told me. Twenty-four hours from now is the absolute limit.”

“It couldn’t be arranged so I could get what I paid for.”

“Sure, it could. If you don’t want me on your neck the rest of your life,

believe me, I don’t want you on mine, either.”

“I suppose you don’t. I suppose I’ll have to pay.”

There was a sudden noise in his throat as if he had started to choke. He stood up. “You’re working your hand loose,” he said huskily, and moved toward me.

It might have been guessed from his voice, thick and husky from the blood rushing to his head, but it was plain as day in his eyes, suddenly fixed and glassy, like a blind man’s eyes. Evidently he had come there fully intending to kill me, and had now worked himself up to it.

“Hold it!” I snapped at him.

He halted, muttering, “You’re getting your hand loose,” and moved again, passing me to get behind.

I jerked my body and the chair violently aside and around, and had him in front of me again.

“No good,” I told him. “They only went down one flight. I heard ‘em. It’s no good, anyway. I’ve got another note for you - from Nero Wolfe - here in my breast pocket. Help yourself, but stay in front of me.”

He was only two steps from me, but it took him four small, slow ones. His gloved hand went inside my coat to the breast pocket, and came out with a folded slip of yellow paper. From the way his eyes looked, I doubted if he would be able to read, but apparently he was. I watched his face as he took it in, in Wolfe’s precise handwriting:

“If Mr. Goodwin is not home by midnight the information given him by Cynthia Brown will be communicated to the police, and I shall see that they act immediately. NERO WOLFE.”

He looked at me, and slowly his eyes changed. No longer glassy, they began to let light in. Before, he had just been going to kill me. Now, he hated me.

I got voluble: “So it’s no good, see'He did it this way because if you had known I had told him, you would have sat tight. He figured that you would think you could handle me, and I admit you tried your best. He wants fifty thousand dollars by tomorrow at six o’clock, no later. You say it can’t be arranged so you’ll get what you pay for, but we say it can and it’s up to you. You say we have no evidence, but we can get it - don’t think we can’t. As for me, I wouldn’t advise you even to pull my hair. It would make him sore at you, and he’s not sore now, he just wants fifty thousand bucks.”

He had started to tremble, and knew it, and was trying to stop.

“Maybe,” I conceded, “you can’t get that much that quick. In that case he’ll take your I.O.U. - you can write it on the back of that note he sent you. My pen’s here in my vest pocket. He’ll be reasonable.”

“I’m not such a fool,” he said harshly.

“Who said you were?” I was sharp and urgent, and thought I had loosened him.

“Use your head, that’s all. We’ve either got you cornered or we haven’t. If we haven’t, what are you doing here'If we have, a little thing like your name signed to an I.O.U won’t make it any worse. He won’t press you too hard. Here,

get my pen, right here.”

I still think I had loosened him. It was in his eyes and the way he stood,

sagging a little. If my hands had been free, so I could have got the pen myself,

and uncapped it and put it between his fingers, I would have had him. I had him to the point of writing and signing, but not to the point of taking my pen out of my pocket. But, of course, if my hands had been free I wouldn’t have been bothering about an I.O.U and a pen.

So he slipped from under. He shook his head, and his shoulders stiffened. The hate that filled his eyes was in his voice, too: “You said twenty-four hours.

That gives me tomorrow. I’ll have to decide. Tell Nero Wolfe I’ll decide.”

He crossed to the door and pulled it open. He went out, closing the door, and I heard his steps descending the stairs; but he hadn’t taken his hat and coat, and I nearly cracked my temples trying to use my brain. I hadn’t got far when there were steps on the stairs again, coming up, and in they came, all three of them.

My host spoke to Skinny: “What time does your watch say?”

Skinny glanced at his wrist. “Nine thirty-two.”

“At half-past ten untie his left hand. Leave him like that and go. It will take him five minutes or more to get his other hand and his feet free. Have you any objection to that?”

“Nah. He’s got nothing on us.”

The strangler took a roll of bills from his pocket, having a little difficulty on account of his gloves, peeled off two twenties, went to the table with them,

and gave them a good rub on both sides with his handkerchief.

He held the bills out to Skinny. “I’ve paid the agreed amount, as you know. This extra is so you won’t get impatient and leave before half-past ten.”

“Don’t take it!” I called sharply.

Skinny, the bills in his hand, turned. “What’s the matter - they got germs?”

“No, but they’re peanuts, you sap! He’s worth ten grand to you! As is!”

“Nonsense,” the strangler said scornfully, and started for the bed to get his hat and coat.

“Gimme my twenty,” W-J demanded.

Skinny stood with his head cocked, regarding me. He looked faintly interested but skeptical, and I saw it would take more than words. As the strangler picked up his hat and coat and turned, I jerked my body violently to the left, and over I went, chair and all. I have no idea how I got across the floor to the door. I couldn’t simply roll, on account of the chair; I couldn’t crawl without hands;

and I didn’t even try to jump. But I made it, and not slow, and was there down on my right side, the chair against the door and me against the chair, before any of them snapped out of it enough to reach me.

“You think,” I yapped at Skinny, “it’s just a job'Let him go and you’ll find out! Do you want his name'Mrs. Carlisle - Mrs. Homer N. Carlisle. Do you want her address?”

The strangler, on his way to me, stopped and froze. He - or I should say, she -

stood stiff as a bar of steel, the long - lashed eyes aimed at me.