Curtains for Three Read online

  Curtains for Three

  Rex Stout

  Curtains for Three Rex Stout Series: Nero Wolfe [18] Published: 1995 Tags: Vintage Mystery

  Vintage Mysteryttt

  SUMMARY:

  In these three baffling mysteries of motive and murder, even the great Nero Wolfe finds himself stumped. First there is the case of the two passionate lovebirds who want to make sure that neither is a cold-blooded killer. Then it’s off to the races, where Wolfe must choose from a stable of five likely suspects to corral a killer on horseback. And finally the detective finds himself the confidant of a distraught, self-described grifter who claims a murderer is stalking Wolfe’s own brownstone. Through brilliant deduction and inspired perseverance, the master of detection is determined to expose the truth behind the veils of illusion - and bring down the curtain on three all-too-clever murderers.

  Curtains for ThreeRex StoutSeries: Nero Wolfe [18] Published: 1995 Tags: Vintage Mystery

  Vintage Mysteryttt

  SUMMARY:

  In these three baffling mysteries of motive and murder, even the great Nero Wolfe finds himself stumped. First there is the case of the two passionate lovebirds who want to make sure that neither is a cold-blooded killer. Then it’s off to the races, where Wolfe must choose from a stable of five likely suspects to corral a killer on horseback. And finally the detective finds himself the confidant of a distraught, self-described grifter who claims a murderer is stalking Wolfe’s own brownstone. Through brilliant deduction and inspired perseverance, the master of detection is determined to expose the truth behind the veils of illusion - and bring down the curtain on three all-too-clever murderers.

  THE REX STOUT LIBRARY

  Ferde-Lance

  The League of

  Frightened Men

  The Rubber Band

  Where There’s aWill

  The Final Deduction

  The Hand in the Glove

  Black Orchids

  The Doorbell Rang

  If Death Ever Slept

  Murder by the Book

  Not Quite Dead Enough

  Prisoner’s Base

  And Four to Go

  Might as Well Be Dead

  A Family Affair

  Please Pass the Guilt

  Triple jeopardy

  The Mother Hunt

  The Father Hunt

  Trouble in Triplicate

  Homicide Trinity

  The Black Mountain

  Too Many Cooks

  Before Midnight

  Over My Dead Body

  The Mountain Cat Murders

  The Silent Speaker

  And Be aVillain Too Many Clients

  Three Men Out

  A Right to Die

  Curtains for Three

  Available from Bantam Books

  Rex Stout

  Al/ff fP

  , the creator of Nero Wolfe, was born in Noblesville, in 1886, the sixth of nine children of John and Todhunter Stout, both Quakers. Shortly after his the family moved to Wakarusa, Kansas. He was edu I bi a country school, but, by the age of nine, he was throughout the state as a prodigy in arithmetic. t briefly attended the University of Kansas, but left to I in the Navy and spent the next two years as a warrant g&n board President Theodore Roosevelt’s yacht. When I Navy in 1908, Rex Stout began to write freelance ; worked as a sightseeing guide and as an itinerant r. Later he devised and implemented a school system which was installed in four hundred cities throughout the country. In 1927 Mr. Stout retired s world of finance and, with the proceeds of his bank left for Paris to write serious fiction. He wrote els that received favorable reviews before turning to fiction. His first Nero Wolfe novel, Ferde-Lance, ift 1934. It was followed by many others, among Jlfbo Many Cooks, The Silent Speaker, If Death Ever Ifffce Doorbell Rang, and Please Pass the Guilt, which i Nero Wolfe as a leading character on a par with Gardner’s famous protagonist, Perry Mason, ^world War n, Rex Stout waged a personal campaign t Nazism as chairman of the War Writers’ Board, roaster of the radio program “Speaking of Liberty,” , member of several national committees. After the turned his attention to mobilizing public opinion t the wartime use of thermonuclear devices, was an te leader in the Authors’ Guild and resumed writing his iffjpjtfe novels. Rex Stout died in 1975 at the age of e. A month before his death, he published his sev I Nero Wolfe mystery, A Family Affair. Ten years S���e*enty-third Nero Wolfe mystery was discovered and t in Death Times Three.

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  The Rex Stout Library

  Fer-de-Lance

  The League of Frightened Men

  The Rubber Band

  The Red Box

  Too Many Cooks

  Some Buried Caesar

  Ov.er My Dead Body

  Where There’s a VW11

  Black Orchids

  Not Quite Dead Enough

  The Silent Speaker

  Too Many Women

  And Be a Villain

  The Second Confession

  Trouble in Triplicate

  In the Best Families

  Three Doors to Death

  Murder by the Book

  Curtains for Three

  Prisoner’s Base

  Triple Jeopardy

  The Golden Spiders

  The Black Mountain

  Three Men Out

  Before Midnight

  Might As Well Be Dead

  Three Witnesses**-^’-���

  .<? If Death Ever Slept Three for the Chair Champagne for One And Four to Go Plot It Yourself Too Many Clients Three at Wolfe’s Door The Final Deduction Gambit

  Homicide Trinity The Mother Hunt A Right to Die Trio for Blunt Instruments The Doorbell Rang Death of a Doxy The Father Hunt Death of a Dude Please Pass the Guilt A Family Affair Death Times Three The Hand in the Glove Double for Death Bad for Business The Broken Vase The Sound of Murder Red Threads rfne Mountain Cat Murders

  IS* “U fciWiH?

  EX STOUT

  Curtains or Three

  Introduction by Judith Kelman

  H

  BANTAM BOOKS ifflBW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

  A NERO W O L F E ** M Y S T E R Y

  CURTAINS FOR THREE

  A Bantam Crime Line Book / published by arrangement with Viking Penguin, Inc.

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Viking edition published December 1950

  Bantam edition / June 1955 Bantam reissue edition / December 1994

  Acknowledgment is made to the american magazine in which these three short

  novels originally appeared: Bullet for One, July 1948; The Gun with Wings,

  December 1949; and Disguise for Murder, under the title The Twisted Scarf,

  ‘September 1950.

  crime une and the portrayal of a boxed “cl” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Den Publishing Group, Inc.

  An rights reserved.

  Copyright ��� 1948, 1949, 1950 by Rex Stout Introduction copyright ��� 1994 by Judith Kelman.

  Cover art copyright ��� 1994 by Tom HaBman.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

  any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or

  by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in

  writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Viking Press, Penguin USA, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for
this “stripped book.”

  ISBN 0-55a-24498l Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Double day Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  OPM 14 13 12 11 10 9 8

  Introduction

  Mysteries are a mind game. Lovers of the form are drawn to the puzzle. Who done it and why? Will good triumph over evil and how? In the pulse-pounding race to the solution, will the writer or the reader cross the finish line first?

  In this particular sport, the most important muscles are the theoretical ones between the participants’ ears. Intellect is everything. A canny detective armed with gobs of gray matter will beat out the Uzi-wielding bad guy every time.

  Which partly explains the enduring appeal of Nero Wolfe.

  Wolfe is the large lump of calm at the center of the storm’s eye in Rex Stout’s eponymous mystery series. Evil doesn’t move Nero Wolfe. Nothing, short of a good meal or a serious beer shortage, could. This supersleuth is a supersloth, so unfit and lazy he lacks the steam to lean over and retrieve a weighty retainer check from his desk.

  For that and other onerous physical chores, he has Archie Goodwin, his fleet-footed, lighthearted, adventurous assistant. While Archie does all necessary legwork and Fritz, Wolfe’s household retainer, attends to the master’s ravenous appetites, Wolfe’s sole responsi

  vi Introduction

  bility is to sit back and revel in the whirring of his keen, insightful mind.

  At the critical moment, the cylinders are guaranteed to dick into perfect alignment, allowing Wolfe to finger the suspect from the comfort of his favorite chair in his office in his elegant brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street.

  Of course, the moment must conform to the detective’s unyielding schedule. During set mealtimes and the four hours each day Wolfe spends tending his ten thousand orchids, murder and mayhem simply have to wait.

  And they do.

  In this respect Nero Wolfe is sort of a porky two legged Club Med: an antidote for the strident intrusiveness and chaos of civilization.

  Reality for most of us is ringing phones, boisterous kids, mountains of bills, and demanding bosses. Most of our existences are liberally sprinkled with dark dreams and rude awakenings. Our paths are marred by potholes and sudden detours. Even when things feel settled, we face constant reminders that cataclysmic change can occur at any moment. Much of today’s news is a litany of tragic accidents, natural disasters, and unthinkable violence. Life, I tell my sons, is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

  That uncertainty invades most contemporary novels of mystery and suspense, often driving the narrative (sometimes off the road). Evil explodes on the fictional scene with all the subtlety of Howard Stern or Madonna. The hapless protagonist is derailed tike a sabotaged train. Amateur sleuths spring into frantic action. Law-enforcement professionals haul out their fuB bags of high-and low-tech forensic tricks and pursue the bad guys like a stampede of crazed buffalo.

  . Introduction vii

  Pyrotechnics can dazzle. Car chases and literal cliffhangers do raise the blood pressure and squeeze out the gasps. But the reader manipulated by such shameless Hollywood devices is being distracted from the heart and soul of the mystery form: the puzzle.

  Wolfe’s world, on the other hand, is refined, prescribed, predictable. Even when crime presses its noisome finger at his doorbell, Nero Wolfe remains in perfect, unflinching control.

  Rex Stout recognized that the smallest detail can speak volumes. He relied solely on intricate plot twists and dazzlingly quiet feats of detection. He had no need or desire to distract his readers from the story’s central strand.

  Nowhere is this more evident than in Curtains for Three, a trio of novelettes first published in 1950. Unsolved crimes are delivered handily to the detective’s door. Witnesses and likely perpetrators present themselves and compliantly await Wolfe’s audience. In one case the murder conveniently occurs in his office.

  If you think that sounds dull, think again. The seventy-three Nero Wolfe mysteries have intrigued and entertained millions of readers and inspired countless writers to tackle the form. Rex Stout has become a virtual synonym for the term classic mystery. Mention West Thirty-fifth Street to a mystery fan and the response is sure to be a look of instant recognition and a smile.

  If Rex Stout and his stout detective have become a reading addiction, you have plenty of company. If this is your first experience in puzzle solving with the great Nero Wolfe, prepare to settle in and savor. You have plenty of tasty treats yet to enjoy.

  —Judith Kelman

  isi���Contents

  The Gun with Mugs

  page 1

  Bullet for One

  page 73

  Disguise for Murder

  page 143

  1.

  Curtains for Three

  The Gun with Wings

  The young woman took a pink piece of paper from her handbag, got up from the red leather chair, put the paper on Nero Wolfe’s desk, and sat down again. Feeling it my duty to keep myself informed and also to save Wolfe the exertion of leaning forward and reaching so far, I arose and crossed to hand the paper to him after a glance at it. It was a check for five thousand dollars, dated that day, August fourteenth, made out to him, and signed Margaret Mion. He gave a look and dropped it back on the desk.

  “I thought,” she said, “perhaps that would be the best way to start the conversation.”

  In my chair at my desk, taking her in, I was readjusting my attitude. When early that Sunday afternoon, she had phoned for an appointment, I had dug I up a vague recollection of a picture of her in the paper some months back, and had decided it would be no treat to meet her, but now I was hedging. Her appeal wasn’t what she had, which was only so-so, but what r&he did with it. I don’t mean tricks. Her mouth wasn’t ^attractive even when she smiled, but the smile was.

  2 Sex Stout

  Her eyes were just a pair of brown eyes, nothing at all sensational, but it was a pleasure to watch them move around, from Wolfe to me to the man who had come with her, seated off to her left. I guessed she had maybe three years to go to reach thirty.

  “Don’t you think,” the man asked her, “we should get some questions answered first?”

  His tone was strained and a little harsh, and his face matched it. He was worried and didn’t care who knew it. With his deep-set gray eyes and well-fitted jaw he might on a happier day have passed for a leader of men, but not as he now sat. Something was eating him. When Mrs. Mion had introduced him as Mr. Frederick Weppler I had recognized the name of the music critic of the Gazette, but I couldn’t remember whether he had been mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the event that had caused the publication of Mrs. Mion’s picture.

  She shook her head at him, not arbitrarily. “It wouldn’t help, Fred, really. We’ll just have to tell it and see what he says.” She smiled at Wolfe—or maybe it wasn’t actually a smile, but just her way of handling her lips. “Mr. Weppler wasn’t quite sure we should come to see you, and I had to persuade him. Men are more cautious than women, aren’t they?”

  “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—”