"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?"
"No, the stairs inside the apartment. We entered the studio. Mion was on the floor. We went over to him. There was a big hole through the top of his head. He was dead. I led Mrs. Mion out, made her come, and on the stairs--they're too narrow to go two abreast--she fell and rolled halfway down. I carried her to her room and put her on her bed, and I started for the living room, for the phone there, when I thought of something to do first. I went out and took the elevator to the ground floor, got the doorman and elevator man together, and asked them who had been taken up to the Mion apartment, either the twelfth floor or the thirteenth, that afternoon. I said they must be damn sure not to skip anybody. They gave me the names and I wrote them down. Then I went back up to the apartment and phoned the police. After I did that it struck me that a layman isn't supposed to decide if a man is dead, so I phoned Dr. Lloyd, who has an apartment there in the building. He came at once, and I took him up to the studio. We hadn't been there more than three or four minutes when the first policeman came, and of course--"
"If you please," Wolfe put in crossly. "Everything is sometimes too much. You haven't even hinted at the trouble you're in."
"I'll get to it--"
"But faster, I hope, if I help. My memory has been jogged. The doctor and the police pronounced him dead. The muzzle of the revolver had been thrust into his mouth, and the emerging bullet had torn out a
Curtains for Three 7
i of his skull. The revolver, found lying on the floor | beside him, belonged to him and was kept there in the No . There was no sign of any struggle and no mark f any other injury on him. The loss of his voice was an scellent motive for suicide. Therefore, after a routine vestigation, giving due weight to the difficulty of the barrel of a loaded revolver into a man's pnouth without arousing him to protest, it was retried as suicide. Isn't that correct?" R* They both said yes.
"Have the police reopened it? Or is gossip at kf
They both said no.
"Then let's get on. Where's the trouble?" "It's us," Peggy said. "Why? What's wrong with you?" "Everything." She gestured. "No. I don't mean that not everything, just one thing. After my husband's ath and the--the routine investigation, I went away a while. When I came back--for the past two onths Fred and I have been together some, but it sn't right--I mean we didn't feel right. Day before ay, Friday, I went to friends in Connecticut for s weekend, and he was there. Neither of us knew the was coming. We talked it out yesterday and last and this morning, and we decided to come and ; you to help us--anyway, I did, and he wouldn't let i come alone."
Peggy leaned forward and was in deadly earnest. STou must help us, Mr. Wolfe. I love him so much--so i!--and he says he loves me, and I know he does! ay afternoon we decided we would get married October, and then last night we got started talking at it isn't what we say, it's what is in our eyes when
8 Sex Stout
we look at each other. We just can't get married with that back of our eyes and trying to hide it--"
A little shiver went over her. "For years--forever? We can't! We know we can't--it would be horrible! What it is, it's a question: who killed Alberto? Did he? Did I? I don't really think he did, and he doesn't really think I did--I hope he doesn't--but it's there back of our eyes, and we know it is!"
She extended both hands. "We want you to find out!"
Wolfe snorted. "Nonsense. You need a spanking or a psychiatrist. The police may have shortcomings, but they're not nincompoops. If they're satisfied--"