"No. I was waiting to hear from you." ^That's wise, I think. I'm willing to discuss the mat Are you free for this evening?" |fl can wiggle free." |"With a car to drive?" |*Yeah, I have a car."
ive to a lunchroom at the northeast corner of r-first Street and Eleventh Avenue. Get there at o'clock. Park your ear on Fifty-first Street, but the corner. Got that?" Kes."
will be alone, of course. Go in the lunchroom ier something to eat. I won't be there, but you et a message. You'll be there at eight o'clock?" Kes. I still don't recognize your voice. I don't think i the person I sent the note to." am. It's good, isn't it?" connection went.
ag up, told Fritz he could answer calls now, and it to the stairs and up a flight. Saul was I on the landing.
voice was that?" I demanded, me. You heard all I did." His eyes had a in them, and I suppose mine did too.
202 Rex Stout
"Whoever it was," I said, "I've got a date. Let's go up and tell the genius. I've got to admit he saved a lot of postage."
We mounted the other two flights and found Wolfe in the cool room, inspecting a bench of dendrobiums for damage from the invasion of the day before. When I told him about the call he merely nodded, not even taking the trouble to smirk, as if picking a murderer first crack out of ten dozen men was the sort of thing he did between yawns.
"That call," he said, 'Validates our assumptions and verifies our calculation, but that's all. If it had done more than that it wouldn't have been made. Has anyone come to take those seals off?"
I told him no. "I asked Stebbins about it and he said he'd ask Cramer."
"Don't ask again," he snapped. "We'll go down to my room."
If the strangler had been in Wolfe's house the rest of that day he would have felt honored--or anyway he should. Even during Wolfe's afternoon hours in the plant rooms, from four to six, his mind was on my appointment, as was proved by the crop of new slants and ideas that poured out of him when he came down to the kitchen. Except for a trip to Leonard Street to answer an hour's worth of questions by an assistant district attorney, my day was devoted to it too. My most useful errand, though at the time it struck me as a waste of time and money, was one made to Doc Voll mer for a prescription and then to a drugstore under instructions from Wolfe.
When I got back from the D.A.'s office Saul and I got in the sedan and went for a reconnaissance. We didn't stop at Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue, but drove past it four times. The main idea was to find
Curtains for Three
| place for Saul. He and Wolfe both insisted that he to be there with his eyes and ears open, and I I that he had to be covered enough not to scare ' my date, who could spot his big nose a mile off. We Uy settled for a filling station across the street from lunchroom. Saul was to have a taxi drive in there |eight o'clock, and stay in the passenger's seat while i driver tried to get his carburetor adjusted. There so many contingencies to be agreed on that if it been anyone but Saul I wouldn't have expected i to remember more than half. For instance, in case 6ft the lunchroom and got in my car and drove off was not to follow unless I cranked my window
Trying to provide for contingencies was okay in a IT, but at seven o'clock, as the three of us sat in the tig room, finishing the roast duck, I had the feeling , we might as well have spent the day playing pool. Uy it was strictly up to me, since I had to let the er guy make the rules until and unless it got to I felt I could take over and win. And with the er guy making the rules no one gets very far, not ; Nero Wolfe, arranging for contingencies ahead of b; you meet them as they come, and if you meet one ag it's too bad. ^Saul left before I did, to find a taxi driver that he the looks of. When I went to the hall for my hat raincoat, Wolfe came along, and I was really" tied, since he wasn't through yet with his after coffee.
|"I still don't like the idea," he insisted, "of your ag that thing in your pocket. I think you should > it inside your sock."
:*I don't."^ I was putting the raincoat on. "If I get Iced, a sock is as easy to feel as a pocket."
204 Rex Stoat
"You're sure that gun is loaded?"
"For God's sake. I never saw you so anxious. Next you'll be telling me to put on my rubbers."
He even opened the door for me.
It wasn't actually raining, merely trying to make up its mind whether to or not, but after a couple of blocks I reached to switch on the windshield wiper. As I turned uptown on Tenth Avenue the dash clock said 7:47; as I turned left on Fifty-first Street it had only got to 7:51. At that time of day in that district there was plenty of space, and I rolled to the curb and stopped about twenty yards short of the corner, stopped the engine and turned off the lights, and cranked my window down for a good view of the filling station across the street. There was Ho taxi there. I glanced at my wrist watch and relaxed. At 7:59 a taxi pulled in and stopped by the pumps, and the driver got out and lifted the hood and started peering. I put my window up, locked three doors, pulled the key out, got myself out, locked the door, walked to the lunchroom, and entered.
There was one hash slinger behind the counter and five customers scattered along on the stools. I picked a stool that left me elbow room, sat, and ordered ice cream and coffee. That made me slightly conspicuous in those surroundings, but I refused to insult Fritz's roast duck, which I could still taste. The counterman served me and I took my time. At 8:12 the ice cream was gone and my cup empty, and I ordered a refill. I had about got to the end of that too when a male entered, looked along the line, came straight to me, and asked me what my name was. I told him, and he handed me a folded piece of paper and turned to go.
He was barely old enough for high school, and I made no effort to hold him, thinking that the bird I had;
Curtains for Three 205
with was not likely to be an absolute sap. Un the paper, I saw neatly printed in penciclass="underline"
|Go to your car and get a note under the wind| shield wiper. Sit in the car to read it.
I
|l paid what I owed, walked to my car .and got the
: as I was told, unlocked the car and got in, turned
tie light, and read in the same print:
he no signal of any kind. Follow instructions ely. Turn right on llth Ave. and go slowly 156th St. Turn right on 56th and go to 9th Ave. i right on 9th Ave. Right again on 45th. Left llth Ave. Left on 38th. Right on 7th Ave. arht on 27th St. Park on 27th between 9th and Aves. Go to No. 814 and tap five times on \ door. Give the man who opens the door this [>te and the other one. He will tell you where to
|didn't like it much, but I had to admit it was a arrangement for seeing to it that I went to the nee unattached or there wouldn't be any con It had now decided to rain. Starting the en; could see dimly through the misty window that |�axi driver was still monkeying with his carbutoit of course I had to resist the impulse to crank low down to wave so long. Keeping the in as in my left hand, I rolled to the corner, for the light to change, and turned right on Avenue. Since I had not been forbidden to eyes open I did so, and as I stopped at Fifty jfpr the red light I saw a black or dark blue 1 away from the curb behind me and creep in
206 Bex Stoat
my direction. I took it for granted that that was my chaperon, but even so I followed directions and kept to a crawl Until I reached Fifty-sixth and turned right.
In spite of all the twistings and turnings and the lights we had to stop at, I didn't get the license number of the black sedan for certain until the halt at Thirty eighth Street and Seventh Avenue. Not that that raised my pulse any, license plates not being welded on, but what the hell, I was a detective, wasn't I? It was at that same corner, seeing a flatfoot on the sidewalk, that I had half a notion to jump out, summon him, and tackle the driver of the sedan. If it was the strangler, I had the two printed notes in my possession, and I could at least have made it stick enough for an escorted trip to the Fourteenth Precinct Station for ^ chat. I voted it down, and was soon glad of it.