The guy in the sedan was not the strangler, as I soon learned. On Twenty-seventh 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 run-down old brownstohe, entered the vestibule, and knocked five times on the door. Through the glass panel the dimly h't hall looked empty. As I peered in, thinking I would either have to knock a lot louder or ignore instructions and ring the bell, I heard footsteps behind and turned. It was my chaperon.
"Well, we got here," I said cheerfully.
"You damn near lost me at one light," he said accusingly. "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,
Curtains for Three 207
outstanding ears and a purple mole on his right If it was him I had a date with I sure had been 'They look like it," he said, and stuffed the in a pocket. From another pocket he produced a
unlocked the door, and pushed it open. "Follow
>
|l did so, to the stairs and up. As we ascended two s, with him in front, it would have been a cinch for i reach and take a gun off his hip if there had been I there, but there wasn't. He may have preferred a Jder holster like me. The stair steps were bare i wood, the walls had needed plaster since at least Harbor, and the smell was a mixture I wouldn't , to analyze. On the second landing he went down I to a door at the rear, opened it, and signaled Dugh with a jerk of his head, re was another man there, but still it wasn't my lyway I hoped not. It would be an overstate i say the room was furnished, but I admit there fa table, a bed, and three chairs, one of them uphol The man, who was lying on the bed, pushed ' up as we entered, and as he swung around to i feet barely reached the floor. He had shoulders | a torso like a heavyweight wrestler, and legs like aderweight jockey. His puffed eyes blinked in the . from the unshaded bulb as if he had been asleep. at him?" he demanded and yawned, ny said it was. The wrestler-jockey, W-J for , got up and went to the table, picked up a ball of cord, approached me and spoke. "Take off your coat and sit there." He pointed to one of the lit chairs.
lold it," Skinny commanded him. "I haven't ex yet." He faced me. "The idea is simple. This ; that's coming to see you don't want any trouble.
208 Rex Stout
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 damn plain. What if I won't sit down? What if I wiggle when you start to tie me?"
"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 him.
"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. "For Chrissake 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.
Thinking it would help to know whether they really | were smooks or merely a couple of rummies on thej payroll of some fly-specked agency, I decided to tryj something. Not letting my eyes know what my was about to do, I suddenly reached inside my coat
Curtains for Three 209
holster, and then they had something more inter ag than my face to look at: Saul's clean shiny auto
|The wrestler-jockey put his hands up high and
Skinny looked irritated. |"For why?" he demanded.
;"I thought we might all go for a walk down to my .Then to the Fourteenth Precinct, which is the closn
IfWhat do we do then?" lere he had me.
ifou either want to see this guy or you don't," ay explained patiently. "Seeing how you got that @out, I guess he must know you. I don't blame him tig your hands arranged for." He turned his up. "Make up your mind." put the gun back in the holster, took off my hat |raincoat and hung them on a hook on the Vail, one of the straight chairs so the light wouldn't n my eyes, and sat.
)kay," I told them, "but by God don't overdo it. I my way around and I can find you if I care
don't think I can't."
liey unrolled the cord, cutting pieces off, and went rk. W-J tied my left wrist to the rear left leg of while Skinny did the right. They were both *h, but to my surprise Skinny was rougher. I it was too tight, and he gave a stingy thirty of an inch. They wanted to do my ankles the ray, to the bottoms of the front legs of the chair, $ claimed I would get cramps sitting like that, and already fastened to the chair, and it would be i good to tie my ankles together. They discussed I had my way. Skinny made a final inspection of lots and then went over me. He took the gun
210 Rex Stout
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 goddam things," he muttered. "They make more trouble." He went to the table and put the gun down on it, tenderly, as if it were something that might break. 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 pin-stripe 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, looking down at me, and I looked back.
He smiled. "Would you have known me?"
"Not from Adam," I said, both to humor him and because it was true.
IX
I wouldn't want to exaggerate how brave I am. It wasn't that I was too damn 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 yes Curtains for Three 211
Jterday's guest hadn't had much of either one. The real fchange was from the inside. I had seen no smile on the mace of yesterday's guest, but if I had it wouldn't have P>een like this one. The hair made a difference too, of aurse, parted on the side and slicked down. He pulled the other straight chair around and sat. I the way he moved. That in itself could have a dead giveaway, but the movements fitted the etup to a T. Finding the light straight in his eyes, he
the chair a little.
"So she told you about me?" he said, making it a nestion.
It was the voice he had used on the phone. It was tually different, pitched lower for one thing, but with , as with the face and movements, the big change was i�m the inside. The voice was stretched tight, and the of his gloved hands were pressed against his