Curtains For Three by Stout Rex

Author:Stout, Rex [Stout, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Classic
ISBN: 9780553762945
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1995-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Nero Wolfe 18 - Curtains for Three

VIII

It was sunny and warm for October, and the drive uptown would have been pleasant if I hadn’t been prejudiced by my feeling that I was being imposed on. Parking on Sixty-fifth Street, I walked around the corner and up a block, and crossed Central Park West to where a man in uniform was monkeying with his horse’s bridle. I have met a pack of guardians of the peace on my rounds, but this rugged manly face with a pushed-in nose and bright big eyes was new to me. I introduced myself and showed credentials and said it was nice of him, busy as he was, to give me his time. Of course that was a blunder, but I’ve admitted I was prejudiced.

“Oh,” he said, “one of our prominent kidders, huh?”

I made for cover. “About as prominent,” I declared, “as a fish egg in a bowl of caviar.”

“Oh, you eat caviar.”

“Goddam it,” I muttered, “let’s start over again.” I walked four paces to a lamp post, wheeled, returned to him, and announced, “My name’s Goodwin and I work for Nero Wolfe. Headquarters said I could ask you a couple of questions and I’d appreciate it.”

“Uh-huh. A friend of mine in the Fifteenth Squad has told me about you. You damn near got him sent to the marshes.”

“Then you were already prejudiced. So was I, but not against you. Not even against your horse. Speaking of horses, that morning you saw Keyes on his horse,

not long before he was killed, what time was it?”

“Ten minutes past seven.”

“Within a minute or two?”

“Not within anything. Ten minutes past seven. I was on the early shift then, due to check out at eight. As you say, I’m so busy that I have no time, so I was hanging around expecting to see Keyes go by as per schedule. I liked to see his horse - a light chestnut with a fine spring to him.”

“How did the horse look that morning - same as usual'Happy and healthy?” Seeing the look on his face, I added hastily, “I’ve sworn off kidding until tomorrow. I actually want to know, was it his horse?”

“Certainly it was! Maybe you don’t know horses. I do.”

“Okay. I used to too, when I was a boy on a farm in Ohio, but we haven’t corresponded lately. What about Keyes that morning, did he look sick or well or mad or glad or what?”

“He looked as usual, nothing special.”

“Did you speak to each other?”

“No.”

“Had he shaved that morning?”

“Sure he had.” Officer Hefferan was controlling himself. “He had used two razors, one on the right side and another one on the left, and he wanted to know which one did the best job, so he asked me to rub his cheeks and tell him what I thought.”

“You said you didn’t speak.”

“Nuts.”

“I agree. Let’s keep this frankly hostile. I shouldn’t have asked about shaving,

I should have come right out and asked what I want to know, how close were you to him?”

“Two hundred and seventy feet.

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