The Burglar in the Library (13 page)

“Bob’s your uncle,” Carolyn said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Just an expression,” I said. “It seems to me it would take a lot longer than that for the second rope to give way, but it’s not a hypothesis we can test, so let’s let it go.”

“Then there’s no reason to assume it was anything other than an accident,” Dakin Littlefield said.

“But there is,” I said.

“Oh?”

“The rope ends,” I said. “The fibers don’t look frayed to me. I’d say somebody cut them most of the way through. When Orris walked onto the bridge, it was literally hanging by a thread. Well, two threads, one on each side. And they did give way at once, and before he’d taken more than a step or two.”

Someone asked how I knew that.

“Look at the bridge,” I said, and pointed across the gorge, where the thing hung down from its two remaining ropes. “It was covered with snow,” I said, “like everything else in the county, and most of the snow’s spilled into the gorge now. But you can see footprints at one end, where Orris’s weight compacted the snow underfoot. He only got a chance to make two footprints.”

This brought fresh sobs from Earlene Cobbett, whose freckled face was now awash with tears.

“I’m not a forensics expert,” I said, with just the faintest sense of
déjà vu.
“The police will have someone who can examine those rope ends and determine for certain whether or not they were cut. But it certainly looks to me as though they were, and that just strengthens the argument for leaving Orris’s body where it is. I suppose someone could go down there to inspect him, just to make sure that he’s dead, but I don’t really think there’s much question of that, not with his head at that angle.”

“I say,” the colonel said. “Whole thing’s a bit
rum, eh? Someone right here at Cuttleford House set a trap for this man and murdered him.”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Not exactly? But you just said—”

“Let’s get back to the house,” I said, “before we freeze to death, or somebody puts a foot wrong and winds up in the ditch with Orris. And then I’ll explain.”

“S
omeone set a trap,” I said. “That much is true. The ropes supporting the bridge were cut through to the point where the slightest stress would finish them. But it wasn’t a trap for Orris.”

We were back inside Cuttleford House, the whole lot of us crowded into the bar and spilling over into the room adjoining it. Nigel Eglantine was pouring drinks and the Cobbett cousins were handing round trays of them, offering us a choice of malt whisky or what we were assured was a fine nutty brown sherry. It wasn’t even noon yet, but nobody was saying no to a drink, and most of us were going straight for the hard stuff.

Rufus Quilp was among us, I was pleased to note, and so was Miss Dinmont, her wheelchair now once again in the capable hands of Miss Hardesty. They had been the only members of the party who had not rushed out to the fallen bridge, and I had not been surprised at their absence. Neither Miss Dinmont’s wheelchair nor Mr. Quilp’s great
bulk could have had easy passage through the deep snow. All the same, I was happy to see them again, comforted by the knowledge that neither of them had seized the moment to kill the other, nor had some third party knocked off both of them.

“What do we know about the sabotage of the bridge?” I went on. “First, let’s set a time. We know the bridge was intact when the Littlefields arrived last night. That was around ten or ten-thirty. The snow continued to fall after their arrival, because by this morning their footprints were completely covered.” I paused significantly. “And so were the footprints of the person who sabotaged the bridge. Orris walked through two feet of virgin snow to get to that bridge. Whoever sabotaged it must have done so not long after the Littlefields crossed it.”

“I told you,” Lettice said, gripping her husband’s arm. “We could have been killed.”

“If you’d arrived later,” I said, “or if the killer had gone to the bridge sooner, you might have been on it when the ropes broke. But you weren’t his target, and I don’t think Orris was, either. Not specifically.”

Someone wanted to know what I meant.

“He couldn’t be sure who he’d get. Maybe someone else would arrive from outside. Maybe someone other than Orris would be the first to leave. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe that the damage he did to the bridge wasn’t designed to kill anybody.”

“Then what was the point of it?”

“To prevent anyone from crossing the bridge. To keep us all here, and keep the rest of the world on the other side of Cuttlebone Creek.”

The colonel was nodding in understanding. “A bridge too far,” he said thoughtfully. “He sabotaged the bridge—when would you say, Rhodenbarr? Before or after he struck down Rathburn?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hard to say until we know who he is and why he did it, eh? But if he just wanted the bridge out, why stop at cutting the ropes halfway through? Why not make a good job of it and drop the bridge into the gorge in one shot?”

“He may have been concerned about how much noise it might make when it fell,” I said. “And worried that someone within earshot might catch him in the act. From what I saw of the rope ends, he didn’t leave a great deal uncut. He may have expected the bridge to fall by itself in a couple of hours, from the weight of the snow that was continuing to fall. If that had happened, Orris would still be with us.”

That last observation tore at the heart of Earlene Cobbett. The poor thing cried out and clutched her hand to her bosom, a task to which one hand was barely equal. The other hand, though, held a tray containing two glasses of sherry, and it wasn’t equal to the task, either; the tray tilted, the glasses tipped, and the sherry wound up spilling onto Gordon Wolpert.

“A little while ago,” I said, “Orris fired up the snowblower. It didn’t start right away, but once he got it running he managed to clear a path ten or twelve feet long. I heard him trying to get it started, though I didn’t pay much attention. I heard it a lot more clearly when it cut out.”

“It made an awful sound,” Miss Dinmont re
called. “As though everything inside was being ground up.”

I turned to ask Nigel if that had ever happened before. He said it seemed to him that the snowblower, while occasionally difficult to start in cold weather (and of no use whatsoever in warm weather), had in all other respects performed perfectly the entire winter.

“Here’s what I think,” I said. “My guess is it was deliberately sabotaged. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but when we all rushed out of the house there was a faint smell in the air.”

“Gasoline,” Millicent Savage said. “From when Orris was running the snowblower.”

“I noticed it while we were working on the snowman,” her father confirmed. “What about it?”

“There was more to the smell than gasoline.”

He thought about it. “You’re right,” he said. “There was another element to the odor, but I can’t tell you what it was.” And his nose wrinkled, as if to pursue the scent through the corridors of memory. “Millicent,” he asked his daughter, “what was the smell like?”

“When I had the toy stove,” she said. “With the light bulb for heat? And you could bake your own cookies?”

“Not very good cookies,” he remembered.

“Not like Mummy’s,” she said, winning a smile from Leona. “But they weren’t as bad as when I tried to make candy.
That’s
what it smelled like.”

“Made a mess, too,” Greg Savage said. “Jesus!” He looked at me. “Burnt sugar,” he said.

“That’s what I smelled,” I said.

“Sugar in the gas tank?”

I nodded.

“An old standby,” Colonel Blount-Buller said. “Readily available to any local wog bent on mischief or any malcontent in the ranks. Engine starts up, runs for a bit, then ruins itself entirely. If it’s been sugared, Eglantine, you’ll never get that snowblower working again, not without replacing the engine.”

Nigel just stared. Cissy, who had just come back with a cloth to sponge off Gordon Wolpert, wanted to know why anyone would want to ruin their snowblower. “It does make a racket,” she said, “but it’s ever so useful when it snows.”

“Someone wanted to prevent Orris from clearing the path to the bridge,” I said. “Perhaps they thought that would keep us from setting foot on the bridge, or at least delay our doing so until the bridge had fallen of its own weight.”

“But why?”

“To keep us here,” I said.

“And why keep us here?” It was Dakin Littlefield, holding out his glass to be refilled. “I suppose we can take it for granted that the person who sugared the snowblower and cut the ropes on the bridge was the same nut who killed the poor sap in the library.”

Heads nodded in assent.

“What’s the stiff’s name, Rathburn? He kills Rathburn, he bundles up warm, he goes out and saws the ropes halfway through and sugars the gas tank. Then he slips back inside and goes to bed. Why, for Christ’s sake?”

“Maybe he did what he did to the bridge and
the snowblower before he killed Mr. Rathburn,” Carolyn suggested.

“That seems even wackier,” Littlefield said, “but even if he did, same question: Why? I know, I know, to keep us here, but
why
keep us here? Unless he didn’t come back to the house but got the hell out, and the business with the snowblower and the bridge was to keep us from following him.”

“The bridge supports were cut through on this side,” the colonel reminded him. “He’d have been burning his bridge before he crossed it, so to speak.”

“Then I don’t get it. I don’t know anything about Rathburn, so I won’t even try to guess why somebody would want to kill him. But I suppose there’s always a reason. Once Rathburn’s dead, though, wouldn’t the killer just want to get away from here and back to his life as quickly as possible? Instead he’s stuck here with the rest of us. Or did I miss something?”

“No,” I said. “Whoever he is, he’s still here.”

“Well, where’s the sense in that? By keeping us stuck here, he keeps himself stuck here, too. Why?”

“Maybe he wanted to keep the police away,” Leona Savage said.

“The police,” Nigel said. “I ought to call them.”

“But the phone—”

“They may have restored service by now,” he said, and went off to find out.

While he was gone, we batted around theories and arguments. Keeping the police away didn’t make sense, someone said, because they’d still get here before anybody here could get away. So what
was gained? I let them talk it through, sustaining myself with small sips of malt whisky. It wasn’t Glen Drumnadrochit, but it wasn’t bad.

I didn’t want to take too much of it, though. Even if Nigel got through to them, it would be a while before the police could reach us. A plow would have to precede them down the long driveway from the road to the bridge, and then they’d pretty much have to throw up a new bridge. The distance wasn’t that great, so maybe they could heave a rope across the gap. Once we’d secured it, they could make their way hand-over-hand.

Of course they’d have to be young cops, in good condition, and either brave or stupid enough to try it. I thought of the cops I knew back in New York and tried to picture any of them dangling above a rock-strewn gorge. I had gotten so far as to put Ray Kirschmann in that unlikely picture, and the resulting image had me working hard to keep from giggling. It wouldn’t have been terribly appropriate, not with Rathburn and Orris dead and the rest of us marooned here, but it was hard to keep a straight face.

I had help when Nigel came back. His own expression was not merely grave but troubled.

“Still no phone service,” he said.

“You were gone a long time,” Gordon Wolpert said.

“Yes.”

“Longer than you might think it would take to lift a telephone receiver and listen for a dial tone. Of course it would be natural to jiggle the receiver and poke the disconnect button a couple of times, but even so it seems to me you were gone quite a while.”

“Quite a while,” Nigel agreed.

“I realize there’s no television here,” Greg Savage said, “but someone must have a radio. Maybe one of the local stations will have something to say about when telephone service is likely to be restored.”

“The cook has a radio,” Cissy Eglantine said. “But it only gets one station, and it doesn’t come in very clearly. We mostly play tapes on it.”

“Still, if you could bring in that station—”

“There won’t be anything about the resumption of phone service,” I said. “Or if there is it won’t apply to us.”

“Why do you say that, Rhodenbarr?”

I glanced over at Nigel. “Better tell them,” I said.

“I don’t know what made me check,” he said. “‘You’re being silly,’ I told myself, but I couldn’t dismiss the thought, so I pulled on my boots and put a jacket on and went outside. That’s what took me so long. It was slow going, you see, because it’s all the way round the back of the house, and you’ve already seen how deep the snow is.”

Rufus Quilp wanted to know what it was that was all the way in back of the house.

“That’s where the telephone lines come in,” I guessed.

“Quite right,” Nigel said. He sighed heavily and his shoulders sagged. “Someone’s gone and cut them,” he said.

T
here were no screams or gasps in response to Nigel’s revelation. The general reaction was not so much one of panic and alarm as it was a sinking feeling, a bottomless dread. A couple of the guests voiced the thought that they just did not understand what was happening to us or why, but that sounded like denial to me. We all knew what was going on.

Carolyn spelled it out. “It’s all straight out of Agatha Christie, sort of a combination of
The Mousetrap
and
And Then There Were None.
We’re isolated, all of us. We can’t get out of here and nobody can turn up to rescue us. And it’s that way because that’s how the killer wants it.”

“He couldn’t have arranged the snow,” Gordon Wolpert pointed out.

“No,” she said, “but he could have picked a weekend when a heavy snowfall was forecast. Or maybe he decided to take advantage of the snow once it fell. Outside of the snow, it was all his doing. He clubbed Rathburn and smothered him,
he cut the phone wires, he fixed the snowblower so it would be ruined and the bridge so it would fall if anybody set foot on it. It’s pretty obvious why he wants us stranded here. He’s not through.”

There was a sort of general intake of breath at this announcement. I don’t think it was a new thought for most of the people there, but no one had put words to the tune until now.

Colonel Blount-Buller looked at the drink in his hand as if wondering what it was, then set it aside and cleared his throat. “There will be more killings,” he said. “That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it, Mrs. Rhodenbarr?”

“Well, why else would he seal us off like this?”

“You’re assuming he’s still here, and he wasn’t merely seeking to discourage pursuit.”

“Pursuit?” She spread her hands. “What pursuit? Who’s gonna pursue him? If this guy wants to get away from here, that’s fine with me. I’ll pay for his cab.”

The colonel nodded slowly. “And there’s really no way he could have left, is there? The snow and all, and the bridge. He’s elected to remain at Cuttleford House.”

“I don’t see where else he could have gone to,” Carolyn said, and drew a breath. “Matter of fact, he’s probably right here in this room.”

It was comfortable enough in the house, even without central heating, and there was a fire in the bar’s fireplace that had that room warm as toast. But right about then you got a sense of what absolute zero must be like, with the cessation of all molecular activity, because that’s the kind of silence that greeted Carolyn’s observation.

Nigel Eglantine broke it. “I say,” he said. “That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? ‘In this room.’ Why, there’s no one in this room but…”

“But us chickens,” someone said softly.

“But ourselves,” Nigel managed. “There’s only guests and…and staff…”

“A tramp,” Cissy Eglantine said. “Are we all that certain it might not be a tramp?”

“I’m afraid not,” the colonel said.

“Oh, I do so wish it could be a tramp,” she said. “It would be so much nicer for everyone.”

“It’s not a tramp,” her husband said heavily.

“But you said it couldn’t possibly be one of us, Nigel, and—”

“It can’t be,” he said, “but it must be. That’s what’s so awful. This is such a blessed spot, Cuttleford House, a haven from the cares of the world, and only truly nice people are drawn here. And nice people do not murder.” He set his jaw. “
Or
sugar snowblower engines, or sabotage suspension bridges, or cut telephone wires. Yet all these actions have been performed, haven’t they? Apparently by one of us.”

“That’s so dreadful, Nigel.”

“It is,” he agreed. “It’s quite insupportable, and that’s why it would be wonderful to blame it on a tramp, or the Bosnian Serbs, or the IRA.”

“I never thought of them….”

“Well, you needn’t think of them now, dear. I’m afraid Mrs. Rhodenbarr is correct. The killer is one of us.”

There was another silence, until Carolyn said, “Oh, the hell with it. It’s Ms. Kaiser.”

“But that’s remarkable,” Leona Savage said.
“You mean you actually know who the murderer is? But which one of us is Ms. Kaiser?”

“
I’m
Ms. Kaiser,” Carolyn said.

“You mean…”

“No, for God’s sake! I wasn’t saying Ms. Kaiser was the murderer.”

“But you distinctly said, ‘It’s Ms. Kaiser.’ I’m positive that’s what you said.”

“Oh, Mummy,” Millicent said, exasperated. “Carolyn said ‘It’s Ms. Kaiser’ because she’s sick and tired of being called Mrs. Rhodenbarr. She’s not married to Bernie.”

“Well, I know that,” Leona said. “Neither of them wears a ring. I was being polite, in view of the fact that they’re here together and sharing a room.”

“I wouldn’t ordinarily mind what anybody called me,” Carolyn said, “but we’re all getting more involved than I thought we’d be, since one of us seems to be busy trying to kill the rest of us.”

“Quite right,” the colonel said. “When it’s ‘Nice day today’ and ‘Please pass the salt,’ one doesn’t much care what one’s called. But it’s a different matter when we’re thrown together to fight for our lives.”

Dakin Littlefield suggested that was a rather dramatic way of putting it. “If there’s a killer among us,” he said, “and that’s a pretty big
if,
all we have to do is wait him out. Yes, the phone lines are down and the bridge is out, but sooner or later someone’s going to fail to reach us and inform the authorities, and the next thing you know there’ll be a helicopter full of state troopers landing on the front lawn. How long can that take, a day or two? Three days at the most?”

No one had any idea.

“Say three days,” Littlefield went on. “I understand there’s plenty of food and water, and the bar’s not about to run out of Scotch. We came here to get away from it all and I’d have to say we’ve succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

“But what do we do now?”

“Whatever we please,” he said. “Play Scrabble, read a good book, sit by the fire.” He glanced at his bride, and I suppose he had the right to look at her that way, running his eyes insolently over her body. After all, he was married to her and they were on their honeymoon. All the same, I can’t say I liked it. “I’m sure we can all find something to keep us amused,” he said, and his tone made it clear what form of amusement he was thinking of for himself.

“That’s great,” Carolyn said. “The two of you can run off and make a Dakin-and-Lettice sandwich. Meanwhile the killer sees who he can knock off next.”

That brought everybody up short. Miss Hardesty wondered how long we could expect the killing to go on. Miss Dinmont admitted she was frightened, and asked if anyone could furnish her with a pistol for her own protection, as she could neither fight off nor flee from an attacker. Mr. Quilp, who had appeared to have dozed off, straightened up in his seat and demanded to know what we were to do.

Someone suggested that we had to defend ourselves. That got the colonel’s attention. “Have to do more than that,” he said. “Best defense is a good offense, wot? Can’t just wait for the cavalry
to arrive. Have to meet them halfway, don’t we? Find the damned murderer ourselves.”

“How?”

“Smoke him out,” he said. “Trap him, chase him into a corner, harry him until he drops. Attack him on the right, attack him on the left, attack him in the center. Cut off his escape route, sever his supply lines. Then crush him.”

It was quite a performance. You could almost hear a tinny little orchestra in the background, belting out the theme from
The Bridge on the River Kwai.
In the respectful silence that followed I said, “I think we have to mount both a defense and an offense. The first thing we have to do is make sure that no more killings take place. While we’re seeing to that, we can also put our heads together and pool our information. It’s possible that we already know enough about one another to be able to determine the killer’s identity.”

“Good thinking,” the colonel said. “Daresay you’ve put on a uniform yourself, eh, Rhodenbarr?”

That made me stop and think. I knew what he meant, and the answer was no, I’d never been in the military. But had I ever worn a uniform? I went to prison once, I blush to admit, and they did dress us all alike, and not very stylishly, either. But would you call those prison grays a uniform?

Then I remembered my Boy Scout uniform.

“It’s been a few years,” I said.

“There’s a way of thinking that once learned is never forgotten, Rhodenbarr. Defense and offense, that’s the ticket. You have a plan in mind? An approach?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Good man. Let’s hear it.”

“First of all,” I said, “we have to make sure there are no more murders, and we’ll do that by sticking together.”

“You mean like this, Bern? All of us hanging out together in one room?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “That won’t always be convenient. But what each of us can do is make sure we’re never completely alone. If I always have somebody with me, then the killer can’t cut me out of the herd and do away with me.”

“Suppose the person you pick for company turns out to be the killer?”

It was Gordon Wolpert who offered this objection, and it was a good one. Others elaborated on the theme. If one of us was the killer, and if everybody was paired off with another person, that meant somebody would be buddied up with the killer.

“No problem,” Dakin Littlefield drawled. “Everybody pick a buddy and stick with that person. Then, next time somebody turns up dead, we’ll know it’s the person’s buddy who did all the killing.”

“That’s appalling,” Mrs. Colibri said. “But it’s not a great deal more appalling than the notion of being tethered night and day to another person. It’s all well and good for those of you who are married”—she glanced significantly at me and Carolyn—“or intimately allied, if unmarried. But what about those of us who are here alone?”

Someone said something about Greta Garbo.

“I don’t mean that I want to be alone,” Mrs.
Colibri said icily. “But I’d as soon not share my bed with anyone, thank you very much, and I’m afraid I’m old-fashioned enough to prefer privacy in the bath. Add in the virtual certainty that one of us would be paired with the murderer, and you begin to see the dimensions of the problem.”

“Threesomes,” I said.

“I
beg
your pardon!”

“Not at night,” I said hastily. “During waking hours. If we divide into groups of three, that means two people will be buddied up with the murderer.”

“Safety in numbers,” the colonel murmured.

“Just that,” I said. “If A and B are buddies, and A’s the killer, he can wait for a quiet moment and knock off B. But if C’s part of the party, then he can’t.”

“What about bedtime?” Miss Hardesty wondered.

“That’s more complicated,” I admitted. “Millicent, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go back to sleeping in your parents’ room. Sleeping arrangements for the rest of us will need a little more thought. I think, though, that Mrs. Colibri’s concerns about bathroom privacy are satisfied by this approach.”

“If I don’t want one person in the bath with me,” Mrs. Colibri said, “what on earth makes you think I’d be happier with two?”

“Because they’d be waiting outside,” I said, “keeping an eye on the door, and on each other. I’m sure there will be lots of details that need work, but I’m equally certain we can work them all out. We’re well motivated, and that’s a help.”

“That’s good sense,” the colonel said. “Carry on, Rhodenbarr.”

“Well,” I said, and put my glass down, wanting a clear head. “I guess the first thing to do is make sure we’re all here. I can’t think of anyone who’s missing, but I don’t have a list of all of us.” I patted my pockets. “Or anything to make a list with, either.”

“One moment,” Nigel said. He ducked out of the room and came back minutes later with a clipboard holding a yellow legal pad. The top sheet was blank, but a skilled investigator could have rubbed the side of a pencil point very gently over its surface to raise an impression of what had been written on the sheet above. Why anyone would want to do so, however, was quite beyond me.

“Thanks,” I said, and clicked the cap of my ballpoint pen a couple of times, and tested it with a quick squiggle in the margin. “This will do perfectly. But I should have stopped you.” He looked at me. “You went off by yourself,” I explained. “And that’s something none of us ought to do. Until we’ve got ourselves organized, can we agree that no one will leave the immediate area without a companion?”

“Two companions,” Lettice said. “Threesomes, remember?”

Threesomes indeed. Somehow the word had a special flavor coming from Mrs. Littlefield’s lips, and it threw me offstride for a moment. “Two companions,” I agreed. “Although one companion might be enough on a brief errand of the sort Nigel just ran. Just so no one goes off on his own.” Or her own? Or their own? The hell with it.

“Now,” I said, clicking my pen again. “Let’s start with the staff. Nigel Eglantine. Cissy Eglantine. Present and accounted for.” I wrote down both their names.

“And the two serving wenches,” Dakin Littlefield said.

“The upstairs maid,” I corrected, “Earlene Cobbett, and the downstairs maid, Molly Cobbett. Both here, I see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” I said, and jotted down their names. “And Orris, of course, who is accounted for but not present. How do you spell his name?”

Cissy Eglantine spelled it. “Like the root,” she said.

“And his last name?”

“Cobbett,” Cissy said, and Earlene Cobbett let out a desperate sob. She seemed utterly undone by Orris’s death, and I’d wondered what they’d been to each other. The news that they shared a surname failed to clear up the nature of their relationship. Were they brother and sister? Husband and wife? All of the above?

My confusion must have shown, for Nigel Eglantine moved to clear it up. “There are a lot of Cobbetts in the region,” he said. “Molly and Earlene are cousins, and they’re both Cobbetts. And Orris was a cousin of both of them. Have I got that right, Molly?”

“Orris was cousin to Earlene, sir,” she said. “And cousin and uncle both to me, cousin on my father’s side and uncle on my mother’s.”