Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who liked to Quote Kipling

“Right.”

“And you took the bracelet because-Why’d you take the bracelet, Bernie?”

“Well-”

“Because it was there. Like Mt. Everest. But it was a bracelet instead of a mountain, and instead of climbing it you stole it.”

“Carolyn-”

“It’s all right, Bernie. Honest it is. I’ll get used to it. You’ll show me the bracelet in the morning?”

“I’ll show you right now if you want.”

“No, the morning’s soon enough, Bernie. Bernie?”

“What?”

“Goodnight, Bernie.”

“Goodnight, Carolyn.”

It was one of those chatty morning programs that tells you more about weather and traffic than anyone could possibly care to know. There was a massive tie-up on the Major Deegan Expressway, I learned, and a thirty-percent chance of rain.

“Something ominous has happened to weather reports,” I told Carolyn. “Have you noticed how they never tell you what it’s going to do anymore? They just quote you the odds.”

“I know.”

“That way they’re never wrong because they’ve never gone out on a limb. If they say there’s a five-percent chance of snow and we wind up hip-deep in it, all that means is a long shot came in. They’ve transformed the weather into some sort of celestial crap game.”

“There’s another muffin, Bernie.”

“Thanks.” I took it, buttered it. “It’s all tied into the moral decline of the nation,” I said. “Lottery tickets. Off-track betting. Gambling casinos in Atlantic City. Can you tell me what in the hell a thirty-percent chance of rain means? What do I do, carry a third of an umbrella?”

“Here comes the news, Bernie.”

I ate my muffin and sipped my coffee and listened to the news. My reaction to the weather report notwithstanding, I felt pretty good. My sleep had been deep and uninterrupted, and Carolyn’s morning coffee, unadulterated with chicory or knockout drops, had my eyes all the way open.

So I sat wide-eyed and heard how I’d gained access to the house on Sixty-sixth Street via the fire escape, first visiting the fourth-floor apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Blinn, where I’d stolen an undisclosed sum of money, a diamond bracelet, a Piaget wristwatch, several miscellaneous pieces of jewelry, and a full-length Russian sable coat. I’d descended a flight to 3-D, where Madeleine Porlock had interrupted my larcenous labors, only to be shot dead with a.32-caliber automatic for her troubles. I’d left the gun behind, escaping with my loot, scampering down the fire escape moments before the police arrived on the scene.

When the announcer moved on to other topics I switched him off. Carolyn had a funny expression on her face. I reached into my pants pocket and came up with the bracelet, plopping it down on the table in front of her. She turned it in her hand so that light glinted off the stones.

“Pretty,” she said. “What’s it worth?”

“I could probably get a few hundred for it. Art Deco’s the rage these days. But I just took it because I liked the looks of it.”

“Uh-huh. What did the coat look like?”

“I never even looked in the closets. Oh, you thought-” I shook my head. “More evidence of the moral decline of the nation,” I said. “All I took was the cash and the bracelet, Carolyn. The rest was a little insurance scam the Blinns decided to work.”

“You mean-”

“I mean they decided they’ve been paying premiums all these years, so why not take advantage of the burglary they’ve been waiting for? A coat, a watch, some miscellaneous jewelry, and of course they’ll report a higher cash loss than they actually sustained, and even if the insurance company chisels a little, they’ll wind up four or five grand to the good.”

“Jesus,” she said. “Everybody’s a crook.”

“Not quite,” I said. “But sometimes it seems that way.”

I made up the bed while she did up the breakfast dishes. Then we sat down with the last of the coffee and tried to figure out where to start. There seemed to be two loose ends we could pick at, Madeleine Porlock and J. Rudyard Whelkin.

“If we knew where he was,” I said, “we might be able to get somewhere.”

“We already know where she is.”

“But we don’t know who she is. Or was. I wish I had my wallet. I had his card. His address was somewhere in the East Thirties but I don’t remember the street or the number.”

“That makes it tough.”

“You’d think I’d remember the phone number. I dialed it enough yesterday.” I picked up the phone, dialed the first three numbers hoping the rest would come to me, then gave up and cradled the phone. The phone book didn’t have him and neither did the Information operator. There was an M. Porlock in the book, though, and for no particular reason I dialed the listed number. It rang a few times and I hung up.

“Maybe we should start with the Sikh,” Carolyn suggested.

“We don’t even know his name.”

“That’s a point.”

“There ought to be something about her in the paper. The radio just gives you the surface stuff, but there ought to be something beyond that in the Times . Where she worked and if she was married, that kind of thing.”

“And Whelkin belonged to the Martingale Club.”

“True.”

“So we’ve each got a place to start, Bernie. I’ll be back in a minute.” It was closer to ten minutes when she returned with both papers. She read the News while I read the Times . Then we switched.

“Not a whole lot,” I said.

“Something, though. Who do you want, Whelkin or Porlock?”

“Don’t you have to trim a poodle or something?”

“I’m taking Whelkin. You’ve got Porlock, Bernie. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I guess I’ll go over to his club. Maybe I can learn something that way.”

“Maybe.”

“How about you? You won’t leave the apartment, will you?”

I shook my head. “I’ll see what I can find out over the phone.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“And maybe I’ll pray a little.”

“To whom? St. Dismas?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“Or the lost-objects guy, because we ought to see about getting that book back.”

“Anthony of Padua.”

“Right.”

“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking more of St. Raymond Nonnatus. Patron saint of the falsely accused.”

She looked at me. “You’re making this up.”

“That’s a false accusation, Carolyn.”

“You’re not making it up?”

“Nope.”

“There’s really a-”

“Yep.”

“Well, by all means,” she said. “Pray.”

The phone started ringing minutes after she left the apartment. It rang five times and stopped. I picked up the Times and it started ringing again and rang twelve times before it quit. I read somewhere that it only takes a minute for a telephone to ring twelve times. I’ll tell you, it certainly seemed longer than that.

I went back to the Times . The back-page story gave Madeleine Porlock’s age as forty-two and described her as a psychotherapist. The Daily News had given her age but didn’t tell what she did for a living. I tried to imagine her with a note pad and a faint Viennese accent, asking me about my dreams. Had she had an office elsewhere? The Victorian love seat was a far cry from the traditional analyst’s couch.

Maybe Whelkin was her patient. He told her all about his scheme to gain possession of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow , and then she hypnotized him and got him to make the call to me, and then he got unhypnotized and killed her and took the book back, and…

I called the Times , got through to someone in the city room. I explained I was Art Matlovich of the Cleveland Plain Dealer . We thought the Porlock woman might be a former resident of Cleveland, and did they have anything on her besides what they’d run in the paper?