Lawrence Block - The Burglar in the Library

“Uh-huh. A week and a half before the wedding, and his wife’s rehearsing with somebody else? If you ask me, you’re lucky to be rid of her.”

“I know.”

“Lettice. What kind of name is that, anyway?”

“I guess it’s English.”

“I suppose so. You know, ever since you started seeing her I’ve been good about resisting the obvious jokes. Like, what kind of a name is that for a tomato? Or, has she got a sister named Parsley? Or, I hope she’s not the original Iceberg Lettice.”

“She’s not.”

“I don’t know, Bern. She was cool as a cucumber the other day. Who’s the lucky guy, anyway? Did she tell you anything about him?”

“Not a word.”

“Or where she met him, or anything like that?”

I shook my head. “Maybe she just walked into his store,” I said. “That’s how she met me. She picked out half a dozen books by Martha Grimes and Elizabeth George, and we got to talking.”

“What’s she do, Bern?”

“All sorts of things,” I said, remembering. “Oh, you mean for a living? She does something in Wall Street. I think she’s a stock analyst.”

“So she’s not just a bimbo.”

“Not in the traditional sense of the term.”

“And she’s English?”

“No.”

“I thought she was homesick for England. I thought that was why you took her for English tea at the Stanhope, and why you were planning on taking her to Cuttleford House.”

“She’s homesick for England,” I said, “in a manner of speaking, but she’s not English. In fact she’s never even been there.”

“Oh.”

“But she has a faint English accent, and she uses some British constructions in her speech, and she’s very clear on the notion that England is her spiritual home. And of course she’s read a whole lot of English mysteries.”

“Oh, right. Martha Grimes and Elizabeth George. They’re both English, aren’t they?”

“Actually,” I said, “they’re not, but they set their books over there, and she can’t get enough of them. And she’s read all the classics, too-Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers. Anyway, I thought Cuttleford House would be just her line of country.”

“‘Just her line of country’?”

“See? Now I’m doing it. I thought she’d be nuts about it.”

“And it’s a lot cheaper than going to England.”

“It’s not cheap,” I said. “But I had a very good evening around the end of January, and for a change money’s not a problem.”

“One of those Perrier nights.”

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “I know it’s morally reprehensible, but I did it anyway, and I wanted to invest some of the proceeds in high living before I piss it all away on food and shelter.”

“Makes sense.”

“So I actually thought about hopping on the Concorde and whisking her off for a whirlwind weekend in England. But I wasn’t sure I could find the right England.”

“There’s more than one?”

I nodded. “To get to the one she’s mad for,” I said, “you’d need a time machine, and even then you might have trouble finding it. Her England ’s some sort of cross between Upstairs, Downstairs and The Body in the Library. If I got off the plane at Heathrow I wouldn’t know where to look for that England. But you can find it three hours from here at Cuttleford House.”

“And it’s some kind of hotel? I never heard of it, Bern.”

“Neither did I,” I said, “until fairly recently. And yes, it’s a hotel of sorts, but it didn’t start out that way. Ferdinand Cathcart built it just about a hundred years ago.”

“That’s a familiar name.”

“He was one of the robber barons, and he made his money the old-fashioned way.”

“By grinding the faces of the poor?”

“How else? After he’d made his pile, and after he’d already treated himself to a limestone mansion on Fifth Avenue and a summer place at Newport, Ferdie decided he wanted a country house. So he built Cuttleford.”

“And lived there happily ever after?”

“I gather he hardly spent any time there at all,” I said, “and he may have lived happily, but not ever after, because within five years of the completion of Cuttleford he had taken up residence in that great English country house in the sky. His heirs fought over the estate, and the one who wound up with it lost all his money in 1929 and the state took the place for back taxes. It passed through various hands over the years. After the Second World War it was a fancy drying-out farm for alcoholics, and I believe some monastic order had it for a while. Eventually it was abandoned, and then eight or ten years ago the Eglantines got hold of it and set about restoring it.”

“The Eglantines. They’re a religious order, too, aren’t they?”

I shook my head. “They’re Mr. and Mrs. Eglantine,” I said. “I forget their first names, but they’re on the brochure. I think he’s English and she’s American, or maybe it’s the other way around. They met when they were both working for a big American hotel chain, and they quit and opened an English-style bed-and-breakfast in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Then they had a chance to buy Cuttleford House, so they sold the place in Bucks County and took a shot at it.”

I told her about the place, parroting back the better part of what I’d read in the brochure.

“It sounds great,” she said.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“It really does, Bern. It’s a shame Lettice couldn’t have postponed the wedding a week or two. She would have loved it.”

“I’d have enjoyed it myself.”

“Well, sure. Who wouldn’t?”

I sipped my beer, set the glass down, leaned forward. I said, “You know what?”

“What, Bern.”

“Let’s go.”

“Just like that? Well, let me finish my drink first, okay?”

“Finish it and have another. I don’t mean let’s blow this pop stand. I mean let’s go to Cuttleford House.”

“Huh?”

“Well, why the hell not? I’ve got the reservations and I already sent them a deposit, which will probably turn out to be nonrefundable. Why don’t the two of us make the trip? You’re not planning on getting married a week from Thursday, are you?”

“Not that I remember, but I’d have to check my book.”

“I hate the idea of canceling the trip,” I said, “just because the person I was planning on taking happens to be marrying somebody else. But it’s not the kind of place I’d want to go to alone.”

“I know what you mean.”

“So what do you say?”

“I don’t know if I can afford it, Bern.”

“Hey, c’mon. It’s my treat.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I thought that went without saying.”

“In that case,” she said, “I can probably afford it.”

“So is it a deal? Are we going?”

“Oh, what the hell,” she said. “Why not?”

That was Tuesday night. The following day Carolyn bought the sandwiches and we ate them at the bookstore. After she’d washed down the last bite of felafel with the last sip of celery tonic, she cocked her head and said, “About next weekend, Bern.”

“What about it?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking.”

“We’re still on, aren’t we?”

“I guess so, but-”

“But what?”

“Well, I’m a little unclear about something.”

“What’s to be unclear? We’ll leave here Thursday afternoon and be back sometime Sunday night. If you’re wondering what clothes to pack-”

“I’ve got that worked out.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’d sort of like to know why we’re going.”

“Why we’re going?”

“That’s right, Bern. That’s where it gets a little unclear for me.”