Lawrence Block - The Burglar in the Library

“Then what killed him?” Carolyn wanted to know. “He wound up parked on the lawn chair next to Rathburn and the cook. How did he get there and what did he die of?”

“He still wanted to kill himself,” Littlefield said, “even after he lost his nerve with the rope trick. He went out back and sat down in the chair next to the man he killed.”

“If memory serves,” the colonel said, “the cook was in the middle chair, with Wolpert and Rathburn on either side.”

“What difference does it make? He probably killed her, too. Or she died of depression because he didn’t finish his dinner, and he felt responsible for depriving the rest of us of decent meals. Whatever it was, he pulled a blanket over himself and died.”

“Of what?”

“Search me,” Littlefield said. “My guess is he had a snootful before he tried to hang himself. He probably had a couple more pops by the time he went out and sat next to the other two stiffs. Wouldn’t have been a stretch for him to doze off and die of exposure.”

“It happens all the time,” I agreed.

“Or maybe he took poison. Wasn’t he the one who knew all about which mushrooms would kill you? I don’t think he ran around gathering mushrooms under the snow, but he probably knew a few other things you could take if you wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. He probably used poison to kill the cook, and he had a dose left and took it himself.” He shrugged. “When you come right down to it, what difference does it make? He killed a man and he’s dead himself now, and if we could just find a way out of here we could all go home.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” I said.

“Damn right it would,” Littlefield said, “and I’m about ready to take a shot at it. The sun’s up and the snow’s not falling, so I think it’s time Lettice and I hit the road. Not that it hasn’t been fun, but-”

“ Orris! ”

It was Earlene Cobbett who cried out the lad’s name, and by the tone and volume you’d have thought he’d risen from the dead and lurched into the library. The whole room went dead silent as we all stared at Earlene, who had the grace to blush behind her freckles.

“For God’s sake,” Littlefield said, “give it a rest, will you? It’s pretty obvious your cousin was boinking you, and I guess you wound up with a cake in the oven, but all that wailing just gets on people’s nerves. It’s not going to bring him back, and he probably wouldn’t marry you anyway, but the kid’ll have his father’s name all the same. That’s the advantage of incest, plus it cuts down on small talk.” Another cry, this one wordless, issued from Earlene. “Hey, c’mon,” Littlefield said. “Can’t you do something, Eglantine? Fire her and send her home, say.”

If Littlefield was trying to win friends, he was going about it the wrong way. The men frowned their disapproval, while the women glared murderously at him. He looked around, shrugged. “Bunch of bleeding hearts,” he said. “I give up. Scream your guts out, honey. Live a little.”

“All Earlene is trying to say,” I said, “is that we mustn’t forget Orris. Isn’t that right, Earlene?” She nodded furiously. “And her point is a good one. Because there are a few elements your theory doesn’t cover, Littlefield.”

“Like what? The kid in the gully? Hey, he wasn’t too swift. The bridge went and he went with it. It’s a shame, but what’s it got to do with Wolpert killing Rathburn?”

“Why did the bridge go?”

“According to you, somebody sabotaged it. Cut part of the way through the ropes.”

“Why would somebody do that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “To kill Orris? It seems like a dumb way to go about it. Look, Rhodenbarr, I know it’s tempting to see foul play everywhere you look, but don’t you think it was possible those ropes just snapped of old age or something? Maybe they were ready to go for a while now, and the kid just had some bad luck.”

“So Wolpert killed Rathburn and the cook and then took his own life,” I said. “And Orris’s death was accidental.”

“Have you got a problem with that? Because I have to tell you it sounds reasonable to me.”

“Well,” I said, “I might have a slight problem with it.”

“Oh?”

“Here’s how it looks to me,” I said. “As Cuttleford House settled in for a long winter weekend, there were two men in residence with a hidden agenda. The snow began falling. And, late in the evening, two more guests arrived to complete the party.”

“The Littlefields,” Nigel said.

“Lettice and Dakin,” I said, “pressing onward in spite of the worst winter storm in memory. The two of you were the last people to cross the bridge.”

“Lucky us,” Littlefield said.

“A couple of hours later,” I went on, “Rathburn was dead, bludgeoned and smothered.”

“By Wolpert.”

I let it pass. “A few hours after that, Molly discovered the body and raised the alarm, uttering the well-known Cobbett scream. We all came on the run, and when Nigel tried to call the police, the phone was dead.”

“Because somebody cut the wires.”

“We didn’t establish that until later,” I said. “It wasn’t until after Orris’s death that Nigel walked around the house and determined that the phone wires had been cut. So it’s not inconceivable that the storm had knocked out the phones, and the wires weren’t cut until later. But it’s far-fetched, and it would seem more likely that the phone wires had already been cut by the time Jonathan Rathburn’s body was discovered.”

That made sense to everyone.

“The next thing that happened,” I said, “was that the snowblower wouldn’t work. It was presumably sabotaged, possibly with sugar in the gas tank. And the next thing that happened was the collapse of the bridge, spilling Orris into the gully and taking his life.”

There was a small cry from Earlene, ignored by all.

“Someone severed the phone wires,” I said. “Someone sugared the snowblower. Someone cut the bridge supports. And until we know who did each of those things, we haven’t solved the puzzle.”

“Wolpert,” Littlefield said.

“Gordon Wolpert?”

“Why not? He’s the villain here. If he was desperate enough to beat a guy’s brains out with a bronze camel, I don’t suppose he’d draw the line at yanking out a couple of telephone wires.”

“But when would he do it?” I wondered. “And why?”

“Why cut the wires? There’s a no-brainer. To keep the cops from being called.”

“So that they couldn’t investigate,” I said.

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” I frowned. “Maybe. Let’s let it go for a moment. What about the snowblower? Why sabotage it?”

“So that What’s-his-face couldn’t clear the path and the driveway.”

“Why would he want to prevent that?”

“Same answer. To keep the cops from coming.”

“But why would they even try to come?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know, Rhodenbarr,” he said, “you made more sense when you were dead in the gully. The cops’d come because there was a dead man in the library.”

“But the phones were out, so how would they know about Rathburn?”

“For all he knew,” Littlefield said, “somebody here had a cell phone. I’ll grant you the snowblower bit was kind of lame, especially if he’d already knocked out the bridge. But maybe Wolpert was the kind of bird who’d wear a belt and suspenders. He wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Let’s look at it from another angle,” I suggested. “Cutting the phone wires would keep the cops away. Wrecking the bridge and the snowblower would keep us here.”

“Right,” Littlefield agreed, “but it’s not working anymore, because Lettice and I are about ready to get out of here.”