The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,29
do it?”
“Well, I know I didn’t. It’s the sort of thing I would remember. And I know you didn’t because you’re not the type.”
“That’s a relief.”
“And that’s all I have to know,” I said, “because it’s not my problem. Because I was never there.”
“Huh?”
“I took no snapshots and left no footprints,” I said. “Or fingerprints. Or cereal boxes. Nobody saw me enter and nobody saw me leave, unless you count Steady Eddie, and I don’t. I took away everything I brought with me and put back everything I took. I even locked up after myself.”
“You always do.”
“Well, how much trouble is it? If I can pick a lock open, I ought to be able to pick it shut. And it’s good policy. The longer it takes people to realize they’ve been burgled, the harder it is to catch the guy who did it.”
“So you left everything exactly as you found it.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Bern? You left everything exactly as you found it, right?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘everything,’ ” I said. “I wouldn’t say ‘exactly.’ ”
“What do you mean?”
I reached out a hand and ruffled Alison’s coat. She made that whimpering sound again. “I kept the money,” I said.
“Bern.”
“Well, I was going to put it back,” I said, “and then I remembered that I’d taken off my gloves to count it, because if I was taking the money it hardly mattered if I got my prints on it. So I would have had to wipe off every single bill, and I’d have had to be thorough about it, and then I’d have had to pick the lock on the desk drawer, once to open it and a second time to close it again.”
“So you took it.”
“Well, I’d already taken it. What I did was keep it.”
“Eight thousand dollars?”
“Close enough. Eighty-three fifty.”
“And how long were you in there? Four hours? Call it two thousand dollars an hour. That sure beats minimum wage.”
“Believe me,” I said, “it wasn’t worth it. I only kept the money because it was less trouble than putting it back. And it was pretty close to untraceable. The watches and the jewelry might lead back to the Nugent apartment, but money’s just money.” I shrugged. “I suppose I should have put it back, even if it meant wiping off each and every bill. But it was late and all I wanted to do was get out of there.”
“But you took time to pick the locks. The ones on the outer door I can understand, but why lock up the bathroom? It took you forever to open that lock, and it must have been just as much trouble to relock it.”
“Not quite. Locking’s easier than unlocking with that particular mechanism, and I’d already made some surface grooves in the bolt the first time around. But it still took some time, I’ll say that much.”
“Then why bother?”
“Think about it,” I said. “Say the cops come and they have to break the door down. They find a corpse in the tub with a gun alongside him. One little window, and it’s locked, and so was the door until they forced it. If you’re one of the cops, what conclusion do you draw?”
“Suicide,” she said. “It couldn’t be anything else. Bern? Wait a minute.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Suppose there’s no gun.”
“So?”
“Then it’s not suicide, is it?”
I shook my head. “It’s not,” I said, “and what you’ve got is a locked-room homicide straight out of John Dickson Carr, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out how the killer could have worked it. Now, I don’t honestly think that’s what happened, because it would have been impossible. I think the gun must have been out of sight somewhere, behind the body or underneath it. If it was suicide, I’d just as soon leave it as open-and-shut as possible. And if it was murder, some physically impossible kind of locked-room murder, why should I be the one to screw it up? Because if the door’s open when the cops get there, then it’s just another naked corpse in the bathtub. There’s nothing special about it at all.”
“I see what you mean.”
“So that’s why I locked up,” I said, “and there may well be a flaw in my logic, but I was too worn out to spot it. The bathroom lock was easier to manipulate the second time around, but it was still a real pain in the neck, and it took time. Do you want to know something? I felt justified keeping the eighty-three fifty. I worked hard