The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,107

bridge.”

“Why would I do a thing like that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’d be setting a trap for a person I’d never even met. You and I have been…close, Bernie. How could you possibly think me capable of such a thing?”

“You weren’t setting a trap.”

“But you just said—”

“If you’d had your way,” I said, “you’d have sliced right through those ropes in a New York minute. But minutes take a lot longer up in the faux-English countryside. And you didn’t have the right tools for the job.”

Carolyn asked me what I meant. Lettice just stared at me.

I pointed at her purse. “If I took that bag away from you and dumped it out on the countertop,” I said, “I bet I’d find a cute little penknife with a blade shorter than your pinky. It’s a useful little accessory, handy for slitting an envelope or paring a fingernail or cutting a piece of thread. And you can even cut through a stout rope with the thing, but it’s not easy. You have to sort of saw your way through, and it takes time.”

She was silent for a moment, her arm pressing her handbag protectively against her side. Then she said, “Lots of women have knives in their bags.”

“I know. Some of them carry Mace these days, and some tote guns around with them. Small guns, though, not like the cannon Dakin took off Wolpert’s corpse. Little ladylike guns, same as yours is a little ladylike knife.”

“If I had a knife like that,” she said, “it wouldn’t prove anything.”

“It might if there were rope fibers in the casing. And if they matched the ropes on Cuttleford Bridge.”

She looked long and hard at me, then lowered her eyes. After a moment she said, “I never meant for anyone to get killed. I hope you believe me, Bernie.”

“I do.”

“‘I do.’ That’s what I said, standing up next to Dakin in front of the city clerk. That’s what started the whole thing.”

“What happened, Lettice?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Somehow I knew I’d made a mistake. I knew it days before the ceremony, Bernie. I suppose it was intuition, little hints I picked up. I knew I shouldn’t marry him.”

“But you did.”

“I almost got married a few years ago,” she said, “to a perfectly nice young man, and I got cold feet and backed out at the last minute. So I thought I was just doing the same thing all over again, and I told myself I had to go through with it this time. I was afraid to go to Aruba, Bernie. I think I knew something would happen to me there.”

“And that’s why you talked him into coming to Cuttleford House instead.”

“That’s right. And then driving up I thought, well, I can leave first thing in the morning. I can grab the car keys when he’s not looking and get out of there. And when we walked across the bridge…”

“Yes?”

“I thought, well, if we’re snowed in for the weekend, and if I can’t get away, then maybe I’ll get over this case of the jitters and settle down and be a wife. But I wasn’t sure if it would snow enough to keep me there. And I thought, well, if something happened to the bridge—”

“You’d be forced to stay.”

“That’s right. And I thought I would just cut the ropes, just like that, but they were thick and tough, and the cold didn’t make it any easier. I had to give up because Dakin was coming back up the path to see what had happened to me, and if he saw me sawing away at the ropes—”

“He might have wondered.”

“God only knows what he would have thought. I was going to go outside later and finish the job. In fact, I did come downstairs after I, uh—”

“Consummated your marriage.”

“Yes. I was going to finish what I’d started, but I was also all flustered because you had turned up at Cuttleford House after all, you and uh—”

“Carolyn,” Carolyn said.

“Yes. And I looked around until I found you, Bernie, and then I uh—”

“Finished what you’d started.”

“So to speak, yes. And then I thought of going outside again, but I was so warm and cozy, and pretty sleepy, too, and the snow was still coming down out there. And I found myself wondering why I’d wanted to disable the bridge in the first place. I didn’t have to seal off my escape route to make it through the weekend. Married life wasn’t going