The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,13

If it’s a cat today it’ll be a horse tomorrow.”

I snuck a peek at Raffles. He was a cat today, and somehow I couldn’t make myself believe he’d be a horse tomorrow.

“Snowing to beat the band,” our driver said, starting the engine and pulling away from the curb. “Good thing for you you’re in a four-wheeled vehicle.”

“As opposed to a bicycle?”

Carolyn treated me to an elbow. “Four-wheel drive,” she said, and leaned forward. “You think we’re in for a lot of snow?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, and she’s coming down right heavy. I’ll get you to Cuttleford, though. This here’ll get through most anything. Can’t take you over the bridge, though.”

“The bridge?”

“There’s a parking lot,” I explained, “where you have to leave your car, and then you walk across a bridge, and then it’s a few steps to the house itself.”

“Quarter mile,” the driver said. “Be a wagon there for your bags. I suppose you could put your animal into it.”

“We’ll manage,” Carolyn told him.

The roads to Cuttleford were something out of a Judy Garland song. They kept getting rougher, and lonelier and tougher. The snow fell steadily, and the Jeep proved equal to the challenge, going where no vehicle had gone before. I wouldn’t have dreamed of calling it a car.

“Cuttleford Road,” the driver announced, braking and turning to the left, where a one-lane road made its way through thick woods. “Been plowed within the hour. The young ’un’s doing.”

“The young ’un?”

“Orris,” he said. “Works for them, don’t he?” He tapped his head significantly with his forefinger. “The least bit slow, Orris. Does his work, though. Have to give him that. I never credited those stories, anyway.”

“Stories?”

“You can’t believe half of what you hear,” he said. “Better to have the boy plowing driveways than locked away for his whole life.”

“Why would they lock him up?” Carolyn wanted to know. “What did he do, anyway?”

“Not my place to say. Never been a believer in carrying tales.”

Carolyn started to press the issue, then broke off when we braked to a stop alongside a clearing where eight or ten cars were parked, as well as a half-ton panel truck and a Jeep with a snowplow attached to its front.

“If you brought your own car,” he said, “that’s where you’d have to leave it. Except you’d likely be stuck somewhere, ’less you had four wheels.”

I’d been planning on suggesting that quaintness could yield to expediency for once, and that he drive us across the bridge and drop us at the door. One look at the bridge made it clear that was out of the question. It was narrower than the Jeep, narrower indeed than any four-wheeled vehicle larger than a shopping cart, and it was suspended by rope cables across a deep gorge.

The driver cut the Jeep’s engine, and I got out and walked to the edge, or as close as I cared to get to it. I couldn’t see anything below, and I couldn’t hear anything, either.

“Quiet,” I said.

“Cuttlebone Creek. She’s iced over. Be frozen clear to the bottom by daybreak, if she’s not already.”

“Is the bridge safe?” Carolyn wanted to know.

“What a question,” I said. “Of course it’s safe.”

“’S good strong rope,” he said.

“Good strong rope,” I echoed.

“Thing about rope,” he said, “is it rains, don’t it? And the damp soaks into it, and then it turns cold and freezes. And then it’s brittle, innit?”

“It is?”

“Snap like a twig,” he said.

“Er.”

“But it ain’t yet,” he said with satisfaction. “Best cross before it does. See the wagons? Put your luggage in ’em. And your animal.”

“Look,” Carolyn said. “This is a Jeep, right? Not a car but a Jeep.”

He looked at her.

“Well, he’s a cat,” she said. “Not an animal. So don’t call him an animal. Show a little respect.”

He didn’t call him an animal again, but neither did he call him anything else, or say another word. I think Carolyn left him dumbstruck, and I only wish she’d spoken up earlier. He opened the back of the Jeep, lifted out our suitcases, and stepped back in silence. Cat, animal, or four-wheeled mammal, the rules weren’t about to change. Whatever he was, we had to tote him ourselves.

We picked out a pair of little red wagons, loaded Raffles and the luggage, and made our way across the bridge and along a winding path to Cuttleford House. Crossing the bridge was actually a lot less perilous than some of the things I’ve been called upon to do in my career as a burglar, but