The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,21

there and stared. I have been in a lot of magnificent rooms, including more than a few fine private libraries. Sometimes I have been present by invitation, and other times I have turned up on my own, without the owner’s permission and much to his chagrin. I have found it difficult to leave some of those rooms, wanting to extend my stay as long as I possibly could, but this was different.

I wanted to steal the whole room. I wanted to wrap it up in a magic carpet—perhaps the very one beneath my feet; it looked entirely capable of having magical properties—and whisk it back to New York, where I could install it with a snap of my fingers on the top floor, say, of an Art Deco apartment building on Central Park South. Drop-dead views of the park through that wall of windows, and a gentle north light that wouldn’t fade the carpet or the spines of the books…

I wouldn’t need anything else. No bedroom. I’d sleep sitting up in one of the chairs, nodding off over a leather-bound Victorian novel. No kitchen, either. I’d pick up something at the deli around the corner. A bathroom would be handy, though I could make do with one down the hall if I had to, even as we were doing this weekend.

Give me that room, though, and I could be perfectly happy.

I said as much to Carolyn, said it in a whisper to avoid disturbing the older woman reading Trollope on the green velvet sofa or the intense dark-haired gentleman scribbling away at the leather-topped writing desk. She was not surprised.

“Of course you could,” she said. “This room’s gotta be twice the size of your whole apartment. Forget my little rathole. You could just about lose my apartment in that fireplace.”

“It’s not just the size.”

“It’s pretty nice,” she agreed. “And look at all those books. You think one of them’s the one you’re looking for?”

“One at the most.”

“That was my line, Bern. When Millie asked how many beds we’ve got in Aunt Augusta’s Room.”

“You figure she likes being called Millie?”

“She probably hates it,” she said, “but she’s not here, and anyway I’m whispering. Bernie, don’t look now, but that man is staring at me. See?”

“How can I see? You just said not to look.”

“Well, you can look now. He’s not doing it anymore.”

“Then why look if there’s nothing to see?” I looked anyway, at the fellow at the writing desk. He looked as though he’d stepped out of a Brontë novel and might at any moment step out of Cuttleford House as well, flinging his scarf around his neck and striding across the moors. Except that he wasn’t wearing a scarf, and there weren’t any moors in the neighborhood.

“I think he was just staring off into space,” I said. “Trying to think of le mot juste, and you happened to be where his eyes landed.”

“I suppose so. Incidentally, are you out of your mind?”

“Probably. What makes you ask?”

“I was just wondering what possessed you to tell little Princess Margaret that you’re a burglar.”

“Not Princess Margaret.”

“Bern—”

“Lady Jane Grey,” I said. “Or Anne Boleyn.”

“Who cares? The point is—”

“I get the point.”

“So?”

“I almost slipped,” I said. “I almost let out what I really am.”

“What you really…”

“I almost said I was a bookseller.”

“But fortunately you caught yourself at the last minute and told her you were a burglar.”

“Right.”

“Am I missing something here?”

“Think about it,” I said.

She did, and after a long moment light dawned. “Oh,” she said.

“Right.”

“There’s a million books in the damn house,” she said, “and most of them are old, and some of them are sure to be rare. And if they knew there was a bookseller in their midst—”

“They’d be on guard,” I said. “At the very least.”

“Whereas knowing they’ve got a burglar on the premises gives them a nice cozy warm feeling.”

“I didn’t want to say ‘bookseller’,” I said, “and I had to do something quick, and I wanted to stay with the same initial.”

“Why? Monogrammed luggage?”

“My lips were already forming a B.”

“‘A butcher, a baker, a bindlestaff maker.’ All of them start with B, Bernie, and they all sound more innocent than ‘burglar.’”

“I know.”

“It’s a good thing her lips are sealed.”

“Yeah, right. She already told Mummy. But you don’t think Mummy believed it, do you?”

“She thought you were joking with the kid.”

“And so will anyone else she happens to tell. As far as that goes, do you really think Millicent thought I’d come here to steal the spoons? She assumed