dark secret in their past, and they’re isolated somewhere, and somebody gets killed. And then somebody says, ‘Oh, it must have been some passing tramp who did it, because otherwise it would have to have been one of us, and that’s plainly impossible because we’re all such nice people.’ But guess what, Bern?”
“It’s really one of them?”
“Every last time. And it’s not the butler, either.”
“Well, that part’s right,” I said, “because that’s where Cuttleford’s imitation of an English country house begins to break down. There’s no butler.”
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be a murder.”
“Sure it does,” I said. I closed the Mr. and Mrs. North mystery—hardcover, no dust jacket, spine shaky, some pages dog-eared—and put it back where I’d found it. “I haven’t got time for a murder, not to commit and not to solve. I’m tired. I want to turn in soon and sleep until the snow melts.”
“You can’t sleep, Bern.”
“Want to bet?”
“Even if you want to,” she said. “Remember? You’re going to be up all night. You’ve got a book to find.”
“That’s what you think.”
“You’re giving up? Well, I’m disappointed, but I can’t honestly say I blame you. It’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack, except it wouldn’t.”
“I see what you mean.”
“You do?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s the opposite of a needle in a haystack, isn’t it? It’s more like a needle in a needle stack. Not just any needle, but one particular needle in the midst of all the others.”
“A needlestack,” I said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve ever come across one.”
“So? When’s the last time you saw a haystack?”
“I’m sure I wrote it down,” I said, “but I don’t have my notebook with me. What’s the point?”
“The point is every room is crawling with books, and the library alone has more volumes than you’ve got in your store, including the back room. So it may be an easy place to find something to read, but it’s an impossible place to find something specific, even if it’s there to start with, which it probably isn’t.” She took a deep breath. “So I can understand why you’re abandoning the hunt.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“What else? I said you’ve got a book to find, and you said, ‘That’s what you think.’”
“Right.”
“Meaning you’re not going to bother looking.”
“Meaning I don’t have to look.”
She looked at me.
“Meaning I already found it,” I said. “So why shouldn’t I treat myself to a good night’s sleep?”
“The top shelf,” I said. “You see the section closest to the wall?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it’s the section immediately to the right of it. See the one I mean?”
“I think so,” she whispered. “I don’t want to look directly at it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to arouse suspicion, Bern.”
“We’re in a library,” I said, as indeed we were, having gone there directly from the Morning Room. “Looking at books is a natural occupation in a room like this. And it’s a lot less suspicious to stare right at them than it is to glance furtively.”
“Is that what I was doing? Glancing furtively?”
“Well, it looked furtive to me. I don’t think it made any impression on anybody else because nobody else noticed.”
Not that we were alone. The two guests we’d seen earlier were gone. The intense man with long dark hair who’d been writing letters (or ransom notes, or working out the square root of minus two, for all I knew) was nowhere to be seen, and the older woman (whom Gordon Wolpert had identified as a Mrs. Colibri, a widow of undetermined origin) had gone off as well, leaving The Eustace Diamonds on the table next to the couch. But two others had taken their place. Leona Savage, Millicent’s mother, was reading a Bruce Chatwin travel book and periodically consulting the globe, and a very fat man who’d been introduced to us earlier as Rufus Quilp was dozing in an armchair, with a book open on his ample lap.
“All right,” Carolyn said. “The top row of shelves, the second section in from the fireplace wall. I’m looking right at it, Bern.”
“What do you see?”
“Books.”
“Four or five books in from the left-hand edge of that section,” I said, “there’s an oversize volume, The Conrad Argosy. See it?”
“I see a thick book that’s a lot taller than the others. I can’t read the title from here. Can you?”
“No, but I recognize the book. I’ve had copies in the store. Now to the right of it there are three dark books, and then one with a sort of yellow cover, and next to that