The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,59

one of us. And in that case the cook is in no peril in the kitchen, because all of us are here.”

“Didn’t I say that?” Cissy wondered aloud.

“But,” he went on, “if by some chance the cook is the murderer, then we’re all quite safe. Because we’re here and she’s elsewhere.”

“In the kitchen,” Mrs. Colibri said.

“Quite so.”

“Preparing our lunch.”

The room went very still. Miss Gloria Dinmont broke the silence. “She could poison us all,” she said softly. “We’d drop like flies, never knowing what hit us.”

“Or writhe in agony,” her companion chimed in, “knowing we’d been poisoned, but unable to get hold of the antidote.”

“A tasteless and odorless poison,” Miss Dinmont said.

“A poison that leaves no trace,” said Miss Hardesty.

“Oh, come on,” Carolyn said. “What difference does it makes if the poison leaves a trace or not? If we’re all discovered lying dead all over the house, what do you figure the cops are going to think? That somebody said something so shocking we all popped off with heart attacks?”

“Besides,” young Millicent said, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a poison that doesn’t leave a trace.”

“It seems to me most toxic substances leave some sort of evidence that would show up in an autopsy,” I said, “but you generally have to look for it.”

“How do you know that, Bern?”

I knew it from Quincy reruns on Nick at Nite, but I didn’t want to say that. “We’re out in the country,” I said, “and a rural cop who walked in on a roomful of dead people with no marks on them would probably write it off as carbon monoxide poisoning from a defective furnace.”

“But there’s no central heating.”

“That might not occur to him. Still, we’ve got what, fifteen or sixteen people in the room? Safety in numbers.”

“What do you mean, Bern?”

“I mean that many people dying all at once under mysterious circumstances would trigger a full-scale investigation. The state troopers would run it, and there’d be a complete toxicological workup. If we’d been poisoned it would show up.”

“Well, that’s a load off my mind,” Dakin Littlefield said. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.”

“All I’m trying to say—”

But he didn’t want to hear it. “For God’s sake,” he said, “if the cook was bent on lacing our porridge with rat poison she wouldn’t start off by killing people with a camel and a pillow and a cup of sugar. If Gloria over there in the wheelchair is seriously worried about poison, I’ll volunteer to eat her lunch for her. Assuming we ever get lunch.”

“Ha!” Rufus Quilp thrust his head forward, his little eyes beady and bright. “Lunch,” he said. “Breakfast was ages ago and no one’s serving us lunch. What about that, Eglantine?”

“I’m sure lunch won’t be long now,” Nigel said.

“If we’re not going to get it right away,” Quilp said, “I don’t see why we can’t at least have our elevensies.”

“Elevensies?”

“Normally served at eleven,” Quilp said dryly, “as you might guess from the name. Too late for that now, of course, so you could call it something else, or call it nothing at all, just so one has the opportunity to eat it. A cup of coffee, say, and a scone or some crumpets. Anything that will do to tide one over between breakfast and lunch.”

“Nigel,” Cissy said, “perhaps someone could fetch Mr. Quilp a cup of coffee.”

“And a scone,” Quilp said.

“And a scone.”

“Or perhaps a croissant,” the fat man suggested, “if there are any left, and perhaps with some of those gingered rhubarb preserves.”

“Yes, those are lovely, aren’t they? I’m sure we’ve some left, Mr. Quilp. Nigel, why don’t I just fetch something for Mr. Quilp?”

“Not by yourself,” her husband said.

“Oh. But if I simply went to the kitchen…oh, but…” She frowned, troubled. “Oh,” she said.

“I don’t want to cause a fuss,” Rufus Quilp said. “And if lunch should turn out to be imminent, well, I wouldn’t want to spoil my appetite.”

“Fat chance,” Carolyn muttered.

“But if lunch is destined to be rather a distant affair,” he went on, “then I do think I could do with a bit of tiding over. There’s my blood sugar to be considered, don’t you see.”

I found myself considering Mr. Quilp’s blood sugar, and wondered idly if it could render a snowblower hors de combat. While I pondered the point, the colonel took command, dispatching a patrol on a reconnaissance mission. Cissy Eglantine, flanked by the Cobbett cousins, were to go to the kitchen and inquire of the