The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,71

off what you were saying and started staring at something.”

“The door,” she said.

“What about it?”

“I was sure it was gonna fly open,” she said, “and I was sure he was gonna be there.”

“Who, Ray?”

She nodded. “Dumb idea, Bern. He doesn’t even know we’re here, does he?”

“I can’t see how he would even know we left town.”

“Still, it shows you the state I’m in. You know what it all means, Bernie?”

“No.”

“It means the day of the amateur sleuth is over. If ever a case looked made to order for amateur sleuthing, this would have to be it. A snowbound English country house with corpses piling up faster than the snow? And here we are, throwing up our hands.”

“I’m glad that’s all we’re throwing up,” I said. “When I got my first look at dinner tonight my heart sank. Does that dish have a name, do you figure? Something like Cobbett surprise?”

“Oh, that reminds me,” she said, getting to her feet. “I promised I’d help.”

“Help what?”

“In the kitchen.”

“That’s not what,” I said. “It’s where.”

“I said I’d help with the cleanup.”

“You?”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing,” I said, “it’s not your job. For another, you happen to hate helping in the kitchen.”

“It’s an emergency,” she said. “They’re shorthanded, what with the cook being dead and all.”

“And all,” I said.

“So I thought I’d help.”

I noticed the way she was avoiding my eye, and light dawned. I asked who she’d be helping.

“Whoever’s in there,” she said. “Look, I’ll just—”

“Molly Cobbett,” I said.

“She’s probably in there, yeah. So?”

“And her cousin Earlene?”

“She’s probably got other jobs to do.”

“So Molly’s alone in the kitchen.”

“She probably is,” she said, “and now that you mention it, that’s probably not safe. So that’s all the more reason for me to go keep her company.”

“Maybe I should come too,” I said.

“No need, Bern.”

“Two’s dangerous, remember? Suppose Molly turns out to be the killer?”

“Very funny.”

“Or suppose you turn out to be the killer.”

“Even funnier, Bern.”

“I just don’t want to see you make the wrong move,” I said. “I know you dreamed about her, but—”

“It was some dream, Bern. You have no idea.”

Oh, no? “She’s a country girl,” I went on, “from a sheltered background, and she probably doesn’t know the first thing about lesbians.”

“You didn’t see the way she was looking at me.”

“Well, you’re exotic,” I said. “Hip and urban and—”

“And gay,” she said. “And she’s a Cobbett, which means there’s probably not a whole lot she hasn’t done. The only thing that makes me exotic is that I’m not a blood relative. Listen, I’m not looking to put the moves on her. I just want to go keep her company in the kitchen.”

I couldn’t think of anyone else I wanted to keep company with, in the kitchen or elsewhere. The only object of my affections in the neighborhood was Lettice Littlefield, and I wasn’t too sure how affectionately I felt toward her just now. Anyway, they were on their honeymoon and there was a killer on the premises, so her sneering husband was likely to be keeping her on a short leash.

What I really wanted to do was escape, and there’s one tried-and-true way to manage that feat without actually going anywhere. I remembered Emily Dickinson’s words on the subject: There is no frigate like a book. “Frigate,” I said, more or less, and went into the library.

I looked up at Raymond Chandler, looked over at the library steps, looked at the camel and the throw pillow. I wondered if a person could actually sit down and work out a murder scheme involving a camel and a pillow. It had to have been improvised, I decided, or else the whole thing had an impossibly Monty Python tone to it.

It was a pity, I thought, that I hadn’t heard any of the conversation that had been murmured in this very room while I lurked in the doorway. One of the participants had almost certainly been Jonathan Rathburn, the other the person who cameled and pillowed him to death. Had I crept in a little way I might have found out what they were going on about, and might have learned the identity of the other party. Conversely, if I’d just blundered in noisily, switching on lights and begging pardon for the intrusion, I might have prevented a murder. And, if that first killing hadn’t taken place, perhaps the others would have been nipped in the bud as well.

I could have saved them all, I thought. If only I’d been a little more furtive, or