The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,89
her eyes. “Anyway,” she said heavily, “Raffles came along while you were in the bathroom, and I figured he would know.”
“If I was a ghost or not.”
“Right. So I grabbed him and brought him with me and came in here. At first we were both under the bed, but when you opened the door he trotted out to see what was going on. Can I ask a question?”
“I don’t see how I could stop you.”
“Why are you pretending to be dead?”
“Because I’m going to trap the killer.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Tell me!”
I shook my head. “Not now,” I said. “But there’s something you’ve got to tell me.”
“What? I don’t know anything.”
“You know who the latest victim is.”
“It’s you,” she said, “or at least it’s supposed to be. Down at the bottom of the gully.”
“That’s just smoke and mirrors,” I said.
“Smoke and mirrors?”
“Well, clothes and pillows. It wasn’t really me down there, Millicent, and it wasn’t anybody else, either.”
“I know.”
“But there was a real Latest Victim,” I said. “On one of those lawn chairs out behind the house. There was Jonathan Rathburn and there was the cook, and there was a third victim on a third chair.”
“So?”
“So tell me who it was.”
Light dawned. “You don’t know,” she said. “Everybody thinks you know because everybody thinks you killed him, or at least they did until it turned out that you were dead, too. But you didn’t kill him, even if you don’t happen to be dead yourself, and…”
“Right.”
“So you don’t know.”
“But I will,” I said, “as soon as you tell me.”
She looked at me.
“What’s the matter?”
“I know who got killed,” she said, giving it a sort of singsong cadence, “and you don’t. And you know who the killer is, and I don’t.”
“Time to strike a deal, huh?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Okay,” I said. “You tell me who was on the chair, and I’ll tell you who put him there.”
“‘Him’?”
“You mean it was a woman?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe it was a woman and maybe it was a man. That’s for me to know.”
“And for me to find out,” I finished, “and the way I’ll find out is by you telling me.”
“And then you’ll tell me who did it.”
“Right.”
“Okay,” she said.
“It’s a deal?”
She nodded. “It’s a deal.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“So tell me.”
She frowned. “I think you should go first.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?”
She didn’t say anything, which was answer enough. I could have gone first, but if she didn’t trust me, why should I trust her? I dug out my wallet, looked for scraps of paper, and wound up drawing out a pair of dollar bills. I gave one of them to Millicent.
“In the space alongside Washington’s portrait,” I said. “Just print the victim’s name there, and I’ll do the same with the killer’s name.”
“I think it’s against the law to write on money.”
“If they arrest you for it,” I said, “tell them it was my idea. No cheating, now. No writing ‘Mickey Mouse’ to fake me out. Okay?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Sure you would,” I said, “and so would I, but not today. Deal?” She nodded, and I printed the name of my favorite suspect, shielding the action from view with my left hand. When I finished I folded the bill, folded it again, and held it out to the child. With my other hand I took hold of the bill she was offering, similarly folded. Our eyes locked, and she counted to three, and at once we completed the exchange.
I unfolded the bill, looked at what she’d written. I looked at Millicent, and found her looking back at me.
“You’re sure of this?”
She nodded, her eyes enormous. “I thought it was going to be you,” she said, “but it was him instead.”
“Gordon Wolpert. With the tweed jackets and the elbow patches and…”
“That’s him.”
“And he was dead.” I frowned. “Do you suppose it was accidental? Maybe he was overcome with remorse and he pulled up a chair to sit next to the two people he’d killed, and before he knew it he’d fallen asleep and frozen to death.”
She gave me a look. “Anyway,” she said, “there were marks on his neck. They said he’d been strangled.”
“Strangled.
“Did anybody look at his eyes? I wonder if he had pinpoint hemorrhages. But maybe you only get those if somebody smothers you. Wait a minute. Strangled? Maybe he hanged himself. Maybe he was overcome with remorse”—I seemed attached to the phrase—“and he hanged himself from a beam or something, and—”