The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,90

on a lawn chair with a blanket over him. Never mind. Gordon Wolpert, for God’s sake. You’re sure it was him? Of course you’re sure.”

“And you’re sure he was the killer?”

“Well, no,” I said. “I was a few minutes ago. Now I’m not sure of anything.”

I got to my feet, crossed to the chest of drawers, and picked up a book I’d been reading earlier, holding it as though absorbing its essence might somehow empower me. Gordon Wolpert, who I’d somehow managed to convince myself was a multiple murderer, had in turn managed to persuade someone else to murder him.

I opened a drawer, put the book inside. I opened the closet door, got a whiff of Rathburn’s shoes, and closed it again.

“It’s time,” I said.

“Time for what, Bernie?”

“Time for action. You know what Chandler said, don’t you? When things start to slow down, bring in a couple of guys with guns in their hands.”

“Have you got a gun?”

“No,” I said, “and I’m only one man, but it’s high time I found a couple of mean streets to walk down. I want you to go downstairs, Millicent.”

“And leave you and Raffles here?”

“You can take Raffles with you,” I said. “The main thing is I want you to get them all in one room.”

“Which room?”

“The library,” I said. “That’s where it all started. That’s where it should end.”

CHAPTER

Twenty-five

They were all in the library.

I don’t know how she managed it, but somehow she’d rounded them all up. They perched on chairs and sofas, stood propped against walls and bookshelves, or huddled in twos and threes to talk, probably wondering why she’d summoned them all there.

Which could have been my opening line. “I suppose you’re wondering why she summoned you all here,” I might very well have said.

But I didn’t. I just walked across the threshold and took note of their reactions.

And they damn well reacted. Their eyes widened, their jaws dropped, and a few of them went a shade or two paler. Miss Dinmont’s hands tightened their grip on the arms of her wheelchair, Mrs. Colibri clutched at a bookcase for support, and Colonel Blount-Buller’s upper lip lost a little of its stiffness. There was a fair amount of gasping, but no one actually said anything, until Lettice Littlefield cried out, “Bernie! Is it really you?”

“In the flesh,” I said, and pinched myself. “See? You’re not dreaming, and I’m not a ghost.”

“But you were—”

“Down at the bottom of the gully, creased with a kris,” I said. “Except I wasn’t, not really. And one reason I burst in on you like this was to see which dog didn’t bark.”

That got some stares of incomprehension. “‘Silver Blaze,’” I explained. “What Holmes found significant was that the dog didn’t bark. Well, if somebody didn’t twitch or gape or go pale at my appearance, it meant he wasn’t surprised. And who would be unsurprised to find me still alive? The person who knew I wasn’t dead. And who would know that better than the man who didn’t kill me?”

“Well said,” the colonel allowed, and a couple of heads nodded their approval of my logic.

Then Leona Savage said, “I didn’t kill you.”

“Huh? No, of course you didn’t, and—”

“I didn’t kill you,” she insisted, “but I was surprised to see you here, because I saw what I took to be you at the bottom of the gully and consequently thought you were dead. I’m not the man who didn’t kill you, but I’m certainly one of the persons who didn’t kill you, and I was surprised nonetheless. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a heart attack.”

“An excellent thing,” I agreed, “and I’m sorry to have shocked you, but—”

“In fact,” she pressed on, “nobody here killed you, because you’re still very much alive. So I don’t see—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Leona,” Greg Savage said. “You always do that.”

“I always do what?”

“That,” he said, with feeling if not with precision. “You know what he means, or you ought to. Somebody in this room is a killer. He killed Rathburn and Orris and the cook, and most recently he killed Gordon Wolpert. And the rest of us all assumed he’d killed Rhodenbarr here as well. But the killer, whoever he is, knew he hadn’t killed Rhodenbarr.”

“Because it’s the sort of thing a person would remember,” Bettina Colibri said softly.

“And consequently he wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “But I got a look at all your faces, and you all looked surprised.”

“I knew it,” Cissie Eglantine said, her countenance transformed. “We’re innocent, each