The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,92
never ate much,” she said. “He would always say the food was good, but his plate would be half full when I brought it back to the kitchen. It bothered Cook some.”
“It bothered me,” Quilp said. “I never trust a picky eater.”
“Well, the man’s dead,” Greg Savage said, “so I think we can forgive him his lack of appetite. Maybe he was just watching his weight.”
“But he was slender,” Leona said.
“Well, honey, maybe that’s how he stayed slender. By resisting the temptation to eat like a horse.”
“He wasn’t resisting temptation,” Quilp insisted. “He wasn’t tempted. The man simply did not care about food.”
“Maybe there’s something intrinsically suspicious about a lack of appetite,” I said, “and maybe there isn’t. I couldn’t tell you one way or the other. What got my attention wasn’t that Gordon Wolpert would never qualify for the Clean Plate Club. I was more interested in the fact that he lied about it.”
“What do you mean, Bern?”
“You were there,” I told Carolyn. “I think it was the first conversation we had with him. Wolpert said he’d extended his stay at Cuttleford House and might extend it again, because the food was so good. He even patted his stomach and made some remark about his waistline.”
“Maybe he was anorexic,” Millicent suggested. “I saw a program about that. These girls were starving themselves, but they thought they were fat.”
“Somehow,” I said, “I don’t think he fits the profile. Anorexia’s pretty scarce in middle-aged males. No, I think there’s a basic principle involved. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but whenever a politician answers a question that you haven’t asked, he’s lying. Gordon Wolpert was doing essentially the same thing. He was staying on longer than he’d planned at Cuttleford House, and he was offering an explanation when none was required. And the explanation was untrue—the food wasn’t what was keeping him here. That meant something else was, and it was something he wanted to conceal.”
“Brilliant,” Dakin Littlefield said dryly. “Only it’s a shame you didn’t ask him for an explanation before somebody tied a knot in his neck.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I told him. “I did what amateur sleuths always do—I waited until I could be absolutely certain. I suppose it has to be that way in the books, or otherwise they’d end on page seventy-eight. What I should have done was shoulder my way in and ask impertinent questions. But I didn’t, and somebody strangled him.”
The colonel cleared his throat. “So it was Wolpert who aroused your suspicions,” he said.
“Right,” I said. “I knew someone was sitting right here in this room with Jonathan Rathburn. I was on my way to bed and they were in here.”
“You never mentioned that,” Nigel said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you saw them in here?” Lettice said. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, Bernie. Who was it?”
“The lights were out,” I said, “and it was pitch dark inside, so I didn’t see anybody. I could hear that there was a conversation going on, but it was too low-pitched to identify the speakers, and of course I didn’t want to eavesdrop.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to resist,” Lettice admitted. “Didn’t you hear even a tiny bit, Bernie?”
“Not a word, and I didn’t hang around long. I was tired, and I’d had that wee dram of the Drumnadrochit. Besides, I was being well-bred and English, and it wouldn’t have been the proper thing to do. But it’s a pity I didn’t listen a little more closely, or just waltz right in and turn on a light. I might have prevented a murder.”
“Or watched it take place,” Miss Dinmont said with a little gasp. “If you’d walked in just as the murderer was swinging the camel—”
She broke off, all atremble at the horror of the idea.
“It would have been awkward,” I agreed, “but it never happened, and what did happen here at Cuttleford House this weekend has been awkward enough. What did we start out with? A perfectly delightful English country house—”
“It’s nice of you to say so,” Cissie murmured.
“—with a full complement of congenial if slightly dotty guests.”
This brought a harrumph from the colonel.
“Two men seemed out of place,” I went on. “Rathburn, with his penetrating stares and his furious bouts of scribbling, and Wolpert, at once praising the food and pushing it around on his plate. A picky eater, as Mr. Quilp has labeled him, and not to be trusted. My first thought was that one of them killed the other.”