The Burglar in the Library - By Lawrence Block Page 0,93

it could hardly have been the other way around,” her husband pointed out.

“That was my thought,” I said, “but I couldn’t be sure. I knew how Rathburn was killed—the camel and the pillow—and I knew why, but—”

“Why?” Carolyn demanded.

“To keep him quiet,” I said. “He came here looking for somebody and he knew something, and he was a threat to somebody with a secret. I figured Wolpert had a secret, or why would he be disguising his reason for lingering here? So it seemed logical to guess that Rathburn had stumbled on the secret, or ferreted it out, and Wolpert killed him to keep his secret safe.”

“You know,” Dakin Littlefield said, “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’ve got to hand it to you. It sounds to me as though you’ve got it cracked. Wolpert’s the killer.”

“But Wolpert’s been killed himself,” Leona Savage objected.

“But was it murder?”

“What else could it have been?”

“Suicide,” Littlefield said. “Are you with me in this, Rhodenbarr? Wolpert kills Rathburn to keep his mouth shut—and incidentally, did you happen to find out what secret Rathburn had picked up on? I assume there was more to it than Wolpert’s lack of appetite.”

“I assume so too,” I said, “and I thought I might find a hint in Rathburn’s room. After all, he spent all his waking hours writing notes and letters. But either he found a great hiding place for them or the killer scooped them up before I got there.”

“So the secret died with Rathburn,” Littlefield said. “Well, what difference does it make, anyway? Rathburn knew something and Wolpert wanted to keep it dark, so he killed the fellow. In the ordinary course of things he’d have checked out the next morning and gone on home, but the bridge was out and he couldn’t get away. Eventually remorse overtook him, and he probably realized he’d be caught sooner or later. Who knows what goes on inside a man’s mind?”

“Who indeed?”

“So he did himself in,” he said. “Took the easy way out and did the Dutch act.”

“But there were marks on his neck,” somebody pointed out. “A sign that he’d been strangled.”

“Or tried to hang himself,” Littlefield said. “You know how people who slash their wrists have hesitation marks, little cuts they make while they’re getting up their nerve? It seems to me you’d have the same thing if you were trying to work up the courage to hang yourself. Say you stood on a chair with a rope around your neck, and before you kicked the chair away you bent your knees, just to get an idea of what it was going to feel like. The noose tightens, you realize this isn’t gonna be much fun, so you decide it’s simpler to live. But by that time you’ve already got rope burns on your neck, or strangulation marks, or whatever you want to call it.”

“Then what killed him?” Carolyn wanted to know. “He wound up parked on the lawn chair next to Rathburn and the cook. How did he get there and what did he die of?”

“He still wanted to kill himself,” Littlefield said, “even after he lost his nerve with the rope trick. He went out back and sat down in the chair next to the man he killed.”

“If memory serves,” the colonel said, “the cook was in the middle chair, with Wolpert and Rathburn on either side.”

“What difference does it make? He probably killed her, too. Or she died of depression because he didn’t finish his dinner, and he felt responsible for depriving the rest of us of decent meals. Whatever it was, he pulled a blanket over himself and died.”

“Of what?”

“Search me,” Littlefield said. “My guess is he had a snootful before he tried to hang himself. He probably had a couple more pops by the time he went out and sat next to the other two stiffs. Wouldn’t have been a stretch for him to doze off and die of exposure.”

“It happens all the time,” I agreed.

“Or maybe he took poison. Wasn’t he the one who knew all about which mushrooms would kill you? I don’t think he ran around gathering mushrooms under the snow, but he probably knew a few other things you could take if you wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. He probably used poison to kill the cook, and he had a dose left and took it himself.” He shrugged. “When you come right down to it, what difference does it make? He