each of those things, we haven’t solved the puzzle.”
“Wolpert,” Littlefield said.
“Gordon Wolpert?”
“Why not? He’s the villain here. If he was desperate enough to beat a guy’s brains out with a bronze camel, I don’t suppose he’d draw the line at yanking out a couple of telephone wires.”
“But when would he do it?” I wondered. “And why?”
“Why cut the wires? There’s a no-brainer. To keep the cops from being called.”
“So that they couldn’t investigate,” I said.
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?” I frowned. “Maybe. Let’s let it go for a moment. What about the snowblower? Why sabotage it?”
“So that What’s-his-face couldn’t clear the path and the driveway.”
“Why would he want to prevent that?”
“Same answer. To keep the cops from coming.”
“But why would they even try to come?”
He rolled his eyes. “You know, Rhodenbarr,” he said, “you made more sense when you were dead in the gully. The cops’d come because there was a dead man in the library.”
“But the phones were out, so how would they know about Rathburn?”
“For all he knew,” Littlefield said, “somebody here had a cell phone. I’ll grant you the snowblower bit was kind of lame, especially if he’d already knocked out the bridge. But maybe Wolpert was the kind of bird who’d wear a belt and suspenders. He wasn’t taking any chances.”
“Let’s look at it from another angle,” I suggested. “Cutting the phone wires would keep the cops away. Wrecking the bridge and the snowblower would keep us here.”
“Right,” Littlefield agreed, “but it’s not working anymore, because Lettice and I are about ready to get out of here.”
“Well, stick around for a minute,” I said. “Long enough to explain why the killer would want to keep all of us from leaving.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “So?”
“So it’s interesting,” I said. “Here he’s murdered a man and he’s arranged things so that the cops can’t be called right away. And then at the same time he’s cut off his own escape route. We can’t leave, and neither can he.”
I let the silence hang in the air. Miss Dinmont was the first to break it. “He had us all trapped. And he could take his time and kill us off one by one. First Orris, then the cook, then Mr. Wolpert and Mr. Rhodenbarr—”
“But Mr. Rhodenbarr’s alive,” Miss Hardesty pointed out. “And Mr. Wolpert was the killer himself.”
“That’s true,” Miss Dinmont said, her voice a little calmer now. “It’s all very confusing, isn’t it?”
“Very,” I told her. “And I was thinking along the same lines as you, Miss Dinmont.”
“You were?”
“I was. And it’s all because I thought this was an English-country-house kind of murder. But it’s not.”
“It’s not?”
“Mean streets,” Carolyn said.
I nodded. “I thought a desperate fiendish killer was going to work his way through the guest register, knocking us off one by one. But what we’ve got in actual fact is a man who killed one person and wants to get away with it. That’s why he did what he could to make it look like an accident, arranging Rathburn’s body at the foot of the library steps. No one would suspect the man had actually been murdered, and if by some miracle the cops found anything incriminating, well, he’d be hundreds of miles away by then. And, to make sure he’d have a head start on them, he tore out the phone wires.”
Littlefield sighed theatrically. “Isn’t that what I said, Rhodenbarr?”
“Not quite. You said the killer also sabotaged the bridge and the snowblower. But he didn’t.”
“Oh?” said the colonel. “How can that be?”
“I guess the bridge was an accident after all,” Greg Savage said, “and I hope your insurance coverage is up to date, Nigel. As far as the snowblower is concerned, well, I guess the thing just conked out by itself. You know how some cars won’t start on really cold days? Maybe it was like that.”
“Snowblowers are supposed to perform on cold days,” I said, “since they’re essentially useless on warm ones. No, I’m willing to bet there was sugar in that gas tank, and I know damn well the bridge supports were cut. But not by the killer.”
“Then who—”
“Someone who didn’t want the killer to get away. Someone who’d been keeping an eye on Rathburn because he sensed an opportunity for profit. If he could isolate Cuttleford House, with nobody coming or going, he might do himself some good.”
“I don’t see why Wolpert couldn’t have done that,” Dakin Littlefield said. “It’s true