The Burglar in the Library

Still, the night was young.

“I couldn’t say how many times Orris has been out already,” he said. “Clearing the path with the snowblower, then shoveling snow from the footbridge and plowing the drive clear out to the road. I told him not to bother again until morning. No point.” He looked up. “Ah, good evening, Colonel.”

“Evening,” said Colonel Blount-Buller, who had just joined us. He made himself a drink and noted the act in the leather-bound ledger, a ritual he went through daily for half the year. “A long winter, eh? Snow’s got some depth to it, Eglantine. Good job you’ve got Orris. Had another couple due, didn’t you? Did they ever get here?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Littlefield.” Color, bouquet, flavor. “I rather doubt we’ll be seeing them, Colonel. I just hope they’re not stuck in a snowbank somewhere. Much better if they’ve had the good sense to turn around and go home.” He turned to me. “They’re New Yorkers as well, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Don’t suppose you know them?”

“It’s a big city,” I said.

“Too big for my taste,” the colonel said. “Bad as London. That the bell, Eglantine?”

“I don’t think…there, I heard it just then.” He set his glass on the bar and hurried off to answer the doorbell.

“Good chap,” the colonel said. “They run a tight ship, Eglantine and his wife. Not an easy thing, making a go of a place like this.”

“It must be a lot of work,” Carolyn said.

“You’re working all the time,” Colonel Blount-Buller said. “Man thinks he’s done for the day, relaxes with a drink, and the bloody doorbell rings. Far cry from a soldier’s life, where you’re either fighting off wogs or fighting off boredom. Hard to say which is worse, yet when you add it all up there’s no better life for a man.”

Carolyn asked a question that drew him out a little bit, and he waxed eloquent in his reply. Then Eglantine returned with two new people, still wrapped in their overcoats and alternately rubbing their hands together and stamping their boots to get the last of the snow off.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dakin Littlefield,” Nigel a

While he was at it, Nigel set about filling everyone else’s glass as well. He was pouring yet another unblended malt whisky, and he a

“Mrs. Rhodenbarr?”

“Well…”

“You know what they say,” Dakin Littlefield put in. “A bird can’t fly on one wing.”

Mrs. Rhodenbarr indeed. One wing indeed. I thought of alternative analogies that might better fit the circumstances. A dog can’t walk on three legs, or an ant on five, or a spider on seven. But I kept my mouth shut and took a good look at the Littlefields as they got out of their heavy coats and into the spirit of things.

She was a honey blonde, medium height, with a pretty face and a pleasing figure, and in the ordinary course of things I would have done most of my looking at her, but instead he got the lion’s share of my attention. He was tall, with wavy dark hair worn long; he looked as though he might at any moment sit down at the piano and play something mournful. Prominent brows shaded his dark eyes. He had a hawk nose and an aggressive chin, and he had a cruel mouth. I’d seen that phrase in books and always wondered what a cruel mouth looked like, and now I knew. His narrow lips seemed poised somewhere between a pout and a sneer. You took one look at his mouth and you wanted to give him a smack in it, because you somehow knew you were dealing with a real son of a bitch.

“Past my bedtime,” I said abruptly, just as the colonel had paused for dramatic effect in a reminiscence of the old days in Peshawar. “Carolyn?”

She took a moment to knock back the rest of her drink, then said good night all around. We found the staircase and climbed it, and at the top she paused for breath, then asked if I remembered the way to Aunt Agatha’s Room. “Aunt Augusta,” I said.

“What did I say, Bern?”

“Agatha.”

“I did? I meant Augusta. Though it’s not hard to figure out where I got Agatha from, is it?”

“The misty Miss Christie?”

“Uh-huh. Snow falling, and nobody here but us chickens? This could turn out to be a cross between The Mousetrap and Ten Little Indians. All that’s missing is a body in the library.”

“There’s going to be something else missing in the library,” I said. “Something by Raymond Chandler.”

Her eyes widened. “You think somebody’s going to swipe it?”

“Uh-huh. In an hour or so, when the house settles down and most of the people in it are asleep.”

“You’re the one who’s go

“Good thinking, Carolyn.”

“But I thought you wanted to leave it for the time being, Bern. You explained it all on the way to the bar, how it would be safer to leave it where it was until the last minute. What changed your mind?”

“Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“This is the last minute,” I said, “or at least you could call it the penultimate minute. Or the eleventh hour, anyway.”

“What are you talking about, Bern?”

“In the morning,” I said, “the faithful Orris will blow the snow off the path and shovel the snow off the bridge and plow the snow out of the driveway, and, just as soon as he’s done all that, you and I are going to get the hell out of here.”

“We are?”

“If there’s a God in heaven.”

We had reached Aunt Augusta’s Room, and not a moment too soon. Carolyn put her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and stared at me. I pushed the door open-we’d left it ajar, for the cat’s benefit-and motioned her inside, then followed her in and drew the door shut.

She said, “Why, Bern? Hey, was it something I did?”

“What did you do?”

“I had that last drink, and I saw the look you gave me when I let him fill my glass again. I’m a little bit snockered, I admit it, but-”

“But a centipede can’t walk on ninety-nine legs,” I said. “No, that’s not it, and if I gave you a nasty look it was unintentional. The nasty look wasn’t for you.”

“Who was it for?”

“That asshole.”

“Nigel? I thought you liked him.”

“I like him fine.”

“I mean he’s sort of pompous about the Glen Drumnawhatsit, but-”

“That’s not pomposity,” I said. “That’s reverence, and the Drumnadrochit deserves it. He’s not the asshole.”

“The colonel’s the asshole? What did he say that was assholeish? I must have missed it.”

“The colonel’s good company. I miss a word here and there because certain consonants get stuck in his clenched teeth, but I can usually get the gist of what he’s saying. No, I like the colonel. Dakin Littlefield’s the asshole.”

“He is?”

“You said it.”

“Actually, you said it, Bern. But what did he do? He just got here. He hardly opened his mouth.”

“It’s a cruel mouth, Carolyn. Open or shut.”

“It is? I didn’t notice. Bern, we don’t know a thing about him except that he’s from New York. Is that it? Do you know him from the city?”

“No.”

“I never even heard of him myself. I’d remember the name, it’s distinctive enough. Dakin Littlefield. Hey, Dakin, what’s shakin’? Dakin, Dakin, where’s the bacon?”

“He ought to get a haircut,” I said.

“Are you serious, Bern? His hair’s a little shaggy, but it’s not even shoulder length. I think it’s attractive like that.”

“Fine,” I said. “Go share a bed with him.”

“I’d rather share a bed with her,” she said. “That’s why I hardly noticed him, because I was busy noticing her. She’s stu