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“God forbid.”
“I hope we get out of this place soon, Bern, but not before I get one more crack at the Drumnadrochit. Anyway, the answer to ‘Where was I?’ is I was talking about people adjusting.”
“To murder.”
“Uh-huh. They’re not really concerned anymore, Bern, not the way they were. Some of them are taking the tack that there weren’t any murders in the first place.”
“Then where did all those bodies come from?”
“Jonathan Rathburn fell off the ladder, Orris fell off the bridge, and the cook-”
“Fell into a deep and dreamless sleep,” I said, “and lo, she doth be sleeping still. That’s ridiculous, for God’s sake.”
“I know.”
“The cook could conceivably have had a stroke or a heart attack,” I said, “although it strikes me as unlikely. But Orris and Rathburn were murdered, pure and simple. And if their deaths were accidental, how do you explain the sugar in the snowblower’s gas tank and the severed phone wires? Acts of God?”
“They say He works in mysterious ways. I heard someone say that phone wires get disco
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know, Bern.”
“I ought to siphon a cup of gasoline from the snowblower’s gas tank,” I said, “and make them all taste it.”
“We may want it tomorrow,” she said, “for dessert, if there’s no more custard. Look, not everybody thinks the deaths were accidental. The rest of them think the cycle’s complete.”
“The cycle?”
“Three deaths, Bern. Deaths are supposed to come in threes, remember? Now that the cook’s dead, everybody can relax.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. But what’s the difference, Bern? It’s not as though we’re going to solve the puzzle. You said so yourself, that all the bits and pieces we picked up interrogating people this afternoon wouldn’t do us any good at all.”
“I didn’t say they wouldn’t do any good. I just said we weren’t getting anywhere.”
“Close enough. So we’ll hang out here, and the colonel can read English history. Hey, you never went to college. How come you knew all that about Queen A
“I don’t know anything about Queen A
“Hey, it happens. She was gay, you know.”
“Queen A
“Uh-huh. Had a thing with Sarah Churchill, whose husband was the Duke of Marlborough that the colonel was just talking about. Why are you looking at me like that, Bern? It’s herstory.”
“Herstory?”
“History for girls. Anyway, you can read about Queen A
“And Bob’s your uncle,” I suggested.
“Well, something like that.” She sighed. “You know something, Bern? I never thought I’d sit around wishing the police would turn up, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. Because right this minute I’d actually be happy to see that door burst open and Ray Kirschma
“What’s the matter, Carolyn?”
“Huh?”
“You broke off what you were saying and started staring at something.”
“The door,” she said.
“What about it?”
“I was sure it was go
“Who, Ray?”
She nodded. “Dumb idea, Bern. He doesn’t even know we’re here, does he?”
“I can’t see how he would even know we left town.”
“Still, it shows you the state I’m in. You know what it all means, Bernie?”
“No.”
“It means the day of the amateur sleuth is over. If ever a case looked made to order for amateur sleuthing, this would have to be it. A snowbound English country house with corpses piling up faster than the snow? And here we are, throwing up our hands.”
“I’m glad that’s all we’re throwing up,” I said. “When I got my first look at di
“Oh, that reminds me,” she said, getting to her feet. “I promised I’d help.”
“Help what?”
“In the kitchen.”
“That’s not what,” I said. “It’s where.”
“I said I’d help with the cleanup.”
“You?”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing,” I said, “it’s not your job. For another, you happen to hate helping in the kitchen.”
“It’s an emergency,” she said. “They’re shorthanded, what with the cook being dead and all.”
“And all,” I said.
“So I thought I’d help.”
I noticed the way she was avoiding my eye, and light dawned. I asked who she’d be helping.
“Whoever’s in there,” she said. “Look, I’ll just-”
“Molly Cobbett,” I said.
“She’s probably in there, yeah. So?”
“And her cousin Earlene?”
“She’s probably got other jobs to do.”
“So Molly’s alone in the kitchen.”
“She probably is,” she said, “and now that you mention it, that’s probably not safe. So that’s all the more reason for me to go keep her company.”
“Maybe I should come too,” I said.
“No need, Bern.”
“Two’s dangerous, remember? Suppose Molly turns out to be the killer?”
“Very fu
“Or suppose you turn out to be the killer.”
“Even fu
“I just don’t want to see you make the wrong move,” I said. “I know you dreamed about her, but-”
“It was some dream, Bern. You have no idea.”
Oh, no? “She’s a country girl,” I went on, “from a sheltered background, and she probably doesn’t know the first thing about lesbians.”
“You didn’t see the way she was looking at me.”
“Well, you’re exotic,” I said. “Hip and urban and-”
“And gay,” she said. “And she’s a Cobbett, which means there’s probably not a whole lot she hasn’t done. The only thing that makes me exotic is that I’m not a blood relative. Listen, I’m not looking to put the moves on her. I just want to go keep her company in the kitchen.”
I couldn’t think of anyone else I wanted to keep company with, in the kitchen or elsewhere. The only object of my affections in the neighborhood was Lettice Littlefield, and I wasn’t too sure how affectionately I felt toward her just now. Anyway, they were on their honeymoon and there was a killer on the premises, so her sneering husband was likely to be keeping her on a short leash.
What I really wanted to do was escape, and there’s one tried-and-true way to manage that feat without actually going anywhere. I remembered Emily Dickinson’s words on the subject: There is no frigate like a book. “Frigate,” I said, more or less, and went into the library.
I looked up at Raymond Chandler, looked over at the library steps, looked at the camel and the throw pillow. I wondered if a person could actually sit down and work out a murder scheme involving a camel and a pillow. It had to have been improvised, I decided, or else the whole thing had an impossibly Monty Python tone to it.
It was a pity, I thought, that I hadn’t heard any of the conversation that had been murmured in this very room while I lurked in the doorway. One of the participants had almost certainly been Jonathan Rathburn, the other the person who cameled and pillowed him to death. Had I crept in a little way I might have found out what they were going on about, and might have learned the identity of the other party. Conversely, if I’d just blundered in noisily, switching on lights and begging pardon for the intrusion, I might have prevented a murder. And, if that first killing hadn’t taken place, perhaps the others would have been nipped in the bud as well.