“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.”
“Mr. Wolpert killed Mr. Rathburn,” Cissie said.
“Well, 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 killed a man and he’s dead himself now, and if we could just find a way out of here we could all go home.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” I said.
“Damn right it would,” Littlefield said, “and I’m about ready to take a shot at it. The sun’s up and the snow’s not falling, so I think it’s time Lettice and I hit the road. Not that it hasn’t been fun, but-”
“Orris!”
It was Earlene Cobbett who cried out the lad’s name, and by the tone and volume you’d have thought he’d risen from the dead and lurched into the library. The whole room went dead silent as we all stared at Earlene, who had the grace to blush behind her freckles.
“For God’s sake,” Littlefield said, “give it a rest, will you? It’s pretty obvious your cousin was boinking you, and I guess you wound up with a cake in the oven, but all that wailing just gets on people’s nerves. It’s not going to bring him back, and he probably wouldn’t marry you anyway, but the kid’ll have his father’s name all the same. That’s the advantage of incest, plus it cuts down on small talk.” Another cry, this one wordless, issued from Earlene. “Hey, c’mon,” Littlefield said. “Can’t you do something, Eglantine? Fire her and send her home, say.”
If Littlefield was trying to win friends, he was going about it the wrong way. The men frowned their disapproval, while the women glared murderously at him. He looked around, shrugged. “Bunch of bleeding hearts,” he said. “I give up. Scream your guts out, honey. Live a little.”
“All Earlene is trying to say,” I said, “is that we mustn’t forget Orris. Isn’t that right, Earlene?” She nodded furiously. “And her point is a good one. Because there are a few elements your theory doesn’t cover, Littlefield.”
“Like what? The kid in the gully? Hey, he wasn’t too swift. The bridge went and he went with it. It’s a shame, but what’s it got to do with Wolpert killing Rathburn?”
“Why did the bridge go?”
“According to you, somebody sabotaged it. Cut part of the way through the ropes.”
“Why would somebody do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “To kill Orris? It seems like a dumb way to go about it. Look, Rhodenbarr, I know it’s tempting to see foul play everywhere you look, but don’t you think it was possible those ropes just snapped of old age or something? Maybe they were ready to go for a while now, and the kid just had some bad luck.”