“All I remember,” Millicent said, “is Orris screaming.”
You’d have thought this would bring some sort of outcry from Earlene Cobbett, but it didn’t.
“It’s not as clear-cut as the dog that didn’t bark,” I told them, “and there’s no way to run an experiment, but I’d have to guess that the bridge made a lot of noise when it fell. But if it fell during the night, when most of us were sleeping and all of us were inside the house with the windows shut, and the snow was coming down thick and fast, well, I’d say it would have fallen as silently as Bishop Berkeley’s tree.”
Millicent looked baffled by the reference. “It was a tree that fell in the forest,” her mother told her, “and it didn’t make a sound because there was no human ear there to hear it.”
“But it would still make a sound,” Millicent said. “Anyway, Orris made a sound, and both my ears were there to hear it. Bernie, if the bridge was out already, why didn’t Orris turn around and come back to the house?”
“Ah,” I said. “That’s a delicate point.”
“But I’m sure you have the answer,” Littlefield said dryly.
“I didn’t know Orris terribly well,” I said, “but my sense of him was that his SATs weren’t quite high enough to get him into Harvard.”
“He was a hard worker,” Nigel said, “and a stout-hearted lad.”
“A good man in a tight spot,” the colonel put in.
“But not, uh, terribly quick in an intellectual sense.”
“I think we get the point,” Littlefield said. “Old Orris was dumb as the rocks he landed on. Where are you going with this, Rhodenbarr? You saying he didn’t notice the bridge was missing until he was standing in the middle of the air?”
“He was very likely snowblind,” I said in Orris’s defense. “He was frustrated, too, from trying to get the snowblower to work, and worn out from slogging through deep snow. And how many times had Orris walked that path and crossed that bridge? Hundreds, surely. It was automatic for him. He didn’t have to think about it.”
“He must have been even dumber than I thought,” Littlefield said. “Even now, after lying in the snow all night, I’ll bet his body temperature’s still ten points higher than his IQ.”
“It was a mistake anyone could have made,” I said, with more conviction than I felt. “But the point is that B wasn’t trying to kill Orris or anyone else. He slashed the ropes clear through.”
“All the more reason why he should identify himself,” said the colonel, returning to his earlier argument. “He’s not a murderer, and his testimony could help us.”
“That’s true,” I said, “but we’re not going to hear it.”
“Why not? All he needs to do is speak up. After all, he’s right here in this room.”
That brought it home. They looked at each other, trying to guess which one of them had slashed the ropes and unwittingly sent Orris to the bottom of Cuttlebone Creek. I let them dart questioning glances back and forth.
Then I said, “No.”
“No?”
“No, he’s not in the room.”
“But-”
“B’s in a lawn chair,” I said.
The colonel stared. “You’re saying he’s dead.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“There are three dead bodies in lawn chairs, Rhodenbarr. Unless you’re saying-”
“No,” I said, “we haven’t lost anybody else. Three bodies, and one of them’s B.”
“The cook? She slashed the ropes supporting the bridge, and killed herself out of remorse at having caused Orris’s death?”
“I suppose now and then somebody commits suicide out of remorse,” I said, “but it sounds as though we’ve got an epidemic of it here. I’m sure the cook had a kitchen knife that could have sliced right through those ropes, but the only way she tried to keep everybody here was by cooking wonderful meals. She wasn’t B.”
“Then it must have been Mr. Rathburn,” Mrs. Colibri said. “You said the ropes might have been cut before the murder, so I suppose Mr. Rathburn might have cut them. He must have gone outside, and then when he came back Mr. Wolpert was waiting for him in the library.”
“Perfect,” Littlefield said. “All the perpetrators are dead and there’s nobody here but us chickens. Can we go home now?”
I said, “It wasn’t Rathburn.”
“That leaves Wolpert,” Rufus Quilp said, folding his hands on his stomach. “But how can he be B when he’s already A? He can’t be both letters, can he?”
“There’s twenty-six letters in the alphabet,” Millicent said. “Enough for everybody to have two.”
“But Wolpert only gets one,” I said. “He’s B, because he was the one who cut the bridge supports to seal off Cuttleford House. He’d been keeping an eye on things for days, waiting to see how the hand played out, and once everybody was here he wanted to make sure nobody left. But he didn’t kill anybody. He didn’t murder Jonathan Rathburn and he didn’t kill himself.”
“Then who did, Bern?”
“Someone who’s right in this room now,” I said, “and maybe he’d like to accept Colonel Blount-Buller’s invitation and identify himself. No? Well, in that case I’ll identify him. It’s Dakin Littlefield.”
CHAPTER Twenty-seven
“That’s it,” Littlefield said. “Lettice, grab your coat. We’re out of here.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t, eh, Rhodenbarr? Well, what do I care what you think? I don’t know who picked you to be the head wallaby in this kangaroo court, but I don’t have to listen to any more of it. The cook’s dead, our room’s drafty, and I’m not having a good time. And I don’t particularly appreciate being tagged as a murderer. The only crime I’ve ever committed was ignoring a couple of overdue parking tickets. Oh, and I jaywalked a few times, and years ago I tore off that little tag on the mattress that you’re not supposed to remove, though I’ve never been able to figure out why. But aside from that-”
“What about the bearer bonds?”
That stopped him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed, sounding about as convincing as if he’d said he never inhaled.
“You’ve got an envelope full of them in your suitcase,” I said. “I didn’t have time to count them carefully, but the total runs to a few million dollars. It’s a nice little nest egg to start married life.”
Lettice looked horror-struck. “Bearer bonds,” she said. “What bearer bonds? Where did they come from?”
She may have meant the question for her husband, but I answered when he didn’t. “From your employer,” I said. “I’m afraid that’s why Dakin came along looking to sweep you off your feet. You provided him with access to the back rooms of the brokerage house you worked for, and it didn’t take him long to find something to steal.”
“But that’s crazy,” she said. “I know what bonds you’re talking about. They were in the safe in Mr. Sternhagen’s office. If they turn up missing right after I go away on my honeymoon, I’m the first person the police would look for.” She turned to her husband. “How could you do it?” she asked him. “What made you think you could get away with it?”
“You were planning a honeymoon in Aruba,” I said. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Yes, but-”
“I think you were supposed to have an accident in Aruba,” I told her. “A mishap while swimming or boating, say. And your bereaved husband, traveling under a different name and carrying a different passport, would have returned to the States alone, perhaps stopping off in the Caymans to deposit funds in an offshore account. The authorities would be looking for you, all right, but you’d be dead and your husband would have ceased to exist.”
“That’s absolutely crazy,” Littlefield said. “You know how I feel about you, Lettice.”
“Do I?”
“Of course you do. The bonds were to give us a good start in our life together, and-”
“A good start! Eight million dollars is more than a good start.”
“Call it a start and a retirement fund all in one,” he said. “It would be a cinch for us to change identities in Aruba and go someplace together where they’d never find us. And it’ll still be easy, once we get out of here.”