“You turned pale,” Lettice said.
“Because you thought he knew something,” I put in. “You had eight million dollars’ worth of negotiable bonds in your possession, and just when you thought you were free and clear somebody slips you a cryptic note demanding a secret meeting in the middle of the night. You couldn’t say anything to your wife, and you couldn’t just ignore the note. You had to meet him.”
“Not to harm him,” Littlefield said. “Just to find out what he knew, and to tell him he was barking up the wrong tree. The room was pitch dark when I got there. I figured it was empty. I started to switch on a light and a voice told me to leave it dark.”
“And?”
“And I wound up sitting in a chair next to his. I guess there was something Pettisham was supposed to turn over to him, but all I could make out at the time was that he wanted something from me, and I figured that meant the bonds. I wasn’t about to give them up to some joker I couldn’t even see. But I never meant to kill him.”
“Why else would you brain him with the camel?”
“I didn’t know it was a camel.”
“With a hump like that? What did you think it was, the hunchback of Notre Dame?”
“I didn’t even see it,” he said. “For Christ’s sake, it was darker than the inside of a cow. I just grabbed the first thing I touched and clocked him with it.”
“If you’d grabbed the pillow instead of the camel,” I said, “poor Rathburn would be alive today. How’s that for rotten luck?”
“I just wanted to stun him,” Littlefield said. “You know, to knock him out. I figured I could tie him up and stick him in a closet where nobody’d find him until we had a chance to get out of here.”
“And then you smothered him with the pillow.”
“There was some blood on his face. I used the pillow to sponge it off.”
“Very considerate of you.”
“And I guess I held it there too long. Or maybe he was already dead from the blow to the head. Or maybe-”
“Yes?”
“You want to know what I think, Rhodenbarr? I bet he had a heart attack before I ever touched him with the camel. See, that would explain how I hit him on the back of the head, even though I was aiming at his forehead. He must have been pitching forward, and I hit him after he’d croaked.”
I looked at my watch. I had to admit the heart-attack notion showed a resourceful imagination, but if he could even try on a line like that it was a waste of time letting him talk. Right now, though, wasting time wasn’t a bad idea.
“What about the pinpoint hemorrhages?” the colonel demanded, wasting some time himself. “Don’t they prove the man was smothered?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Littlefield said. “I’m not a doctor, but then neither is anybody else in the room. Maybe there’s more than one way to get those pinpoint hemorrhages.”
“Entirely possible,” I agreed. “Maybe they’re a natural consequence of the synergistic effect of getting crowned with a camel seconds after you’ve died of a heart attack. What about Wolpert?”
“Wolpert?”
“The second man you killed.”
“Didn’t I already explain how that was suicide? First time around I thought it was Rathburn’s death he was feeling guilty about-”
“But it couldn’t have been, because you’re the one who killed Rathburn.”
“Well, I was there when he died. I’ll admit that much, although I still think it was a heart attack that finished him. What Wolpert was feeling guilty about was cutting the bridge ropes so that the boy genius did his Wile E. Coyote impression and tried to walk on air.”
“And he tried to hang himself, then wandered outside and died of shock and exposure.”
“You got it. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” I said. “Gordon Wolpert never had any doubt what happened to Rathburn. He kept it to himself and bided his time before he made his pitch to you. What did he want? The same thing Rathburn was after?”
“If he was planning anything, he never followed through with it. There were a couple of times I noticed him giving me the eye, as if he wanted to tell me something, but he never got around to it. And then the next thing I knew he was out there on the third lawn chair this morning, dead as a doornail.”
I looked at my watch again. Where were they when you wanted them?
“I saw you,” Millicent Savage said suddenly.
“Huh?”
“Talking to Mr. Wolpert,” the little darling insisted. “And you said something about meeting him later. I heard you say it.”
“That’s crap,” he said, disgusted. “There was nobody within earshot.” He realized what he’d said, then made a face and shrugged and gave up. “Oh, the hell with it,” he said. “I could spin it out a little more, but what’s the point? I thought we could work something out, like you’d all go along with it for a share of the bonds, but there’s too many of you and somebody’d be sure to hold out. Anyway, why share? I don’t have to share.”
And he pulled out a gun.
Don’t ask me what kind of gun it was. Guns make me nervous-people keep them in drawers so that they can shoot burglars with them, and I’m opposed to that-so I’ve never taken the trouble to learn anything much about them. I could tell that this one was an automatic, not a revolver, and that was about all I could tell. I could also tell that it was big (though probably not as big as it looked) and that it was pointed at me.
“Nobody move,” Littlefield said.
Nobody did.
“You’re right,” he said. “I killed them both, and I don’t know why you had to make a federal case out of it, because they both asked for it. Rathburn thought I was somebody else, and I couldn’t manage to stall the son of a bitch. I didn’t mean to kill him, not at first, but then when I switched a light on and saw him lying there I got a look at the library steps and saw how easy it would be to make it look like an accident. But that would only work if he was dead, so I picked up the pillow and put him out of my misery.”
“And Wolpert?”
“He knew I’d killed Rathburn. I don’t think he even knew what it was Rathburn wanted from the guy who never showed up, but he saw an opportunity to do himself some good by putting the squeeze on me. I tried fencing with him, but the little bastard was pretty slick. Before I knew it he’d managed to worm out of me that I had a briefcase full of stolen bonds, and he was all set to cut himself in.”
“Until you cut him out instead.”
“I lost my temper,” he said. “That’s the same thing that happened with Rathburn, when you come right down to it.”
“But you didn’t grab a camel this time around.”
“What I grabbed was his necktie,” he said. “Grabbed one end of it in each hand and pulled until his face got purple. I couldn’t figure out what to do with him, so I took him outside and parked him on a lawn chair and threw a sheet over him. I didn’t figure anyone would notice.”
“You didn’t figure anyone would notice?”
“Well, maybe I wasn’t thinking too clearly. It was late and I’d had a hell of a day, plus I’d helped myself to a couple of glasses of that Drum stuff. And I didn’t write it down in the book, either, Nigel. I’m afraid your honor system doesn’t work too well with guys like me.” He gestured sharply with the gun. “Hold it right there, Colonel. That’s as close as you get if you don’t want a bullet.”
I glanced at my watch again. Keep him talking, I thought. “Speaking of bullets,” I said, “I’m surprised you brought a gun along on your honeymoon. Your wife probably thought you were just glad to see her.”
“Funny,” he said. “The gun belonged to Wolpert. I took it off him when I dragged his body outside. He never got the chance to use it, but I’m in a different position.”
“You’re not wearing a necktie.”
“And I’ve got the gun in my fist already, and it’s got a full clip and a live round in the chamber. It’s a thirteen-shot clip, so you can do the math yourselves. If anybody makes a move I start shooting. I’ll shoot the men first, and if I run out of bullets toward the end I’ll finish the rest of you by hand. I never planned on killing anybody, but I already killed two people and if I have to knock off the rest of you I’ll do it. What the hell are you looking at, Lettice?”