The Burglar in the Library by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page B

Carolyn.”
    “You meant to.”
    I sighed. “When I made the reservation,” I said, “it was for me and Lettice, and I specified a double bed. As a matter of fact, I made a special point of specifying a double bed.”
    “I bet you did.”
    “And when I sent them a deposit, I put that in the note I enclosed along with the check.”
    “And then Lettice decided to get married instead.”
    “Right.”
    “And you brought me in off the bench.”
    “To save the game,” I said. “And I realized we would be happier with twin beds, and I started to make the call, and I felt like an idiot. ‘Hi, this is Bernie Rhodenbarr, that’s R-H-O, right, and I’ll be arriving as scheduled a week from Thursday, but I want twin beds instead of a double. Oh, and by the way, Ms. Runcible won’t be coming with me. But Ms. Kaiser will.’”
    “I see what you mean.”
    “I figured I’d wait until I could think of a graceful way to do it, and I’m still waiting. Look, we’ve been friends a long time, Carolyn. Neither of us isgoing to turn into a sex maniac in the middle of the night. We can share a bed platonically.”
    “I just wonder if we’ll get any sleep. This bed’s comfy, but it sags in the middle. We may keep rolling into each other.”
    “We’ll manage,” I insisted. “Anyway, we’ll probably be sleeping in shifts.”
    “I brought pajamas.”
    “I mean we’ll take turns. The middle of the night’s the best time for me to check out the library shelves.”
    “Won’t that be suspicious, Bern?”
    “Why? What else do you do when you have insomnia? You look for a good book to read.”
    “Preferably a signed first edition. So you figure you’ll be up nights?”
    “Most likely.”
    “So I’ll be all alone in a haunted house.”
    “What makes you think it’s haunted?”
    “If you were a ghost, Bern, would you pass up a place like this? The walls tilt, the floorboards creak, the windowpanes rattle every time the wind blows. You might as well hang out a sign—‘Ghost wanted—ideal working conditions.’”
    “Well, I didn’t see any sign like that.”
    “Of course not. The position’s been filled. I’ll be lying here awake and you’ll be downstairs looking for The Big Sleep. Bern, look at Raffles, he’s pacing back and forth like an expectant father. Open the bathroom door for him, will you?”
    I opened the door and looked straight at a batch of coat hangers.
    “Bern, don’t tell me.”
    “It’s an old-fashioned authentic country house,” I said.
    “Does that mean they don’t have bathrooms?”
    “Of course they have bathrooms.”
    “Where?”
    “In the hall.”
    “Gee,” she said, “I sure am glad we’re not in some impersonal modern resort, with numbered rooms and separate beds and level floors and rattle-free windows and private baths. I’m glad we don’t have to put up with that kind of soul-deadening experience.”
    I opened the hall door and followed Raffles through it. I came back to report that the bathroom was just down the hall, between Uncle Edmund and Aunt Petra. “And Raffles doesn’t seem to mind that it’s a communal john,” I added. “He found it perfectly suitable.”
    “How’s he going to get in there by himself, Bern? If the door’s closed, he won’t be able to turn the knob.”
    “If the door’s closed,” I said, “that means somebody else is in there, and he’ll have to wait his turn. If the john’s not occupied, you leave the door ajar. That’s how it works with communal bathrooms.”
    “What about this door?”
    “Huh?”
    “How’s he going to get out in the middle of the night,” she said, “if our door’s closed?”
    “Hell,” I said. “We should have brought a cat box.”
    “He’s trained to use the toilet, just like a person. You can’t go and untrain him.”
    “You’re right. I guess we’ll just have to leave the door open a crack.”
    “That’s great,” she said. “You’ll be downstairs, and ghosts’ll be dragging chains