The Burglar in the Library

by Lawrence Block

  “Gone.”

  “And Fontenoy and his wife?”

  “Long gone, and I don’t know what became of their children.”

  “Over fifty years. How could the book still be there?”

  “The house is still there. And so’s the library. I saw the photo in the brochure, and those shelves are chock-full of books, and I don’t think the Eglantines trucked them in by the pound to make a decorating statement. I think they’ve been there forever.”

  “And somewhere, tucked away on some high shelf—”

  “The Big Sleep,” I said. “Signed by Raymond Chandler, and inscribed to Dashiell Hammett. Sitting there, just waiting to be found.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, a few hours later at the Bum Rap. “About that book.”

  “I can understand that. I’ve been thinking about it myself for months now.”

  “Suppose it’s actually there,” she said, “and suppose you actually find it, which would take another miracle all by itself.”

  “So?”

  “So is it worth it? Aside from the fact that you’re obsessed, and it’s hard to put a dollar value on an obsession. But in terms of actual dollars and cents—”

  “What’s it worth?”

  “Right.”

  I didn’t have to think. I’d worked it out often enough over the months.

  “The Big Sleep is Chandler’s scarcest book,” I said. “A first-edition copy in very fine condition is legitimately rare. With a dust jacket, the jacket also in top condition, you’ve got something worth in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars.”

  “That much, huh?”

  “But this one’s signed,” I said. “With most modern novels, an author’s signature will boost the price by ten or twenty percent. But it’s different with Chandler.”

  “It is?”

  I nodded. “He didn’t sign a lot of books. Actually, nobody did back then, not the way they do now. Nowadays just about everybody with a book out goes traipsing around the country, sitting in bookstores and signing copies for all comers.”

  “Ed McBain signed his new book for me,” she said. “I told you about that, didn’t I?”

  “Repeatedly.”

  “Well, it was an exciting day for me, Bern. He’s one of my favorite writers.”

  “One of mine, too.”

  “Whenever I read one of his Eighty-seventh Precinct books,” she said, “I wind up looking at cops in a new light. I see them as real human beings, sensitive and vulnerable and, well, human.”

  “That’s how he portrays them.”

  “Right. And then Ray Kirschmann walks in the door and drives me right straight back to reality. I’ll tell you, I like Ed McBain’s fantasy world a whole lot better, and it was a thrill to meet him in person. That book’s one of my proudest possessions.”

  “I know that, but you’re not the only person he signed a book for. He’s signed thousands of books, and so have most of the writers around today. Back in Hammett and Chandler’s time, authors just signed books for their friends. And Chandler didn’t even do that.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “Not often. If you were a friend of his he might give you a book, but he wouldn’t sign it unless you made a point of asking him. So a genuine Raymond Chandler signature is valuable in its own right. On one of the later, more common books, it might increase the value from a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand. On The Big Sleep, it could double the value.”

  “So we’re up to ten grand.”

  “And we’re not done yet. If Ross is telling the truth, Chandler didn’t just sign his name on Hammett’s copy. He inscribed it personally to Hammett.”

  “That makes a difference?”

  “It’s a funny thing with inscriptions,” I said. “If the person it’s inscribed to is just Joe Schmo, the book tends to be a little less desirable than if it’s just signed.”

  “Why’s that, Bern?”

  “Well, think about it,” I said. “If you were a collector, would you want a book personally inscribed to somebody that nobody ever heard of? Or would you be happier with a simple signature?”

  “I don’t think I’d care one way or the other.”

  “You’re not a collector. Collectors care.” I thought of some of my more idiosyncratic customers. “About everything,” I said. “Believe me.”

  “I believe you, Bern. How about a copy that’s inscribed to Sid Schmo? That’s Joe’s famous brother.”

  “Now you’re talking. As soon as the person named in the inscription is prominent, the book becomes an association copy.”

  “And that’s good?”

  “It’s not bad,” I said. “Just how good it is depends on who the person is, and the nature of his or her relationship to the author. A book inscribed by Raymond Chandler to Dashiell Hammett would have to be the ultimate association copy in American crime fiction.”

  “Bottom-line it for me, Bern.”

  “Assuming near-mint condition, for the book and dust jacket, and assuming the handwriting is verifiably Chandler’s—”

  “Assume everything, Bern. Let’s hear a number.”

  “This is just a ballpark figure, remember. We’re talking about a unique item, so who can say what it would bring?”

  “Bernie—”

  “Say twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-five?”

  “That’s ballpark.”

  “Twenty-five thousand.”

  I nodded.

  “Dollars.”

  I nodded again.

  “And what percentage of that could you fence it for?”

  “You wouldn’t need a fence,” I said. “Because no one would have reported it stolen, because who even knows it exists? You could walk up to any of the top dealers and put it on the table.”

  “And when they asked where you got it?”

  “You picked it up at a garage sale or found it on the two-for-a-quarter shelf at a thrift shop. Hell, I’m a book dealer. I could say it came in at the bottom of a carton of junk, and I assumed it was a book club reprint until I took a good look at it. You wouldn’t even have to say how it came into your hands. You could just smile wisely and keep your mouth shut.”

  “So you could wind up with the whole twenty-five thousand.”

  “Or more, if you stuck it in a Sotheby’s auction and two fanatics both decided they had to have it.”

  “Wow.”

  “But there’s no guarantee it ever existed in the first place,” I said, “and even if it did it probably disappeared long ago. Or it is still there, for all the good it does us, because it’s hidden away and you could go through the house from top to bottom and never find it.”

  “We’ve got to look, Bern.”

  “That’s what I figured.”

  “Twenty-five grand.”

  “It could be a lot less, you know. Maybe the dust jacket’s gone. Maybe the spine is faded. Maybe the pages are dog-eared. Maybe there’s insect damage.”

  “Maybe a kid came along and colored in all the O’s,” she said. “Maybe a mad botanist pressed leaves between the pages. The hell with all that. We’ve got to take a shot at it, Bern.” She looked at me. “We’d never forgive ourselves if we didn’t.”

  CHAPTER

  Five

  We had a short wait on the platform at Whitham Junction. Then the local for Pattaskinnick came chugging into the station, and when it chugged out again we were on it. The little train’s course ran north and east, and with each turn of its wheels the terrain grew more rugged and remote and the snowfall intensified.

  By the time we got to Pattaskinnick it was dark out and the snow was several inches deep. Carolyn scooped up a handful and made a snowball, then looked around for something to throw it at. The only car in sight was a Jeep Cherokee with Buck’s Taxi Service inexpertly lettered on its side. You couldn’t peg a snowball at a cab and then expect the driver to make you welcome, so she shrugged and tossed the snowball over her shoulder.

  “Hey!�
��

  “Sorry, Bern. I didn’t know you were there.”

  “Well, I’ve never been here before. Welcome to Pattaskinnick.”

  “It’s like a village in the Cotswolds, isn’t it? Chipping Camden or one of those.”

  “Sodding Boardham,” I suggested.

  “Miss Jane Marple could be living in one of those cozy little cottages, Bernie. Knitting things and poking around in the garden and solving murders left and right.”

  “Cottages? I don’t see any cottages.”

  “Not with all this snow. But I’m sure they’re there. So’s our cab. Wouldn’t you think he’d hop out and help us with our bags?”

  He did, finally, after we’d walked over and tapped on his windshield. I told him our destination and he clambered out from behind the wheel, a squat, broad-shouldered fellow with less than the traditional amount of space between his eyes. He wore one of those weird hunting jackets in orange camouflage, which makes it hard for deer to see you and hard for human beings to look at you, and he lifted our suitcases effortlessly into the Cherokee’s luggage compartment, then looked warily down at Raffles’s cat carrier.

  “You got an animal in there,” he said.

  “It’s a cat,” I agreed.

  “I don’t pick up no animals.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” I said. “He’s not going to damage your car.”

  “Ain’t a car. ’T’sa Jeep.”

  “Even if it’s a brand-new John Deere tractor,” I said, “there’s no way on earth he’s going to hurt it. He’s locked up in there, he can’t get out, he couldn’t even fit a paw through the wire mesh, so—”

  “I got nothing against transporting ’em,” he said. “Where I draw the line is picking ’em up.”

  “Picking them up?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Carolyn said. She lifted the cat carrier and placed it on the floor of the Jeep, between the two suitcases. The driver closed the rear door, then went up front and got behind the wheel. Carolyn and I got into the passenger compartment.

  “Could be it strikes you as peculiar,” he said, “but a man has to draw the line. People want you to haul all manner of livestock. If it’s a cat today it’ll be a horse tomorrow.”

  I snuck a peek at Raffles. He was a cat today, and somehow I couldn’t make myself believe he’d be a horse tomorrow.

  “Snowing to beat the band,” our driver said, starting the engine and pulling away from the curb. “Good thing for you you’re in a four-wheeled vehicle.”

  “As opposed to a bicycle?”

  Carolyn treated me to an elbow. “Four-wheel drive,” she said, and leaned forward. “You think we’re in for a lot of snow?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, and she’s coming down right heavy. I’ll get you to Cuttleford, though. This here’ll get through most anything. Can’t take you over the bridge, though.”

  “The bridge?”

  “There’s a parking lot,” I explained, “where you have to leave your car, and then you walk across a bridge, and then it’s a few steps to the house itself.”

  “Quarter mile,” the driver said. “Be a wagon there for your bags. I suppose you could put your animal into it.”

  “We’ll manage,” Carolyn told him.

  The roads to Cuttleford were something out of a Judy Garland song. They kept getting rougher, and lonelier and tougher. The snow fell steadily, and the Jeep proved equal to the challenge, going where no vehicle had gone before. I wouldn’t have dreamed of calling it a car.

  “Cuttleford Road,” the driver announced, braking and turning to the left, where a one-lane road made its way through thick woods. “Been plowed within the hour. The young ’un’s doing.”

  “The young ’un?”

  “Orris,” he said. “Works for them, don’t he?” He tapped his head significantly with his forefinger. “The least bit slow, Orris. Does his work, though. Have to give him that. I never credited those stories, anyway.”

  “Stories?”

  “You can’t believe half of what you hear,” he said. “Better to have the boy plowing driveways than locked away for his whole life.”

  “Why would they lock him up?” Carolyn wanted to know. “What did he do, anyway?”

  “Not my place to say. Never been a believer in carrying tales.”

  Carolyn started to press the issue, then broke off when we braked to a stop alongside a clearing where eight or ten cars were parked, as well as a half-ton panel truck and a Jeep with a snowplow attached to its front.

  “If you brought your own car,” he said, “that’s where you’d have to leave it. Except you’d likely be stuck somewhere, ’less you had four wheels.”

  I’d been planning on suggesting that quaintness could yield to expediency for once, and that he drive us across the bridge and drop us at the door. One look at the bridge made it clear that was out of the question. It was narrower than the Jeep, narrower indeed than any four-wheeled vehicle larger than a shopping cart, and it was suspended by rope cables across a deep gorge.

  The driver cut the Jeep’s engine, and I got out and walked to the edge, or as close as I cared to get to it. I couldn’t see anything below, and I couldn’t hear anything, either.

  “Quiet,” I said.

  “Cuttlebone Creek. She’s iced over. Be frozen clear to the bottom by daybreak, if she’s not already.”

  “Is the bridge safe?” Carolyn wanted to know.

  “What a question,” I said. “Of course it’s safe.”

  “’S good strong rope,” he said.

  “Good strong rope,” I echoed.

  “Thing about rope,” he said, “is it rains, don’t it? And the damp soaks into it, and then it turns cold and freezes. And then it’s brittle, innit?”

  “It is?”

  “Snap like a twig,” he said.

  “Er.”

  “But it ain’t yet,” he said with satisfaction. “Best cross before it does. See the wagons? Put your luggage in ’em. And your animal.”

  “Look,” Carolyn said. “This is a Jeep, right? Not a car but a Jeep.”

  He looked at her.

  “Well, he’s a cat,” she said. “Not an animal. So don’t call him an animal. Show a little respect.”

  He didn’t call him an animal again, but neither did he call him anything else, or say another word. I think Carolyn left him dumbstruck, and I only wish she’d spoken up earlier. He opened the back of the Jeep, lifted out our suitcases, and stepped back in silence. Cat, animal, or four-wheeled mammal, the rules weren’t about to change. Whatever he was, we had to tote him ourselves.

  We picked out a pair of little red wagons, loaded Raffles and the luggage, and made our way across the bridge and along a winding path to Cuttleford House. Crossing the bridge was actually a lot less perilous than some of the things I’ve been called upon to do in my career as a burglar, but there’s something about walking upon a surface that moves beneath your feet that can put one, well, off-stride.

  Carolyn wanted to know how deep the gorge was. I asked her what difference it made. “Either way,” I said, “it’s the same rickety bridge. Either way we have to cross it.”

  “I guess I just want to know how far we’re gonna fall, Bern.”

  “We’re not going to fall.”

  “I know,” she said. “But if we do, are we looking at bruises or broken bones or a grease spot? When you can’t see, you wind up picturing a bottomless abyss, but maybe it’s more like five or six feet.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Bern?”

  “I’m trying to picture a bottomless abyss,” I said. “What would it look like?”

  “Bern—”

  I don’t think Raffles was crazy about the bridge, either, although he didn’t seem that much happier when we were back on solid ground. Plaintive noises issued from his cat carrier. I wondered if he could see his breath. I could see mine.

  The path to the house had been recently cleared, and I wondered how Orris had man
aged it with the plow parked on the other side of the bridge. Then we rounded a bend and the house came into view, a light glowing in every window, a plume of smoke rising from the chimney. Near the front entrance, just to the side of one of a pair of pillars, stood a snow blower, its own top surface already covered with an inch of fresh snow.

  “Orris can’t be too slow,” I said, “if he can figure out how to work one of those things.” I lifted our bags onto the porch, set the cat carrier alongside them. “I pick up animals. I brake for yokels. What are we supposed to do with the wagons?”

  She pointed, and I saw a whole herd of red wagons, a counterpart to the group on the other side of the bridge. I parked ours with the others. “Now they can catch up on all the gossip,” I told Carolyn. “What stories they’ll have to tell.”

  She rolled her eyes. I rang the doorbell, and I was just about to ring it again when the heavy door opened inward, held by a hulking youth with a shock of dark blond hair. He had the look in his eyes that the average person gets by being smacked in the forehead with a two-by-four. He motioned us inside, then reached for the suitcases and dropped them at the front desk, even as a tall gentleman with a well-bred smile was emerging from behind it.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he said. “Wretched weather, isn’t it? And I’m afraid we’re in for rather a good deal of it, if the chap on the radio is to be believed. Did you have a horrid time getting here?”

  “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “Ah, that’s the spirit.” You’d have thought I’d kept a stiff upper lip through the Blitz. “But let me welcome you formally to Cuttleford House. I’m your host, actually. Nigel Eglantine. And you would be—?”

  “Bernard Rhodenbarr.”

  “I rather thought you would be Mr. Rhodenbarr, although you might have been Mr. Littlefield. We’re not really expecting the Littlefields for another hour, and they may be even later the way it’s snowing.” He frowned at the prospect, then brightened and beamed at Carolyn. “And this would be Miss Lettice Runcible,” he said.

  “Uh, no,” I said. “This would be Miss Carolyn Kaiser.”

  “Quite,” he said. “Of course it would. Ah, Mr. Rhodenbarr, Miss Kaiser, let me just see where we’ve put you.” He checked the register, snatched up a pencil, used one end of it to rub out Lettice’s name and the other to jot down Carolyn’s, and managed all this while telling us that we must be famished, that dinner had already been served, actually, but that there’d be something for us in the dining room as soon as we’d had a chance to get to our room and freshen up.