“She’s all right.”

“Great face, fantastic shape when she took off her coat. Damn shame she’s straight.”

“What makes you so sure she’s straight?”

“Are you kidding, Bern? She’s here with her husband.”

“How do you know he’s her husband?”

“Huh? They’re Mr. and Mrs. Littlefield, Bern. Remember?”

“So? We’re Mr. and Mrs. Rhodenbarr, according to everybody here at Cuttlefish House.”

“Cuttleford House, Bern.”

“Whatever. Everybody thinks we’re the Rhodenbarrs, that nice couple, she’s a canine stylist and he’s a burglar. Does that make us married? Does it make you straight?”

“It makes me confused,” she said. “Are you telling me they’re not married?”

“No,” I said. “They’re married, all right.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I’ll sleep a lot easier knowing they’re not living in sin. But what makes you so sure?”

“They’re newlyweds,” I said. “It sticks out all over them.”

“It does? I didn’t even notice.”

“I did. They got married today.”

She looked at me. “Did they say something that I missed?”

“No.”

“Then how can you tell? Has she got rice in her hair?”

“Not that I noticed. What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That pathetic scratching noise.”

“It’s the best he can do,” she said, “without claws.” She opened the door and Raffles walked in, looking as confused as everybody else. He walked over to a chair, hopped up on it, turned around in a slow circle, hopped down again, and left the room.

“I wonder what’s on his mind,” I said.

“Don’t change the subject, Bern. Why don’t you like Dakin, and how come you’re so sure he’s married to her, and-”

“Don’t say ‘her,’” I said. “It’s impolite.”

“It is?”

“Of course it is. She’s got a name.”

“Most people do, Bern, but I didn’t happen to catch it.”

“Neither did I.”

There was a pause. “Bernie,” she said slowly, “I know it tasted great and everything, but I think maybe there’s something in that Drums-Along-the-Drocket that doesn’t agree with you.”

“It’s called alcohol,” I said, “and it couldn’t agree with me more. Here’s what I’ll do, Carolyn. I’ll tell you Mrs. Littlefield’s first name, and all at once everything will be clear to you.”

“It will?”

“Absolutely.”

“What difference does it make what her name is?”

“Believe me, it makes a difference.”

“But you just said you didn’t catch her name either.”

“True.”

“Then how can you tell it to me?”

“Because I know it.”

“How can you possibly…oh, God, don’t tell me.”

“Well, all right, if you’re sure, but-”

“No!”

“No?”

“Tell me her name, Bernie. No, wait a minute, don’t tell me! Is it what I think it is?”

“That depends on what you think it is.”

“I don’t want to say,” she said, “because if it isn’t, and even if it is, and…Bernie, I don’t know how we got into this conversation, but we have to get out of it fast. Tell me her name. Just blurt it out, will you?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” I said. “It’s not Romaine.”

“Oh, God, Bern. I bet it’s not Curly Endive either.”

“It’s not.”

“ Bern, spit it out, huh?”

“Lettice,” I said.

“Oh, shit. You’re kidding, right? You’re not kidding. Ohmigod.”

CHAPTER Nine

The bookshelves in the Great Library of Cuttleford House extended all the way to the twelve-foot ceiling. One couldn’t be expected to reach the uppermost shelves without standing on the shoulders of giants; in their absence, one of the several owners of the property had thoughtfully provided a set of library steps.

This article of furniture was made of mahogany and fitted with casters so it could be rolled to where it was needed. It consisted of a freestanding (and freewheeling) staircase of five steps. It had been the designer’s conceit to give it the form of a spiral staircase, and the steps were accordingly triangular, tapering from a width of four or five inches at their outer edge to no width at all at the center.

I was poised on the fourth step, one hand clutching a shelf for balance, the other hand reaching out for The Big Sleep, when I heard my name called.

“Bernie!”

It was Lettice, of course, Lettice Runcible Littlefield. I didn’t have to turn around and look at her to establish as much, but I did anyway, and there she was.

I should have waited. My plan, if you want to dignify it with that name, was simplicity itself. Step One-get the book. Step Two-go home. As long as I performed those two tasks in that particular order, things ought to work out. I wanted to undertake Step Two as soon after breakfast as was decently possible, which gave me something like eight hours to execute Step One and scoop up Chandler.

I thought of sleeping first and going after Chandler at the last minute, virtually on the way out the door. I thought of napping for a few hours, giving the rest of the house time to settle in for a good night’s sleep, and then paying a visit to the library in the hour of the wolf. But I didn’t want to rush, nor did I want to risk appearing furtive to a fellow insomniac. Best to get the book now, I’d thought, and tuck it under my pillow for the night, and make off with it first thing in the morning.

There were guests in the library when I got there. Rufus Quilp, the very stout gentleman who’d been reading and dozing earlier, was still at it, breathing heavily if not quite snoring. A copy of Dombey and Son, part of a broken half-leather set of Dickens whose volumes I’d spotted here and there around the house, lay open on his lap. Greg Savage, unaccompanied by wife or child, looked up at my approach to flash the apologetic smile frequently found on the lips of the parents of precocious children, then returned to his book, a Philip Friedman courtroom novel. It was the author’s latest, and, from the looks of it, his longest; if I’d borrowed Savage’s copy and stood on top of it I might not have needed the library steps.

I did a little reading myself, hoping Quilp and Savage would decide to call it a night, and before long Savage did, slipping away quietly so as not to disturb us. Quilp’s eyes were closed, and what did it matter if he saw me climb the steps and reach for a book? That’s what the steps were there for, and what the books were there for. And, by God, it was what I was there for.

Then Lettice called my name.

“What the hell are you doing here, Bernie?”

I was already on my way down the steps. I touched a finger to my lips, then pointed across the room to the chair where Rufus Quilp sat in a Dickensian doze.

“All right, then,” she said. “Let’s go where we can talk.” She spun on her heel and stalked out of the library, and I followed in her wake.

We wound up in the East Parlour, beneath the gaze of the putative springbok. I turned on a lamp. Lettice told me not to bother, we wouldn’t be here that long. I said we might as well be comfortable. “Besides,” I said, “how will it look if somebody sees us sitting together in the dark?”

“If it’s dark,” she said, “how will they see us?”

“Sit down,” I said. “You’re looking well. Marriage agrees with you.”

“What are you doing here, Bernie?”

“What am I doing here? I’m spending a traditional weekend in a traditional English country house, with more than the traditional amount of snow. I don’t know where you get off being surprised to see me. I told you I had a reservation here.”

“You also told me you were going to take me.”

“Well, you had a prior engagement.”

“So you brought your wife.” She treated me to a sidelong glance. “You never told me you were married, Bernie.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, really? Is little Mrs. Rhodenbarr your mother?”

“Her name is Carolyn Kaiser,” I said, “and she’s not Mrs. Rhodenbarr. That seems to be an honorary designation a woman receives here when she arrives in the company of a man.”