“You were gone a long time,” Gordon Wolpert said.

“Yes.”

“Longer than you might think it would take to lift a telephone receiver and listen for a dial tone. Of course it would be natural to jiggle the receiver and poke the disconnect button a couple of times, but even so it seems to me you were gone quite a while.”

“Quite a while,” Nigel agreed.

“I realize there’s no television here,” Greg Savage said, “but someone must have a radio. Maybe one of the local stations will have something to say about when telephone service is likely to be restored.”

“The cook has a radio,” Cissy Eglantine said. “But it only gets one station, and it doesn’t come in very clearly. We mostly play tapes on it.”

“Still, if you could bring in that station-”

“There won’t be anything about the resumption of phone service,” I said. “Or if there is it won’t apply to us.”

“Why do you say that, Rhodenbarr?”

I glanced over at Nigel. “Better tell them,” I said.

“I don’t know what made me check,” he said. “‘You’re being silly,’ I told myself, but I couldn’t dismiss the thought, so I pulled on my boots and put a jacket on and went outside. That’s what took me so long. It was slow going, you see, because it’s all the way round the back of the house, and you’ve already seen how deep the snow is.”

Rufus Quilp wanted to know what it was that was all the way in back of the house.

“That’s where the telephone lines come in,” I guessed.

“Quite right,” Nigel said. He sighed heavily and his shoulders sagged. “Someone’s gone and cut them,” he said.

CHAPTER Sixteen

There were no screams or gasps in response to Nigel’s revelation. The general reaction was not so much one of panic and alarm as it was a sinking feeling, a bottomless dread. A couple of the guests voiced the thought that they just did not understand what was happening to us or why, but that sounded like denial to me. We all knew what was going on.

Carolyn spelled it out. “It’s all straight out of Agatha Christie, sort of a combination of The Mousetrap and And Then There Were None. We’re isolated, all of us. We can’t get out of here and nobody can turn up to rescue us. And it’s that way because that’s how the killer wants it.”

“He couldn’t have arranged the snow,” Gordon Wolpert pointed out.

“No,” she said, “but he could have picked a weekend when a heavy snowfall was forecast. Or maybe he decided to take advantage of the snow once it fell. Outside of the snow, it was all his doing. He clubbed Rathburn and smothered him, he cut the phone wires, he fixed the snowblower so it would be ruined and the bridge so it would fall if anybody set foot on it. It’s pretty obvious why he wants us stranded here. He’s not through.”

There was a sort of general intake of breath at this announcement. I don’t think it was a new thought for most of the people there, but no one had put words to the tune until now.

Colonel Blount-Buller looked at the drink in his hand as if wondering what it was, then set it aside and cleared his throat. “There will be more killings,” he said. “That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it, Mrs. Rhodenbarr?”

“Well, why else would he seal us off like this?”

“You’re assuming he’s still here, and he wasn’t merely seeking to discourage pursuit.”

“Pursuit?” She spread her hands. “What pursuit? Who’s gonna pursue him? If this guy wants to get away from here, that’s fine with me. I’ll pay for his cab.”

The colonel nodded slowly. “And there’s really no way he could have left, is there? The snow and all, and the bridge. He’s elected to remain at Cuttleford House.”

“I don’t see where else he could have gone to,” Carolyn said, and drew a breath. “Matter of fact, he’s probably right here in this room.”

It was comfortable enough in the house, even without central heating, and there was a fire in the bar’s fireplace that had that room warm as toast. But right about then you got a sense of what absolute zero must be like, with the cessation of all molecular activity, because that’s the kind of silence that greeted Carolyn’s observation.

Nigel Eglantine broke it. “I say,” he said. “That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? ‘In this room.’ Why, there’s no one in this room but…”

“But us chickens,” someone said softly.

“But ourselves,” Nigel managed. “There’s only guests and…and staff…”

“A tramp,” Cissy Eglantine said. “Are we all that certain it might not be a tramp?”

“I’m afraid not,” the colonel said.

“Oh, I do so wish it could be a tramp,” she said. “It would be so much nicer for everyone.”

“It’s not a tramp,” her husband said heavily.

“But you said it couldn’t possibly be one of us, Nigel, and-”

“It can’t be,” he said, “but it must be. That’s what’s so awful. This is such a blessed spot, Cuttleford House, a haven from the cares of the world, and only truly nice people are drawn here. And nice people do not murder.” He set his jaw. “Or sugar snowblower engines, or sabotage suspension bridges, or cut telephone wires. Yet all these actions have been performed, haven’t they? Apparently by one of us.”

“That’s so dreadful, Nigel.”

“It is,” he agreed. “It’s quite insupportable, and that’s why it would be wonderful to blame it on a tramp, or the Bosnian Serbs, or the IRA.”

“I never thought of them…”

“Well, you needn’t think of them now, dear. I’m afraid Mrs. Rhodenbarr is correct. The killer is one of us.”

There was another silence, until Carolyn said, “Oh, the hell with it. It’s Ms. Kaiser.”

“But that’s remarkable,” Leona Savage said. “You mean you actually know who the murderer is? But which one of us is Ms. Kaiser?”

“I’m Ms. Kaiser,” Carolyn said.

“You mean…”

“No, for God’s sake! I wasn’t saying Ms. Kaiser was the murderer.”

“But you distinctly said, ‘It’s Ms. Kaiser.’ I’m positive that’s what you said.”

“Oh, Mummy,” Millicent said, exasperated. “Carolyn said ‘It’s Ms. Kaiser’ because she’s sick and tired of being called Mrs. Rhodenbarr. She’s not married to Bernie.”

“Well, I know that,” Leona said. “Neither of them wears a ring. I was being polite, in view of the fact that they’re here together and sharing a room.”

“I wouldn’t ordinarily mind what anybody called me,” Carolyn said, “but we’re all getting more involved than I thought we’d be, since one of us seems to be busy trying to kill the rest of us.”

“Quite right,” the colonel said. “When it’s ‘Nice day today’ and ‘Please pass the salt,’ one doesn’t much care what one’s called. But it’s a different matter when we’re thrown together to fight for our lives.”

Dakin Littlefield suggested that was a rather dramatic way of putting it. “If there’s a killer among us,” he said, “and that’s a pretty big if, all we have to do is wait him out. Yes, the phone lines are down and the bridge is out, but sooner or later someone’s going to fail to reach us and inform the authorities, and the next thing you know there’ll be a helicopter full of state troopers landing on the front lawn. How long can that take, a day or two? Three days at the most?”

No one had any idea.

“Say three days,” Littlefield went on. “I understand there’s plenty of food and water, and the bar’s not about to run out of Scotch. We came here to get away from it all and I’d have to say we’ve succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

“But what do we do now?”

“Whatever we please,” he said. “Play Scrabble, read a good book, sit by the fire.” He glanced at his bride, and I suppose he had the right to look at her that way, running his eyes insolently over her body. After all, he was married to her and they were on their honeymoon. All the same, I can’t say I liked it. “I’m sure we can all find something to keep us amused,” he said, and his tone made it clear what form of amusement he was thinking of for himself.