“I guess it must seem like a horrible dream,” I said.
“It does.”
“But your eyes are open now, and it’s all over.”
“That’s right, Bernie. It’s just a good thing the police got there when they did. I still can’t understand how they managed it.”
“They used a helicopter,” I said.
“I know that.”
“So the road conditions didn’t matter,” I said, “and the unplowed driveway didn’t stop them, or the lack of a bridge across the gully. They just flew right over everything.”
“I understand all that part. How did they know to come in the first place? And how did they know they would need a helicopter? And the man in charge-”
“Ray Kirschmann.”
“He was a New York police officer, and he seemed to know you.”
“I noticed that,” I said. “Curious, isn’t it?”
“But how did he…”
“Bernie called him,” Carolyn said. “After he faked his own death by lowering a dummy into the gully, he walked downstream until he found a place where he could wade across.”
“No wading required,” I said. “Cuttlebone Creek was frozen solid. The only wading I had to do was through snow, and I don’t think you call it wading when it’s snow. It’s either trudging or slogging, and it seems to me I did a fair amount of both.”
“Then he doubled back on the other side of the gully,” she went on, “until he got to the parking lot.”
“The parking lot?”
“Right on the other side of the bridge, where everybody left their cars. He figured somebody would have a cell phone, and he opened car doors until he found one.”
“Didn’t people lock their cars? I’m positive Dakin locked ours.”
“I guess I got lucky,” I said. I didn’t tell her that a locked car is not the most challenging obstacle you can place in a burglar’s path. “I found a phone, and I was going to call nine-one-one but I couldn’t figure out what to tell them. So I called Ray Kirschmann, and don’t ask me what I told him. Don’t ask him, either, because I woke him up in the middle of the night and he couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. But he got the important part right.”
“And arrived in the nick of time,” Carolyn said.
I crumpled a piece of paper and threw it for Raffles. “Ray didn’t have any jurisdiction up there,” I went on, “but he got in touch with the state troopers, and they tried to reach Cuttleford House and confirmed that the phones were out. So they broke out a helicopter and brought Ray along for the ride. And the rest you know, because you were there for it.”
“Yes.”
“So I suppose you’re wondering why I summoned you here,” I said. “Today, I mean. This afternoon.”
“I thought you just wanted to see me, Bernie.”
“Well, it’s always a pleasure, Lettice. But there was something I wanted to talk about.”
“Oh? What would that be?”
“It would be the bridge,” I said. “The one that spanned Cuttlebone Creek, until it didn’t anymore.”
“What about it, Bernie?”
“You remember how the bridge wound up in the gully, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Gordon Wolpert slashed the ropes.”
“Right. And the bridge went tumbling into the gully, silent as Berkeley ’s tree. And then the next morning Orris walked right off the edge, not even noticing that the bridge was missing.”
“I remember,” she said. “You explained it all in the library, before Dakin pulled the gun.”
“I keep picturing Orris,” I said. “Stepping right off into space like that. It’s a pretty funny image, wouldn’t you say?”
“Funny? The man was killed.”
“I know, but it’s right smack on the border of tragedy and farce, isn’t it? And how could he do a thing like that? I mean, if he’d been running, say. Pursued by a bear, that sort of thing. But he was just walking, making his way through the snow, and all of a sudden there wasn’t any snow, or any ground beneath his feet, either. He must have been surprised.”
“I’m sure he was. Bernie, do we have to talk about-”
“Too surprised to scream, you’d almost think, but he managed to get a scream out. Can you imagine walking off a cliff like that, Lettice? In broad daylight?”
“You explained that he could have been snowblind, Bernie.”
“True.”
“And that he was intellectually challenged.”
“Also true. The nearest thing to dead between the ears, you might say. Still, he had the inbred cunning of the Cobbetts, didn’t he? You wouldn’t think he’d try to walk through the air. You want to know what I think, Lettice?”
“What?”
“I think he stepped on the bridge and started walking across, and the ropes had been cut partway through, and they snapped, and that’s how he fell.”
“But nobody heard the bridge fall.”
“Ah,” I said. “Nobody heard it in the middle of the night, either. Maybe there’s not that much noise involved. Maybe the shout Orris gave drowned it out, or merged with it so that no one noticed it. Remember, there was snow covering everything. That could muffle sounds. No, I think the bridge fell into the gully the very same time Orris did.”
“That’s what you thought originally,” Carolyn said. “Remember, Bern? When you first told everybody the ropes had been cut?”
“That’s right,” I said. “That’s how it looked to me, just from a quick examination of the ends of the rope. On one of them, it was easy to see where some of the fibers had been cut cleanly, and others looked as though they’d been stretched until they tore.”
“I don’t understand,” Lettice said. “What difference does it make? Maybe Wolpert didn’t want to risk making a lot of noise, so he just stopped cutting before the ropes parted. Or maybe what you said in the library was right, and Orris was in too much of a hurry to look where he was putting his feet. Either way he’s dead, and either way Wolpert was responsible.”
“You’re probably right,” I admitted. “Wolpert’s answering to a higher authority, so it’s academic whether he was purposely setting a lethal trap or just trying to keep anybody from getting across the bridge. And I don’t suppose there’s any real point in trying to salvage Orris’s reputation for quick thinking.”
I picked up a sheet of paper, but Raffles looked too comfortable. I didn’t have the heart to disturb him, nor did I want to risk throwing the crumpled paper and having him ignore it. I always feel like a jerk when that happens.
“So I’ll just let it go,” I continued. “The police have it all wrapped up, and they’re happy, so why confuse them?” I looked at the guileless face above the blood-red bow tie. “But I wouldn’t want you to think you got away with it,” I said.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“You know,” I said, “I’d have been willing to bet those would be the words out of your mouth, and what nonsense. Of course you understand.”
“But…”
There’s three dots instead of a dash after that but because I didn’t chime in and interrupt. I just let the word hang in the air, wondering if it would wind up falling into the gully.
Then I said, “You cut the ropes, Lettice. You and Dakin were the last people over the bridge. He got into the house before you did. You either lagged behind or pretended to drop something and went back for it, but it gave you time to get a knife out of your purse and start sawing through the ropes supporting the bridge.”
“Why would I do a thing like that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’d be setting a trap for a person I’d never even met. You and I have been…close, Bernie. How could you possibly think me capable of such a thing?”
“You weren’t setting a trap.”
“But you just said-”
“If you’d had your way,” I said, “you’d have sliced right through those ropes in a New York minute. But minutes take a lot longer up in the faux-English countryside. And you didn’t have the right tools for the job.”