“I don’t know.” He looked thoughtful “I… never killed anyone before. After I shot her I just wanted to get away from there. I never even thought of killing you. I simply put the gun in your hand and left.”
Beautiful. A full admission, and as much as anyone was likely to get without reading him his rights and letting him call his lawyer. It was about time for the Cavalry to make its appearance. I started to turn toward the rear of the store, where Ray Kirschmann and Francis Rockland were presumably taking in all of this, when the hand Arkwright had been clutching to his breast snaked inside his jacket and back out again, and when it reappeared there was a gun in it.
He pushed his chair back as he drew the gun, moving briskly backward so that he could cover the four of us at once-Whelkin and Atman Singh and the Maharajah. And me, at whom the gun was pointed. It was a larger gun than the one I’d come to clutching, far too large to be a Whippet or a Devil Dog. And a revolver, I noted. Perhaps, if he was partial to the Marley line, it was a Mastiff. Or a Rhodesian Ridgeback, or whatever.
“Let’s hold it right there,” he said, waving the gun around. “I’ll shoot the first person who moves a hair. You’re a clever man, Rhodenbarr, but it won’t do you any good this time. I don’t suppose the world will miss a burglar. They ought to gas people like you in the first place, loathsome vermin with no respect for property rights. As for you”-this to Whelkin-“you cheated me. You employed Madeleine to swindle me out of some money. You made a fool of me. I won’t mind killing you. You other gentlemen have the misfortune of being present at an awkward time. I regret the necessity of doing this-”
Killing women’s bad policy. Ignoring them can be worse. He’d forgotten all about Carolyn, and he was still running his mouth when she brained him with a bronze bust of Immanuel Kant. I’d been using it as a bookend, in the Philosophy and Religion section.
CHAPTER Twenty
At a quarter to twelve Monday morning I hung the Out to Lunch sign in the window and locked up. I didn’t bother with the iron gates, not at that hour. I went to the place Carolyn had patronized Thursday and bought felafel sandwiches and a container of hummus and some flat crackers to scoop it up with. They were oddly shaped and reminded me of drawings of amoebae in my high-school biology textbook. I started to order coffee too but they had mint tea and that sounded interesting so I picked up two containers. The counterman put everything in a bag for me. I still didn’t know if he was an Arab or an Israeli, so instead of chancing a shalom or a salaam I just told him to have a nice day and let it go at that.
Carolyn was hard at work combing out a Lhasa Apso. “Thank God,” she said when she saw me, and popped the fluffy little dog into a cage. “Lunchtime, Dolly Lama. I’ll deal with you later. Whatcha got, Bern?”
“Felafel.”
“Sensational. Grab a chair.”
I did and we dug in. Between bites I told her that everything looked good. Francis Rockland wouldn’t be hassling either me or the Sikh, having accepted three thousand of the Maharajah’s American dollars as compensation for his erstwhile toe. It struck me as a generous settlement, especially so when you recalled that he’d shot the toe off all by his lonesome. And I gather a few more rupees found their way into Ray Kirschmann’s pocket. Money generally does.
Rudyard Whelkin, who incredibly enough proved to have a walletful of identification in that unlikely name, was booked as a material witness and released in his own recognizance. “I’m pretty sure he’s out of the country,” I told Carolyn. “Or at least out of town. He called me last night and tried to talk me into parting with the Hitler copy of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow.”
“Don’t tell me he wants to sell it to the Sheikh.”
“I think he knows what that would get him. Flayed alive, for instance. But there are enough other weirdos who’d pay a bundle for an item like that, and Whelkin’s just the man to find one of them. He may never make the big score he’s trying for but he hasn’t missed many meals so far in life and I don’t figure he’ll start now.”
“Did you give him the book?”
“No way. Oh, he’s got a satchel full of copies. I only took the Hitler specimen from his room at the Gresham. I left him some Haggard copies and a few that hadn’t been tampered with, so he can cook up another Hitler copy if he’s got the time and patience. If he forged all of that once, he can do it again. But I’m holding onto the copy I swiped from him.”
“You’re not going to sell it?”
I may have managed to look hurt. “Of course not,” I said. “I may be a crook in my off-hours, but I’m a perfectly honest bookseller. I don’t misrepresent my stock. Anyway, the book’s not for sale. It’s for my personal library. I don’t figure to read it very often but I like the idea of having it around.”
The Maharajah, I told her, was on his way to Monaco to unwind with a flutter at roulette or baccarat or whatever moved him. The whole experience, he told me, had been invigorating. I was glad he thought so.
And Jesse Arkwright, I added, was in jail. Jugged, by George, and locked up tighter than the Crown jewels. They’d booked the bastard for Murder One and you can’t get bailed out of that charge. Doesn’t matter how rich you are.
“Not that he’ll be imprisoned on that charge,” I explained. “To tell you the truth, I’ll be surprised if the case ever comes to trial. The evidence is sketchy. It might be enough to convict a poor man but he’s got the bread for a good enough lawyer to worm his way out. He’ll probably plead to a reduced charge. Manslaughter, say, or overtime parking. He’ll pull a sentence of a year or two and I’ll bet you even money he won’t serve a day. Suspended sentence. Wait and see.”
“But he killed that woman.”
“No question.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Few things do,” I said philosophically. Move over, Immanuel Kant. “At least he’s not getting off scot-free. He’s behind bars even as we speak, and his reputation is getting dragged through the mud, and he’ll pay a lot emotionally and financially even if he doesn’t wind up serving any prison time for what he did. He’s lucky, no question, but he’s not as he thought he’d be before you nailed him with the bookend.”
“It was a lucky shot.”
“It was a perfect strike from where I stood.”
She grinned and scooped up some hummus. “Maybe I’m what the Mets could use,” she said.
“What the Mets could use,” I said, “is divine intercession. Anyway, lots of things aren’t fair. The Blinns are getting away with their insurance claim, for example. I’m off the hook for burglarizing their apartment. The police agreed not to press charges in return for my cooperation in collaring Arkwright for murder, which is pretty decent of them, but the Blinns still get to collect for all the stuff I stole, which I didn’t steal to begin with, and if that’s fair you’ll have to explain it to me.”
“It may not be fair,” she said, “but I’m glad anyway. I like Gert and Artie.”
“So do I. They’re good people. And that reminds me.”
“Oh?”
“I had a call from Artie Blinn last night.”
“Did you? This mint tea’s terrific, incidentally. Sweet, though. Couldn’t you get it without sugar?”
“That’s how it comes.”
“It’s probably going to rot my teeth and my insides and everything. But I don’t care. Do you care?”
“I can’t get all worked up about it. There was something Artie wanted to know, to get back to Artie.”
“There are things I’ve been wanting to know,” she said. “Things I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“About Rudyard Whelkin.”
“What about him?”
“Was he really drugged when he set up the appointment with you? Or did he just sound that way?”