Probably.
Unless he could get the hell out of here. And now that his eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark, he could see breaks in the black, lines of light just over there, indicating a closed door, the bottom of which would be not very far above his head. The ground-floor door. If he could get through that, then somehow he’d manage to clear out of this house. Anyway, it was worth a try. And anything, finally, was better than just sitting forever in the bottom of an elevator shaft.
Circling the giant spring, Dortmunder approached the lines of light, touched the door, and tried to slide it open. It wouldn’t go. He pushed harder, and it still wouldn’t go.
Of course not. An electric lock was holding it in place, so long as the elevator was elsewhere. He had to get at that lock, which was about five feet up on the door judging from the one he’d seen at the top level.
Dortmunder sat on the spring – human beings are quickly adaptable to any environment, which makes them a fine stock for those interested in animal husbandry – to consider his present resources. Aside from his ski mask, clothing and those damned bourbon bottles, what did he have on his person?
Money. Keys. He would have had cigarettes and matches, but somehow May’s chain-smoking had discouraged him, and about four months ago, after nearly thirty years of smoking Camels, he’d simply stopped. There’d been none of the usual withdrawal symptoms, no nervousness or bad temper, in fact not even much desire to quit. He’d simply awakened one morning, looked at the Everest of matches and butts in the ashtray on May’s side of the bed, and decided not to have a cigarette just yet. Habit had kept him carrying his crumpled Camels another two weeks, but finally he’d realized he simply wasn’t smoking any more, and that was the end of it. So he didn’t have cigarettes, but more importantly under the circumstances, he also didn’t have matches.
Yes, but what did be have? He had his wallet, with driver’s license, money, blood-type card (you never know), a couple of credit cards he didn’t dare use and a library card May had got him for obscure reasons of her own. In other pockets he had several cufflinks and tiepins belonging to Arnold Chauncey. He had – Credit cards. Credit cards are tough plastic, they can be slipped between door and jamb to force open a latch. Could a credit card be inserted between the electric lock box and the metal plate on the elevator door, unlocking it?
There was only one way to find out. Clutching a credit card between his teeth like a pirate’s sword, Dortmunder scrambled up the ladder and around the horizontal beams to the door. Credit card in position. Credit card pushed forward. Credit card pushed harder, pushed, pushed, wriggled, edged, pushed, sidled, pushed into the goddam space between box and plate, shoved in there until all at once it went, and there was a tiny click.
Yes? Holding on to the credit card – he didn’t want to lose that into the darkness below, covered with his fingerprints – Dortmunder leaned forward against the concrete wall and used his other hand to push on the door.
Which slid open.
Chapter 15
Arnold Chauncey sipped bourbon, stared at the spot on the wall where Folly Leads Man to Ruin had so lately hung, and tried not to look as pleased as he felt. The house was full of policemen, guests were shrieking in every corner, and somehow or other the plot seemed to have gone simultaneously completely wrong and completely right.
The dismay Chauncey had felt when Mavis Orfizzi had taken off in that elevator had been nothing to the cold acid-bath of doom that had washed o’er him when he’d discovered that two private guards, in direct contradiction of his express orders, had taken up posts on the top floor. As for his own behavior, he had to give himself low marks and consider himself extremely lucky that in the clatter of events nobody seemed to have noticed any of the false notes in his performance. His crying out, “No!” for instance, when Mavis entered the elevator. Then there’d been his reaction on seeing the guards come down from upstairs: an angry cry of, “What were you doing up there?”
Fortunately, after that last clinker Chauncey had finally got hold of himself and settled down to more or less appropriate behavior: initial shock and outrage, commiseration and apology toward his guests, helpful determination toward the policemen when they arrived, and stoic fortitude when counting up his own “losses” from his bedroom (Dortmunder & Co. had been damned efficient in there, by God). Statements had been taken from the dinner guests first, after which they’d been allowed to leave: Laura Bathing so startled she forgot to tip over a vase on the way out, Major General (Ret.) and Mrs. Homer Biggott limping out to be stacked into their Lincoln by their chauffeur, Sheikh Rama el-Rama el-Rama El departing with a smiling comment about “petty crime increasing as civilizations decline,” Martha Whoopley the only one in the household to eat her portion of baked Alaska before departure, Lance Sheath helping her into her fur and leaving with her, chuckling mannishly deep in his throat. Chauncey himself had given the authorities a brief statement – the truth, that he had been at dinner with his guests until the screaming started.
And now the police were dealing with the houseguests, one by one, while the staff awaited their turn in the kitchen and the shamefaced private guards cooled their heels in the first floor lounge next to the dining room in which the interviews were being held.
There was nothing left for Chauncey to do but wait for the dust to settle, and in the morning to call his insurance agent. Nobody could claim this was a faked theft; the closeting of the private guards, in fact, dangerous though their presence had been, adding yet another touch of verisimilitude to the affair. The first bourbon on the rocks he’d given himself had been medicinal in nature, a prescription for his jangled nerves, but the second had been in acknowledgment of a sense of relief, and the third was a toast to a dangerous crossing successfully accomplished. Cheers!
Chauncey was just draining this congratulatory tot when Prince Elector Otto Orfizzi wandered in, fresh from his interview with the police, saying, “Ah, there you are.”
“Here I am,” Chauncey agreed. His mood was becoming agreeably mellow.
“Bad timing, that,” Orfizzi said, gesturing upwards with his thumb.
Not sure what the man meant, Chauncey said, “Was it?”
“If the damned woman had gone up there ten minutes earlier,” the Prince explained, “the blighters might have shot her.” He shrugged, evidently irritated at his wife’s perverse insistence on remaining alive, then rallied himself and changed the subject. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw those policemen.”
Now what? “I’m not sure I follow,” Chauncey admitted. “The man in charge.” Prince Otto leaned forward, dropping his voice confidentially. “Black as the ace of spades.”
“Ah, yes,” Chauncey said, and the combination of nerves and liquor made him add, “Well, at least he isn’t Jewish.”
The Prince considered that. “I don’t know,” he mused. “With a Jew, you’d be certain in any event the fellow wasn’t in league with the thieves.”
“That’s true,” Chauncey said, and got to his feet, feeling the strong need of another drink.
“Would that be bourbon?” asked the Prince.
“It would. May I offer?”
“You certainly may. Say what you will about jazz, the Hollywood movie, the Broadway musical or the short story, I say America’s contribution to the arts is bourbon.”
“I agree with you,” Chauncey said, in some surprise, and reached for the bottle, only to discover it was empty. And when he looked in the lower cabinet among the extras there was no bourbon to be seen. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll have to go downstairs for more.”
“Oh, don’t bother, I’ll be perfectly happy with Scotch. As happy as one can be with that woman in the house, of course.”
“It isn’t any bother,” Chauncey assured him. “I’d rather stick to bourbon myself.” And it would be pleasant to be away from the Prince for a few minutes.
But that was not to be. “I’ll stroll along with you,” the Prince announced, and did.
The main liquor storage was in a closet on the ground floor, next to a similar closet converted to a wine cellar, the latter with its temperature and humidity maintained at a dry fifty degrees. Chauncey and Orfizzi rode down together in the elevator, and to fill the time Chauncey described the wine cellar, as it was a recent conversion. “I’d like to see it,” the Prince said.
“I’ll show it you.”
On the ground floor, they walked together down the corridor, and about halfway to the rear exit Chauncey stopped at a pair of doors on the right-hand side. “Liquor storage is on the left,” he explained, “and this is the wine cellar.” And he opened the door to look at the bleak eyes and shivering body of Dortmunder. “Ump!” Chauncey said, and quickly shut the door again, before the Prince could get around it to look inside.