The Manual Of Detection Part 8

Other sleepers joined them as they walked, women and men of varying ages in varying states of disarray, pajamaed, underdrawered, dripping. All bore sacks of alarm clocks over their shoulders, and all seemed to know where they were going.

Unwin felt he had stumbled into the mystery he was supposed to be solving, the one to which Lamech had planned to a.s.sign him. He suddenly hated that smug, silent corpse on the thirty-sixth floor. He wanted nothing to do with this mystery, but all he could do was allow himself to be dragged along by its current.

They walked ten, twelve, fifteen blocks. At the north end of town, they came to a part of the city that did not seem to belong to the city at all. Here a broad stone wall girded a wide, hilly expanse. A pair of iron gates, two stories tall, had been left open to allow the sleeping congregation through. The sycamores lining the drive beyond dropped samaras that spun in the rain as they fell.

At the top of the hill crouched a grand, high-gabled house. Lights shone in every window, illuminating stretches of wild gardens all around. The place seemed familiar to Unwin-had Sivart described it in one of his reports? Above the door was a sign depicting a fat black cat seated with the moon at his back, a cigar in one paw and a c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s in the other. Written in an arc over the moon were the words CAT & TONIC. Unwin was sure he had never heard of it.

Beneath the portico a line of sleepers awaited admittance into the club. Unwin's group joined the line, and others gathered behind them.

A butler ushered them inside, welcoming each guest with a sleepy nod.

"What is this?" Unwin asked him, collapsing his umbrella. "What's going on?"

The butler did not seem to understand the question. He blinked a few times, then squinted at Unwin as though from a great distance.

The crowd pushed forward, and Unwin was driven into the club. The entry hall was dominated by a wide staircase. Most of the guests proceeded into a room on the right. It was a gambling parlor, and attendants and players alike were sleeping. There were no chips. Instead the players pushed heaps of alarm clocks over the tables. When the house had won enough of the clocks, butlers carted them away in wheelbarrows.

Emily was here among the players, dressed in yellow pajamas. Her face looked smaller without her gla.s.ses, and the rain had turned her hair a dark copper color. She had her own sack of alarm clocks, and for the moment she seemed to be winning. She laughed aloud, revealing her small crooked teeth. Others in the room, after a delay, laughed with her. Unwin felt as though he were looking into an aquarium: everyone in it breathed the same water, but sound and sense moved slowly among them.

Emily rolled the dice, won again, and a s.h.i.+rtless man with thick eyebrows put his arm around her shoulder. Unwin went toward them, thinking to shake Emily awake if he had to, but Miss Greenwood was suddenly at his side, her arm linked with his. She drew him away, back into the entry hall and through a curtained doorway opposite the gaming room.

Here dozens of guests were seated at tables, some smoking, some muttering, some laughing, all of them asleep. Sleepwalking waiters went among them, bringing fresh drinks and cigars. On a ta.s.seled stage was a quartet of washboard, jug, rubber-band ba.s.s, and accordion. Unwin recognized the accordion player. It was Arthur, the custodian he had seen that morning. He had been sleeping when Unwin and Detective Pith were with him at Central Terminal, and he was still sleeping, still dressed in his gray coveralls.

Miss Greenwood did not search for an empty seat; instead she went toward a door at the right of the stage. Guarding it were Jasper and Josiah Rook. The twins were not asleep. They stood with their hands in their pockets, scrutinizing the crowd with their trapdoor eyes. Unwin half closed his own eyes to blend in, and let go of Miss Greenwood's arm.

Jasper (or was it Josiah?) opened the door for her, and Josiah ( Jasper?) greeted her by name. They went with her through the door and closed it behind them.

Unwin wandered back to the tables. The guests went on with their dream-party, and he was invisible to them. He looked for an empty seat, thinking he should conceal himself in case the Rooks returned.

Then he saw her. The woman in the plaid coat was seated alone at a table in the center of the room. Beneath her coat she wore a blue nightgown. She tapped her gla.s.s of milk and stared toward the stage with gla.s.sy gray eyes.

What was she doing here? First she had taken his place on the fourteenth floor, and now she was ensnared by whatever madness had claimed Emily and Miss Greenwood. Could it be that the fault was Unwin's, that his unofficial trips had embroiled her in this dilemma of his? Detective Pith must have seen him watching her at Central Terminal, must have thought she was a secret contact. Perhaps the Agency had hired her to keep her close, promoted him to keep him closer.

Unwin went toward her, thinking that he had to explain, had to apologize for all the trouble. a.s.sure her that everything would be set right again, as soon as he found Sivart. He stood to her side and took off his hat. "Are you waiting for someone?" he asked.

She perked one ear, though she did not look at him. "Someone," she said.

"Of course. I can't imagine you'd be here alone."

"Alone," she echoed.

Unwin checked his watch. It was nearly two o'clock. On a normal day, in only a matter of hours, he would be at Central Terminal. She would be there, too, and he would watch her and say nothing.

"I still remember the first day I saw you," he told her. "I got out of bed and took a bath, ate oatmeal with raisins. I put my shoes on in the hallway because they squeak if I wear them in the house and that bothers the neighbors. I don't blame them, really."

He could not tell if she understood what he was saying, but she did seem to hear. So he sat with her and laid his umbrella on his lap. "I ride my bicycle to work," he said. "I've perfected a technique to keep my umbrella open while riding. The weather . . . well, you know how it is. Sometimes I think it will never stop. The rain will fill up the bay, and one day the city will be gone, just like that. The sea will take it."

He looked around; no one was listening. He was the only person awake, but he might as well have been alone and dreaming. He wanted, suddenly, to tell her everything.

"That morning," he said, "the morning I first saw you. Something was different. No one was on the streets. At first I couldn't understand why. Then I realized that I hadn't turned off my alarm clock. I hadn't needed to. I'd woken hours before it was set to ring, hours before I should have been awake. The day hadn't started yet, and there I was, ready for work.

"I didn't know what to do with myself. I'd already made it halfway to the office by the time I figured out what had happened. I was standing outside Central Terminal. I've never had to take the train anywhere, because I've lived in this city my entire life. But suddenly I knew I could never go to work again. I really don't know why."

"Why," said the woman in the plaid coat.

"Well, because Enoch Hoffmann was gone," Unwin said. "The Rook brothers, Cleopatra Greenwood, they'd all left. Sivart's reports were-only reports. I could tell he didn't care about the work anymore. What was the point?"

"The point."

"Yes, I'm coming to it. I went into the terminal. I bought a cup of coffee and drank most of it. It was awful. I took a schedule of trains from the information booth, and I even bought a ticket. I was going to go into the country, and I was never coming back. Sivart had imagined his cottage in the woods-why shouldn't I have mine? By then it was twenty-six minutes after seven in the morning. That's when I saw you. You came through the revolving doors at the east end of the terminal, and you went to Gate Fourteen and waited. I watched you. I pretended to look at my train schedule, but all I could do was watch you. And when the train arrived, and no one came to meet you, and you turned around and went back into the city, I knew-just as certainly as I had known a moment before that I could never go back to work-that I would would go back to work, that I could not leave the city. Not while you were in it, left alone to wait." go back to work, that I could not leave the city. Not while you were in it, left alone to wait."

"Wait," said the woman in the plaid coat.

"I will," Unwin said. "I have a bicycle that I clean and oil every day, and I have a hat that I'll never part with. My umbrella does everything it's supposed to do. I have a train ticket, and I keep it in my pocket, just in case that person you're waiting for ever gets back. But what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I still don't know your name."

The woman in the plaid coat was applauding-all the guests were. Unwin turned to look at the stage. Miss Greenwood had joined the musicians. She went to the microphone, and the music struck up, slow and somber. Arthur leaned into his accordion as he played, and in his hands it breathed like a living thing. The words Miss Greenwood sang were unfamiliar to Unwin, except for the refrain, which he knew from somewhere. Maybe he had heard it on the radio. Yes, it might have been the song that was playing in Zlatari's kitchen, behind the curtain in the Forty Winks.

Still I hear that old song And I'm sure I belong In my dream of your dream of me.

Applause rose up again, and several guests threw long-stemmed roses onto the stage. She caught a few of the flowers and let the others fall at her feet. Unwin clapped, too.

"Mr. Charles Unwin?"

He turned in his seat. Detective Pith, very much awake and still in his herringbone suit, stood at his shoulder. "You," growled Pith. "Outside. Now."

Unwin rose from his chair and followed the detective from the room. They went outside and stood under the portico, where a few sleepwalkers were quietly puffing on cigars and mumbling insensibly to one another. Pith swung his hat as though he were going to hit him. "d.a.m.n it, Unwin, are you trying to get us both killed? What are you doing here? You came with Greenwood, didn't you? This is no good, Unwin, no good at all. Screed's trying to pin a murder on you, and now you're hanging around with Greenwood."

"I'm trying to find Sivart," Unwin said. "I thought she might know where he went."

"The Agency's through with the guy. If word gets out that you're looking for him, it could bother people high up, and I mean very high up. People you don't want to bother."

Unwin fiddled with his umbrella; he could not get the clasp b.u.t.toned.

"Now, I didn't expect to see you out in the field yet. That takes guts, Unwin, I'll give you that. But it doesn't take brains. You should have spent a day or two with your copy of the Manual. Manual. Have you read a word of it yet? If you want my advice, you'll get out of here and forget about the Cat & Tonic, forget about Cleo Greenwood. Talking the way you were in there! Do you know how long it took to set up this sting?" Have you read a word of it yet? If you want my advice, you'll get out of here and forget about the Cat & Tonic, forget about Cleo Greenwood. Talking the way you were in there! Do you know how long it took to set up this sting?"

The door burst open, and the Rook brothers stepped outside. Unwin immediately closed his eyes, then opened them enough to see what was happening. Pith was doing the same. But Jasper and Josiah went straight to him.

"My brother," Jasper said to Detective Pith, "has advised me to advise you to quit the somnambulism act."

Pith opened his eyes, and Unwin sidled over to where the others were smoking cigars. A sleepwalker offered him one, and he took it.

"Good evening, gents," said Pith. "I thought I was having a bad dream. Looks like I'm having two at once."

Jasper pointed toward the sycamores, and Pith started walking. They went two dozen paces from the house, and then Jasper told him to stop. Pith looked directly at Unwin and said loudly enough for him to hear, "You're done for, you louts. We have our best people working on this. Our very best."

Josiah drew a pistol from his coat, and Detective Pith took off his hat and held it over his heart. Josiah put the gun against the hat and fired once. Pith fell face-up in the rain.

AT THE SOUND OF THE SHOT, the cigar smokers started walking in circles and muttering but did not wake. The Rooks carried Pith's body to where their steam truck was parked. The bed was loaded with ticking clocks, and the alarm bells clinked sullenly under Pith's weight.

The Rooks had Edwin Moore, too. He was still in his gray museum attendant's uniform and lay beside Pith, bound at the wrists and ankles. The old man was unconscious and s.h.i.+vering. How long had they kept him out in the rain?

The Rooks were coming back up the drive now. Unwin ran inside. A crowd of sleepwalkers was streaming through the curtained door, troubled and confused by the sound of the gunshot. He pushed through them and climbed the stairs, looking for a place to hide. He opened the first door he saw and went through it.

The room was wallpapered in a dark red pattern. A fire burned in the hearth, crackling and warm. On the back wall was hung an array of antique weapons, swords and sidearms rivaling the collection at the Munic.i.p.al Museum. Now he understood why he had recognized this place. It was the mansion that had once belonged to Colonel Sherbrooke Baker, and this the very room where he had murdered his brother. Here was the precious h.o.a.rd, complete and perfectly maintained. Had his son Leopold kept it through the years?

No: one object did not belong with the Baker estate. In a gla.s.s case on its own table, small and shriveled and yellow, lay the Oldest Murdered Man, the real one. Unwin had stumbled upon the trophy room of Enoch Hoffmann.

Two wingback chairs were angled toward the hearth. In one of them sat a short man in blue pajamas with red trim. He turned his squarish face toward Unwin and with lidded eyes seemed to see. He held a brandy snifter in one hand and gestured for Unwin to sit, then poured a second gla.s.s and set it on the pedestal table.

What a fool Unwin had been, mourning for all those years the disappearance of the nefarious biloquist. No report could be worth this encounter.

Hoffmann offered him a cigar cutter, and Unwin realized he was still holding the cigar the sleepwalker had given him outside. He set it down on the table. "Mr. Hoffmann," he said, "I really don't want to be your rival."

Hoffmann chuckled to himself, or maybe snored. He picked up a cigar and clipped it.

"I don't want to know if you killed Edward Lamech," Unwin went on. "Or whose body is in the museum, or what you want with Edwin Moore. I don't even want to know what you're planning to do with all those alarm clocks. I just want to find Detective Sivart so I can have my old job back."

Hoffmann shrugged. He lit the cigar and puffed at it. Then he raised his gla.s.s as though in toast and waited until Unwin raised his own. The gla.s.ses met, and they drank. The brandy was hot on Unwin's lips.

"If you can't tell me where he is," Unwin said, "then maybe you can tell me something about one of your guests. She always wears a plaid coat."

Hoffmann leapt out of his chair and threw his brandy snifter into the fire. The gla.s.s exploded, and the flames burst from the hearth. Then Hoffmann leaned against the mantelpiece, head cradled in his arms, shoulders heaving.

Unwin rose and went to him. He wanted to stop himself but found he could not. He put one hand on the magician's shoulder. Hoffmann spun and glared at him with unopen eyes.

The brandy was still burning its way toward Unwin's stomach. "Please," he said, and what he wanted to say was, Please, don't wake up, Please, don't wake up, but the words were stuck in his throat and the brandy erased them. Unwin stumbled backward, and the fire leapt again, and the music of accordion and rubber band swelled from below. but the words were stuck in his throat and the brandy erased them. Unwin stumbled backward, and the fire leapt again, and the music of accordion and rubber band swelled from below.

Gagging on brandy and smoke, Unwin fled from the room, following the music.

Downstairs everyone was dressed so well. He loosened his collar and took a few deep breaths, feeling his pulse slow. He was glad he had finally joined the party. Emily Doppel came from the gaming room, and the man who accompanied her was no longer s.h.i.+rtless; in fact, he wore a double-breasted suit of a very fine cut. When she saw Unwin, she pushed her escort away and came up to him. "What do you think of the dress?" she asked.

It was black, cut low in the front, and reached nearly to the floor. It was, Unwin meant to say, very flattering. The words failed him, but she smiled, took his hand, and led him to the dance floor. He still had his umbrella, so he hooked it over his wrist while they waltzed.

Emily laughed at him. "Admit it," she said. "You need me. You wouldn't be able to do any of this without me. You don't have to lie, Detective Unwin. You can trust me with your innermost thoughts and musings." She laughed again and added, "I'm a trustworthy gal!"

"I wouldn't lie to you," Unwin lied.

"I'm so glad we can finally say these things. It's different here, don't you think? Different from the office? And the car?" She was leading him in the dance, and he was thankful for it, because he was no better at dancing than he was at driving.

"Do you come here often?" he asked.

She looked around. "I'm really not sure."

"We're dreaming," he said. "I wasn't before, but now I am. We both are."

"You're sweet," Emily said. "Listen. Why don't you tell me why you're so interested in Cleopatra Greenwood? What's she got that's so special? Is she in on it, do you think? How do you know I'm not in on it? Don't ignore me, Detective Unwin."

He had caught sight of the woman in the plaid coat, still alone at her table. Unlike everyone else in the room, she wore the same clothes as before: a plain blue nightgown, blue slippers. Unwin noticed these kinds of things. He was a meticulous dreamer. "Excuse me," he said to Emily, and walked off the dance floor.

"Hey!" his a.s.sistant called after him.

He went up to the woman in the plaid coat. She was sitting with her legs crossed, watching the dancers. Her eyes were open now, gray and cool. They took Unwin in as he approached, and he struggled to keep balanced. It felt as though he were walking on sand while waves crashed about his legs.

"I don't remember inviting you," said the woman in the plaid coat.

"Isn't this Hoffmann's party?"

She sipped her milk. "Is that what he told you?"

The woman in the plaid coat seemed to know more than he knew. The revelation left him feeling helpless and strangely betrayed. "I thought I'd dragged you into something dangerous," he said, steadying himself with his umbrella. "But it's the other way around, isn't it? Who are you?"

She was starting to look annoyed with him. "It's too soon for us to speak," she said. "You haven't finished your report."

"My report?"

She sighed and looked at one of her slippered feet. "I am your clerk, you know."

The music had climbed to a new pitch, and the dancers swerved wildly over the floor. Arthur, the accordionist, bellowed while he played. Unwin turned to see the ba.s.sist's rubber band snap and fly across the room-with that, the set was over.

When he looked back, the woman in the plaid coat was gone. The party was ending, everyone was saying goodbye. What had happened to Emily? He had been rude to leave her on the dance floor alone.

Miss Greenwood found him and took his arm. "A few of us are headed back to my place," she said.

The butler nodded to them as they went out the door, and a dozen people congratulated Miss Greenwood on her performance. The man in the double-breasted suit was among them, but Emily was not. They went down among the sycamores together, and a bald man in a tuxedo grabbed a handful of fallen samaras and threw them into the air. They spun down around their heads, and he shouted, "Crazy little propellers!"

They returned to the Gilbert Hotel and climbed the fire escape to Miss Greenwood's room. The man in the tuxedo popped open a bottle of champagne, and they drank. Miss Greenwood laughed and dropped long-stemmed roses everywhere. Then the man in the tuxedo and the man in the double-breasted suit started fighting about which of them had given Miss Greenwood more flowers. After the first sloppy punches were thrown, she kicked them both out.

"I'm going to forget all of this," she said to Unwin. "He uses me, uses my voice, but keeps me in the dark. So you'll have to remember for both of us. That's why I hired you. To remember."

Unwin left. It was cold outside, and the walk was a long one. He could not tell if he was awake or asleep now-shadows fell at the wrong angles, and the streets curved where they should have been straight. The cold was real enough, however. His hand was a ball of ice around the handle of his umbrella. At last he found the narrow green door of his own apartment building and went upstairs.

A trail of red and orange leaves led from the door all the way into the bathroom.

Detective Sivart was in the tub. The water looked cold and was covered with leaves: a dark little pond. "This channel's closed to us now, Charlie. That woman, I was wrong about her. She broke my heart. Look." He pulled a torn leaf out of the water and slapped it onto his chest. It stuck fast.

When Unwin woke, he was on his bed, still wearing his clothes. His head throbbed, his alarm clock was missing, and someone was in the kitchen, making breakfast.