The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,100

the bellhop said. “Go!”

Unwin collapsed the umbrella and tucked it under his arm. He turned his bicycle onto the street, pedaling hard despite the stiffness in his legs. He rode north along the park, following as best he could the route Miss Greenwood and the other sleepwalkers had taken the night before. Cold water dripped off his hat brim and trickled past his collar, down his spine. His pants were flecked with grime from the street, and his socks squelched in his shoes.

No one drove on the avenue. Some cars and taxicabs were left in the middle of the road or driven up onto the curb and abandoned. In that strange quiet, the sounds of the steam truck grew steadily louder. The rumbling seemed to come from every direction at once, echoing off the facades of buildings and through the twilit park.

Unwin braked in front of the Municipal Museum. Edwin Moore was seated on the bottom step, shivering beneath the umbrella Unwin had given him. The old clerk saw Unwin’s reflection in the puddle he was staring at and looked up, squinting under his thick white eyebrows.

“Mr. Moore,” Unwin said. “What happened?”

“Do I know you?” Moore said. He studied Unwin’s face, shaking his head. “I can’t recall. I know that I knew, and yet . . . Mr. Unwin, that’s your name, isn’t it? Did we work together?”

“I’m Charles Unwin. We were in the rowboat together, and then the taxi—”

“The taxi,” Moore said, his eyes brightening a little. “Yes, I was a passenger in one of many taxis, and we joined others who had walked the whole way. They were bound for the fairgrounds, Mr. Unwin—an army of somnambulists, all set to one great task. We have been beaten, I’m certain of it now. Hoffmann has won.”

“Why?” Unwin asked. “What did they do?”

“They gathered tools. They brought ladders and saws and drills. The remnants of Caligari’s were terrified at first and tried to keep them out, tried to wake them. But once the old carnies comprehended the invaders’ objective, they let them be, and then they joined them, even helped to direct their work. I had to pitch in, too, or be found out!” Moore was trembling harder now. “Caligari’s Carnival is remade, Mr. Unwin, in all its iniquity. Hoffmann’s lair of old is restored. He is laughing at us—laughing.”

Unwin set his bicycle down and knelt beside the old clerk. He put a hand on Moore’s knee and said, “Mr. Moore, I’m not sure it was Hoffmann who did this.”

“Who then?”

“The woman in the plaid coat. The same woman who showed you the gold tooth of the Oldest Murdered Man, that night in your sleep.”

Moore stood and moved back a step. “Who are you, to have seen into my dreams?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Unwin said. “We have a good team here. Remember?”

Moore was moving farther up the steps. He surveyed the street as the sound of the approaching steam truck grew louder. “You’re one of them,” he said. “I remember nothing. Nothing! You may put that in your report if you like.” He threw the umbrella to the ground and hurried back up the steps. Unwin watched him go, hoping he would stop, but the old clerk scurried between the massive columns and through the revolving door of the museum.

What good would it do to go after him? Moore would walk the halls of the museum alone, keeping to his usual route. There would be no guests today, no tearful children seeking their parents. After a while he might come to the chamber where the Oldest Murdered Man was housed. There, he would notice the glinting of a gold tooth at the back of the corpse’s mouth. And then he would telephone the Agency, to let Detective Sivart know that he had been tricked, that he had better come see for himself and fix his mistake.

The discarded umbrella was already filling with rainwater. Unwin left it and pedaled on.

IN THE LIGHT of day, Unwin saw that the wall of the Baker estate was in disrepair; stones had long ago come loose in places and lay in mounds over the sidewalk. The iron gates, which he had thought left open for Hoffmann’s sleeping guests the night before, were simply rusted open on their hinges. He pedaled up the long drive, his legs aching, the bicycle tires scattering wet sycamore seeds behind him.

At the top of the hill, the mansion lay in partial ruin. It had appeared stately the night before,