The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,109

was not the thief of the unexpurgated copy of The Manual of Detection. Though in revealing the gold tooth of the Oldest Murdered Man, she had worked in concert with Emily, and toward the same end. The two of them, without apparent knowledge of one another, had together rekindled the old war between the Agency and the carnival.

The leaves, when the breeze took them, rustled like paper. Emily looked at the ground, shaking her head. “What a mess I’ve made. I could have done a better job.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Sivart said.

She half closed her eyes, then recited, “ ‘To the modern detective, truth is rarely its own reward; usually it is its own punishment. And if you cannot track mystery to the back of its ugly cave, then be content to stand at the edge of the dark and call it by name.’ ”

She looked at Arthur as she lowered her gun.

The overseer, as though a spring in him were suddenly loosed, leaned into his accordion and began to play. The bellows strained and crumpled between his hands, and his big fingernails danced over the keys. “That’s how it goes, isn’t it, darling?” he said.

Miss Greenwood went closer to him. “Stop calling me that,” she said.

Arthur’s song was the opposite of a lullaby, thunderous and brash. “Sure,” he said, stamping the time with his foot. “That’s it. What are the words? ‘Between you and me, All the way to the sea, In my dream of your dream—’ ”

Miss Greenwood’s shot sent him tumbling backward. He tripped over the roots of the old oak and fell cradled against its trunk. His arms were still moving as he lay there, but the air went in and out through the two holes the bullet had made in the bellows, and the notes were just ragged whispers now.

Detective Sivart took his hat off and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked at the ground and waited until it was quiet again. Then he switched off the light.

THE DINING TABLE was big for the cottage, and Unwin had to walk with his back against the wall to reach his seat. He looked around while Sivart fussed in the kitchen. There were shelves of old books and photographs on the walls. The pictures were hung with their frames nearly touching, so that the wallpaper—a faded pattern of carts and hay-stacks—was all but obscured. In one yellowing image, the giantess Hildegard sat on a tree stump, boxes of fireworks open all around her. Aloof and queenly on her bower throne, she regarded the camera with her chin raised and her eyes downturned.

In another picture a young Miss Greenwood was seated at a dime-store counter, straw in her soda glass. Her smile was careful. A little girl sat on the stool beside her, legs dangling with her ankles crossed. Penelope, her hair tied back in a braid, gazed mistrustfully at the camera.

“Be there in a minute,” Sivart called from the kitchen.

Unwin realized he had been drumming his fingers against the table and stopped himself. Through the window he had a view of the pond at the bottom of the hill. Emily and Miss Greenwood were walking around the water together, talking.

Sivart came into the room with a blue dish towel draped over his shoulder. He had taken off his jacket and shirt, leaving his black suspenders strapped over his undershirt. “Hope you’re hungry,” he said. He set down a tray covered with strips of bacon and fried eggs, most of the yolks broken. He went away and came back with plates and forks, a pile of toast, pancakes, a bowl of blackberries, butter.

The detective looked at everything, frowning. He left again and came back with a pot of coffee and a creamer. “Haven’t eaten in days,” he said, tucking a napkin into his collar.

Unwin was hungry, too. He helped himself to pancakes and a handful of blackberries. Sivart forked a stack of bacon onto his plate and said, “It took you long enough to figure out where I was.”

“You could have told me right from the start.”

“Nah, you would have screwed it up if I’d done that. Like today, except our friend out there would’ve been awake, and he would’ve remembered to bring his gun.”

Outside, Emily and Miss Greenwood had arrived at the tire swing. They were still speaking, and they seemed to have come to an agreement of some kind. Miss Greenwood was nodding, her arms crossed over her belly, while Emily