The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,17
that of Sivart’s cigars, tickled Unwin’s nostrils, made him dizzy. He tried to dismiss her with a polite nod, but Emily only nodded in reply. She had no intention of leaving.
“Well,” he said, “I trust you have undergone standard Agency training, as well as any training requisite to your particular position.”
“Of course.”
“Then you can tell me what I might expect from you at this time?”
She frowned again, only now the look was darker, more wary. Unwin understood that his assistant had been looking forward to this day, her first on the job, for a long time. He risked disappointing her. It would be dangerous, Unwin thought, to disappoint her.
She changed her mind about what was happening, though, and appeared suddenly pleased. “You’re testing me!” she said.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, as though to read something imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. She recited, “ ‘On the first day of a new case, the detective shares with his assistant whatever details he feels the assistant ought to know. Typically this includes important contacts and dates, as well as information from related cases called up from the archives.’ ”
Unwin sat back in the enormous chair. He thought again of that corpse upstairs, bloated with mystery. He felt as though the thing had crawled onto his back and would drag him into the grave with it if he did not throw it off. What was the case Lamech had meant for him? Whatever it was, Unwin wanted nothing to do with it.
He said, “I see that you have a subtle mind, Emily, so I can trust you. As you suspected, this is an internal affair. The case before us, number CEU001, concerns the very reason for my presence here. Our task is simple: to find Detective Travis T. Sivart and convince him to return to his job as quickly as possible.” He was forming a plan even as he spoke it. With Emily’s help, perhaps, he could pretend to be a detective just long enough to bring Sivart back to the Agency. Then he could make sense of the watcher’s corpse, of Miss Truesdale’s long-stemmed roses, of the phonograph record he had found in Lamech’s office.
Emily was all business now. “Clues, sir?”
“No clues,” Unwin said. “But then, this was Sivart’s office.”
Emily checked the filing cabinets while Unwin searched the desk. In the top drawer, he found, forwarded according to Lamech’s demands, his personal effects: magnifying glass for small type, silver letter opener presented to him upon the completion of his tenth year of faithful service to the Agency, spare key to his apartment. The second drawer contained only a stack of typing paper. Unwin could not resist: he withdrew several sheets and rolled one of them into the typewriter. It was a good model, sleek and serious, with a dark green chassis, round black keys, and type bars polished to a silvery gleam. Thus far the typewriter was the only thing Unwin liked about being a detective.
“Empty,” Emily said, “all empty.” She had finished with the filing cabinets and was moving on to the shelves.
Unwin ignored her and checked his margins, adjusted the left and right stops (he liked them set precisely five-eighths of an inch from the edges of the page). He tested the tension of the springs by depressing, only slightly, a few of the more important keys: the E, the S, the space bar. They did not disappoint.
He pretended to type, moving his fingers over the keys without pressing them. How he wanted to begin his report! This, he might start, and lead from there on into morning, yes, This morning, after having purchased a cup of coffee, but no, not the coffee, he could not start with the coffee. How about I? From I one could really go anywhere at all. I am sorry to have to report would be nice, or I was accosted by one Detective Samuel Pith at Central Terminal, or I am a clerk, just a clerk, but I write from the too-big desk of a detective, no, no, I would not do at all, it was too personal, too presumptuous. Unwin would have to leave I out of it.
Emily was standing in front of him again, out of breath now. “There’s nothing here, sir. The custodian did a thorough job.”
That gave Unwin an idea. “Here,” he said, “let me show you an old clerk’s trick. It’s something of a trade secret among the denizens of the fourteenth floor.”