The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,35
should take some time off now. Lie low, as they say.”
Emily stood with him under his umbrella. She moved in very close and reached a hand up to his chest. He felt as he had that morning, in the office on the twenty-ninth floor—that the two were shut in together, without enough space between them. He could smell her lavender perfume. She was unbuttoning his jacket.
Unwin stepped away, but Emily held to his jacket. Then he saw why. He had put the buttons in the wrong holes, and she was fixing his mistake. She undid the rest of the buttons, then straightened the sides and refastened them.
When she was finished, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, lifting her face toward his. “Those closest to you,” she said, “those to whom you trust your innermost thoughts and musings, are also the most dangerous. If you fail to treat them as enemies, they are certain to become the worst you have. Lie if you have to, withhold what you can, and brook no intimacy which fails to advance the cause of your case.”
Unwin swallowed. “That sounds familiar.”
“It ought to,” she said. She opened her eyes and patted his briefcase. “Don’t worry, I put your book back where I found it. And I only took a peek. I think that page is especially interesting. Don’t you?”
Emily closed the trunk and went around the car. He followed her with the umbrella, holding it over her head until she was inside. She rolled down her window and said, “There’s something I’ve been wondering about, Detective Unwin. Say we do find Sivart. What will happen to you?”
“I’m not sure. This may be my only case.”
“What about me, then?”
Unwin looked at his feet. He could think of nothing to say.
“That’s what I thought,” Emily said. She rolled up the window, and Unwin stepped aside as she pulled away from the curb. He watched the car veer down a street into the park and vanish among the trees, heard its gears shifting. When it was gone, he walked his bicycle across the street to the hotel, found an alleyway beside it, and left it chained to a fire escape.
Not until he had entered the hotel lobby and exchanged nods with the desk clerk did he realize that Emily had admitted to knowing his reason for coming here, even though he had never mentioned Miss Greenwood’s name.
THE WOMAN WHO HAD introduced herself as Vera Truesdale answered her door on the second knock. She wore the same old-fashioned dress, black with lace collar and cuffs, but it was wrinkled now. Her hair was down, wavy and tousled. There were streaks of white in it that Unwin had failed to notice that morning. In the room beyond, the little lace cap lay folded on the pillow, and a black telephone was sunk in the folds of the untidy bed.
Her red-rimmed eyes were wide open. “Mr. Lamech,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to come in person.”
“All part of the job,” Unwin said.
She took his coat and hat, then closed the door behind him and went into the kitchenette. “I have some scotch, I think, and some soda water.”
What had he read in the Manual, about poisons and their antidotes? Not enough to take any chances. “Nothing for me, thanks.”
Unwin glanced around the room. An unfastened suitcase lay on a chair, and her purse was on the table beside it. In Lamech’s office she had said she arrived in the city about three weeks ago—that much may have been true. But in a corner of the room, on a table of its own, was an electric phonograph. Had she brought this with her, too, or purchased it after she arrived? A number of records were stacked beside it.
She came back with a drink in her hand and pointed to one of the two windows. Both offered dismal views of the building beside the hotel, an alley’s width away. “That’s the one that’s always open in the morning,” she said, “even though I lock it at night.”
The window gave out onto the fire escape. Unwin examined the latch and found it sturdy. He wondered how long he could get away with this impersonation. Miss Greenwood might already have found him out and was only playing along. He would have to take risks while he still could.
“Do you mind if I put something on the phonograph?”
“I suppose not,” she said, nearly making it a question.