enemy,” she said.
Unwin looked at his lap. Miss Greenwood was his enemy, of course. But now that they were speaking plainly, he found himself wishing it could be otherwise. Was this how Sivart had felt, each time he got her wrong?
She said, “I went to Lamech because I thought he would know what had happened to Sivart. I was concerned. Naturally, I was surprised when I found you sitting there.”
“You hid it very well.”
“Old habits,” she said.
The telephone rang. It gleamed black against the stark white sheet and seemed louder for the contrast.
Miss Greenwood looked suddenly tired again. “Too soon,” she said.
“If you have to answer it—”
“No!” she said. “Don’t you answer it either.”
So they sat staring at the telephone, waiting for the ringing to stop. Miss Greenwood swayed a little and breathed deeply, as though fighting off nausea. Unwin counted eleven rings before the caller gave up.
Miss Greenwood’s eyes fluttered closed, and she fell back onto the bed. The quiet of the room was total. He could not hear the movements of the other hotel guests, could not hear their voices. Where was the noise of automobile traffic? He wished idly for any sound at all, for even a cat to call out from the alleyway.
Unwin rose from his chair and said Miss Greenwood’s name, but she did not stir. He shook her shoulder—no response.
At a time like this, he thought, Sivart would take the opportunity to investigate. Perhaps he ought to do the same. He lifted Miss Greenwood’s drink and sniffed it, but for what, he was not sure. The ice had nearly melted—that was all he could deduce. With his foot he raised the lid on her suitcase and saw that the clothes inside were neatly folded.
He brought the glass into the kitchenette, left it in the sink. Was Miss Greenwood, like his assistant, the victim of some sleeping sickness? Nothing of the kind had ever been mentioned in Sivart’s reports. Perhaps her exhaustion had simply overtaken her. But what could have made her so tired?
He watched her lying on the bed—her breaths came slowly, as though her sleep were a deep one. He wondered whether he should cover her with the sheet or remove her shoes. Miss Greenwood had seemed, for a moment, generous with him. He would have to wait for her to wake up, and hope she would still be willing to talk.
He sat beside her and, without thinking, drew The Manual of Detection from his briefcase and opened it on his lap. He found the section Detective Pith had recommended to him that morning at Central Terminal, on page ninety-six.
If the detective does not maintain secrets of his own—if he does not learn firsthand the discipline required to keep a thing hidden from everyone he knows, and pay the personal costs incurred by such an endeavor—then he will never succeed in learning the secrets of others, nor does he deserve to. It is a long road that stretches from what a person says to what a person hides by saying it. He who has not mapped the way for himself will be forever lost upon it.
Unwin could picture himself on that road: a narrow avenue between tall rows of tenements, just a few lights on in each building, and all the doors locked. In both directions the road went all the way down to the horizon.
Did Unwin have any secrets of his own? Only that he was not really a detective, that he had been making unofficial trips for unofficial reasons—that he had considered, for a moment long enough to buy the ticket, abandoning everything he knew. But those secrets were liabilities.
When he glanced from the book, he was startled to find Miss Greenwood sitting up in bed. She carefully smoothed the front of her dress with her hands.
“You’re awake,” he said.
She did not reply. Her eyes were open, but she did not seem to see him as she rose from the bed. She went across the room without speaking.
“Miss Greenwood,” he said, getting up again. He put the Manual back in his briefcase.
Ignoring him, she went to the window and unlatched it. Before he could reach her, she had thrown the window open. The chill autumn air pervaded the room immediately, and rain blew in from the alley, dampening everything.
EIGHT
On Surveillance
It is the most obvious of mandates, to keep one’s eyes
open, but the wakefulness required of the detective is not
of the common sort. He must see without seeming
to see, and watch even