The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,40
when he is looking away.
Miss Greenwood climbed out onto the fire escape and balanced on the toes of her high-heeled shoes as she descended the precipitous steps. Unwin was about to call her name again when he remembered something he had heard about the dangers of waking a sleepwalker. He imagined her eyes popping open, a moment of confusion, a foreshortened cry. . . .
He dreaded the thought of going back into the rain, but he gathered his things and followed her down two flights of steps, past the dark windows of other hotel rooms. At the bottom he found his bicycle chained to the base of the fire escape. He did not have time to unlock it and bring it with him—Miss Greenwood was already on her way out of the alley. He caught up with her on the sidewalk and opened his umbrella over both their heads.
Was this what she had in mind when she said she wanted to hire him? On the next block he followed her past the sweeping limestone facade of the Municipal Museum as the rain dampened the cuffs of his slacks and the wind wrestled with his umbrella. She turned right at the next corner and led them away from City Park, then headed north. On that block a man came out of an apartment building with a sack over his shoulder. He drew up alongside them, and Unwin saw he was dressed only in his bathrobe. His eyes, like Miss Greenwood’s, were unreadable. From within his sack—nothing more than a pillowcase—came the ticking of clocks, maybe a hundred of them.
Other sleepers joined them as they walked, women and men of varying ages in varying states of disarray, pajamaed, underdrawered, dripping. All bore sacks of alarm clocks over their shoulders, and all seemed to know where they were going.
Unwin felt he had stumbled into the mystery he was supposed to be solving, the one to which Lamech had planned to assign him. He suddenly hated that smug, silent corpse on the thirty-sixth floor. He wanted nothing to do with this mystery, but all he could do was allow himself to be dragged along by its current.
They walked ten, twelve, fifteen blocks. At the north end of town, they came to a part of the city that did not seem to belong to the city at all. Here a broad stone wall girded a wide, hilly expanse. A pair of iron gates, two stories tall, had been left open to allow the sleeping congregation through. The sycamores lining the drive beyond dropped samaras that spun in the rain as they fell.
At the top of the hill crouched a grand, high-gabled house. Lights shone in every window, illuminating stretches of wild gardens all around. The place seemed familiar to Unwin—had Sivart described it in one of his reports? Above the door was a sign depicting a fat black cat seated with the moon at his back, a cigar in one paw and a cocktail glass in the other. Written in an arc over the moon were the words CAT & TONIC. Unwin was sure he had never heard of it.
Beneath the portico a line of sleepers awaited admittance into the club. Unwin’s group joined the line, and others gathered behind them.
A butler ushered them inside, welcoming each guest with a sleepy nod.
“What is this?” Unwin asked him, collapsing his umbrella. “What’s going on?”
The butler did not seem to understand the question. He blinked a few times, then squinted at Unwin as though from a great distance.
The crowd pushed forward, and Unwin was driven into the club. The entry hall was dominated by a wide staircase. Most of the guests proceeded into a room on the right. It was a gambling parlor, and attendants and players alike were sleeping. There were no chips. Instead the players pushed heaps of alarm clocks over the tables. When the house had won enough of the clocks, butlers carted them away in wheelbarrows.
Emily was here among the players, dressed in yellow pajamas. Her face looked smaller without her glasses, and the rain had turned her hair a dark copper color. She had her own sack of alarm clocks, and for the moment she seemed to be winning. She laughed aloud, revealing her small crooked teeth. Others in the room, after a delay, laughed with her. Unwin felt as though he were looking into an aquarium: everyone in it breathed the same water, but sound and sense moved slowly among them.