The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,71

the secrets of that place to which his completed case files, and the files of a hundred other clerks, were delivered each day, to be housed in perpetuity. All for the price of a roast beef on rye.

Of course Unwin never did anything of the sort. He was not a faker, not a sneak. At least he had been neither of those things until recently.

The elevator attendant had left him in a corridor one level below the subbasement. It ended at a small wooden door. Slowly, but not so slowly he would appear to be trespassing, Unwin opened it and stepped through.

The heart of the archives (for what else could this be?) smelled of cologne, of dust, of the withered-flower sweetness of old paper. Its ceiling, high as Central Terminal’s sweeping vaults, was hung with clusters of electric lamps shaded in green glass, and the walls were made entirely of file drawers. The drawers were of the older sort, with bronze handles and paneling of dark wood. Rolling library ladders, each seven times the height of a man, provided access throughout. Eight massive columns spanned the room, and these, too, were lined with file drawers and equipped with ladders.

Dozens of underclerks were at work here, browsing open drawers, jotting notes on index cards, ascending and descending ladders, wheeling them into new positions. They went back and forth between the files and a squat booth at the center of the room. Meanwhile, messengers in yellow suspenders appeared and disappeared through doors disguised to look like stacks of file drawers, some of them high in the walls. To access one of these, the messenger would climb a ladder, open the door with a telescoping pole he drew from his sack, then leap through the opening.

Unwin closed the door behind him—it, too, was disguised as a stack of file drawers—and walked along the wall searching for some indication of an organizational scheme. But the drawers were not labeled, nor were they divided into sections, alphabetical or otherwise. He chose one at waist height and opened it. The files were all dark blue, not the light brown he was accustomed to seeing. He removed one and found a card pasted to its front. Typed on the card were a series of phrases:

Stolen Journal

Jilted Lover

Vague Threats

Long-Lost Sister

Mysterious Double

The documents inside were formatted according to some method that was wholly unfamiliar to him. Pages of handwritten notes identified a client, described his meeting with an Agency representative, and gave an account of his suspicions and fears. But where were the clues? Who was the detective assigned to the case? How had the matter been resolved?

A nearby drawer slid open, and Unwin looked up to see an underclerk just a few steps away. The man grinned at him. He had round cheeks and wore a bowler hat and a scarlet cravat. Unwin returned the file and ran his fingers over the folder tabs, pretending to search for another.

But the underclerk came closer and bowed, and when Unwin did not look up at him, he bowed again, more deeply this time, and with the third bow he made a dispirited little huffing sound. Finally the underclerk spoke. “You must be the new fellow, yes, the new fellow?”

Unwin avoided answering by patting his palms against the folders and smiling.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?” The underclerk’s cheeks reddened. Apparently, the prospect of assisting someone else was a great embarrassment to him.

“You’re too kind.” Unwin did not want to ask this man about the phonograph record, but he had to tell him something, so he said, “I’m looking for the Sivart case files. The Colonel Baker case would be a good start.”

The underclerk frowned at that. “Sounds like you’ve got too many modifiers. What’s the primary correlative?”

Unwin considered. “Faked death,” he said.

The underclerk tapped one finger against his round, clean-shaven chin. “Now, I’ve been here almost two years, and I don’t recall . . .” His cheeks went redder, until they matched the color of his cravat. “What did you say your name was?” he asked.

Unwin coughed and waved his hand, and pretended to study the files again. The underclerk went away very quietly and quietly closed the drawer he had opened a minute before. Then he started off toward the center of the room with a quick, resolute pace, more like a messenger than an underclerk.

Unwin closed the drawer and followed. The underclerk saw him pursuing and walked faster, so Unwin began to run. The underclerk