The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,84

our efforts. And forget that none of our finest operatives would risk half a minute in that man’s mind. Sivart felt there was something unfinished between them.

“I couldn’t stop him from going, so I helped him break some rules instead. First, I told him who his clerk was. He’s built up a lot of respect for you over the years, Mr. Unwin, and he thinks you’re the one to help him. He said you know things no one else knows about him—details from his reports that didn’t make it into the files because they weren’t relevant to the case. Things you would have cut, but which matter now. He wouldn’t tell me what they were, of course.

“Second, I notified Miss Palsgrave I’d need a new recording made and that I didn’t want it cataloged in the third archive. I asked her to send it to me directly, so that I could give it to you. I just hope it’s enough.”

The carnival bore a likeness to Caligari’s Travels-No-More, with buildings shaped like enormous animal heads, striped tents topped with pennants, and row upon row of gaming booths. This carnival, however, appeared to be in perfect working order: no flooded causeways, no broken rides, no collapsed pavilions. The place had an ethereal quality, its every part emanating that pale glow and seeming to swell and shiver as though touched by a wind Unwin could not feel on his own dreamed skin. The music came from everywhere at once, and the clouds above were lit like B-movie ghosts.

Lamech walked more slowly now, taking care with every step. “This place isn’t what you think it is,” he said. “At least not exactly. We’ve been unable to pinpoint the precise location of Hoffmann’s mind, so each of these structures marks only one possibility. He leaves echoes of himself wherever he goes, to throw us off his trail. The people represented here may be among the remnants of Caligari’s. Or worse, they are ordinary folk who don’t know they’ve been touched by the magician’s hand. In recent weeks, especially since Sivart’s departure, this area has expanded dramatically.”

They were nearing what must have been the center of the carnival. The cars of the nearby big wheel groaned on their axes as they slowly revolved. Lamech stopped walking and spun in a circle, surveying his surroundings. The woman in the plaid coat retreated around the edge of a ticket booth but kept the watcher in sight.

“I am loath to admit that its appearance is not of my choosing,” he said. “Hoffmann’s power is such that he determines his own semblance, even in the minds of others. Believe me, it’s a damn annoyance. And I don’t much care for the music either.”

The warmth of the bed in the third archive was gone from Unwin’s senses—only the cold light of the carnival was real to him now; that, and the rain thumping against his umbrella and spattering his shoes. His socks were getting wet. His socks were always getting wet, even in his sleep.

“There,” Lamech said.

Unwin followed his gaze to a squat building with a wide set of stairs leading to a windowed gallery. Inside, the carnival landscape appeared reflected and fractured along seemingly endless corridors—a hall of mirrors. Lamech himself was replicated dozens of times over, his body distorted or broken into pieces: an arm here, a leg there, his gut over there. Unwin had no reflection, but for a moment he glimpsed another form moving among the panels: a hat, a gray raincoat, the ember of a cigar.

Lamech jogged quickly toward it, puffing a little, and Unwin was at his side. By the time they reached the building, the image was gone. Lamech put one foot up on the bottom step and leaned on his knee. They waited.

“Hoffmann probably caught him as soon as he set foot in there,” Lamech said. “All he has to do now is stay asleep to keep him prisoner. But it’s worse than that, much worse. The longer Sivart is trapped, the less his mind is his own. Hoffmann will learn all that he knows, subsuming his identity along with his thoughts. In the end, Sivart will be nothing, a vegetable. Or a witless pawn subject wholly to the magician’s will.”

Sivart reappeared. There were many copies of him, all tiny—he must have been deep inside the hall of mirrors, and what they saw was an image a dozen times reflected. He seemed to see them, too, because he crouched and tilted his hat