The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,97

to Unwin. “You’re a clerk,” he said. “Write this down.”

Unwin took a pencil from his briefcase and waited.

“She came late one night to my home,” Baker began, “uninvited, unexpected. That Greenwood woman, from the carnival. I was busy at my polishing and would have shot her where she stood, if not for the plan she proposed. For a modest price, Enoch Hoffmann would oversee the faking of my death. It would be, she told me, the simplest of feats for the master illusionist. I saw immediately the advantages of such an arrangement.”

Screed leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Okay,” he said, “so Hoffmann helped you with the phony funeral. I read the rest of it in the papers. All to fool your son.”

The colonel took hold of the napkin and crushed it in his hand. His voice cracked as he said, “Leopold. My boy!”

“Easy now,” Screed said, looking to make sure Unwin was getting it all down. “What about your second death?”

The colonel dropped the napkin onto his plate. “Hoffmann betrayed me. He was the one who contacted my brother, told him where I was, what I’d planned. Reginald came to stop me, to claim my treasures.”

“You killed him,” Screed said. “You stabbed him with that dagger, eight times.”

“What a bore he was. How dreadful to see living boredom spilled from lips identical to yours. Forget the war, forget our childhood on the hilltop. Forget the hedgehog hunts; I despised them! Where was that, where?”

“You fled,” Screed said, trying to keep him on track.

“I was dead again, and a murderer besides. I went to City Park, to that old fort. It pleased me to go there sometimes, in the autumn. I took my son, once, to show him the view from the battlements.” The colonel chuckled to himself and drummed his hands against the edge of the table, as though to beat out the march of an approaching regiment.

Screed was at a loss. He sipped from his drink again, shaking his head.

“Sivart found you,” Unwin tried. “You fled to the bridge.”

“No, not to the bridge! To Hoffmann, to that carnival sideshow. He was in his tent at the fairgrounds, looking smug. There was a party going on. He invited me in, introduced me to the other guests. I remember there was a man who stood no taller than my knees, and some lascivious acrobats, and a woman with a hairless cat on a leash. I hated them all and showed them my teeth. He took me outside, sat me next to a fire, gave me a glass of brandy. I told him not to put on airs—anyone could see how lowly and mean were his circumstances. They say a magician never reveals his secrets, but out of spite he told me how he had encompassed my ruin.”

“They found your coat in the river,” Screed said.

“My son!” the colonel cried again, taking up the napkin and twisting it. “Greenwood found him. She was still working to finish Hoffmann’s trick.”

The man with the blond beard had come back into the restaurant, his napkin still tucked in his collar. He took in the scene instantly and came toward them with his beard thrust forward.

“Poor, poor Leopold,” the colonel said. “He thought his father was dead. Everyone suspected him. Greenwood found him and told him he was done for, gave him my old coat to wear. There was no escape for him. A little lion, my son, he always was. He put the coat on. I should have been the one to go to the bridge. Not he!”

“Stop this!” cried the man with the blond beard. He grabbed Screed by the shoulder. “You must end your investigation, close the case. Orders from up top.”

The three older gentlemen at the other table were looking around, troubled by all the noise but blind to its source. They spoke nervously in streams of inexplicable digits, their voices rising.

The colonel said, “Hoffmann would pose as my son, you see. It was the simplest of tricks for the master illusionist. I was dead, my brother was dead, and he would inherit everything. My collection, my home—he was going to throw nice parties there, he said. Not so lowly and mean anymore. He said he would drink brandy at my fireside.”

The man with the blond beard circled the table and tried to snatch Unwin’s pencil. Unwin kept hold of it until it snapped in two.

“He let me keep one thing,” the colonel said. “Any one thing of my choosing.”