He looked around; no one was listening. He was the only person awake, but he might as well have been alone and dreaming. He wanted, suddenly, to tell her everything.
“That morning,” he said, “the morning I first saw you. Something was different. No one was on the streets. At first I couldn’t understand why. Then I realized that I hadn’t turned off my alarm clock. I hadn’t needed to. I’d woken hours before it was set to ring, hours before I should have been awake. The day hadn’t started yet, and there I was, ready for work.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d already made it halfway to the office by the time I figured out what had happened. I was standing outside Central Terminal. I’ve never had to take the train anywhere, because I’ve lived in this city my entire life. But suddenly I knew I could never go to work again. I really don’t know why.”
“Why,” said the woman in the plaid coat.
“Well, because Enoch Hoffmann was gone,” Unwin said. “The Rook brothers, Cleopatra Greenwood, they’d all left. Sivart’s reports were—only reports. I could tell he didn’t care about the work anymore. What was the point?”
“The point.”
“Yes, I’m coming to it. I went into the terminal. I bought a cup of coffee and drank most of it. It was awful. I took a schedule of trains from the information booth, and I even bought a ticket. I was going to go into the country, and I was never coming back. Sivart had imagined his cottage in the woods—why shouldn’t I have mine? By then it was twenty-six minutes after seven in the morning. That’s when I saw you. You came through the revolving doors at the east end of the terminal, and you went to Gate Fourteen and waited. I watched you. I pretended to look at my train schedule, but all I could do was watch you. And when the train arrived, and no one came to meet you, and you turned around and went back into the city, I knew—just as certainly as I had known a moment before that I could never go back to work—that I would go back to work, that I could not leave the city. Not while you were in it, left alone to wait.”
“Wait,” said the woman in the plaid coat.
“I will,” Unwin said. “I have a bicycle that I clean and oil every day, and I have a hat that I’ll never part with. My umbrella does everything it’s supposed to do. I have a train ticket, and I keep it in my pocket, just in case that person you’re waiting for ever gets back. But what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I still don’t know your name.”
The woman in the plaid coat was applauding—all the guests were. Unwin turned to look at the stage. Miss Greenwood had joined the musicians. She went to the microphone, and the music struck up, slow and somber. Arthur leaned into his accordion as he played, and in his hands it breathed like a living thing. The words Miss Greenwood sang were unfamiliar to Unwin, except for the refrain, which he knew from somewhere. Maybe he had heard it on the radio. Yes, it might have been the song that was playing in Zlatari’s kitchen, behind the curtain in the Forty Winks.
Still I hear that old song
And I’m sure I belong
In my dream of your dream of me.
Applause rose up again, and several guests threw long-stemmed roses onto the stage. She caught a few of the flowers and let the others fall at her feet. Unwin clapped, too.
“Mr. Charles Unwin?”
He turned in his seat. Detective Pith, very much awake and still in his herringbone suit, stood at his shoulder. “You,” growled Pith. “Outside. Now.”
Unwin rose from his chair and followed the detective from the room. They went outside and stood under the portico, where a few sleepwalkers were quietly puffing on cigars and mumbling insensibly to one another. Pith swung his hat as though he were going to hit him. “Damn it, Unwin, are you trying to get us both killed? What are you doing here? You came with Greenwood, didn’t you? This is no good, Unwin, no good at all. Screed’s trying to pin a murder on you, and now you’re hanging around with Greenwood.”
“I’m trying to find Sivart,” Unwin said. “I thought she might know where he went.”
“The Agency’s through with the guy. If word gets out that you’re looking for him, it could bother people high up, and I mean very high up. People you don’t want to bother.”
Unwin fiddled with his umbrella; he could not get the clasp buttoned.
“Now, I didn’t expect to see you out in the field yet. That takes guts, Unwin, I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t take brains. You should have spent a day or two with your copy of the Manual. Have you read a word of it yet? If you want my advice, you’ll get out of here and forget about the Cat & Tonic, forget about Cleo Greenwood. Talking the way you were in there! Do you know how long it took to set up this sting?”
The door burst open, and the Rook brothers stepped outside. Unwin immediately closed his eyes, then opened them enough to see what was happening. Pith was doing the same. But Jasper and Josiah went straight to him.
“My brother,” Jasper said to Detective Pith, “has advised me to advise you to quit the somnambulism act.”
Pith opened his eyes, and Unwin sidled over to where the others were smoking cigars. A sleepwalker offered him one, and he took it.
“Good evening, gents,” said Pith. “I thought I was having a bad dream. Looks like I’m having two at once.”
Jasper pointed toward the sycamores, and Pith started walking. They went two dozen paces from the house, and then Jasper told him to stop. Pith looked directly at Unwin and said loudly enough for him to hear, “You’re done for, you louts. We have our best people working on this. Our very best.”
Josiah drew a pistol from his coat, and Detective Pith took off his hat and held it over his heart. Josiah put the gun against the hat and fired once. Pith fell face-up in the rain.
AT THE SOUND OF THE SHOT, the cigar smokers started walking in circles and muttering but did not wake. The Rooks carried Pith’s body to where their steam truck was parked. The bed was loaded with ticking clocks, and the alarm bells clinked sullenly under Pith’s weight.
The Rooks had Edwin Moore, too. He was still in his gray museum attendant’s uniform and lay beside Pith, bound at the wrists and ankles. The old man was unconscious and shivering. How long had they kept him out in the rain?
The Rooks were coming back up the drive now. Unwin ran inside. A crowd of sleepwalkers was streaming through the curtained door, troubled and confused by the sound of the gunshot. He pushed through them and climbed the stairs, looking for a place to hide. He opened the first door he saw and went through it.
The room was wallpapered in a dark red pattern. A fire burned in the hearth, crackling and warm. On the back wall was hung an array of antique weapons, swords and sidearms rivaling the collection at the Municipal Museum. Now he understood why he had recognized this place. It was the mansion that had once belonged to Colonel Sherbrooke Baker, and this the very room where he had murdered his brother. Here was the precious hoard, complete and perfectly maintained. Had his son Leopold kept it through the years?
No: one object did not belong with the Baker estate. In a glass case on its own table, small and shriveled and yellow, lay the Oldest Murdered Man, the real one. Unwin had stumbled upon the trophy room of Enoch Hoffmann.
Two wingback chairs were angled toward the hearth. In one of them sat a short man in blue pajamas with red trim. He turned his squarish face toward Unwin and with lidded eyes seemed to see. He held a brandy snifter in one hand and gestured for Unwin to sit, then poured a second glass and set it on the pedestal table.
What a fool Unwin had been, mourning for all those years the disappearance of the nefarious biloquist. No report could be worth this encounter.
Hoffmann offered him a cigar cutter, and Unwin realized he was still holding the cigar the sleepwalker had given him outside. He set it down on the table. “Mr. Hoffmann,” he said, “I really don’t want to be your rival.”
Hoffmann chuckled to himself, or maybe snored. He picked up a cigar and clipped it.
“I don’t want to know if you killed Edward Lamech,??
? Unwin went on. “Or whose body is in the museum, or what you want with Edwin Moore. I don’t even want to know what you’re planning to do with all those alarm clocks. I just want to find Detective Sivart so I can have my old job back.”
Hoffmann shrugged. He lit the cigar and puffed at it. Then he raised his glass as though in toast and waited until Unwin raised his own. The glasses met, and they drank. The brandy was hot on Unwin’s lips.
“If you can’t tell me where he is,” Unwin said, “then maybe you can tell me something about one of your guests. She always wears a plaid coat.”
Hoffmann leapt out of his chair and threw his brandy snifter into the fire. The glass exploded, and the flames burst from the hearth. Then Hoffmann leaned against the mantelpiece, head cradled in his arms, shoulders heaving.
Unwin rose and went to him. He wanted to stop himself but found he could not. He put one hand on the magician’s shoulder. Hoffmann spun and glared at him with unopen eyes.
The brandy was still burning its way toward Unwin’s stomach. “Please,” he said, and what he wanted to say was, Please, don’t wake up, but the words were stuck in his throat and the brandy erased them. Unwin stumbled backward, and the fire leapt again, and the music of accordion and rubber band swelled from below.
Gagging on brandy and smoke, Unwin fled from the room, following the music.
Downstairs everyone was dressed so well. He loosened his collar and took a few deep breaths, feeling his pulse slow. He was glad he had finally joined the party. Emily Doppel came from the gaming room, and the man who accompanied her was no longer shirtless; in fact, he wore a double-breasted suit of a very fine cut. When she saw Unwin, she pushed her escort away and came up to him. “What do you think of the dress?” she asked.
It was black, cut low in the front, and reached nearly to the floor. It was, Unwin meant to say, very flattering. The words failed him, but she smiled, took his hand, and led him to the dance floor. He still had his umbrella, so he hooked it over his wrist while they waltzed.
Emily laughed at him. “Admit it,” she said. “You need me. You wouldn’t be able to do any of this without me. You don’t have to lie, Detective Unwin. You can trust me with your innermost thoughts and musings.” She laughed again and added, “I’m a trustworthy gal!”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Unwin lied.
“I’m so glad we can finally say these things. It’s different here, don’t you think? Different from the office? And the car?” She was leading him in the dance, and he was thankful for it, because he was no better at dancing than he was at driving.
“Do you come here often?” he asked.
She looked around. “I’m really not sure.”
“We’re dreaming,” he said. “I wasn’t before, but now I am. We both are.”
“You’re sweet,” Emily said. “Listen. Why don’t you tell me why you’re so interested in Cleopatra Greenwood? What’s she got that’s so special? Is she in on it, do you think? How do you know I’m not in on it? Don’t ignore me, Detective Unwin.”
He had caught sight of the woman in the plaid coat, still alone at her table. Unlike everyone else in the room, she wore the same clothes as before: a plain blue nightgown, blue slippers. Unwin noticed these kinds of things. He was a meticulous dreamer. “Excuse me,” he said to Emily, and walked off the dance floor.
“Hey!” his assistant called after him.
He went up to the woman in the plaid coat. She was sitting with her legs crossed, watching the dancers. Her eyes were open now, gray and cool. They took Unwin in as he approached, and he struggled to keep balanced. It felt as though he were walking on sand while waves crashed about his legs.
“I don’t remember inviting you,” said the woman in the plaid coat.
“Isn’t this Hoffmann’s party?”
She sipped her milk. “Is that what he told you?”
The woman in the plaid coat seemed to know more than he knew. The revelation left him feeling helpless and strangely betrayed. “I thought I’d dragged you into something dangerous,” he said, steadying himself with his umbrella. “But it’s the other way around, isn’t it? Who are you?”
She was starting to look annoyed with him. “It’s too soon for us to speak,” she said. “You haven’t finished your report.”
“My report?”
She sighed and looked at one of her slippered feet. “I am your clerk, you know.”
The music had climbed to a new pitch, and the dancers swerved wildly over the floor. Arthur, the accordionist, bellowed while he played. Unwin turned to see the bassist’s rubber band snap and fly across the room—with that, the set was over.
When he looked back, the woman in the plaid coat was gone. The party was ending, everyone was saying goodbye. What had happened to Emily? He had been rude to leave her on the dance floor alone.
Miss Greenwood found him and took his arm. “A few of us are headed back to my place,” she said.
The butler nodded to them as they went out the door, and a dozen people congratulated Miss Greenwood on her performance. The man in the double-breasted suit was among them, but Emily was not. They went down among the sycamores together, and a bald man in a tuxedo grabbed a handful of fallen samaras and threw them into the air. They spun down around their heads, and he shouted, “Crazy little propellers!”
They returned to the Gilbert Hotel and climbed the fire escape to Miss Greenwood’s room. The man in the tuxedo popped open a bottle of champagne, and they drank. Miss Greenwood laughed and dropped long-stemmed roses everywhere. Then the man in the tuxedo and the man in the double-breasted suit started fighting about which of them had given Miss Greenwood more flowers. After the first sloppy punches were thrown, she kicked them both out.
“I’m going to forget all of this,” she said to Unwin. “He uses me, uses my voice, but keeps me in the dark. So you’ll have to remember for both of us. That’s why I hired you. To remember.”
Unwin left. It was cold outside, and the walk was a long one. He could not tell if he was awake or asleep now—shadows fell at the wrong angles, and the streets curved where they should have been straight. The cold was real enough, however. His hand was a ball of ice around the handle of his umbrella. At last he found the narrow green door of his own apartment building and went upstairs.
A trail of red and orange leaves led from the door all the way into the bathroom.
Detective Sivart was in the tub. The water looked cold and was covered with leaves: a dark little pond. “This channel’s closed to us now, Charlie. That woman, I was wrong about her. She broke my heart. Look.” He pulled a torn leaf out of the water and slapped it onto his chest. It stuck fast.
When Unwin woke, he was on his bed, still wearing his clothes. His head throbbed, his alarm clock was missing, and someone was in the kitchen, making breakfast.
NINE
On Documentation
It is not enough to say that you have had a hunch.
Once written down, most such inklings reveal
themselves for what they are: something to be
tossed into a wishing well, not into a file.
The theft of November twelfth: who can think upon that black patch of the mind, lingering where a memory might be, and not feel cold, lost to it? It seeps like ink along the grooves of the fingertips. Who has not tried to scrub it away?
I was like the rest of you, Sivart wrote in his report. Hoodwinked. Taken in. But then I had a hunch that morning, over breakfast. So what if hunches are against policy? I had one, clerk, and I acted on it. Lucky thing, too—for all of us.
No one hired the Agency to solve the crime, because no one knew that it had been committed. Unwin went to sleep on Monday, November eleventh, and woke up on Wednesday, November thirteenth. He rode his bicycle the seven blocks to the Agency offices. He had been a faithful employee for eleven years, four months, and some-odd days, and it had never occurred to him, at this point in his career, to make unofficial trips for unofficial reasons.
&n
bsp; On the fourteenth floor, the messengers brought no new assignment for him, so he passed the morning putting the finishing touches on a case from the previous week. It still needed a title. Unwin liked titles, even though the Agency filing system did not require them. Each case was numbered, and only the numbers were used in the official logs. Still, naming cases was a small and harmless pleasure, and occasionally useful, too. If a fellow clerk had a question about one case or another, using the name could save them both time.
Unwin was still pondering the possibilities over lunch. He had brought a sandwich with him in his briefcase. It was turkey and cheese on rye, his Wednesday sandwich. No better way to pass a Wednesday, he thought, than pondering titles over turkey and cheese on rye.
Nothing about this case had made it into the papers, so the clerks at neighboring desks had their eyes on Unwin’s work whenever they thought he was not paying attention. He was always paying attention, though. Only when the file was completed, and for Unwin that meant titled, would his colleagues become privy to its contents.
As he finished his lunch, he became aware of an unusual number of telephone conversations taking place on the floor. Most of the other clerks were hunched over mouthpieces, mumbling. He sensed in their voices a mixture of fear and incredulity.
Were the families and friends of his colleagues calling to find out about his case? This was unprecedented. Unwin crushed his lunch bag and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. He knew by then what he was going to call the file—The Episode of the Facing Mirrors, after the case’s most significant clue—but this show of discourtesy convinced him to delay the final processing for at least another hour.
More telephone calls came in while Unwin sorted papers and vetted old notes. Those who received the calls began to confer with one another, leaning over the aisles to whisper. If he had been deep in a case, Unwin would have found this immensely distracting.