The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry Read Free Book Online

to you,” he said, and stuffed it into his own pocket. “I better confirm it with Lamech.”
    “I believe that Mr. Lamech doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
    “Not by some kidney-foot clerk, maybe.” The detective snickered. “And this is the guy they got to replace Travis.”
    Unwin opened his mouth to protest but closed it once he understood what the detective had said. He, Unwin, was replacing Detective Sivart? He had neither the training nor the disposition required for the job. He was a clerk—a fine one, to be sure, and respected among his peers for his shrewd demeanor, his discerning eye, his encyclopedic knowledge of the elements of a case. He was tenacious in his way, insightful when he needed to be—but only into things already written down. He was no Sivart. And what had happened to Sivart, that he could need replacing?
    The detective pointed at him with his unlit cigarette. “I’ll be watching you, neighbor,” he said. He removed the handkerchief from his jacket pocket and used it to polish the outer knob of his office door, then the inner knob, too. When he realized that Unwin was watching him, he snapped, “I am an enemy to messiness in all its forms,” then stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. He threw the door closed behind him. The name on the glass was Benjamin Screed.
    Unwin tucked his umbrella under his arm and turned back to 2919. So this had been Sivart’s office, and now he was meant to occupy it. Meanwhile, the woman in the plaid coat had taken his place on the fourteenth floor. Did that make her his clerk? How would she busy herself until he filed his first report? At this rate she could be waiting for a very long time.

FOUR
    On Clues
    Most everything can be divided into two categories:
details and clues. Knowing one from the other is more
important than knowing your left shoe from your right.
     
     
     
    R oom 2919 was small and windowless. At the center of the office was a desk, its surface covered with balled-up sheets of typing paper. The lamp was on. Seated with her head slumped over the back of the chair was a round-faced young woman, thick red hair bound up with a pin at the top of her head. Crooked small teeth were just visible between her parted lips. Her plump, short-fingered hands were limp across the keyboard of the typewriter.
    Was it Unwin’s fate to go from one office to another discovering a fresh corpse in each of them? No—this woman was not dead. He saw now the soft rise and fall of her shoulders, heard the sound of her snoring. Unwin cleared his throat, but the woman did not stir. He drew closer, peering over the desk to see what she had been typing.
     
    Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep.
    The phrase was repeated over half the page, but at last she had written:
     
    Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall
     
    Unwin removed his hat and cleared his throat again.
    The woman twisted in her chair and shifted her head from her left shoulder to her right. Her hair tumbled free of the pin that held it in place, and a few strands stuck to her lipstick. The light from the desk lamp flashed in her eyeglasses but did not wake her. She began to snore more loudly.
    Unwin reached over and pressed the typewriter’s carriage release. The platen flew to the end of the line with a clatter, and the bell sounded high and clear. The woman woke and sat straight in her chair. “I don’t know any songs for this,” she said.
    “Songs for what?”
    She blinked behind her glasses, which were too big for her girlish face. She could not have been much older than Unwin was on his first day at the Agency. “Are you Detective Unwin?” she asked.
    “Yes, I’m Unwin.”
    She rose and swept her hair back up on her head, fixing it in place—not with a pin, Unwin now saw, but with a sharpened pencil. She said, “I’m your assistant, Emily Doppel.”
    She straightened her