The Journal of Jonathon Lindey From the main part of the journal - Page 5
The clerk asked if there was anyone else who could help me. I explained that the Census Bureau would like a copy of the report Mr McCandlass had written about the lack of births and deaths in Crystal Falls. The clerk scribbled a note and summoned up a messenger to carry it into the bowls of the building. I took a seat and endeavoured to read a newspaper lying on a nearby table. There was a report of the accident which confirmed the details provided by the clerk. After what seemed an age the messenger returned and murmured something to the clerk. The clerk beckoned me over and told me that permission had been granted to release the file. Unfortunately, no copy of the file could be found, although several people remembered the report from the time when the decision had been made not to investigate. The clerk thought it likely that the report had been misfiled and would turn up eventually. I, personally, was not so sanguine about the possibility. In that case, I asked, could I copy the registrar's returns for Crystal Falls? I was conducted to the reading room and once again given the bound volume I had studied the previous day - or a least part of it! For when I came to look I discovered all the records relating to Crystal Falls had been excised with a sharp knife. I called the clerk and he hurried over to look at the damage. Consulting his records he told me that the only people who had handled that volume in the last three months had been me and the now deceased former reading room clerk, both on the previous day. The only person who could have taken the pages, therefore, was the dead clerk. I was baffled. He had had ample time to remove the pages long before I entered the scene. Then why do so immediately after I'd read the summaries? It made no sense. Thanking the clerk I left and took a cab back to my office. My manager was out for the rest of the day so there was no one else I could discuss the problem with. Mechanically I went through my other work, my mind in a constant turmoil, trying to make sense of the whole affair, but with little success. It wasn't until I was eating my breakfast the following morning that it occurred to me that if the clerk had removed the pages immediately upon my leaving, then it was likely that he still had the pages on his person when he was killed. I finished my breakfast with such rapidity that I nearly choked on a particularly well done piece of toast, and set off post haste for the morgue. Arriving shortly after ten I enquired about the late clerk, having ascertained his name from the papers. The manager nodded sagely, he knew the body I was referring to - the head had been badly crushed by the blow from a iron shod hoof. In fact, he told me, referring to the visitors book, I was the second person to enquire about that body. Late yesterday one of the man's relatives had called, identified the body and collected all items found on the body. I cursed my tardiness in thinking of the matter and asked if they had a list of the effects and the address of the relative? The manager showed me a list of the effects and sure enough there was an entry '10 sheets paper (certificates?)'. The signature and address written in the book, though, turned out to be completely illegible, so there was no hope of following it up. Thanking the manager I made my way back to my office and spent the rest of the day, and part of the evening at my lodgings, writing up a report for my superiors. |
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