Photo: Paul Totzke
Welcome to Marginalia. While our stated goal is to keep everyone up to date with the services we provide here at the circulation desk, the general idea is to present the information in a light-hearted, but relevant manner.
(Theme Music)
“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.” Dashiell Hammett – ‘The Thin Man’.
Radio Noir Presents:
Raymond Marlowe, Private Investigator.
In
‘The Flitcraft Parable’
The name’s Marlowe and I’m a Private Investigator with the James M. Cain Detective Agency.
I’d been up all night working on ‘The Environmental Research Affair’. The boss had promised me a week off after solving the ‘Chinatown Caper’, but the Agency now thought the two cases were related and they desperately needed a solid lead. The job certainly looked simple enough – locate a missing document on Indigenous water rights and deliver it to a group of concerned stakeholders. Fortunately, I did have one clue to guide me; a severely crumpled piece of paper with an almost indecipherable series of oddly spaced numbers and letters scrawled across it (DMPLL-RM-171).
Thanks to a tip from an unnamed, but reliable source, I started the investigation with a visit to a top notch environmental lawyer named Calvin Sandborn, Q.C. (the Queen’s Counsel designation alone let you know right away that he was a man who knew a thing or two about a thing or two). Letting my fingers do the walking I tracked him down to a busy, well-staffed, second floor office inside the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. Sandborn was good, but he couldn’t do much more than direct me to the Circulation Desk at the Diana M. Priestly Law Library Circulation Desk one floor below.
I flashed my Community Borrower’s card and proceeded to query the on duty staff member about the missing information I needed to solve the case. She asked a few pertinent questions and politely suggested that I start my search with Alexander Burdett at the reference desk. Unfortunately, due to the upcoming influx of mid-term exams, there was an extremely long, rather nervous looking line of students in front of me, so I headed back to the circulation desk.
I asked for the location of any material on Indigenous water rights and she informed me that the majority of the items on the subject were in the process of being shipped over from the McPherson Library and they would arrive in a day of two. I took a chance and asked what else might be available on the subject. She checked the circulation module and noted that the remaining material was in the process of being collected for an Environmental Law Course ‘Research-A-Thon’ the following week and was therefore temporarily inaccessible.
As expected, the boss was none too happy about the turn of events and told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I enjoyed working for the James M. Cain Detective Agency on a regular basis I should locate the missing material ASAP.
Noting that the law library was open on weekends, I called early on Saturday morning and asked if a ‘HOLD’ could be placed on the requested material until I could pick it up. Unfortunately that type of request did not apply to items that were shelved in the reserve room. However, she smiled, the requested material would be ready by opening time on Sunday.
After reviewing the case file that night, I woke up early and headed over to the library by 10am. During a brief, but informative Q&A with the morning supervisor we eventually located the missing item on a book truck in the reserve room of the Law Library.
With the required document now firmly in hand, I asked about my options. The library staff member advised me that I could either check it out for two hours and/or photocopy the information. She then pointed out that, according to the official looking notice taped to the front of the the copier, I was limited to 10% of a copyrighted work or one entire chapter of a book. Seeing how I only needed one page I decided to purchase a vend card (on the company expense account of course) and copy both sides of the document.
It was only after I reached for my wallet that I remembered about the cryptic notation. I unfolded the note and studied the information on it (DMPLL-RM-171). Looking up, I noticed the sign behind the circulation desk and suddenly realized that the code was someone’s scribbled shorthand for the Diana M. Priestly Law Library Room 171.
Case closed.
The boss was ecstatic, the clients were euphoric, and my bonus covered a fifth of finely blended, imported Scotch Whiskey. Arriving home early, I set the radio dial to a local jazz station, cracked the seal, and carefully poured myself a healthy three-fingered shot. The only thing left to do now was to open my dog-eared copy of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and try, for at least the twenty-second time, to decipher that strange business about a character named Flitcraft and his fascination with falling beams.
It was getting late and I was just savouring the last drop of Scotch when it slowly dawned on me that Dashiell Hammett’s mysterious parable had everything to do with the idea of contentment.
(Theme Music)
Please be sure to join us for our next action packed adventure of ‘Raymond Marlowe, Private Investigator’, in ‘The Case of the Missing McGuffin’, right here on ‘Radio Noir Presents’.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
Prose: david eugene everard © 2019