Luker and Sid, less inhibited, merely glanced at the photograph and averred that they hadn’t seen the subjects in their lives.
Dalgliesh looked at the three of them. Sid had the pained, rather anxious look of an underfed little boy, hopelessly at sea in the world of wicked adults. Dalgliesh thought that Luker might be secretly laughing if the man had ever been known to laugh. Lil was looking at him with the encouraging, motherly, almost pitying look which, he thought bitterly, was usually reserved for her customers. There was nothing more to be learned from them. He thanked them for their help-he suspected that the note of cool irony wasn’t lost on Luker-and let himself out.
3
When Dalgliesh had left, Luker jerked his head at Sid. The little man left without a word or a backward glance. Luker waited until his footsteps had been heard going downstairs. Lil, alone with the boss, showed no particular anxiety but settled herself more comfortably in the shabby armchair on the left of the gas fire and watched him with eyes as bland and incurious as the eyes of a cat. Luker went to a wall safe. She watched his broad back as he stood there, motionless, turning the combination lock. When he turned round she saw that he held a small parcel, the size of a shoebox, covered with brown paper and loosely tied with thin white string. He laid it on his desk.
“Have you seen this before?” he asked.
Lil disdained to show curiosity. “It came for you by this morning’s post, didn’t it? Sid took it in. What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. On the contrary it is an admirable parcel. I’ve undone it once, as you can see, but it was a very neat little job when it arrived. You see the address? L. J. Luker, Esq., The Cortez Club. W. 1. Neat capital letters, characterless, printed in Biro. Not very easy to identify that hand. I like the esquire. My family is not armigerous as it happens, so the writer is being a little pretentious but as he shares that failing with my income tax inspector and half the tradesmen in Soho, we can hardly consider it a clue. Then there’s the paper. Perfectly ordinary brown paper; you can buy it in sheets from any stationer. And the string. Do you see anything remarkable about the string, Lil?”
Lil, watchful, admitted that there was nothing remarkable about the string.
Luker went on: “What is rather strange, though, is the amount of postage he-or she-paid. At least a shilling on the generous side by my estimate. So we take it that the parcel was stamped outside a post office and then pushed over the counter at a busy time. No waiting for it to be weighed. There would be less chance of the customer being noticed that way.”
“Where was it posted?”
“In Ipswich on Saturday. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Only that it was posted a hell of a long way from here. Isn’t Ipswich near that place where they found Maurice Seton?”
“The nearest large town to Monksmere. The nearest place where one could be certain of being unrecognised. You could hardly post this in Walberswick or Southwold and expect that no one would remember.”
“For God’s sake, L. J.! What’s in it?”
“Open it and see for yourself.”
Lil advanced cautiously but with an assumption of unconcern. There were more layers of the brown wrapping paper than she had expected. The box itself was revealed as an ordinary white shoebox but with the labels torn away. It looked very old, the kind of box that could be found tucked away in a drawer or cupboard in almost any house. Lil’s hands hovered over the lid.
“If there’s some bloody animal in here that jumps out at me I’ll kill you, L. J., God help me if I don’t. I hate damn silly jokes. What’s the stink, anyway?”
“Formalin. Go on, open it.”
He was watching her closely, the cold grey eyes interested, almost amused. He had her worried now. For a second her eyes met his. Then she stepped back from the desk and, reaching forward, flipped off the lid with one jerk of her wrist.
The sweetly acrid smell rose like an anaesthetic. The severed hands were lying on their bed of damp cotton wool curved as if in a parody of prayer, palms touching briefly, finger tips pressed together. The puffy skin, what was left of it, was chalk white and so crumpled that it looked as if the phalanges were loosely clothed with a pair of old gloves which would peel off at a touch. Already the flesh was shrinking from the butchered wrists and the nail of the right index finger had shifted from its bed.
The woman stared at the hands, fascinated and repelled. Then she seized the lid of the box and rammed it home. The cardboard buckled under her force.
“It wasn’t murder, L. J. I swear it! Digby hadn’t anything to do with it. He hasn’t the nerve.”
“That’s what I would have said. You’ve told me the truth, Lil?”
“Of course. Every word, L. J. Look, he couldn’t have done it. He was in the nick all Tuesday night.”
“I know all about that. But if he didn’t send these, who did? He stood to make £200,000, remember.”
Lil said suddenly: “He said that his brother would die. He told me that once.” She gazed at the box, fascinated and horrified.
Luker said: “Of course he was going to die. Some time. He had a dicky heart, didn’t he? That’s not to say Digby put him away. It was natural causes.”
Lil may have detected some tinge of uncertainty in his voice. She glanced at him and said quickly: “He’s always been keen to come in with you, L. J. You know that. And he’s got £200,000.”
“Not yet. And he may never get his hands on it. I don’t want a fool in with me, capital or no capital.”
“If he put Maurice away and made it look like natural death, he’s not all that of a fool, L. J.”
“Maybe not. Let’s wait and see if he gets away with it.”
“And what about… those?” asked Lil jerking her head towards the innocuous-looking box.
“Back in the safe. Tomorrow I’ll get Sid to parcel them up and send them off to Digby. That should tell us something. It would be a rather nice touch to enclose my visiting card. It’s time Digby Seton and I had a little talk.”
4
Dalgliesh closed the door of the Cortez Club behind him and gulped in the Soho air as if it were as sweet as the sea wind on Monksmere Head. Luker had always had this effect of seeming to contaminate the atmosphere. He was glad to be out of that stuffy little office and free from the stare of those dead eyes. It must have rained briefly while he was in the club for the cars were hissing over a wet road and the pavement was tacky under his feet. Soho was wakening now and the narrow street was swirling its gaudy flotsam from kerb to kerb. A stiff breeze was blowing, drying the road as he watched. He wondered if it was blowing on Monksmere Head. Perhaps even now his aunt would be closing the shutters against the night.
Walking slowly towards Shaftesbury Avenue he pondered his next move. So far this dash to London, prompted by angry impulse, had told him little that he couldn’t have learned in greater comfort by staying in Suffolk. Even Max Gurney could have told his news over the telephone although Max was, of course, notoriously cautious. Dalgliesh didn’t altogether regret his journey, but it had been a long day and he wasn’t disposed to make it longer. It was the more irritating, therefore, to find himself harassed by the conviction that there was still something to be done.
It was difficult to decide what. None of the possibilities was attractive. He could visit the fashionable and expensive flats where Latham lived and attempt to get something out of the hall porter but, in his present unofficial capacity, he was unlikely to succeed. Besides, Reckless or his men would have been there before him and if Latham’s alibi could be broken they would have broken it. He could try his luck at the eminently respectable Bloomsbury hotel where Eliza Marley claimed to have spent last Tuesday night. There too his reception would hardly be cordial and, there too, Reckless would have been before him. He was getting a little tired of following in the Inspector’s footsteps like a tame dog.