Devices and Desires Read Online Free

unmanageable, apart from the logistical and ethical problems of mass fingerprinting and the discouraging fact that crime, even supposing the comparison with disease to be valid, was, like disease, easier to diagnose than to cure. It had almost been a relief when a formidable female novelist, vigorously corseted in a florid cretonne two-piece which made her look like a walking sofa, had borne him off to pull out a crumple of parking tickets from her voluminous handbag and angrily demand what he was proposing to do about them.
    The Herne & Illingworth cookery list was small but was strong, its best writers having a solid reputation for reliability, originality and good writing. Miss Gurney was passionately committed to her job and her writers, seeing the novels and verse as irritating if necessary adjuncts to the main business of the house, which was to nourish and publish her darlings. It was rumoured that she herself was an indifferent cook, one more indication of the firm British conviction, not uncommon in more elevated if less useful spheres of human activity, that there is nothing so fatal to success as knowing your subject. It didn’t surprise Dalgliesh that she had seen his arrival as fortuitous and the chore of delivering Alice Mair’s proofs as a near-sacred privilege. She said: “I suppose they’ve called you in to help catch the Whistler.”
    “No, that, I’m thankful to say, is a job for the Norfolk CID. Calling in the Yard happens more often in fiction than real life.”
    “It’s convenient that you’re driving to Norfolk, whatever the reason. I wouldn’t really wish to trust these proofs to the post. But I thought your aunt lived in Suffolk? And surely someone said that Miss Dalgliesh had died.”
    “She did live in Suffolk until five years ago, when she moved to Norfolk. And, yes, my aunt has died.”
    “Oh well, Suffolk or Norfolk, there’s not a lot of difference. But I’m sorry she’s dead.” She seemed for a moment to contemplate human mortality and to compare the two counties to the disadvantage of both, then said: “If Miss Mair isn’t at home you won’t leave this at the door, will you? I know that people are extraordinarily trusting in country districts but it would be quite disastrous if these proofs were lost. If Alice isn’t at home her brother, Dr. Alex Mair, may be. He’s the Director of the nuclear-power station at Larksoken. But perhaps, on second thoughts, you’d better not hand it to him either. Men can be extremely unreliable.”
    Dalgliesh was tempted to point out that one of the country’s foremost physicists, who was responsible for an atomic-power station and, if the papers were to be believed, was strongly tipped for the new post of nuclear-power supremo, could presumably be trusted with a parcel of proofs. He said: “If she’s at home, I’ll hand it to Miss Mair personally. If she isn’t, I’ll keep it until she is.”
    “I’ve telephoned to say that it’s on its way, so she’ll be expecting you. I’ve printed the address very clearly. Martyr’s Cottage. I expect you know how to get there.”
    Costello said sourly: “He can map-read. He’s a policeman, remember.”
    Dalgliesh said that he knew Martyr’s Cottage and had briefly met Alexander Mair but not his sister. His aunt had lived very quietly, but neighbours sharing the same remotedistrict inevitably do get to know each other and, although Alice Mair had been away from home at the time, her brother had made a formal visit of condolence to the mill after Miss Dalgliesh’s death.
    He took possession of the parcel, which was surprisingly large and heavy and crisscrossed with an intimidating pattern of Sellotape, and was slowly borne downwards to the basement, which gave access to the firm’s small car-park and his waiting Jaguar.

4
    Once free of the knotted tentacles of the eastern suburbs, Dalgliesh made good time, and by 3.00 he was driving through Lydsett Village. Here a right turn took him off