The Chelsea Murders by Lionel Davidson

Certain subjects needed a little coaxing; subjects like Wertmuller came in this class.
    Mooney made a couple of purchases at nearby shops and sprang lithely up to her flat opposite the post office before resuming serious work.
    That was at about eleven.

12
    S OON after half-past two, when the envelope and its contents went in to Warton, he lost himself in a cloud of smoke and brooded. His standing instructions in any major inquiry were that all letters for his HQ should be delivered immediately by special messenger from local post offices, and this one had been.
    It had been mailed at the main post office in the King’s Road. It had slipped down the chute from the external box some time between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., but because it was the lunch hour, and staff short, the exact time couldn’t be established.
    He had the material copied and the originals sent for specialist examination, and by three o’clock had dispatched Mason to the library.
    Mason was driven round in solitary grandeur, and mounted right away to the second floor.
    ‘If I wanted to look up some lines of a poem,’ he said to the bird, ‘how would I go about it?’
    ‘Have you got the poet’s name?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh. Over here, then.’ She took him to Dictionaries and pointed out the volumes of quotations.
    ‘What’s the poem about?’ she said.
    ‘Suppose it was the moon.’
    She took down an Oxford . ‘Well, you just look up this index at the back,’ she said, ‘and there you are. Moon.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Mason said.
    He waited till she’d gone and looked up lilies.
    A close-packed column on lilies.
    Lilies.
         Beauty lives though l. die.            208:9.
    He went down the column.
         Three l. in her hand.                  410:7.
    He turned to page 410, quotation 7.
    The blessed damozel leaned out
       From the gold bar of heaven;
    Her eyes were deeper than the depth
       Of waters stilled at even;
    She had three lilies in her hand,
       And the stars in her hair were seven.
    The name of the poem was ‘The Blessed Damozel’, and the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
    Mason copied all this, replaced the book, and took off.
    *
    By half-past three Warton was snouting through ‘The Blessed Damozel’.
    ‘Gold bar, sir,’ Summers said.
    ‘Ng.’
    ‘Waters stilled at even.’
    ‘Well aware of it, Summers.’ He thought if Summers kept pointing out possible allusions to The Gold Key and the nocturnal Thames, he’d do for him.
    Some clever bastard was having them on here. Some clever literary bastard. The message, envelope, type, cartridge paper, were still with the experts; nothing at all to feed on except his own yellow rage.
    ‘Any further thoughts, Mason?’ he said.
    They’d already been through it. The lad swore he’d told nobody. Bloody obvious his idea had got out somewhere. Warton had spotted the loophole himself, and waited for the lad to spot it. He knew Summers wouldn’t. Summers didn’t. Lad did.
    ‘Well, it could have got out through the library, sir.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘The girl saw my warrant card. Though I only asked for the list, sir.’
    ‘Who could gather anything from that?’
    ‘Perhaps – this fellow Colbert-Greer?’ Mason said slowly.
    ‘How?’
    ‘Well, he might have been reading about these murders, and if she mentioned a detective had asked for the list – could havelooked at it himself, made the same connection. He was working there, after all. So was this coloured bloke, the one interested in police records.’
    ‘Were they there when you were?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What do you think, then?’
    Saw him make the next leap. ‘Well, if they were regulars, the girl might have had friendly relations with them.’
    ‘Think she has?’
    ‘Worth looking into, sir.’
    Yes. He’d do.
    ‘Go to it,’ Warton said.
    *
    Summers and Mason saw the chief librarian together in his small office. After a preliminary chat, Brenda was called in.
    It was twenty-to five by this time,