“But a great deal has happened since.”
She stopped laughing. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged.
“Ellery. Who’s been telling you lies about me?”
Ellery glanced again at her hand. “It’s my experience, Delia, that to label something a lie before you’ve heard it expressed is to admit it’s all too true.”
He took her hand between his thumb and forefinger as if it were something sticky, and he dropped it.
Then he turned his back on her.
Keats had the box to his ear and he was shaking it with absorption. Something inside rustled slightly. He hefted the box.
“Nothing loose. Sounds like a solid object wrapped in tissue paper. And not much weight.” He glanced at the woman. “I don’t have any right to open this, Mrs. Priam. But there’s nothing in the statutes to stop you... here and now.”
“I wouldn’t untie that string, Lieutenant Keats,” said Delia Priam in a trembling voice, “for all the filth in your mind.”