Night Frost by Basil Copper

Author:Basil Copper
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: detective, mystery, hard-boiled
ISBN: 9780754085744
Publisher: Chivers North Amer
Published: 2000-11-01T18:39:48+00:00

Mr. Mandrake was a big, chunky box of a man. His short blond hair was cropped close to his blunt skull and stuck up like bristles all over his head. His skin was a delicate pink but that was the only delicate thing about him. His eyes were wide-spaced, pale-gray and quite expressionless but the long blond eye-lashes, almost feminine in their length, contrasted in a startling manner with the grayness of his eyes and the pinkness of his skin.

He had the blunt chin and the big nose of a boxer; his mouth was wide with deep lines round the corners and when he smiled, which wasn’t often, he revealed strong, irregular yellow teeth. An incised scar about two inches long which ran diagonally from a point above his left eyebrow ended among the roots of his blond hair and made a white gash against the lobster shade of his complexion.

When he stood up as we got close to the table I was surprised to see that he was comparatively short in stature; it was his breadth and the general scale on which he was built which had given me an impression of size. His age could have been anything from thirty-five to fifty-five. His bulky frame was encased in an impeccably cut gray silk suit with shawl lapels. He wore a wide-collared shirt of stunning whiteness, and a pale-yellow bow tie with tiny red motifs on it that I couldn’t make out.

His hands were chunky; the big fingers thick as cigars, but the nails were well kept. There was the glint of a gold watch on one wrist and a handkerchief which made the detergent ads look positively dingy peeped from the breast pocket of his jacket. His hands were pink too and they looked like starfish clusters against the sober background of his suit. He stared at me hard for a moment.

“So glad you could come, Mr. Faraday.” His hand was hard, cool and dry. I couldn’t place his accent. The hand-shake was about as sincere as a Rotarian’s weekly lunch-smile. He waved one of the star-fish around and indicated the divan behind the table.

“Do sit down.”

I remained standing. Scarpini moved at my side. He clamped his hand over my arm and pushed downwards.

“You heard what Mr. Mandrake said,” he gritted.

“Go pull the chain and flush yourself out,” I told him. I moved sideways and then Scarpini came up with the fruit knife. Mr. Mandrake moved then, with astonishing rapidity for a man of such a big build.

The pink starfish of his hand described a dazzling curve in the air. There was a sharp crunch of bone meeting flesh and Scarpini flew from one side of the cabin to the other. The fruit knife shot from his hand and Otto quickly put a foot on it. Scarpini got up. He was breathing heavily and the expression on his face wasn’t friendly. A white line spread diagonally across his face where Mandrake had cracked him and a thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his nose.

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