I looked at the ornaments on the desk. Everythin standard and all copper. A copper lamp, a pen set and a pencil tray, a glass and copper ashtray with a copper elephant on the rim, a copper letter opener, a copper5 thermos bottle on a copper tray, copper corners on the blotter holder. There was a spray of almost copper-coloured sweet peas in a copper vase.
It seemed like a lot of copper.
The man at the window turned around and showed me that he was going on fifty and had soft ash-grey hair and plenty of it, and a heavy handsome face with nothing unusual about it except a short puckered scar in his left cheek that had almost the effect of a deep dimple. I remembered the dimple. I would have forgotten the man. I remembered that I had seen him in pictures a long time ago, at least ten years ago. I didnt remember the pictures or what they were about or what he did in them, but 1 remembered the dark heavy handsome face and the puckered scar. His hair had been dark then. He walked over to his desk and sat down and picked up his letter opener and poked at the ball of his thumb with the point. He looked at me with no expression and said Youre Marlowe？
I nodded.
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