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But the truly important thing is that we have these.” He reached down beneath his desk and pulled up
a leaden urn, evidently a heavy one by the awkward way in which he let it clatter to his desk. He
removed the lid and then carefully extracted a four folded cloths, each packed in ice. “Man left, man
right,” Seal muttered softly to himself, squinting down at the small tags which were attached to each
packet, their ink evidently smeared by contact with the half-melted ice. “Woman right, and, woman…
this must be woman left. Here you go, doctor.”
“What the devil is this?”Tom asked. But he accepted one of the cloths, the one labeled
‘woman right’ and shook it. Chipped pieces of ice rained down upon the wooden desk and, followed
by – to the great satisfaction of Seal and Morass and the mute horror of everyone else - five frozen
human fingers.