The Gilded Madonna Garrick Jones (ebook reader online .txt) 📖

horoscopes cluttering up your in tray. She probably thinks she’s being clever, sending all these obtuse hints. Maybe for her it’s a test to see if I really am as good as the papers say I am. Anyway, I don’t have a lot of patience with time-wasters, so I’ll tell her if she keeps it up, I’ll report her to you boys for being a public nuisance. Either that or get my solicitor to slap a restraining order on her. What she’s done could easily be seen as misleading information and interfering with an ongoing investigation.”

“Very well, I’ll let you get on with it. Will you let the Bishops know too?”

“Of course.”

“Well, thank you for lunch. I appreciate what you’ve given me on the Silent Cop case. I’ll start with that until your original files turn up.”

“Feel free to contact me if you need anything cleared up. I have my private notebooks stored away too. It wouldn’t take me long to check them.”

“Any chance I could have a look before I go?’

“Of course, as long as you can read shorthand?”

“Sorry, Smith. Not my area, but I’ll let you know if I need more information when I’m going through what you’ve given me … and by the way, I’m familiar with tea leaves and Tarot cards, but what the hell is psychometry?”

“It’s the art of divining the past or the future from touching a physical object,” Harry offered. “The Yanks tried it out during the war.”

“What?”

Even I was astounded.

“We thought they were crazy, but after the Battle of the Coral Sea, all sorts of crackpot schemes came along with the boys of the red, white, and blue. There were rumours that some of the top brass in the U.S. military tried to get mystics to help them find Japanese ships in the Pacific using personal belongings of captured sailors. There was also someone high up in Roosevelt’s circle who ‘contacted the spirits’ to divine where the Nazi wolf packs were during the days of the Atlantic convoys. Even after the war, when they were looking for looted treasure, they had people with divining rods and Ouija boards sending troops out into forests and exploring caves.”

“Our people never did anything so ridiculous, surely?” I asked and then when Harry gave me one of those looks as a reply. “All right, sorry, just asking.”

“Clyde, we might be a nation of dingbats but we don’t go chasing after spirits for advice.”

“Agreed,” Dioli said and then apologised, saying he had to get back to the office and start to go through the material I’d given him.

“I’d invite you to my house for a return meal sometime, but my grandfather is old and doesn’t like strangers. Maybe I could shout you lunch one day when the dust has settled.”

“That would be nice, Mark,” Harry said. I remained silent, but shook his hand when he left.

*****

“There’s something too managed about him, Clyde,” Harry said while we were clearing up the kitchen. “I get this sense that who we see isn’t who he is inside.”

“Tighter than a fish’s bum at a thousand fathoms,” I said.

Harry laughed. “You and your army expressions.”

“Didn’t you use that one?”

“Nope. But I get your drift. He’s very closed, isn’t he. It must be very hard going through life holding everything inside the way he does.”

“You probably would too if you’d had his upbringing in the orphanage … and then his grandfather.”

“Why does a grown man put up with that? He’s hardly a shrinking violet.”

“Who knows, Harry.”

“It’s quite funny how envious he is of you.”

“Envious? The man’s dismissive and rude with it. He didn’t call me anything but Smith all afternoon and would hardly meet my eyes. I nearly fell over when he thanked me before he left.”

“It’s the sign of someone who feels they have to prove their self-worth. I saw it often with soldiers who were snarly with their more senior officers. Besides, you’ve got such a reputation and he wants to be just like you. Lots of young blokes are like that. They want to run before they can walk.”

“Well, I wish he’d get over it. I find it very tiring trying to be pleasant in the face of such continual, offensive confrontation.”

“I thought you did a great job, Clyde. But then again, I’m biased.”

“Let’s not talk of Dioli, Harry. It’s our first weekend together when you don’t have to go running off. I’m happy to do whatever you want to.”

“Running off? Clyde—”

“No stop! I didn’t mean it like that. Let’s promise not to argue either, eh? I had enough of that with Sam. Now, tell me what’s on your mind.”

He ran a hand around my backside. “There’s this …”

I laughed. “And after that?”

“Movies? Maybe that Chinese restaurant you like so much at Bondi Junction?”

“The Sun Si Gai? Now you’ve made my tummy rumble. Hmm … prawn cutlets, combination chow mein … where’s the paper again? I’ll find out what’s on at the Coronet.”

“There’s a double bill of Tarzan movies.”

“You already looked it up?”

“Maybe?”

“You sure you just don’t want two servings of Johnny Weissmuller?”

He laughed. “I was teasing. I’d rather go see My Sister Eileen at the Odeon. Jack Lemon and Janet Leigh.”

“That’s a better choice, and I can write a review for the week between Christmas and New Year. Now about that other thing …”

“Which other thing?”

“The one you’ve got your hand on.”

“Ah, that other thing,” he said and then led me into the bedroom.

*****

“Who was that?” Harry asked. We’d been lying in bed after a post-prandial snooze and lovemaking session. The telephone had rung, and I’d staggered into the study, still half-asleep, to answer it.

“Wilbur Curtis, the editor of the local rag.”

“It’s Saturday afternoon, Clyde! Don’t people have weekends like the rest of the world?”

I chuckled and then snuggled my shoulder under his arm, my head on his chest.

“He was ringing to apologise about the idiocy of his junior reporter, to tell me that the cabinets will always be locked from now on, and to hope the stolen picture