Read Online Give the Devil His Due by Sulari Gentill - Free Book Online

Theosophist?” Clyde asked.
    â€œDoubt it.” Rowland slipped off his jacket and took a cue. “She’s just a girl—couldn’t be much more than eighteen. I suspect she simply says the most shocking thing that comes to mind.”
    â€œYoung people these days.” Milton shook his head.
    â€œDid you talk about the car, Rowly?” Clyde asked.
    â€œNo. She says she has White’s notes.”
    â€œBut his notebook wasn’t with the body.”
    â€œPerhaps it was discovered at his lodgings,” Rowland said, frowning. He paused for a moment. “Miss Norton seems to believe that he was working on a story about a coven at Magdalene’s Waxworks. She thinks that might explain why White was there.”
    â€œA coven? That’s ridiculous!” Edna said. “Are you sure she wasn’t joking, Rowly?”
    â€œNo, I don’t believe so.”
    â€œIf White were at Magdalene’s researching a story, why didn’t he take his notebook?” Milton said, leaning his cue against the table.
    â€œMy thinking exactly,” Rowland agreed.
    â€œHe was pretty sloshed when you drove him home, Milt,” Clyde pointed out. “Perhaps he just forgot.”
    â€œAnd yet he was sober enough to get into a locked building to follow a news story,” Rowland murmured.
    â€œPerhaps you should mention this to Detective Delaney,” Edna suggested.
    Clyde agreed. “We need to feed Delaney everything we can, so he doesn’t feel the need to look too closely at Milt.”
    â€œYou do know I didn’t kill him, don’t you?” Milton said irately.
    â€œOf course I do,” Clyde replied. “But that might not be enough to keep you out of prison. They arrested Rowly last year despite his impeccable connections. Your connections, old mate, are not impeccable and you have a habit of falling out with the authorities.”
    Rowland had to concur on that count. Milton’s politics and his nature had seen him arrested on a number of occasions— misdemeanours, as far as Rowland knew, aside from the time the poet had assaulted a police officer so he could accompany Rowland to gaol. That police officer had been Colin Delaney. Rowland suspected that the detective was avoiding looking at Milton, but he would have to do so if no other candidate presented. “I’ll telephone Delaney,” he promised, though he wished he could do so with more than a young girl’s claim that there were witches at the end of the garden.
    Milton changed the subject. “When are you trying out the speedway, Rowly?”
    â€œJoan Richmond’s arranged for our team to practise laps at Maroubra tomorrow,” Rowland replied. He was looking forward to testing the Mercedes on the bowl. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly nine o’clock. “I’m taking Ernie out today. Would you all care to join us?”
    Ernest Sinclair, Rowland’s nephew, was seven years old. He had that year started at Tudor House near Moss Vale, where his father and uncles had attended before him. Like most boarders, Ernest would go home to the Sinclair estate in Yass at the end of each term, but rarely a weekend went by where he didn’t see his uncle. Ernest would catch the train up to Sydney or Rowland would collect him from the school to take him on some outing or other. Often the other residents of
Woodlands House
would come along, and together they would give Ernest a time that made him the envy of his school chums.
    â€œRosie’s parents are in town,” Clyde said miserably. “She wants me to come to dinner at her cousin’s house so I can spend some time with her father.”
    Rosalina Martinelli had once found gainful employment as Rowland’s model; a job for which she proved temperamentally unsuited. Now she was Clyde’s sweetheart; a role that suited her much more and which she was determined to convert into something more