The Holiday Murders Read Online Free Page B

identified the period or the craftsmen involved. There was a crucifix above the bed, and on the wall opposite was an arrestingly gorgeous portrait of a woman. Titus presumed it was Mrs Quinn. If he’d checked the signature, he would have seen that the artist was Hugh Ramsay. It was Joe who crossed to it immediately, and whistled. Australian and European art were something of a hobby for him. The name meant nothing to Titus.
    ‘I presume this is expensive good taste,’ Titus said.
    It took only a few minutes for them to find a cache of copies of The Publicist . There were several bound volumes, and many unbound copies. There were also other magazines similar to the German one in Xavier’s bedroom. Some of them were in German — Licht-Land , Die Neue Zeit , and FKK in der Schweiz — and there were a few copies of an English magazine called Health and Efficiency . The German magazines were brazen in their cover displays of naked men and women. Joe, who didn’t consider himself a prude, was nonetheless shocked by the clarity of the genitalia. He felt himself responding to the photographs sexually, even though no one in them was engaged in any activity that was remotely erotic. Health and Efficiency featured young naked women on its covers, but their nakedness was coy and seemed deliberately reminiscent of Victorian paintings. Breasts were de rigueur , but nothing else was, and there wasn’t a man or boy in sight — at least not on the covers.
    ‘It looks like fascism and naturism were family affairs,’ Titus said. ‘I wonder if Mary Quinn shares her father’s politics and his … hobby.’
    ‘Do you think there’s a connection between these magazines and the deaths?’
    ‘We need to know who the associates of both men were. I’m afraid we’re going to have to disturb Mary Quinn — or, rather, I’m afraid you’re going to have to disturb Miss Quinn. She must be able to give us some names. If she’s reluctant to do so, that in itself will be of interest. I’d suggest you interview Miss Quinn without Miss Draper there. I’m sure she’ll understand.’
    ‘Miss Draper seemed like a very sensible young woman to me, sir.’
    ‘Good. She may be of great help to us. Mary Quinn is an actress; keep that in mind. I think she might be prone to performing emotions, even when they’re real. She may not be aware she’s doing it. It makes her difficult to read.’
    Joe Sable nodded. Despite the ghastliness of the situation, he could barely contain an incipient smile of satisfaction at this expression of trust in his abilities.
    -4-
    The man stripped and stood looking at himself in the grimy wardrobe mirror. His body was lean and hard, more expressive of brutal self-denial and self-discipline than of healthy exercise. He dabbed at the raw tattoo with carbolic, refusing to wince, even in the privacy of his mean, bare bedroom. The misplaced ‘e’ had cost that old bastard his life, but Ptolemy Jones — for that was the man’s name — had already found a way to accommodate the misspelling. When the National Socialists gained power in Australia, as they inevitably would, ‘arguement’ would become the standard spelling. Jones would see to that.
    Before anything else, though, he would have to take control of the rump of Australia First. All that remained of the organisation was a handful of unimpressive freaks. This, at any rate, was Jones’s assessment of them. They were weak, and lazy, and full of talk, but that’s all it was. What they had going for them was money and property, and Jones needed both. He had been to some of their meetings back in 1942, and although he’d been careful to stay in the background, he’d noted who the movers and shakers were. One of them was a man named Mitchell Magill. Jones had thought he was soft. He’d said some good stuff about the Jews, but they were just words. Magill seemed to be a good organiser, and that was a skill which Jones could exploit.
    The time had come to do just