Free Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc. by James Hawkins

Stuckenberg muttered through clenched teeth, adding, loudly, “Have you got any other bright ideas?”
    Idea number twenty-eight, “the guinea pig Olympics,” was dismissed without debate, and the twenty-ninth, “the Kidneymobile international marathon,” was only adopted because it was already seven-thirty in the evening and several of the members were dozing off.
    â€œAs long as you’re prepared to do all the work,” Ms. Stuckenberg opined without troubling the group, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t adopt this idea.”
    â€œThank goodness,” Trina muttered, knowing that her thirtieth and final idea — totally naked ballroom dancing — was unlikely to get much applause.
    By the time Daphne closes the door to Minnie’s flat and walks with Bliss back to his car with her head down, it has started raining again in Westchester.
    â€œI wonder if it will ever brighten,” she says with an eye towards the leaden sky, but Bliss knows where her mind really is, and she confirms it a second later as she climbs into the passenger seat. “I still can’t really take it in, David. It’s a bit like getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking.”
    â€œSuperintendent Donaldson has invited us to dinner…” starts Bliss, hoping to cheer her, but she shakes her head.
    â€œYou go. I think I’d rather have a bit of time to myself if you don’t mind.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll drop you at home, and I’ll try not to be too late. I have to get back to the office first thing; if I know Edwards he’s already interviewing my replacement.”
    Dinner with Superintendent Donaldson at the Mitre Hotel is, like all meals with the great man, akin to culinary mountaineering, a point emphasized by the senior officer himself when he polishes off the entire bowl of bar nuts while awaiting the menu. “If it’s there, eat it. That’s what I say.”
    Mike Mainsbridge of the Transport Police has joined his fellow officers with the apparent aim of discussing tactics in the ongoing investigation, but he shows more interest in picking up tips on treasure hunting as he quizzes Bliss over his celebrated discovery of treasure in the Mediterranean Sea.
    â€œWhat’s the chance of finding more of the stuff?” he asks with an air of indifference that fails to disguise the fact that he may be planning an early retirement. “I mean, how did it get there, and how would someoneactually go about searching for more? Where would someone start?”
    â€œPersonally, I think I’ll start with the deep-fried double-cream Brie,” interjects Donaldson, and Bliss is also working on his choices as he deliberates whether or not to reveal details, to explain that a bunch of renegade Nazi officers had fooled the world near the end of the war by pretending to dump several tons of stolen Jewish gold into Lake Toplitz in the Austrian Alps, when in fact they had loaded their loot into ancient Roman wine amphorae and sunk them off the craggy coast of a Corsican island.
    â€œThe breeze just happened to be blowing my way, I guess,” says Bliss cryptically, knowing that his discovery had been predicated on the direction of the notoriously fickle Mediterranean winds. But Mainsbridge wants specifics. “Yeah. But how did you work it out?”
    â€œAh. You’ll just have to wait for the book to come out,” laughs Bliss, and refuses to be drawn further as he scans the menu.
    â€œSo you
are
going to write it, then?” Donaldson queries, but Bliss shrouds his plans with vagueness. “Who knows? I’ll probably get around to it one day.”
    â€œWhy not now?” asks Mainsbridge doggedly.
    Because, though Bliss is loath to admit it publicly, a certain female by the name of Daisy LeBlanc would rather he keep her family’s skeletons in a securely locked armoire. And Daisy, pronounced “Dizzy” in her