101. Profile

The Dark Man was about to darken the door of Minafer Ominous and Gemaniah Worrywart’s half mortal abode.

                                                                                

They were ready to receive him for they had foreseen he would be coming to visit them.

“Do step in,” said Gemaniah, opening the door before Darcy could knock above the horizontal number eight on it. “But if we knew who had the check, we would have it.”

Once Darcy was inside the occultists’ home and sipping a rum coke they had offered him, Minafer handed him a sheet of paper.

“We felt you would be coming, so we prepared a profile of the thief. We have visited the scene of the theft, which is the leprechaun Michael O’Toora’s house, and the vibes there told us that this person is not the average burglar because there being leprechaun treasures all around all he took was a cheap ornament.”

“Unless he knew the check was inside it,” said Darcy

“No, we don’t think he knew that. An ordinary thief would then have taken the check and left the ornament,” explained Minafer.

“Though we believe he had no idea what he was stealing when he took the ornament, we think he does now,” said Gemaniah.

“Everyone does, so it is reasonable to suppose he does too,” nodded Darcy.

“If so, what counts is that he hasn’t tried to cash the check,” continued Minafer. “This means he is intelligent. We believe this person is neither important nor powerful in his field and that he doesn’t have what it would take to make the check good. Someone lacking power or contacts would only be robbed of the check if he tried to cash it. We also believe this person is a loner, because he hasn’t breathed a word to anyone about the check. This also proves once again that he is intelligent. You can’t speak about something like that check without a leak.”

“I agree,” said Darcy.

“So, to sum it up, we suggest you look for a loner who isn’t stupid or imprudent and who has a fixation on ornaments. Ah! And it is likely he lives with his mother,” said Minafer.

“Why? What makes you think so?”

 “I said that because they always say that about weird people.”

“Do you live with your mother?” asked Darcy.

“No,” said Minafer. “Neither with mine nor Gem’s. We both lost them when we were very young. To stepfathers.”

“Give me a name!” said Darcy.

Minafer went speechless and Gemaniah’s eyeballs rotated and rolled in their sockets as he both shook his head and nodded.

“We sure would if we could," they said in unison. "All we can say is we’re almost a hundred percent sure his name is in the fairy telephone directory. His mum is probably too old to know how to use a cell phone properly. If he’s not in the rose pages, he might be in the lavender ones,” said Gem.

“May I use your phone? I don’t  have  a phone.”

 “Oh, yes!” said Minafer. “We are delighted to participate in the man hunt. We want to be first to know who the thief is. Well, first after you, of course.”

Darcy picked up the antique phone on the three-legged table next to the armchair he was sitting on and spoke into it.

“If this phone is bugged, kindly unbug it immediately.”

And then he picked up the fairy phone book next to it and began dialing.