The Fourth Secret Read Online Free PDF

as soon as he leaned forward to reach the window, his feet slipped, both at the same time, and he ended up slamming his chin on the window frame. As he was falling headfirst in the mud between the car and the side of the shack, he took comfort in the thought that he was going to be better off than Puka, that poor devil.
    When he stopped in front of the station and climbed out of what was a moving mound of dirt, and not a car, Montalbano was exhausted. Leaving the valley where the construction site was, driving on the dirt road turned swamp, swerving and getting stuck, had cost him all his energy and caused the pain in his shoulder and leg to be almost unbearable. As soon as he recognized the human wreck that had walked in as the inspector, Catarella started to shout, he sounded like a rooster whose neck had been rung.
    “
Santa Vergine
, sir!
Santa Vergine
! What happened? You’re all muddied! Even your hair is full of mud!”
    “Calm down, it’s nothing, I’m going to go take a shower.”
    There was nothing he could do. Catarella ran up to him, grabbing his arm while he tried to squirm from his grip. They walked down the hall in perfect harmony for both of them had injured their left legs; when they took a step, they both leaned right, in synchrony. Looking at them from behind, Fazio could barely keep from laughing.
    In the bathroom, while he was cleaning up, Catarella held Montalbano by his shoulders; since he couldn’t get him out of there, he started to lose it.
    “Sir, your personal undergarments are soaking wet; you’ll get sick! Sir, should I go get you a cognac?”
    “No.”
    “Sir, please, do it for my sake, take an aspirin! I keep a bottle in my drawer!”
    “Fine, go get it.”
    He went to his office, followed by Fazio.
    “I was beginning to worry.”
    “Did you tell anyone I was at the construction site?”
    “No one. But if you hadn’t shown up, I was going to come look for you in half an hour. Did you find anything?”
    He was about to tell him, but Catarella walked in with a glass of water and the aspirin in one hand and an anise cookie in the other.
    “I don’t want the cookie.”
    “No, sir! It’s absolutely necessary! If you don’t put something in your personal stomach when you take the aspirin, you might get a personal stomachache in your personal stomach!”
    Summoning all the patience he could, Montalbano complied. Only at the end of the whole operation did Catarella leave, relieved.
    “Where’s Augello?”
    “Sir, there was an attempted robbery at the Melluso jewelry store. The owner started shooting like a madman, the two robbers fled since they only had toy guns; from the witnesses’ testimonies, it looks like they were just two kids. Final tally: two wounded bystanders.”
    “Did the jeweler have a permit for the gun?”
    “Yes, unfortunately.”
    “Were the robbers foreigners?”
    “No, luckily.”
    In his head, Montalbano approved both the “unfortunately” and the “luckily.” They were more eloquent than any long speech.
    “So?” Fazio asked, unable to contain his curiosity.
    “So I came to a conclusion,” the inspector said, “but I don’t feel like telling you.”
    “And why’s that?” Fazio asked.
    “Because then I’ll have to tell the whole thing again to Mimì, and I don’t feel like doing it.”
    Fazio looked at him, went to the door, shut it, came back, stood in front of the desk, and spoke in dialect.
    “Can I speak to you man to man?”
    “Of course.”
    “You shouldn’t take advantage of the fact that all of us here love you and give in to your every whim. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Yes.”
    “So you’ll get over this bad mood you’re in for having to eat the anise cookie and tell me what you found at the construction site. And if it bothers you so much to tell the story twice, then I’ll tell it to Augello when he returns.”
    Montalbano gave up. He told him in detail what had happened, what he had done, and what he had found. At