Holmes opened the flap and ran his thumb slowly up the side of the bills within, taking note of their number and their denomination. His eyebrow arched and he looked at Hammett, who nodded as if in agreement.

“Yeah, way too much money for a couple days' trailing.”

“But as, what is the term? ‘Hush money'?”

“You can see why I got nervous.”

Holmes dropped the envelope back in the file; Hammett flipped the cover shut as if to put the money out of sight. “What I can see,” said Holmes, “is that I'm dealing with a man who prefers to choose his employer.”

“Mr Holmes, I've got a family. I'm not a whole lot of good to them, the state I'm in, but I'd be a lot less good in prison.”

Despite Hammett's explanation, Holmes thought that the threat of gaol was less of a deterrent than the young man's distaste for villainy. As unlike Watson as a person could be physically, nonetheless the two were brothers under the skin—and he had no doubt that, like the externally sensible Watson, Hammett's fictional maunderings would lay a thin coating of hard action over the most romantic of sensibilities.

“Very well, Mr Hammett. How would you like to work for me instead?”

“Turncoating has never had much appeal, Mr Holmes.”

“Have you spent any of the lady's money?”

“I told you I hadn't.”

“Has she given you a means of getting into contact with her?”

“That note was it. The boy brought it with the money, stuck it in my hand, and left. When I phoned my buddy to ask what the hell it all meant, he hadn't a clue, didn't know who it was, just some woman who needed a job done that he couldn't take on right away.”

“Then you've done no more than keep the lady's money safe for a few days until you might return it with your regrets. Is that not so?”

Hammett sat in thought, not caring for the situation, torn between the implied but undeclared contract represented by the money in the folder and the undeniable pull of curiosity. And another thing: “You think this has something to do with the person who took a shot at your wife?”

“Pacific Heights is an unlikely venue for a random madman with a gun,” Holmes pointed out grimly.

“Yeah, you're right. Okay, Mr Holmes, I'll take your job, so long as it doesn't involve outright betrayal. If it turns out that coming to me is what opens that lady up for a fall, I'm telling you now that I'm going to stand back and take my hands off both sides of it.”

“Your rigid sense of ethics, Mr Hammett, will have done you no good in the world of the Pinkertons. But I agree.”

The two men shook hands, and Hammett reached for the bottle again to seal the agreement.

“So, where do you want me to start?”