“What, about why I climbed around on those cliffs? Because it needed to be done. From up at the top, it looked to me like the waves would push things in behind a couple of those rocks, and it seemed worth a look. I took a piece of wire from the truck and went to see. Or are you asking about whether I'm not too weak to be doing things like that?”

“Clearly you were not. But I mistrust derring-do even more than I mistrust cowardice. With a coward, one at least knows where one stands. With a fool, anything can happen. And most frequently does.”

“It's not derring-do, just common sense.” Seeing Holmes' sceptical eyebrow, the younger man sighed and picked up his fork, pushing the half-eaten chop around on the plate. “Look, this disease I have, it respects toughness. In the TB ward, it was the ones who babied themselves who died the fastest. The ones who got on with life had the best chance of shaking it. I sleep a lot, but I don't baby myself.”

Holmes studied the young man's features, bone-thin but unbending, and his shoulders relaxed.

“I suppose I've been called reckless myself, from time to time. But don't risk your neck again for the sake of my case, you hear? In any event, what have you learnt?”

“I guess your wife's father was something of a nut about cars,” Hammett said, his irritation fading as his attention returned to the plate. “The Maxwell dealer remembers him well, one of his first and best customers. Seems Russell bought a new car every year from 1908 until this one that killed them, which he picked up about two weeks before the war broke out in Europe—middle of July 1914. The owner seemed to think Russell might even have intended to ship this one out to Boston, where his family was going after he enlisted.”

“Not to England?”

“Said Boston, because England might not be the safest place for a while. Looking back, I'd say your father-in-law was a clever man.”

It was true: In the summer of 1914, most of the world had thought the war would be over by Christmas, and most men would not have hesitated to send an English wife home to her family.

The waitress decided that her customer had eaten as much of his dinner as he was going to, and without being asked she set two thick white mugs of coffee on the table, removing the half-eaten dinner with a shake of her head. Hammett wiped his fingers on his table napkin, took a swallow of the coffee, and picked up something from the seat of the chair beside him, laying it on the table between them.

“You know what this is?” he asked.