“Actually, he left the car at the garage while they ate, to be filled up and to have a slow leak in one tyre repaired. The man took the wheel off and fixed it, and once I'd jogged his memory it all came back to him, because when he'd first heard about the accident, the day it happened, he'd been scared to death—thought maybe he'd failed to tighten the rim bolts enough. He even went out to see, and was hugely relieved to see the burnt-out shell, turned turtle, with all four wheels safely in place.”

“And this cleaner half of the brake rod was in his possession?” Holmes nudged the stub with one finger.

“Yeah. A week or so after the accident, he and his older brother, who ran the garage, took a pair of draught horses up and hauled the wreck off the rocks. Because it had landed upside-down, the fire had just erupted into open air—poof, hot and fast and it's over—and his older brother thought they might be able to salvage some of the engine parts. Which, as it happened, was true. The chassis is still around the back of the garage, the bones of it, and pretty thoroughly picked over. The brother, by the way, died in a racing-car crash, the summer of 1920.”

“The man doesn't remember anyone interfering with the machine, while it waited?”

“Nope. Wheel off, patch it up, wheel on, then fill 'er up and shift the car around to the side.”

“Was it common practice, for the Russell family to pause there on their way south?”

“I don't know, but it would've made sense to stop there halfway along, let the kiddies stretch their legs.”

“A thing anyone might have anticipated.”

“Yeah.” Hammett's eyes came down to the twisted lengths of rod, and he shook his head. “Killing a woman and a kid in that way. I'd sure like to help you solve this case.”

Until the man had come up with these two lengths of rusted steel, Holmes thought, there hadn't been a case to solve. He owed him a great deal, already. Too, he could not see that a man working for the other side would have given him the only hard evidence the case had yet generated. This new lieutenant of his threatened to have as much independence as Russell, and he lacked the physical stamina of Russell or Watson, but Holmes found himself warming to the man. He'd trust him a little further.

“Do you have any reliable contacts among the police?”

Hammett laughed. “You haven't been here long enough to hear about our cops. They're the best money can buy.”

“I see. Any you can trust to take your money and not sell you as well?”

“One or two. What do you want?”