He closed the last book near midnight and went to stand, only to stop halfway upright, biting off an oath. He eased his back through a series of cracks, feeling like an arthritic grandfather. “I'm getting too old for this,” he muttered, although he'd been saying it for years now, and did not really believe it. He stretched and popped his joints, then let himself out of the house, moving with the determined ease of a man who had never known discomfort.

Early Wednesday morning he went around the back of Hammett's apartment building and found that his Irregulars had been organised into an efficient body of surveillance operatives. The urchin at the entrance of the alleyway spotted him coming down the street, and gave out a shrill whistle that had the leader waiting for Holmes at the base of the fire-escape.

The boy reported that they had seen no one all day, not until the tall man who lived there came home about four o'clock and his wife and the little girl about an hour after that. They'd stayed in all night, except when the woman had stepped out to the little market up the street for milk and bread at six and the man had brought the garbage down to the alleyway around eight. In the first case, two of the boys had followed her, in the second they had all faded away into invisibility behind the cans.

“And I know you said we weren't to keep watch all night,” the lad told him, “but I figured that if they all got murdered in their beds during the night, you'd like to know who done it. That maybe there'd be a bonus, like,” he added cheekily.

Holmes hid his grin and counted out the previous day's pay, then added half as much again for the night duty. “You'll stay on during the day, when they leave?”

“You pay, we stay,” the boy told him. “We'll hunt you down if anything happens.”

“You're doing a good job. I only hope you go back to school when this is over.”

“School's a waste of time.”

“That may be so, but university isn't, and you have to get through school to get to university.”

The look of scepticism shooting out of those dark eyes would have given a priest doubt, but Holmes had seen it before. He tipped his hat to the boy, then paused. “What's your name, lad?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because gentlemen do not address each other as ‘Hey, you.'”

“Gen'lmen, huh? Okay, it's Ricky. Rick Garcia.”

“Mr Garcia, it is a pleasure doing business with you. My name is Holmes. I shall try to return this evening, but you know where to find me.”

“Okay. 'Bye then, Mr Holmes. See you later.”

Holmes' eggs had just been placed before him when a bellman came to tell him there was a telephone call for him. It was Hammett, suggesting that they meet.