“But what's she after? Other than your dead bodies, that is?”

“That I hope to learn this afternoon at the house.”

“Well, there's an offer I can't pass up. Give me your finger-prints and I'll see what I can do with them, and meet you at the house later. What time?”

“I am not sure, but perhaps four?”

“I'll be there.”

And he was. At ten minutes before the hour, Hammett stood on the door-step listening to the bell fade and the foot-steps approach. Holmes opened the door with a magazine in one hand, an object that caused Hammett to do a double-take: It was a copy of Smart Set from the previous year, an issue containing Hammett's set of brief reminiscences, “Memoirs of a Private Detective.”

Hammett looked from the magazine to Holmes. “How on earth did you find that?”

“A news-agent agreed to search for your stories. I was curious,” he said, sounding apologetic.

Hammett began to chuckle ruefully. “Have you met Waldron Honeywell yet?”

“The gentleman with the poor opinion of the specialised skills of one Sherlock Holmes? Yes.”

“Sorry about that. It's what sells.”

“Well, Mr Honeywell is not altogether mistaken. May I offer you something to drink while we wait?” Holmes asked.

The two men settled into Charles Russell's library, waiting for Long and his feng shui divinator, smoking, drinking coffee with just a little whiskey in it to keep out the cold, and slowly easing into the shared talk of professionals concerning tricky investigations and foolish criminals. At four-thirty in the afternoon, they heard the front door come open and Holmes stepped into the hall-way, and in an instant, into the library swept Russell, looking magnificent and furious as she pulled a gun on the greying ex-Pinkerton, shouting at Holmes to stand away from the man who worked for those who had murdered her family.

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-two

An invalid Hammett might be, but the man had nerves of steel. His bony hands tightened over the arms of the chair when the weapon first appeared, then they relaxed, curled loosely over the leather. He did keep a close eye on the pistol while Holmes stepped forward to explain: It was a decorative object, but big enough to mean business.

“Russell, this is Mr Hammett. He was clambering around on those cliffs at my instigation. I've hired him as an Irregular in your absence; hope you don't mind?”

The silvery barrel wavered, as if it might decide to point at Holmes for a while, then sank towards the floor. “You hired him,” she said flatly.

“He knows the ground here better than I, and I needed an assistant.”

“When did you make this arrangement?”

“Saturday,” he admitted: an exaggeration, as it had been little more than Friday night.

“Saturday. And you didn't think to mention it to me that night, or even Sunday morning?”

“We had a great deal to get through on Saturday as it was. And in the morning, you were busy, I was busy. I'd have told you—it hardly mattered if you did not know.”