“It would have mattered just now if I'd shot the man,” she retorted.

Hammett gave a little snort of laughter, and her eyes went to him. In a moment, the gun went back into its hand-bag and she came up to him, hand out. “Mr Hammett, pleased to meet you. I apologise for my ill manners.”

“Miss Russell. Don't worry about it. You have remarkably steady hands on a gun.”

“For a girl, you mean?”

“For a hand. More people get shot by twitchy fingers than ever get aimed at.”

“I try to avoid manslaughter when I can. Mr Hammett, if you are working for Holmes and not our two opponents, then I take it you retrieved the brake rod of my father's Maxwell?”

“Safe and sou—” he started to reply.

“Two opponents,” Holmes broke in. “You say that as if you've identified them.”

“Yes,” she said, sounding rather pleased with herself. “I believe you'll find that either your assistant here is keeping something from you, or else he got so excited about the evidence that he forgot to carry through with the interrogation of the Serra Beach mechanic.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that,” Hammett said with chagrin. “I didn't remember until later that night that there were questions I'd forgotten to put to him, but it was too late to go back, and the garage wasn't open Sunday. I should've run him to ground at his home.”

“Well, I nearly did the same,” Russell admitted generously. “And I didn't even have a lovely piece of solid evidence to distract me.”

Hammett's haggard face pulled into a grin that matched hers, but Holmes was impatient.

“Tell me about the two.”

“Can we sit down? I've had a tiring day, steering from the backseat.”

“Certainly. I had the sweep in yesterday; we can even light the fire. Would you care for whiskey, or coffee?”

“Is it the same coffee we found in the house?”

“No, I found a charming Italian gentleman up on Columbus Street who permitted me to buy some of his freshly roasted beans.”

“Such domesticity, Holmes. Coffee would be lovely.”

As she passed the small table, Russell scooped up the drooping petals of her flower arrangement and tossed them onto the bones of the fire she had laid but not lit the other day. Borrowing a match from Hammett, she set it against the dried kindling and stood back cautiously, but indeed, the chimney drew cleanly. Holmes pulled over the desk chair, and the two men settled their glasses on the table alongside her cup, then took out their tobacco pouches.

With the crackle of flames and the odours of coffee, spirits, and tobacco—Hammett's cigarette joined by Holmes' pipe—the library was transformed from a habitation of ghosts into a place where civilised conversation might take place.

Holmes cleared his throat. “What made you decide that your parents were murdered?”