“Mr Tyson, please remain where you are. Slump back into your seat and look bored with your lot in life, and watch the blue motor go past as if it was the most interesting thing that has happened in an hour.”
The sound of a starter and an engine catching reached them, then the car was in gear and accelerating onto the road. It roared past, and away, until the beat of waves against the shore was the only sound. Holmes pulled the velvet curtains aside a fraction with one finger to peer out, not entirely certain that Russell wouldn't have chosen to solve the disagreement by staying behind, but the road and the hillside behind it were empty of humanity.
He settled himself onto the green leather, sliding the pistol back into the Gladstone. As he began to unfasten the telescope from its tripod base, he said to the boy, “Now we return to the city.”
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
Greg Tyson radiated a palpable sense of outrage all the way back to the hotel, clashing gears in a way the big car had never before experienced and taking corners at speeds that made its tyres squeal in protest. His potentially thrilling outing had fizzled into anticlimax like a damp firecracker.
And here he'd thought he had a real Philo Vance in his backseat.
Chapter Sixteen
Sundays were invariably a source of frustration for Holmes: Why was the world so enamoured of its day of rest, rendering itself largely unavailable to a decent, hard-working detective?
This Sunday was no exception. Once the car returned to the hotel and Holmes had paid the disgruntled young driver, it was still only the late afternoon, and long hours stretched out before him. He took the Gladstone to the room and changed his warm tweeds for a more formal City suit, then persuaded the restaurant to serve him a hot dinner despite the hour, but when he had finished it was still daylight outside.
He read the newspapers, pored over the city maps for a while, smoked a pipe and two cigarettes, and finally set out on a circuitous walk to the telegraphist's, on the chance that a reply had come from Watson. But the man was ill pleased at having his Sunday evening interrupted, and told him brusquely that the shop was closed and no, he hadn't had a telegram from Europe that day.
At least it was dark by the time Holmes returned to the hotel.
What was more, the desk man had a message for him from Hammett.
He went out of the hotel and down the street until he came to a public telephone, where he rang the number given. It was picked up by a man who grunted “Yeah?” In the background he heard the sound of half a dozen male voices in conversation, and the
“Is Mr Hammett there?”
“Yeah,” the voice said again, without the rising inflection, and thumped down. In a minute, the thin man's cough could be heard approaching the earpiece.
“That you?” Hammett's voice asked.
“I had a message from you to ring this number.”
“You're at the hotel?”
“Down the street from it.”
“Good idea. Can you find the place we had a drink at the other day?”
“Yes.”
“There's a chop house two blocks up, same side of the street. I'll be there in five minutes.”
They both rang off.
In five minutes, Holmes arrived at the small restaurant on Ellis in time to see a plate of chops and grilled tomato set in front of Hammett. The thin man had gone home and changed his stained grey suit for one of a subtle brown check, and looked himself again. His eyes caught Holmes' entrance, but he continued bantering with the pretty waitress, although it seemed to Holmes that the man was so fatigued that the flirtation was little more than habitual motion. Hammett picked up knife and fork with determination, addressing himself to the plate as if eating was just another job to be got through. Holmes waited in growing impatience while the man sawed, chewed, and swallowed, but before long Hammett allowed his utensils to come to a rest on his plate, drained the glass of orange juice he had been drinking, and searched his breast pockets, coming out with a small note-book.
He flipped it open on the table and resumed his knife and fork, working now with a degree less intensity.
“Saw your lady this morning,” he said when he had swallowed.
“Yes? Did you have conversation?”
“Just an exchange. She saw me climbing the rocks where the accident took place, asked me if I was having fun. I said no, not really, and gave her some guff about an insurance company investigating a ‘fatal' accident that might have been a set-up.”
“Did she believe you?”
“Seemed to.” Holmes thought this was probably the case: If Russell had been suspicious, she would have asked more questions than she had.
“Why did you wait until today to go down there?”
“I thought I'd get some answers about the car, first, and then snoop around the local garage down there, second. Couldn't do either of those on a Sunday, but the cliff would be there anytime.”
“But why did you find it necessary to climb down the cliffs?”
The words were mild enough, but some vestige of anger in Holmes' voice brought Hammett's head up. After a moment, his eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. You knew I was there today. Did you have me watched?”
“I did not.”
“You were there? Where—the old Pierce-Arrow with the velvet curtains, right?”
“Correct.”
Holmes waited to see if the man became angry, saw him consider it, then lay it aside with a shrug. “Your business, I guess.”
“You didn't answer my question.”
“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?”
