as he had working flat out. When she had reached the point in her narrative where she'd decided to come here, she sat back and said firmly to Holmes, “Now it's your turn.”
He began by giving her the telegrams, explaining how his own had started the exchange. He told her about meeting Hammett, although he left a great deal out of the manner and precise time of their meeting, not wishing to get side-tracked into the reasons he had been following her on the Friday night. He described the cut brake rod, safely in the bank vault, and his growing conviction that her father had concealed something in the garden. He then turned the floor over to Hammett, who described how he had become involved, how he had been caught and recruited by Holmes (he, following Holmes' lead, also avoided specific mention of time and place), and spent the next few days searching crash sites and interviewing police officers.
“And,” he finished up, “just in case you're wondering, I had a second conversation with the lady who'd tried to hire me, telling her I wasn't working for her and asking her where I could send her money. She hasn't gotten in touch yet, but I told her that if she didn't fetch it by Friday, I'd be putting it out for the birds to find.
“Which reminds me,” he said, turning to Holmes, “are those children yours?”
It never even passed through Russell's mind that the man might be referring to any biological responsibility. “More Irregulars, Holmes?”
“It seemed a good idea to keep an eye on the Hammett apartment,” he replied, then added in disappointed tones, “I expected the lads to be more invisible than that.”
“Oh, they're good, all right—anyone who doesn't know the area would never think twice. But it's my own block, and I happen to know there aren't any kids of that age right there. Especially not kids who just stand around in groups of two or three, and don't seem to wander off much. Although I'll admit that if I hadn't already been thinking of getting someone to watch my door, I probably wouldn't have noticed them.”
“I'm glad to hear that.”
Hammett reached for his pouch and papers again, glancing at Russell as he did so. “I had a couple of questions for you. Your father was going to join the Intelligence branch when he joined up?”
Russell shot a surprised glance at Holmes, who returned it evenly, as if to say,
“But you don't think your father could have picked up an enemy through those connexions?”
“What, German spies and assassins in San Francisco, just two months after the war started? I shouldn't have thought so. As far as I know, he hadn't done any work at all for them yet, and he didn't even have any links with the Presidio. But would I have known if he did? Probably not.”
Holmes turned to Hammett. “Do you know anyone inside the Army here?”
“I might. Don't know if he'd know, or talk if he did, but I can find out.”
“It might be worth asking. Just to eliminate the possibility.”
“I gave your toilet-pull to my police friend,” Hammett told him. “Nothing yet, but it's not exactly a fast process, and like you said, the prints are probably not in their files.”
“There's a project for the future,” Holmes mused, “developing a central and quickly accessible registry for finger-prints.”
“A hobby for your retirement, Holmes,” Russell commented.
But before the men could get any further in the planning stage of such a thing, the bell sounded. As Holmes went to let in Mr Long and his mystery-solving friend, Russell glanced at the window, and saw that the trees were still clearly visible.
Five hours later, when Mr Long's feng shui expert pushed himself back from the paper-laden library desk, the trees in the garden behind him had not been visible for some time.
His name was Ming, and he was a doctor of some kind or other, although apparently not including medical. Long's every gesture made it abundantly clear that the old scholar was one of the most important individuals in the Chinese community, and that it was an unheard-of honour for the practitioner to come to a Western house for a consultation. The three barbarians expressed their proper gratitude, which the scholar waved aside with a gracious hand. He seemed, if anything, amused at Long's solicitous behaviour, and interested in everything around him.
Particularly in Holmes. The old man stood before the English detective with an enigmatic look on his ageless features, the lips beneath their wisps of beard twisted in what might have been distaste, or amusement. His first words did not make the attitude any clearer.
“This low-born servant is unspeakably honoured at this opportunity to meet the English High Prince of Hawkshaws,” he said. His audience looked startled, at the flowery speech as much as at this unlikely reference to low detective fiction; even Long seemed taken aback.
Hammett got the joke first, and let loose a snort of smothered laughter. Holmes, looking more closely at the visiting sage, deliberately continued extending his hand, a motion that had been interrupted by the man's flowery words.
“The Savant of the Breath of Dragons is of course welcome to take amusement at the expense of this humble thief-taker,” he replied, and Ming nodded, the twist of his mouth finally becoming a smile.
Dr Ming was a thin, elderly gentleman with white hair that flowed from his high forehead down over the collar of his beautifully cut Western suit, a back straight and flexible as bamboo, and delicate hands that seemed to fold themselves together into the sleeves of an invisible robe. His English was fluent and precise, although accented, and he emanated a Mandarin sensibility in everything he did, from opening the cover of one of Judith Russell's garden journals to picking up a cup of the pale green tea Long had thought to bring with him. Watching him make notes with his silver mechanical pencil was like witnessing the art of a master water-colourist, the meditation of precise and delicate strokes.
He was not, however, speedy.
Holmes explained what he was hoping for. He described the document they had found in the fireplace, and its possible meanings (leaving aside the potential interpretation that implicated Charles Russell as the author of blackmail—undue complications were not for the moment) and then pulled up the stack of Mrs Russell's journals, one for each year, to show Dr Ming the drawings they contained. He presented his theory that Charles Russell, most likely with the knowledge of his wife but certainly with the assistance of the gardener Long, had concealed something of considerable importance in his garden before he had died: the garden that, as Dr Ming could see, was now so hugely overgrown as to be unreadable, and very nearly impenetrable.
When he had explained all this, he asked his question: Knowing that the man in charge of the garden, Tom Long's father, was devoted to the precepts of feng shui, and knowing that Mr Long would have wished to help conceal and protect this important article, could a comparative study of the garden before and after 1906 suggest to Dr Ming where precisely the item might have been buried?
Dr Ming asked, “Is this an item of importance, or one of value?”
“It could be either, although I suspect to Charles Russell, its importance would not have lain strictly in its monetary value. He was a wealthy man.”
Dr Ming tucked his hands into their invisible sleeves and meditated on the open journal before him, that with the date of March 1906. He meditated for so long, and sitting so still, that Hammett began to think the old fellow had drifted into a nap, and Russell found herself wondering if, despite his earlier fluency, he actually understood English as well as he had seemed to.
Finally he took his hands apart and looked into Holmes' eyes. “It may be possible,” he pronounced. He turned to Long to suggest that another pot of tea be assembled, began to unpack a collection of papers and writing implements, and asked the room in general, “I shall need the precise time of birth of the owner of the garden.”
Fortunately, Holmes had come across just such a document in his search through the family papers, or all might well have been lost before it began. The aged scholar merely accepted the information as if such knowledge was a given, and pulled the first of the garden journals towards him.
After an hour of studying the sketches and journals, he began to transfer certain pieces of information to the sheets of paper he had brought, using as reference a drawing that looked like a highly complex cross between a compass and maze. He murmured from time to time in his own language. Long sat on the edge of his chair, unwilling to relax in the great man's presence. Little else happened.
