Locked Rooms Part 26

"Then I'd say not. Later, maybe, but doing it now, you'd risk scaring them off. You'd also be risking their getting to the kid first."

"You feel they could remove him?"

"Yeah, I do."

"I'm afraid I agree with you, Hammett. Thank you." Holmes set the earpiece back on its hook, and pulled back the curtains to let the day in. He leant his shoulder against the window-frame, staring unseeing down at the street, weighing his options-or, rather, weighing his opponent's options. His picture of her was more blank s.p.a.ce than anything else, but he did not have the impression that the woman had unlimited resources. Her efforts had been too focussed for that, and her fury at Hammett's refusal indicated that she had rather a lot tied up in him-although her anger could as easily have been due to the waste of time rather than money. However, there was also the fact of her overgenerous payment to Hammett: In Holmes' experience, someone with a great deal of money was less likely to misjudge the cost of a thing, or of a person.

All in all, he thought that the woman's resources could well be somewhat stretched, and she would want that money back. He considered his available stock of Irregulars: Hammett was not only noticeable but known to the woman; Long would stand out anywhere outside Chinatown; the lad Tyson could not be trusted to keep to the shadows-he would want to sail in, guns blazing.

No, there was nothing for it: time to recruit.

Holmes went to the trunks that had been stashed, as he'd insisted, not in the hotel store-room but against the back wall of the bedroom. He unearthed the one he wanted and, sorting through the layers of clothing Oriental and Western, eventually put together a costume that would be unremarkable in the part of town he intended to visit. The lift-man looked at him askance, but said nothing.

His first task was to determine if a surveillance of the Hammett apartment was even a viable proposition-watching the front door of an apartment building was of little use without a detailed description of the quarry. He sought out the delivery alley that ran in back of Hammett's building, and was gratified to find that the fire-escape doors possessed small windows at each level. By the judicious rearrangement of dust-bins and the hook of his walking-stick, he scrambled onto the metal escape and moments later was looking straight down the hall-way at Hammett's door.

Humming a tune under his breath, he dropped out of the heights and went out to recruit a platoon of Irregulars.

The modern fashion for universal compulsory education had put a distinct cramp into the style of a consulting detective. In his Baker Street days, he'd been regularly able to summon a group of street arabs to serve at his beck and call, but now-and particularly in this democratic republic of America-all his most valuable resources were parked behind desks, chafing at the restrictions and wasting their most productive years while their heads were filled with mathematical formulae they would never use and the names of cities they would never visit.

Fortunately, the truant officer who worked Hammett's neighbourhood did not appear to be among the most stringent. Three streets away from Hammett's apartment, Holmes heard the sound of children's voices from down an alley. He sauntered down the dim recesses between two buildings until he could see their figures, gathered in a lump against a brick wall. Then he halted, leaning against the wall and taking out his cigarettes. He lit one, to ensure that he had their attention, and they went silent for a moment while they considered the necessity of flight.

Children, Holmes had found, were like wild dogs: Liable to slink away at the merest threat when encountered in their solitary state, in a pack they were curious, intelligent, potentially vicious, affectionate to their friends, and immensely loyal to the pack leader. Sure enough, before the cigarette was halfway down a small child was standing in front of him, just far enough away to dance out of reach of the walking-stick. Holmes studied the end of his cigarette, and stifled a yawn.

"Say, mister, what do you want?"

Holmes turned his head as if noticing the child for the first time. "Are you the boss-kid here?" he asked.

"Nah," the young scout admitted.

"Then my business isn't with you," he told the infant, and went back to leaning against the wall.

The child returned to his pack; whispers gave way to a sharp command; the sounds of their game resumed-penny pitching, Holmes heard, rather than dice or cards. He came to the end of his cigarette, ground it out under his heel, and leisurely lit another; it wasn't until the third time his match flared that the pack leader's curiosity overcame him.

He was a lad of about ten years, by no means the tallest of the half-dozen children, and not quite the oldest. His heritage owed something to both Ireland and Mexico, but he'd have fit right in among the Whitechapel urchins Holmes had known for so many years: scuffed shoes, too-short trousers, too-long coat, and a tweed cap worn at a rakish angle. Holmes had to conceal his smile with the cigarette, while waiting for the boy to speak.

"What do you want?" the ruler of the alleyway demanded.

"I need a job done," Holmes told him. "I thought maybe you'd have an older brother who'd be interested."

As he'd antic.i.p.ated, the boy ignored the open acknowledgement that he was the pack's leader and fell for the implication that he was not man enough for the "job." He drew himself up to his full four feet and bristled.

"I got two older brothers. One's a drunk and one's in prison. Which one do you want?"

"By the sound of it, neither of them. I need someone who's wise enough not to fall into a bottle and bright enough not to get caught when he does something slick. How smart are you?"

"Smarter'n you, mister, if you think I'll fall for that guff."

"Up to you. I need a job done, and I'm willing to pay, but if you're not interested, I'll find someone else."

"What kind of job?"

"The kind of job that takes brains and the ability to keep his friends under control."

The boy looked at the friends in question, standing in a knot just a little further down the alley. Then he looked back at Holmes, and took a couple of steps closer. "Like I said-what kind of a job?"

The negotiations that followed would have done a wigged barrister proud, but in the end, Holmes had bought the day's services of the boy's pack: keeping constant watch over the Hammett door, running a messenger to the St Francis if anyone came to the apartment, and following discreetly when the intruder left.

"You'll need to be wary of the boot-leggers on the ground floor," he warned his new lieutenant. "They may stand watch in the evenings. And if an intruder comes, you are not to approach him, or her as the case may be. You will follow, at a distance, at a distance, for as long as you can. If she-or he-gets into a taxi, don't try to run behind or draw attention to yourself by trying to hail a taxi of your own. Just get the cab's number and we can later find where the driver went. Er, I am correct in a.s.suming you can all read numbers?" The scornful snort the lad gave out reminded Holmes of Russell; it also satisfied him, and he went on. "If she goes into a shop, one of you go around the back to make sure-" for as long as you can. If she-or he-gets into a taxi, don't try to run behind or draw attention to yourself by trying to hail a taxi of your own. Just get the cab's number and we can later find where the driver went. Er, I am correct in a.s.suming you can all read numbers?" The scornful snort the lad gave out reminded Holmes of Russell; it also satisfied him, and he went on. "If she goes into a shop, one of you go around the back to make sure-"

"Mister," the leader interrupted with infinite disdain, "we know all this. My uncle runs a betting shop, and when one of his customers don't pay up, sometimes he asks us to help lay hands on the guy. You're doin' what he calls 'Teaching granny to suck eggs,' whatever that means. Sounds disgusting, but that's what you're doin'."

Holmes beamed at the boy and reached out a hand to pat the disreputable tweed cap, then changed the gesture to the offer of a hand-shake, which the lad eyed curiously, then accepted. "You give me hope for the coming generation," he said. "You needn't continue all night, as the man who lives there will be at home, but if nothing has happened today, I'd like you back here tomorrow. Same rates. I'll come back here first thing in the morning, to pay you what I owe you and receive your report." He handed over the agreed-to retainer of two dollars and left the pack to their work.

At the end of the alleyway, he stopped to change his neck-tie for one less gaudy, reverse his coat so that its staid side was facing out, snap the brim of his hat down into dignity, and brush the dust from his trouser-legs and shoes.

He entered Chinatown with the appearance of just another stray from the financial district, looking for a late lunch.

It took a while before Long could extricate himself from customers, a while longer while they settled into the corner of a tea-house, and even longer before he grasped what Holmes was asking.

"You think there is treasure buried in the Russell garden, and you want me to help you find it?" He was too polite to sound openly incredulous, but it was in the back of his voice.

"I believe there is something of importance hidden in the grounds, yes. Consider, if you will, three points. First, Charles Russell wrote a codicil to his will shortly after the fire, making it nearly impossible for any outsider to gain access to the property, a thing most easily explained by the presence of something either valuable or incriminating on the premises. Second, a thorough search of the house interior gave us nothing. And third, your family, long and faithful though their service seems to have been, appears nowhere in the house records after the summer of 1906. There was no mention of them in the will, no cheques made out to them in the account registers after that time, no official link whatsoever that I have been able to uncover.

"Taken separately, none of the three pieces of information leads to much in the way of a conclusion. Taken together, the indications would be that the thing Charles Russell wished to conceal was not in his house, but in the garden. And how could he hope to keep a buried object hidden from a gardener as skilled and conscientious as your father? He was forced to take your father into his confidentiality, but to protect him, he cut all evidentiary ties between himself and the Long family. He paid their salaries in cash, he made no provisions in his will for them, and he and his wife refused a signed doc.u.ment when she lent your parents money to buy the bookstore. So yes, I believe there is something buried in the garden, something your father knew about. Something too sensitive to be locked into a bank's safe-deposit vault, where it would come to light on Charles Russell's death."

"You may be correct, Mr Holmes, but I a.s.sure you, he did not tell me about it."

"I should be very surprised if he did. However, I should also be surprised if you could not find it."

"How? What would I be looking for?"

"I have no idea."

"Then how do you know that it is there?"

"This threatens to become a circular argument," Holmes said. "I know it's there because it's all that explains the facts. My wife tells me that astronomers posit the existence of an invisible planet by the effects it has on the orbit of other celestial bodies. Thus do I posit the existence of this object."

"I see. Mr Holmes, I have been in the garden a few times, yes, when I was very young, but I doubt that now I could even find where my father had his vegetables growing-the place is a jungle, I saw that much the other evening."

Holmes hunched forward over the table, and spoke in a low voice. "Mrs Russell kept a detailed record of the work done in her garden, including a yearly sketch or map of the arrangement of flower-beds and paths, the addition of major plantings, and so on. There is a volume for every year, beginning with the spring of 1903. The years she spent in England, 1907 to 1911, are missing, but there is one made dated March 1906, and one made in the autumn of 1912 after her return."

"None of them, I would a.s.sume, have a spot marked 'X' with the Stevensonian suggestion to 'dig here'?" Long asked it with a smile.

"Alas, no. However, I believe your father may have acknowledged the presence of some object of supreme importance in the arrangement of the garden itself, whether he was instrumental in its concealment or simply told of its presence after the deed was done."

"How do-ah." Long sighed. "You are thinking of my father's commitment to the principles of feng shui."

"Precisely," said Holmes. "I am suggesting that, were one to a.n.a.lyse the adjustments that were made, the replacement of the fish pond, for example, and the shift of the rock-garden, one might work backward to find the source of the perceived problem. That, to a knowledgeable eye, the re-channelling of the earth's energies that was done some years ago might point to a specific source." He watched closely until he was satisfied that Long understood, then sat back to let Long think.

After a while, the bookseller shook his head. "I could look at the garden drawings and see if anything catches my eye, but I am a neophyte, and if my father did the thing correctly, the changes would be quite subtle. After all, there is little purpose in hiding a thing if you then place a large arrow over its location. He would have consulted a pract.i.tioner of the arts."

"Did he know such a man?"

"He did. He used him to arrange the fittings in the bookstore, in fact. But the man was very old, and died years ago."

"That is unfortunate," Holmes said. "However, perhaps if we were to give those maps to another with that knowledge, might he be able to perceive the place that your father would have been . . . protecting?"

"It is possible. The cla.s.sical principles of feng shui are laid down in history, and although each pract.i.tioner has his or her own style, the formulae should be the same. Would you like me to find out?"

"Very much." As the alternative would be to reduce the entire garden to something resembling the trenches of northern France, any guidance, however idiosyncratic, could be of value.

"I know a man who can do what you need, if anyone can. Would you care to wait here while I go and see if he would consider taking the consultation?"

The phrasing and the way in which Long nervously adjusted his tie and cuffs indicated that the person he intended to ask was of an exalted rank, not at all the sort of person a casual Westerner could drop in on. Holmes told Long that he was happy to wait, and he settled in with his tea, tossing down countless tiny cups of the scalding beverage while the citizens of this town-within-a-town scurried back and forth across the window. He was impatient: The clock was ticking, and it was beginning to look less and less likely that he would get this thing settled before Russell returned.

When Long came back, he wore the face of unsuccess.

"He is out of town," he reported. "A new restaurant in San Jose has a complicated set of problems. He is not expected to return until tomorrow. I asked to be notified as soon as he comes back, but if you prefer, I can find another pract.i.tioner."

"Would the other be as good?"

"No," Long said simply.

Holmes rapped his tiny cup rapidly on the table a number of times, then pushed it away from him, sitting back in his chair. "Very well, then; tomorrow."

"Will you call?"

"I shall either call by your shop or telephone to you, after noon."

"I shall be there."

Holmes left the tea shop and walked down the street, but there he stopped, a large barrier of indecision on the bustling pavements. In the end, he turned abruptly back and walked in the direction of his telegraphist. Not that he expected a response from Mycroft, who would have received the second telegram less than twenty-four hours before, but only the careless leave a possibility unattended due to a.s.sumptions.

To his surprise, the busy man responded to his arrival in the door by slapping an envelope onto the counter-top. To his greater surprise, once he had redeemed the thing and gone out to the street to open it, it was not second thoughts from Watson, but from Mycroft:

DEAR BOY FAR EASIER TO GIVE ALL DETAILS AT BEGINNING AND DON'T MAKE ME GUESS BUT BASED ON GUESSWORK AND WORKING BACKWARD FROM RUMOURS SENT ME FROM OUR FRIEND IN ADEN I BEGAN ENQUIRIES REGARDING FURTHER ACTIVITIES OF ANY PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN WHO MADE HASTE TO INTERCEPT YOUR BOAT IN Ma.r.s.eILLES OR PORT SAID OR CAIRO. ONLY ONE SUCH LOOKED PROMISING NAMELY WOMAN IN PARIS BEGAN SEARCHING FIFTH JANUARY FOR FLIGHTS TO EGYPT FOUND PILOT AND ACCEPTABLE WEATHER MONDAY SEVENTH ARRIVING PORT SAID EARLY HOURS OF TUESDAY EIGHTH. COST UNKNOWN BUT CONSIDERABLE. DESCRIPTION QUOTE TALL BUT WOMANLY UNQUOTE LATE THIRTIES BROWN HAIR AND EYES SPOKE FLUENT FRENCH AND ENGLISH WITH QUOTE SOUTHERN AMERICAN UNQUOTE ACCENT NOT CERTAIN IF MEANS SOUTHERN USA OR SOUTH AMERICA SORRY O THE PROBLEMS OF FINDING GOOD HELP. LET ME KNOW IF I SHOULD EXTEND ENQUIRIES TO THE BOAT WHICH DOCKS HERE THURSDAY. NEXT TIME BE FORTHCOMING EARLY TO YOUR BIG BROTHER. ALL WELL HERE LOST TWO STONE. MYCROFT.

Holmes laughed aloud with pleasure at the undiminished authority of Mycroft's voice. He did not care to think of the world without his older brother, who in January had looked very ill from his heart attack.

He went back inside to send a return message of thanks and to a.s.sure Mycroft that it would not be necessary to interview the staff of the Marguerite Marguerite at this time. No doubt Mycroft could extract more detail from the pursers than Watson had, but he did not think it necessary. at this time. No doubt Mycroft could extract more detail from the pursers than Watson had, but he did not think it necessary.

Telegram sent, he made his way back to the house, let himself in with the key he'd had cut the previous day, and settled in for a minute study of the household accounts. These covered the period from 1890, when Charles Russell had arrived here after university, until the close of 1913-later records, he figured, would be with Mr Norbert.

He had looked these over before, gleaning from them such information as when the Russells had come here after their marriage, when Judith Russell had left for England, and when the Longs had first begun, then ceased, to appear on the books. Now, however, he read more carefully. Making notes, he turned back from time to time as he tried to piece together the portrait of a family.

He laboured all the afternoon and far into the night, breaking away only to make two telephone calls to the St Francis from his new Italian friends down the street, but there were no messages. On his second trip down, the owner of the cafe urged a dinner on him, and he returned to the accounts refreshed by a nice scallopini and a litre of powerful Italian coffee.

He discovered many fascinating truths about the Russell family, but only two that stood out in his mind for the purposes of the investigation. Both of those were a.s.sociated with the father of the young lady currently sharing a house near a lake with Russell. In 1892, before he had gone to Europe and met his wife, young Charles Russell had made out a cheque for $750 to Robert Greenfield, with the notation "for help with building cabin." Then on April 22, 1906, he had written another to the same person, for $7500. Against this had been noted "repayment of loan."

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.

"I'm just taking breakfast. Would you like to join me?"

"Sure, that would be fine. I'll be there in ten minutes or so."

Hammett arrived, looking as well-dressed and cadaverous as ever, just in time to see the dignified Englishman half-rise from his chair, eyes popping at some article in the paper before him, and then ball it up and hurl it to the floor. The entire restaurant fell dead silent; the only people moving were the maitre d' and Dashiell Hammett.

"Sir, what is it?" begged the hotel gentleman. "Is there anything-"

Holmes raised his eyes and found Hammett standing in front of him, then looked further and noticed that every pair of eyes was avidly waiting to see what this dignified Englishman would do next. He gave a sharp little laugh, waved away the maitre d', and dropped back into his chair. Hammett scooped up the armful of newsprint and sat across from him.

"Don't like the news?" Hammett asked laconically, straightening the pages.

The older man scowled furiously at the day's Chronicle. Chronicle. "Hammett, if ever you find yourself bound to a literary agent, for G.o.d's sake make sure the man isn't utterly barking mad." "Hammett, if ever you find yourself bound to a literary agent, for G.o.d's sake make sure the man isn't utterly barking mad."