Part 14 (1/2)

As if he had followed the line of thought, Holmes addressed himself to the leather wallet again, pulling out five twenty-dollar notes and laying them onto the table. ”That should be sufficient as a retainer. You see, I do not make the mistake of paying too generously.”

”No, Mr Holmes, I don't think you make too many mistakes. Anything other than the car you want me to be getting on?”

”That is the first order of business, I think. Oh, but Hammett? You saw my wife tonight. Well enough to recognise her again?”

”Girl with gla.s.ses, her height, hair, and posture-she doesn't exactly fade into the crowd. But if she was sitting, had a hat on? I don't know.”

”Quite.” Holmes bent his head for a moment in thought before he slid two fingers into the note-case, this time drawing out a photograph-or rather, a square neatly snipped from a larger photograph. Reluctantly (Reluctant to show it to me? wondered Hammett. Or to show he had it at all? The Englishman seemed a person who would not reveal his affections readily.), Holmes slid it across the table for Hammett to examine.

It was of a young woman on a street, clearly unaware of the camera. Her head was up, showing a determined chin and graceful neck. The day had been bright but not sunny enough to make her spectacles throw shadows or reflections, so that behind the wire frames were revealed a pair of light-coloured eyes. Her hair was fair and gathered on top of her head in a way Hammett hadn't seen in years-and hadn't seen on the woman getting out of the car the night before.

”She's cut her hair since this was taken?”

”Yes,” Holmes said, with a trace of regret that made Hammett's mouth curve again, although he did not comment.

”And her eyes-blue or green?”

”Blue. And to American ears, she speaks with a pure English accent.”

Hammett handed the photograph back across the table. ”Okay,” he said, making it a question.

Tucking the photograph back into its hold, Holmes said, ”I showed you this because I think it possible that Russell will decide to travel in the same direction you are going, sometime in the next day or two. It would be as well if she didn't take too much notice of you.”

”I hear you.” Hammett put the money into his own wallet, dashed the last contents of his gla.s.s down his throat, and stood up to shake the hand of his new employer. ”Mr Holmes, this has been an interesting evening.”

Grey eyes looked into brown, understanding each other well.

Chapter Twelve.

At that hour, with only the occasional vehicle to impede a walker's straight line, Holmes' long stride took him back to the hotel in twenty minutes-and that included doubling back twice to ensure that he had no one else on his heels. The doorman was dozing in his corner, the man on the desk jerked around, startled, at this late entrance, and the dim sea of posts and chairs that made up the lobby resembled a theatre after the curtains had fallen.

The boy on the elevator, by contrast, was bright-eyed and longing for company. He commented on the weather, mentioned a Harold Lloyd comedy showing at a nearby cinema house the following afternoon that Holmes might care to avail himself of, and admired the cut of Holmes' hat. The lad seemed disappointed that Holmes did not seize the opportunity for conversation, and threw open the door in a subdued manner that not even a coin could a.s.suage.

Russell was still out. He stood uncertainly inside the door, wondering if he should return to the bright cabaret where he had left her, then shook his head and closed the door firmly. It was unlikely that the young people had remained at one gin palace during the course of an evening, and he should end up haring all over town for her. She would return.

He exchanged his outer garments for a dressing-gown, then picked up the telephone to ask for a pot of coffee. When it had come, he a.s.sembled a nest of cus.h.i.+ons and settled into it with coffee, tobacco, and his thoughts.

Two hours later, the faint rattle of the lift door was accompanied by voices raised in a manner guaranteed to wake the other guests: Russell and the elevator boy, exchanging jests. A moment later the key clattered about in the door, giving her problems before it finally slipped into place and Russell tumbled into the room.

”Good Lord, Holmes, are you still up? Had I known, I'd have rung you and had you come along. I know it's not exactly your kind of music, but you might have found the experience interesting. There was this extraordinary singer named Belinda Birdsong,” she said, and regaled him with the details of music, dance, and conversation. As she talked she wandered in and out of the room, kicking her shoes in the direction of the wardrobe, was.h.i.+ng her face, putting on night-clothes. She finally got into bed, but once there she sat bolt upright in the most exulted of spirits, prattling on-Russell, prattling!-about her evening with Miss Greenfield's cronies. Spirits of the liquid variety contributed to her mood, he diagnosed, but they simply enhanced the feverish look she had worn for longer than he cared to remember.

If she went on in this manner much longer, he would have to locate some morphia and knock her out forcibly.

He sc.r.a.ped out the cold contents of his pipe into the ash-tray, extricated himself from the cus.h.i.+ons, and went about the business of emptying pockets and undoing b.u.t.tons, getting ready for bed. Russell looked as if she might be up for the rest of the night.

A name, or perhaps the way in which she'd said it, caught at his attention from the spate, and he paused on his way to the bath-room to listen. ”-and a friend of Flo's friend Donny, who's a few years older than she is, was very kindly sitting out a dance with me and I mentioned what I had been doing today-or yesterday, I suppose-and he said that he remembered her.”

”Remembered whom?” asked Holmes, just to be sure.

”Are you not listening to me?”

”I was pulling my vest over my head.”

Sure sign of her state of mind was the ready way in which she accepted it, without even stopping to consider. ”I was talking about Dr Ginzberg. Apparently she was rather well known in the city before . . . Anyway, this friend of Donny's-his name was Terry, I think, or was it Jerry? I don't know, the music was rather loud-he said he remembered that people used to say she was good at getting her patients to remember things, 'mesmerism,' he called it although that's rather an old-fas.h.i.+oned name-even when I knew her she called it 'hypnosis.' You remember her techniques, Holmes.”

”I remember you made use of them yourself on the Chessman woman, last summer, for just that purpose.”

Russell's head dropped back against the padded head-board, and for a moment her face went quiet. ”Good Lord, only last summer? What a long time ago it seems, since that afternoon poor Miss Ruskin came to tea and gave us her inlaid box. And then we had your friend Baring-Gould, then Ali and-” As if she had become aware of the unshed tears trembling in her eyes, her head snapped forward, her eyes dried instantly, and she was away again. ”You're right, although I'm terribly clumsy at hypnosis compared to Dr Ginzberg. She was so gentle and convincing, she'd have you recalling what you had for dinner on your sixth birthday. But in any case, Jerry or Terry remembered that she was something of a celebrity in town, so that when she was . . . when she died, people talked about it for weeks, and it was in all the papers.”

Holmes looked at his wife's hands, wringing each other with enough force that he could hear the sound from across the room; she was completely oblivious to both sound and gesture. ”So I was thinking, Holmes, if it made such a stink at the time, surely the police would still have the file open. I mean unless they've decided she fell and hit herself on the head with the statue. Which going by what I heard tonight would only be likely if they were paid to decide that, did you know, Holmes-”

He walked into the bath-room and shook tooth-powder onto his brush, but even with the noise of the running tap and the brush, he could hear the words spilling out of the next room. Drugged, drunk, hysterical, or simply infected by the mood of a flock of partying flappers, he couldn't know, but it was tiresome and it was worrying and it was not Russell, not at all.

At last, near dawn, she slept. Holmes, who had spent most of his life in complete disregard of the hours of light and dark, wondered if age was beginning to slip up on him, for the long hours they'd kept the past few days had left him feeling light-headed with exhaustion. So he, too, slept, so deeply he did not hear her rise, dress, and go out.

It was past ten o'clock when the door opened again. This time, he came awake swiftly.

”Russell?”

”Good heavens,” she said. ”Are you still asleep? Sorry, I felt sure you'd gone out and I missed seeing you.”

”How long have you been up?” A faint heaviness at the edges of his voice gave away his sleep-clogged state, and he cleared his throat to rid himself of it.

”Oh, two or three hours,” she answered cheerfully: If that was true, she had slept for less than three hours, in spite of which she showed no signs of hang-over. She was probably still intoxicated. ”It's a lovely morning, a bit of fog earlier but it looks to be warm today. I'll just fetch what I came for and leave you.”

”That is not necessary, I was on the edge of waking. Have you had your breakfast?”

”Oh, yes.”

”Six cups of black coffee.”

”Two, and toast,” she protested.

”Then you'll be ready for a proper breakfast. I shall meet you in the restaurant after I have shaved. Unless your current task cannot wait.”

”Oh no, that's fine. I was just coming for the key, I thought I'd go up to the house this morning, but it can wait. I'll order coffee.” And so saying she left. Holmes rubbed his face, grimacing at the stubble, and swung his long legs to the floor.

The restaurant was nearly deserted at that hour, and Russell was at a window table, the bright sunlight turning her into the silhouette of a young woman bent over her morning paper. She looked sleek and alien in her bobbed haircut and new clothes, and the arm that stretched across the paper had something of the modern fas.h.i.+on for bone without muscle: In another few days, her thinness would become alarming.

She looked up when he came to the table, and permitted the waiter to fill her cup along with Holmes'.

”Have you ordered?” he asked.

”I'll just have a piece of toast. I had an omelette at Flo's house.”

”Seven hours ago. You will have a breakfast,” he said flatly, and turned to the waiter to order two large meals. She raised an eyebrow at his tone and his action, and when the waiter had left, Holmes addressed himself to her again. ”Occasional periods of self-starvation benefit the mental processes; over the long term, it can be destructive. The body is a machine, and needs fuel. Think of your porridge and eggs as petrol.”