Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [69]
“Two men having a drink together, Mr Hammett—surely that indicates a truce agreement, even in these farthest reaches of civilisation?” Holmes rested his cigarette in the flimsy tin ash-tray and picked up his glass again, left-handed; it occurred to Hammett that, other than their hand-shake and when he'd been paying for the drinks, the Englishman's right hand was always kept free and never more than a few inches from the pocket holding the gun.
Hammett gave a sudden laugh, his haggard face lighting up unexpectedly. “Mr Holmes, something tells me that you only trust a truce when it's fifty pages long and freshly written in the other guy's blood.”
Holmes gave a small smile. “Superior strength is indeed a desirable component of negotiation.”
“Fine then, let's negotiate away—you with your gun, me on my home ground.”
“Am I to understand that your version of my ‘second fundamental question' indicates a certain lack of trust in the very people who hired you?”
“Now why would you say that?”
“Had you been wholeheartedly committed to the cause of your employer, I suspect that you would have made a play for the weapon, either on the way here or with the bar-keep to back you up. Not that you would have succeeded, mind you, and in the process of demonstrating that fact someone might have been hurt, so I do commend your decision. However, I assert that your willingness to go along with abduction is somewhat unusual, considering the Pinkertons' reputation for professional behaviour.”
Hammett scowled. “The Pinkertons are in it for the money, that's true. And they don't always look too closely at where their clients' cash comes from. It's one of the disagreements I've had with them over the years. Why I only work for them from time to time, nowadays.”
Holmes squinted through the smoke at the younger man, thinking over the man's words. “If I hear you aright, you are telling me that you prefer to act in cases that suit your moral stance, and that this particular case you are on is making you suspect that your employers are not on the side of the angels.”
“Yeah, well, a man's got to live with the person in the mirror.”
Especially, thought Holmes, when the man's own mortality stood so clearly outlined at his shoulder.
“Your doubts therefore explain why you came with me so willingly. To see if my side, as it were, suited your ethics more comfortably.”
“I thought I'd listen to what you had to say.”
Which suggested the possibility, Holmes reflected, that the man had not only willingly permitted himself to be taken in the alley, but might even have set it up with precisely that end in view. He raised a mental eyebrow, reappraising the thin man before him: It had been a long time since he'd come across that combination of intelligence and fearlessness.
Russell had it, and half a dozen others he'd known through the years.
One of whom had been Professor Moriarty.
“So, do I get to ask a question now?” Hammett said.
“You may ask.”
“Yeah, I know, and you might not answer. But that would be the end of a beautiful friendship, wouldn't it?”
Again the faint glint of amusement from the grey eyes. “Your question being, Why didn't I shoot you in the face when we met in the alley?”
“That's as good a place to start as any.”
“I suppose one might say, better a known enemy than an unseen potential.”
Hammett blinked. “You have a lot of ‘unseen potentials' around?”
“One, at least. Unless that was you who took a shot at my wife the other evening?”
The thin man's jaw dropped as his features went slack for a moment, an expression of shock that only the most subtle of actors could produce at will; Holmes did not think this man an actor. “Your wife? I didn't know—Wait a minute. Is that the girl you were following tonight?”
“In the dark green frock, yes. Although I don't know that she has been a ‘girl' in all the years I've known her.”
“And someone took a shot at her?”
“Wednesday night, about six o'clock, in Pacific Heights.”
“At the house?”
“So you know where her house is?”
Instead of