Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [98]
Half a mile from the spot where he had decided it happened, the road climbed, then abruptly turned and dropped away at the same time. Young Tyson's foot came down hard on the brake pedal, and Holmes nodded grimly to himself.
Near the top of the hill, a battered bread-delivery lorry—truck, as they called them here—had been pulled into an inadequate flat space on the eastern side of the road. On the other side, overlooking the sea, stood a short, bow-legged man with close-cropped hair, his garments tossed by the wind. His knees were against the guard-rail as he craned to look over the edge. As they went past, Holmes raked the figure with a glance, then resumed his straight-ahead gaze, frowning slightly.
At the bottom of the hill the waves had deposited a small beach, a golden crescent of sand. At the far end of it, two people were making their way up the sand to the road, a picnic basket and bright blankets in their arms, heads ducked against the wind. Even from a distance, Holmes could see their Model T rock with the wind.
Holmes spoke to Tyson in a taut voice. “Park where those two young people are just leaving, but turn around on the other side of them so as to be facing north. I want to have an open view of the cliff.” The young man nodded, performed the turn and, once the Model T had left, eased cautiously off the road onto the edges of the sand. As he slowed, Holmes said, “Pull your wheel a few more degrees to the right and go forward ten feet.” When he had done so, Holmes dropped the back window and looked out at the cliff, seeing what he had feared. With a shake of the head, he told the boy to shut off the motor.
“We shall be here for an hour or two, possibly longer. You may stay or go, as you like; if you remain in the motor, you must keep quite still; if you go, you merely need to stay within the sound of my voice.” While speaking, Holmes had retrieved the Gladstone from the floor and yanked open the top. He now drew out a stubby brass telescope, not new but with the polish of care, which Auberon had conjured up for his guest. Laying it on the seat, he went back into the bag and took from it a tripod with extendable legs, which he set up on the floor, arranging his long legs around it. He fastened the telescope onto the tripod, raised it so it reached the height of his eyes, and leant back to examine it. The sun was well away from any reflective portion of the instrument, but he tugged the velvet drapes a few inches closer together, rendering the interior invisible.
Only then did he lower his eyes to the eyepiece and put his hand to the adjustments.
A six-foot-two-inch man with tubercular lungs was hanging from the cliff face while waves were reaching up to catch at his feet.
Damn the man, thought Holmes, angry and apprehensive; what was he trying to prove? That he was better than the famous Sherlock Holmes? A sickly man with a family to support, risking his neck for the sake of what? The faint possibility of ten-year-old evidence? He'd been told to look at the wreckage, which very clearly was not on the rocks, and to interview the locals, which equally clearly the man standing up on the road was not.
As Holmes watched the thin figure pick his way from one precarious hand-hold to the next, he felt precisely as he had whenever he had placed Watson in danger—a thing he'd generally done as inadvertently as he had this man. Scarcely breathing, he watched the man on the cliff, expecting at any moment to see those long arms flail and the body crash down into the foam: one assistant shot, another smashed; this case was proving hard on the Irregulars.
Ten minutes later, the young man in the driver's seat shifted and the hillside scene leapt and danced through the lens.
Holmes said coldly, “Mr Tyson, you may feel free to get out and watch the sea-birds.”
After a minute, the door opened and the abashed lad got out, shutting it with care. Holmes settled again to the eyepiece.
Taking into account his poor physical condition, Hammett was making a remarkably thorough job of his investigation of the cliffside. With