“Really?”
“I saw a soldier take money from Mahmoud, ambush Einarson and Grantham, and miss ’em with six shots.”
She clicked a fingernail against her teeth.
“That’s not like Mahmoud,” she objected, “to be seen paying for his murders.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. “But suppose his hired man decided he wanted more pay, or maybe he’d only been paid part of his wages. What better way to collect than to pop out and ask for it in the street a few minutes before he was scheduled to turn the trick?”
She nodded, and spoke as if thinking aloud:
“Then they’ve got all they expect to get from Grantham, and each was trying to hog it by removing the other.”
“Where you go wrong,” I told her, “is in thinking that the revolution is dead.”
“But Mahmoud wouldn’t, for three million dollars, conspire to remove himself from power.”
“Right! Mahmoud thought he was putting on a show for the boy. When he learned it wasn’t a show—learned Einarson was in earnest—he tried to have him knocked off.”
“Perhaps.” She shrugged her smooth bare shoulders. “But now you’re guessing.”
“Yes? Einarson carries a picture of the Shah of Persia. It’s worn, as if he handled it a lot. The Shah of Persia is a Russian soldier who went in there