I'm very intent on trying to establish a consistent character for Watson's wife. To keep her understanding and sympathetic, I assert in DIM that Mary sent that girl she gave notice to in SCAN, to her former employer and friend Mrs. Cecil Forrester, so that the girl could be reformed from her laziness by a solid, patient, and mature woman, and that Mrs. Cecil Forrester would not miss Mary so much. --Has nothing to do with this sketch, but is just something to soften the harshness of the canon.
Mary Morstan Watson waited for her husband to return from dinner, and a case, with Sherlock Holmes. What a funny phrase was that--dinner and a case with Holmes! Like having dinner and a concert or dinner and a walk through the park when one courted! Mary smiled to herself and chuckled in the depths of her armchair by the fire. She nestled cosily in the sitting-room, as lowlit as the rest of the house. Having earlier shooed the housekeeper, their sole servant, to bed by washing the dishes herself, Mary now had the house to herself and could bask in the smell of John's tobacco clinging to his armchair. She contemplated reading a book, but no, her husband would be home soon with a tale that she would much prefer to hear. She was dying to know the conclusion of this most interesting case of Miss Mary Sutherland.
There was a carriage outside then, and yes! his key in the door. She jumped up hurriedly and soon met him in the hall as he was just locking the door and turning around.
She kissed his cheek and took his hat and walking stick from him. "Another one for the books?" she asked. She referred, of course, to the growing collection of manuscripts in her husband's study, to which he had devoted increasing attention since she had shown interest in his short stories and the detective cases they chronicled. "One for the books" had been Mary's pet phrase to use for these instalments of Sherlock Holmes's outré world ever since John had come home that March recounting the amusing final events of a case he called "A Scandal in Bohemia."
He smiled at her. "Well, yes I suppose." He walked with her to the sitting-room, turning down the hallway lamps along the way. She brought along his hat as well, attending it lovingly with a hat brush, in one of those quirky fits of domesticity which she had. They sat at opposite ends of the fire, John exchanging his shoes for slippers.
She smiled. "Holmes has found Mr. Hosmer Angel, then, and solved the case?"
He began to light a pipe. "Yes and no. He has exposed Mr. Hosmer Angel for the villain that he is, but he is having difficulty in finding a way to reveal this villainy to his poor client Miss Sutherland."
Mary looked up from her brushing. "What difficulty? He cannot allow her to remain deceived surely?"
"No, I believe not." He sighed, putting his feet up by the fire. "But I fear it may take some time to accomplish. Let me tell you what happened today."
"Do," she said, frowning down at the hat as she continued brushing. She found that she had to leave off, though, in the course of the narrative, or be forced to ruin the hat.
She sat up. "Her own stepfather?" she repeated after the end of his tale. "And her mother? Plotting against her income like common thieves?"
"I'm afraid so," he nodded. "I could not believe it at first myself. Sometimes I am grateful that Holmes is such a cynic, for I think that no one incapable of believing the worst in humans could have seen through Windibank's atrocious scheme."
She frowned, shaking her head. "But surely, Holmes is not serious about leaving it as it is? Just letting him escape?"
"My dear," he sat forward, patting her hand, "I know how your sympathetic heart goes out to Miss Sutherland. So does mine, but as Holmes has said, there is very little that we could do in the eyes of the law."
"But the young lady! How can he not inform her?"
"I tried to convince him to do so, or to allow me to do so, but he insists that the lady's innocent nature would not be able to take the shock, even if she could actually believe the facts to be true. Holmes is certain that Windibank could easily convince her that the accusations made against him were the fabrications of an unbalanced mind, the schemes of a detective to salvage his reputation and his fee once he had realised that finding Hosmer Angel was beyond his capabilities."
"But the young lady!" she repeated, rising from her chair and wringing her hands. She paced back and forth in much distress.
"My dearest," John murmured, "I assure you that Holmes will watch over her and be ready to pounce on that stepfather's next villainous deed."
Mary shook her head. "But that makes no sense!" she vigorously protested. "His next deed may be years from now, when he feels he is out of the shadow of Sherlock Holmes. And the lady will be pining away for her wretched Hosmer Angel in the meantime. Something must be done now."
John half smiled, seeing that he could not after all get round her good sense. "Perhaps so," he said. "But tell that to Sherlock Holmes. Tell him, the detective whom I've noticed has an odd reaction to stepfathers. You recall, dear, how out of character I told you his actions were years ago upon a case not unlike this one in analogy? A case in which I strangely found him afterwards repeatedly calling his client 'Miss Roylott' as though she had had some hand, some blame, in the dire plot against herself?"
Mary stopped pacing and turned back to him, watching John's face soften with that special tenderness reserved only for his dear friend's weaknesses. She nodded.
He looked up and smiled at her faintly, pressing her hand. "We can only hope that Holmes may be right and some better result can be won for Miss Sutherland in the near future. I cannot stand to think Holmes's blindness for the moment may condemn this lady to such an undeserved fate. Perhaps a little while is all he will need to get his mind in order enough to take action."
"Perhaps," she whispered.
He rose from his chair. "I will endeavour at least to make it so," he said. "And now my dear, I must get to my study and record the case as it stands now, in the hopes that its final, true end shall not be too far off in time." He kissed her cheek and then padded quietly out of the room in his slippers.
Mary sank down into his chair and stared into the fire for a time. Finally with a sigh, she rose and returned the hat and hat brush to the front hall. Then she passed by her husband working in his study and sombrely went on her way upstairs to bed.
It was the middle of the night, with John sleeping peacefully beside her, that she lay awake still restlessly contemplating poor Mary Sutherland. She stared at the clock and the ceiling in turns for several minutes. Then, unable to stand it any longer, she rose from bed and tucked the blankets back over her husband. She put on her dressing gown and slippers and quietly left their bedroom.
She went downstairs softly and slipped into John's study. She turned up the lamp, removed the cover from the typewriter, and sat at his desk. Taking out paper and envelopes, she began to type:
221B Baker Street
Mr. Windibank,
It is time that you and I discuss further this matter which concerns you, me, and Miss Sutherland. You may tell her all you wish that I have withdrawn from her case out of the hopelessness of the task, but you cannot think that I would seriously leave things as they are. I may not be the police, but I am certainly a man who will not countenance your deception of Miss Sutherland easily. Justice, if not the law, will find its way to you one way or another.
I require to meet with you this Friday at noon in Baker Street. Do not attempt to avoid me. It would be a very foolish thing to do, as I have more than a few agents, and the police, at my disposal. Indeed, I have informed Scotland Yard already of you as a possible suspect for a recent robbery in a certain district of London. The perpetrator, it seemed, was very clever and of a remarkably familiar description.... I of course in all good conscience could not do otherwise than to give them your name, could I? Unless you appear at my rooms on Friday in your Hosmer Angel guise, to be inspected by a witness to the robbery, I would not be surprised if you were soon called in for questioning about this crime.
Entertain what visions you wish of having your solicitors sue me for slander or harassment, but recall that I still have certain proofs to lay before them that might very well leave a distaste in their mouths for representing you at all. You shall remain perfectly unmolested if you comply with my instructions, but I must have some assurance beyond your mere word that you will keep your appointment with me.
Sherlock Holmes
Mary carefully addressed an envelope and sealed this letter inside. Then she began another letter:
Paddington
Miss Sutherland,
Please withdraw into your private room to read this letter, for it is imperative that you show no surprise or delight to your mother or stepfather while you read it. Speak of this being some letter of request from a woman involved in good works and charities.
Despite the address of this letter, and its being typed by my secretary Mrs. Watson, you will realise of course that this epistle is from myself, Sherlock Holmes. I have some tentative good news to give you, Miss Sutherland, but I do not wish your guardians to know, most especially since your stepfather has personally expressed to me your mother's extreme dislike for your continued concern for Mr. Hosmer Angel's whereabouts. Indeed, for appearances, I have sent a letter to your stepfather formally stating my withdrawal from your case.
I wish you to come meet me in my rooms in Baker Street again, at a quarter to twelve on Friday morning. Tell your guardians that you are meeting for lunch with the charitable woman, in order to reply to her request that you volunteer some secretarial services to her. The news I have for you concerns the possible identification of your fiancé's place of employment, through his typewriter.
I look forward to meeting you again on Friday, and hope to bring you definite news of Mr. Hosmer Angel.
Yours respectfully,
Sherlock Holmes
Then Mary addressed another envelope by hand, lest the letters look too similar on the exterior, and she sealed in this note as well. She stamped both envelopes and finally sat back. Now came the hard part. How would she lure Sherlock Holmes from his rooms on Friday?
She said to John over breakfast, "We have not had Holmes over to lunch, have we dear?"
He looked up from his Times and considered the way that she sipped her tea behind her own Times. "No. He hasn't come over at all."
"Well," she said, "Bohemian love for solitude or not, it is high time he visited us. He cannot shun our married society forever--you not being likely to stop following his cases, and I not being likely to cease being your wife."
He grinned, putting aside his Times. "So you want me to lure Sherlock Holmes to lunch?"
"On Friday at eleven thirty," she nodded.
He still grinned, leaning forward. "What shall I say to lure him?"
She tossed a concert schedule at him. "Ask him to a concert this Friday. Even go to one if you wish. Then when you have him trapped in a hansom with you at nearly eleven thirty, give the order for Paddington instead of Baker Street. Muffle his protests with your insisting of his obligations to you as his friend, and your recounting of the lovely repast he will enjoy with us. Tell him that I insisted."
"That you commanded," he corrected.
"And that it was so," she smiled.
He laughed. "And then you shall lecture him on Miss Sutherland over soup and fish?"
"That depends on the menu I prepare," she hesitated, "and on what happens when we meet."
She thought with a moment's regret that she would be giving up her first opportunity to see Sherlock Holmes since she had been Mary Morstan, a mere client, and since he had apparently designated her the Unwelcome Wife, to be shunned at all costs. Ah, it was the price of justice.
On Friday, she carefully slipped a note at her husband's place setting at the dining table. "Please do eat. Will return later." Then, avoiding the housekeeper's eye, she retrieved John's service revolver from his locked drawer in the study. Slipping it into her pocket, she surreptitiously exited the house.
She arrived in Baker Street at almost half past eleven, meeting Mrs. Hudson at the door.
"My dear, how are you?" Mrs. Hudson embraced her warmly and pulled her inside. "I've not seen you since the wedding!" [Holmes refused to be Watson's best man, complaining of the couple's wasting their potential on love and emotion. He did not attend the wedding, nor make social overtures to the newlyweds until Watson came by Baker Street that March. Mary Watson kept up friendly contact with Mrs. Hudson, and her note about luncheon on Friday was promptly answered.]
"It surely wasn't meant to be out of neglect," she answered.
Mrs. Hudson nodded. "I know. His strange moods. To not attend your ceremony, and to not invite you over all these months! At least Dr. Watson has been welcomed back finally, and so will you too soon, I'm sure."
"Then we shall have ages to talk about them both, those men of ours," Mary smiled as Mrs. Hudson giggled. "Is everything ready?"
"Yes," Mrs. Hudson said, "though I have no idea still what kind of surprise you can be intending for Mr. Holmes, having lunch here while he's out with Dr. Watson."
"Trust me," she smiled, "it will be a surprise."
Mrs. Hudson considered her for a moment longer, hesitating on a question, then she finally shrugged. "Well then, ring when you want the dishes cleared, or if you should need me or Martha at all." She turned and headed to her sitting-room once more.
Mary peeked about and called for the page, finding him crossing by on an errand for his sister Martha. She snagged hold of his shoulder and introduced herself, offering him a coin. "Do let up anyone who asks for Mr. Holmes, won't you? Don't tell them he's not here," she said.
He stared puzzledly with an eyebrow raised, not unlike Holmes in a way.
"Just for the next hour or so," she handed him another coin. "And don't tell Mrs. Hudson what I told you, all right?"
He assented and hurried away.
She then climbed the seventeen steps and entered 221B, hanging her hat and coat on the rack just inside the door. The sitting-room was reasonably tidy, more so than she remembered anyway, and lunch had been set for two at the breakfast table. She walked about, refreshing her memory of the room's layout since she had last been here as a client. Then out of pure curiosity, she headed down the corridor to see the bedrooms. John's old room was vacant, but quite neat, not having become an extra storage space for Holmes as she had imagined. Holmes's room overflowed terribly with boxes and papers, some of which, surely, must have been moved just this morning to make the sitting-room presentable. She picked her way over a trunk and violin case to his bedside, taking a good look all around at the innumerable posters of criminals and other notices he kept on his walls. Just as John had described, the letter from Irene Adler resided on the wall behind his lamp. The framed photograph that he kept on his nightstand had been turned face down on several sheets of a letter, its accompanying envelope protruding to show American stamps. She moved to raise the frame but heard the clock just then and realised the time. She hurriedly left and returned to the sitting-room.
She stood ready and waiting at the table when Miss Sutherland entered. She was a lovely young lady of ample figure, with sweet little spectacles on a kind face, just as Mary had imagined. How could anyone maliciously deceive such an innocent, gentle creature?
Miss Sutherland hesitated at the door, a little pale with anxiety as she peered about. "Mrs. Watson?" she guessed.
"Yes, Miss Sutherland, come in," she smiled, stepping forward to help her off with her hat and coat. "Mary Morstan Watson, his secretary," she shook her hand. "I'll take care of you until he arrives. Please come and sit down to some lunch, my dear."
"Very kind of you, Mrs. Watson. I hadn't known he had a secretary, really. Do you--do you work with him much?"
"Please, my name's Mary--oh," she giggled, "and so is yours, isn't it?"
They smiled at each other and blushed.
Mary began to serve lunch. "Do eat up, my dear. We have some little time to ourselves." She glanced at the clock. "Now, no I don't work as much with him as my husband Dr. Watson does... but occasionally I have a way of being useful to him. As in that letter, my dear."
"Do you know if Mr. Holmes has located my Hosmer--Mr. Angel, I mean?" She blushed again, quite an adorable thing. Mary's animosity toward James Windibank doubled immediately.
"Well, my dear," she said, "I believe he has, although I am not sure you would like to know all that he has discovered."
"Oh, I must know!"
"Even if Mr. Angel is not all that he seemed to you? Are you prepared to consider the idea that he may have most wrongly used you?"
"Oh, I'm sure he hasn't. Mr. Holmes told me to forget about him for just that reason, too, to prepare me for the worst possibility. But I cannot give up on him. I cannot love another until I know for certain that my Hosmer is beyond all hope."
She hesitated. "But my dear, to subsist on hope may be futile in the end. Mr. Holmes wishes most strongly for you to see that. Indeed, he thought that my telling you so would convince you better than his own words had."
"And yet it is all speculation, just now, until we actually find Hosmer. Please, Mrs. Watson, you are such a sympathetic person. Tell me what you know honestly, what you really know."
"Very well," she swallowed faintly. "Mr. Holmes ... is quite certain ... that your fiancé has wicked motives against you."
"Oh no, not Hosmer--!"
"My dear, I know that he appeared most solicitous and tender when he was with you, but you cannot trust his appearances. Mr. Angel had not your best interests in mind at all when he made you pledge yourself to him."
"No!" she sniffled and shook her head.
Mary took Miss Sutherland's hand, patting it. "My dear, my dear...."
She composed herself slowly, holding her handkerchief. "I know--I know that you and Mr. Holmes mean well, but still--how can I give up on him so easily and quickly?"
Mary rose at the sound of a hansom drawing up outside. "Miss Sutherland, I see that I cannot move you. There may be someone, though, who can give you the proofs you require. He's coming now."
"Do you mean Mr. Holmes?" she rose too.
Mary led her down the corridor to the water closet. "Yes, please step in here a moment and dry your eyes. Compose yourself." She smiled as she shut the door and returned to the sitting-room.
Windibank opened the door abruptly and entered, glancing at the half-eaten lunch and then at Mary. "Where is Holmes?" he asked, sharply rather than as befitted his Hosmer Angel disguise.
She spoke very querulously and wrung her hands with all the nervous helplessness of an interloper. "Well, I--they all stepped out a moment to consult ... I suspect. The police and the other fellow, I mean."
"And you?" he shut the door.
"I suppose ... I suppose I'm here to--to identify," she glanced about.
"You're the witness?" he came forward.
"Ye-es," she shrugged. "And you?"
He shook his head, feeling fairly exonerated. "I'm your supposed suspect," he said irritably.
"Oh no--you only look generally like him at all. Glasses and moustache. I believe this is a little ridiculous."
"So do I! Look, where are they? He can't do this to me--"
Miss Sutherland entered then, coming out blinking through her spectacles.
He gasped to see her, and Mary quickly stepped around him to the door to block his retreat. "Miss Sutherland, look who's here," she spoke up chipperly again.
Miss Sutherland had already rushed forward to embrace him tightly. "Hosmer!" She suddenly kissed him immoderately, so much as to shock him and freeze him in place.
"Oh my, what good fortune, my dear," Mary smiled encouragingly, coming forward behind him. "Don't you think, Mr. Angel?"
He pulled away from the blushing Miss Sutherland and began to back away.
Mary caught him in the back with her drawn revolver. "Come sit down, Mr. Angel," she said pleasantly. As he stiffened, she steered him to an armchair by the fire, keeping her weapon out of Miss Sutherland's view.
Smiling happily into his face, she murmured to Mary, "I told you, didn't I? He's come back."
Mary smiled back at her, standing by his chair. "Why Mr. Angel," she said, "You oughtn't to be still wearing your hat. Take it off."
"No," he refused.
"My dear sir, before us ladies, you must do the gentlemanly thing."
Miss Sutherland frowned in surprise at him.
He squirmed. Mary leaned near and cocked her gun within his hearing. He dropped the hat to the floor.
"There, that's better," she watched Miss Sutherland's face. "Oh my, Mr. Angel, I believe she has disarranged you somewhat. Are you still perspiring a little from her kiss, my dear sir?" she said, pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his face. She pulled away his moustache in the process, and his side whiskers.
"Hosmer!" Miss Sutherland gasped.
"Your spectacles, too," Mary snatched the dark lenses from his face and tossed all aside by the hat. "You see him now, my dear," she said.
She nearly shrieked. "St-stepfather! But--but--"
Mary looked at her with sympathy. "I'm sorry, my dear. You will find far worthier fiancés--"
He half-rose, protesting. She drew her gun in front of him. "Sit."
Miss Sutherland stood trembling and fighting off her tears.
Windibank grumbled with folded arms. "Well, where is he for heaven's sake? Going to pull this trick on me and not even trouble to show up himself?" He looked Mary up and down with contempt. "Sent some mere agent of his to scam me."
Mary looked at him, her eyes narrowed with irritation. What right had he to be offended or to feel misused anyway? He didn't even care how mortified poor Mary Sutherland was. If she could just smack him or horrify him too....
She found herself suddenly speaking then, more sharply. "On the contrary, Mr. Windibank. You have made your assumptions a trifle too fast." She stood straighter, glaring down at him with steel in her eyes. Her voice imitated the precise, aloof tone just as her husband had often done when telling the stories of their cases.
He stared at her, wide-eyed. "You! You can't--!"
She found the cool, deep laughter easily filling her mouth. "You do flatter me, sir. I do not often have the opportunity to play a feminine role, as there are so few women of my natural height. However, with practice some inches may be taken off, and then proper corsets and padding do the rest."
He gasped.
She smiled. "Now you see you have been defeated by one who knows costume and makeup."
Miss Sutherland blinked in confusion. "Mr. Holmes!"
"Go now, Miss Sutherland. I suggest you withdraw all your money and all your affections out of that unnatural household immediately."
"Yes," she squeaked, backing out toward the door with her eyes still fixed on 'Mr. Holmes'.
Windibank jumped up desperately and wrested the revolver away from Mary, pointing it as he stepped and turned from the chair. Miss Sutherland shrieked as he glanced behind towards her. "No, I think I'd rather have her inheritance," he said. "And get rid of you," he aimed at Mary.
She smiled one of those Holmes smiles. "It's not loaded."
"You're bluffing."
She shook her head. "You fool. Do you think I'd risk Miss Sutherland's life with firearms? Go, my dear. Do as I said."
She hesitated, looking at both of them and trembling.
He pulled at the trigger then, and found the barrels empty. Mary smiled as Miss Sutherland rushed out the door, and she cheerfully dodged as Windibank threw the gun at her with a growl.
She kicked it aside. "No, sir, we fight man to man," she said impudently.
Windibank thereupon lunged at her, knocking her down and clasping his hands tightly on her throat. She grappled with him and kicked back as he squeezed. She kicked over a chair and also pulled the tablecloth down to send some china crashing to the floor.
Mrs. Hudson and Martha came rushing in, alarmed by both Miss Sutherland's running out and by all the noise. Seeing Windibank throttling Mary, Martha started to call down for her husband, but Mrs. Hudson thought quickly and smashed a vase over Windibank's head. He fell forward, knocked out, and Mary gratefully gasped for air. She brushed shards from her face, then opened her eyes again.
"My dear, are you all right?"
They pulled Windibank off of her, noticing that she seemed to shudder quite fiercely.
Mary only chuckled delightedly. "I knew I could count on you, Mrs. Hudson, even if Mr. Turner were not around."
Martha's husband entered just then, with the curious page behind him, and gazed over all the mess of china and furniture.
"Mr. Turner," Mary said with some semblance of seriousness, "could you please secure Mr. Windibank a prisoner until I can report him to the police for assault on a defenceless, unarmed woman?"
He and his wife raised the unconscious body up to throw into a chair, sending the page downstairs again for some rope. Martha then heard the sound of her baby crying below, awoken by all the disturbance. She glanced at Mrs. Hudson, who nodded and waved her out the door. She helped Mary sit up. "What's been going on here? Oh my dear, what were you thinking?"
Mary smiled, continuing to laugh. "I shall reimburse you for all the damage, I promise, Mrs. Hudson."
"Never mind that!" Mrs. Hudson hovered worriedly as Mary got to her feet. "What have you been doing?"
"Yes, what have you been doing, Mrs. Watson?" said a voice from the doorway.
Mary stopped laughing and looked up startledly to see Sherlock Holmes standing with his arms crossed. John stood just behind him. She went quite pale. "I didn't expect you to come here!" she said.
"No. I don't think you did," Holmes glared.
John made his way around him, horrified by her numerous cuts and bruises. "Mary!" He rushed to her and embraced her for dear life, it seemed. She smiled and blushed in his arms.
Holmes came in and glanced at James Windibank, watching as the now returned page helped Mr. Turner tie up the prisoner. "What a spot of fun I'm sure you must have had," he said coldly, surveying the debris. "Yet I wonder, my adventuresome young lady, what you could have done to make Windibank ferociously attack you when he would know that one ungentlemanly punch would knock a woman out and allow him to quickly escape?"
She bit her lip in embarrassment at both his icy gaze and her husband's sudden turning towards her with the same question in his eyes. Mrs. Hudson and the Turners looked up as well.
She blushed. "Well... well, as a natural compliment to your thespian skills, of course, I may have told him, may have pretended--"
He stepped nearer, narrowing his eyes. "No," he said emphatically.
She smiled. "Yes."
John Watson gazed from one to the other and back again. Then he laughed quite heartily indeed.
With Windibank gone, they sat in a much more tidy sitting-room.
"--So Holmes was convinced that you were up to something here, and would not sit still any longer. He dragged me forcibly with him though I wished to wait at home for you still and worry over whether you had eaten. Evidence or no, I wished to take you at your word."
She squeezed his hand. "My dearest, I--"
"In any case," Holmes cut in, "you have committed fraudulent, if not criminal, acts for which I should report you, instead of taking you under my umbrella of influence with Scotland Yard."
"Holmes, please," Watson turned to him.
"Is there not a law, Watson," he said, "against the impersonation of the police? There ought to be a law against impersonating myself, surely a more important legal authority."
"Holmes, she won't do so again, and besides, when is the next time Mary will be seriously mistaken for you, or you for Mary? I think she paid you quite an extraordinary compliment."
Holmes glanced up. "What?" he asked, offended. "Do you doubt my powers, Watson? Do you doubt me?"
Watson blinked. "Well, really, Holmes. . . ." he looked appreciatively at his wife.
"Nonsense. You have seen me on occasion dressed as an old woman of many shawls and wrappings. Why not a younger female? I have not done so often enough, but with some preparation I certainly could become whomever I wish." He sized up Mary again. "--Even she of the cornsilk hair and dainty figure."
Watson hesitated. "I suppose--"
Holmes glared. He snatched Mary's hand. "Come, Mrs. Watson. We shall see what we can do." He pulled her down the corridor with him, as she stumbled along in surprise.
"Wait! What are you doing?" John rose.
He stopped on the way to his bedroom. "Composing a disguise, of course."
"With my wife?" John came forward.
"I need a model, don't I?" He impatiently cut of John's next remark with, "There's a perfectly respectable changing screen--Don't be such a prude!" He swiftly dragged her away and shut the door behind them.
As she'd disappeared, Mary had only managed an embarrassed look of confusion, mixed perhaps with the excitement of finding that her day's adventures had not ended.
Watson listened as he heard many of the heavy costume trunks opened and rifled through, punctuated by Mary's giggling and coughing at the dust. She called out teasingly, "Don't worry, he hasn't done anything unspeakable to me yet!"
"Yet!" Holmes repeated. "Stand still."
Mary's giggling continued sporadically, along with other murmurs and noises of moving about and changing clothes. Watson sat and considered whether Holmes were not childishly taking revenge for not being in the spotlight, or whether he felt truly hurt at not being believed by Watson anymore.
Watson pondered this as his patience wore thin and he began rising from his perch on the arm of a chair. There came a clearing of the throat behind the door.
"Watson?" Holmes called. "Are you ready?"
He took a breath. Hmm, how would he react if Holmes could give him a convincing Mary? "As ready as I'll ever be," he stood.
"Very well. See if you believe your eyes or not."
The door opened and out stepped a young woman in a dress not unsimilar to his wife's. After a pause, she came forward with a slow, graceful stride down the corridor, more fully into Watson's view. Her fair hair, only slightly off from the correct shade of cornsilk, in any case was not evident at all as a wig. The eyebrows and lashes, though somewhat dark, had been brushed in with that special formula Holmes had long ago perfected for temporarily disguising his hair colour. The makeup successfully softened and rounded the sharp features, withdrawing hollowness from the cheeks and adding a pinkness to the head, neck, and hands.
The young woman raised a sharp eyebrow at him and turned around elegantly for John's inspection. She then demurely folded her hands before her. "Well, John," she said sweetly, "shall you give your opinion, so that your wife may burst into amused laughter?" She glanced down the corridor to the slightly opened door, behind which curious eyes peeked at the spectacle of John's hesitation.
He walked slowly around her, considering her head to toe. The bustle and other padding were convincing, and the height well-mimicked no doubt by an unusual stance and very low shoes. "Walk again, please."
She complied, with great poise, bearing, and an almost inviting feminine sway. Her head gracefully turned with a smile, she gave a beautiful clearing of the throat. "My dear Watson, do you now concede your error?" She still spoke with that sweetness of tone as she tilted her head charmingly and blinked.
He smiled, chuckling at the familiar old tic of Holmes's moments of victory. He saw then the absolute perfection of his details. "You devil," he shook his head, coming nearer. He grasped her waist and startled her into giggles. He called down the corridor, "Holmes, you scoundrel! Turning my wife against me!" He kissed Mary lovingly.
The door opened and Holmes stepped out in his dressing gown in surprise. His face was freshly scrubbed of makeup, though not quite of every fair particle in his eyebrows. He came forward with his hands in his dressing gown pockets, frowning. "But my dear Watson," he said, leaning against the entry of the corridor and ignoring Mary's happy, showering reply of kisses, "her poise was perfect."
Watson laughed with her kisses, smiling. "Yes, perfect for you as Mary. Her voice perfect for you as Mary. Her hair--" he paused to pull the wig from off of her own locks, tossing it aside. "Her hair perfect for you as Mary, and even her makeup--" he started to wipe her clean with a handkerchief-- "was cleverly done to elongate her face and sharpen her features, even though I read it the opposite way, as softening your features to hers. You were feeding my every expectation."
"The purpose of makeup," Holmes said, "is not the artifice itself--"
"--But the concealment of the artifice," Mary completed, even in Holmes's tone of voice. She hugged her husband happily, reflecting with great pleasure on the fact that Holmes had complimented her greatly, when he'd had the idea back in that bedroom. "You have one of those faces... and a talent for mimicry," he'd murmured, as he stopped applying makeup to himself and began transforming her instead.
"Quite," Holmes said, looking at his feet.
"Darling," she said to John, "you should have seen him. He really was going to do the whole thing head to toe, everything laid out! I was bothering him so much with my curiosity about his makeup and his chemicals, that he started to show me, on my own face."
Watson looked up at Holmes. "And what made you change your mind?" he queried teasingly. "Having difficulty?"
Holmes glanced back. "Nothing of the sort," he murmured. "With time and preparation I can do exactly as I said. However, I cannot get such melodramatic effects as you are used to having within a quarter of an hour's time." He shrugged. "Besides, why waste the chance to fool you with your own wife?"
Watson grinned. "Tell me more straightforwardly next time you're getting my wife out of her frock," he said, "and I might let you live." He turned and kissed her again, his hands tenderly unpinning and shaking out her flattened hair.
Holmes leaned against the wall, staring at his feet.