'Yes, that will do nicely. Where did we stash the box of makeup last time, Mycroft?'
His brother heaved his weight from the relieved chair and padded off. Holmes squinted at me.
'Russell, if I have learnt nothing by seven o'clock, there will be little point in persisting, and it is an Italian night at Covent Garden. Shall we agree to meet there, at seven-forty-five? After that, depending on what the day's results are, we can decide to come back here or to go home for our Christmas preparations.' This last I took as a symbol for carefree frivolity rather than any actual possibility.
The previous year we had both spent Christmas Day dissecting a poisoned ram. 'You will, I trust, have a greater than normal caution during the day, stay in crowds, double back occasionally, that sort of thing? And you will keep your revolver close to hand?' I reassured him that I would do my best to make our rendezvous that evening, and he gave me spécifie instructions both for shedding the disguise in which I would make my escape, and for getting to Covent Garden.
Mycroft came in carrying a bulky carpetbag, which he set down in front of Holmes, and looking vaguely worried.
'You will take luncheon before you go, please, Sherlock. Do not drag Miss Russell out into the cold again without allowing her to eat first, I beg you.'
It was barely two hours since the breakfast things had been cleared away, but Holmes answered his brother soothingly.
'But of course. The preparations alone will take an hour. Order some lunch, while I make a start.'
'But first,' I said, 'the telephone.' I made Holmes speak with Mrs. Hudson. It was a long conversation, cut off once by the exchange and threatened twice more, but in the end she agreed to stay where she was for a few days, and not approach the cottage or the hospital. My own conversation with Veronica Beaconsfield was briefer and even less amicable; lies to friends are usually less successful than lies to strangers or villains, and I did not think she believed in my sudden emergency. I returned saddened to the meal that arrived while Holmes was making his disguise.
Sherlock Holmes had invented his profession, and it fit him like a glove. We watched in admiration that verged on awe as his love of challenge, his flair for the dramatic, his precise attention to detail, and his vulpine intelligence were called into play and transformed his thin face by putty and paint into that of his brother. It would not stand up to close supervision, but from a few yards the likeness was superb. He removed the putty pads to speak, and I hurriedly swallowed the last of my lunch.
'Fortunately, if uselessly, Watson has sacrificed his moustache for his own masquerade, or we should have to glue some hair under your nose, Russell. Mycroft, would you kindly go and lift the trousers and coat worn by our friend from his bed, and also find us some suitable padding and a large quantity of sticking plaster?' Under his hands I felt the putty fill out my cheeks, hair was added to my eyebrows, lines and creases painted on. He eyed me critically. 'Don't move your face too much. Now, I'll tear up some of these blankets while you tape yourself to reduce your height. Take off your shirt, Russell,' he said absently, and so matter-of-fact was his command that I had my hand on my shirt-collar when Mycroft cleared his throat gently behind us.
'Is that really necessary, Sherlock? Perhaps the sticking plaster could be put on over her clothing?'
'What?' Holmes looked up from his bundles and scraps and realised what had just happened. 'Oh, yes, I suppose so.' He looked slightly flustered. 'Come here, then.'
Layers of padding gave me Watson's outline; his hat, scarf, and gloves left only my made-up face exposed; and his spectacles were close enough to mine in appearance to allow me to retain my own, a great blessing.
Holmes added similar padding to himself, and we stood resembling two obese Egyptian mummies risen from our rest. He worked himself carefully into his brother's clothing and gave his make-up a final adjustment.
'Now to review our plan — Ah, Watson, you're just in time.'
'Holmes? Is that you? Where are my trousers? What are you doing?' Watson's puzzled, sleepy voice brought home the absurdity of this entire venture, and I started to giggle. Holmes/Mycroft looked askance, but the real Mycroft joined in, and soon even Holmes was smiling half willingly.
'My dear Watson, we are making our escape. The enemy followed you here, I'm afraid, or were here already.
If they followed you, they may not yet realise that I am at liberty, and assume that only Russell is here. There are too many 'ifs' here for my pleasure, but there's no helping that.
Yet. I will leave here now, dressed as my brother. Russell will leave in twenty minutes, dressed as you, Watson. I shall turn to the right out the door, as my disguise is the more realistic. Russell will turn left, so they will see her clearly only from a distance. Twenty minutes after she leaves, the two of you shall depart, together, hatless, and stroll slowly down the street to the right. You will both have revolvers, but I believe they will be more interested in catching up with us than they will in committing double murder in broad daylight. You go with Mycroft, Watson, and you will be quite safe. We will meet up when we may.'
He put Mycroft's hat onto his head, where it slid down to his eyebrows. Imperiously ignoring our smiles, he put multiple layers of sticking plaster inside the brim and returned it to his head. Mycroft's thick scarf went around his neck, leather gloves puffed up his hands. Holmes' own eyes looked out from Mycroft's face.
'Seven-forty-five, then, Russell, at the theatre. You know what to do. And for God's sake, be careful.'
'Holmes?' It was Watson, very, very tentative. 'Old friend, are you going to be all right? The pain, I mean. Do you want something? I have a bottle of morphia in my bag — ' He trailed off uncomfortably. Holmes looked astonished, then began to laugh uncontrollably, until his make-up threatened to flake off.
'After all the times — ' he spluttered. 'You offer me morphine. My dear Watson, you do have a talent for reducing things to their proper perspective.' He softened and raised one mocking eyebrow. 'You know I never indulge when I'm on a case, Watson.' He slipped the putty forms into his cheeks and was gone.
His passage down the street sent a small, ragged boy away from the blind beggar's side and out of sight. It was soon my turn. I turned to thank Mycroft and shook his hand, then leaned forward impulsively and kissed his cheek. He turned scarlet. Watson returned my embrace with avuncular affection, and I let myself out into the hallway, black medical bag in hand, the revolver a comforting weight in my pocket.
As the outside door latched behind me I was aware of eyes on me, Watson and Mycroft Holmes watching from the window above, but other, hostile eyes also, from the street behind me at the very least. It took considerable control to hold myself to Watson's ponderous and limping gait rather than dash off down the street, but I plodded on through the slush, for all the world an old, retired doctor on his way home. Following Holmes' precise instructions, I hailed a cab, then changed my mind. I walked west, as if towards Green Park, then hailed another. I turned it away too, and a street later finally got warily into the third. I gave the driver Watson's address, in a gruff voice, but when we had rounded Park Lane I redirected him. At the building Holmes had told me to go to, I paid the driver generously, went inside, checked my medical bag (which was empty) with the attendant, climbed to the third floor — watching the stairs below me — and through the tearoom on that floor to a passageway, a further set of stairs, and at last a door marked Storage Room. The key Holmes had given me let me in. I flicked the electrical light switch on, closed the well-fitting door, spat out the mouthful of noxious putty, leant against the door, and gave way to a fit of mild hysterics.
Eventually it ran its course. I got somewhat shakily to my feet, curiosity coming to the fore. The Storage Room was one of Holmes' bolt-holes, his handful of small, almost inaccessible hideaways in unlikely places across London, from Whitechapel to Whitehall. Watson had mentioned them in several of his stories, and Holmes had made passing reference to one or another of them in conversations with me, but I had never actually been inside one.
It was, I found, little more than its name implied, a windowless, stuffy, oddly shaped room providing the most basic necessities of life and a remarkably elaborate amount of equipment for changing identities. Three metal dressmaker's racks bulging with clothes took up a quarter of the floor space, and an enormous dressing table littered with tubes, pencils, and pots and overhung by a wall-sized mirror surrounded by small electrical light bulbs, took up another quarter. The kitchen consisted of a stained hand-basin, a minuscule geyser, a gas ring, and two pots. There was one chair, at the desk, a piece that looked to my half-educated eyes like a particularly beautiful Chippendale that had spent part of its recent life as a painter's stool, judging from the varicoloured splashes across the seat and back. The only other furniture was a long sofa, taking up more than its quarter of the room and looking as if it had been hauled up from beneath a bridge somewhere, and a garish Chinese screen behind the 'kitchen.' Behind the screen, as I might have suspected, was a water closet, gleaming new and, I soon discovered, remarkably silent.
