The Game mr-7

by Laurie R. King

  The fourth time I tried the thing, standing before the glass afraid to breathe, I scowled at the reflection of Holmes behind me. “You had this planned back in Port Said and didn’t warn me.”

  “Not planned, precisely. I merely thought it best to have the costumes, just in case.”

  Holmes’ fancy dress, hanging in the wardrobe, looked by comparison a thing of Chanel-like comfort. He was attending as an Indian nobleman, with snug white trousers underneath a gold brocade jacket trimmed with chips of topaz. At the moment he was trying on the snowy white turban or puggaree (whose intricate folds, unlike those of the sari, had come pre-arranged on a hatmaker’s dummy). At its front was a spray of peacock feathers, which he eyed critically in the glass.

  “Are you going to wear your emeralds?” he said suddenly.

  Trying to avoid motion, I looked back at my reflection. The sari slid from my shoulder, and I snatched at it to avert the unwinding process, but too late. Half the tucks came crooked, and I cursed under my breath.

  “I’ll trade you my necklace for your emerald stick-pin,” I told him grimly.

  Ah, success! With the sari’s end secured to the under-blouse with Holmes’ tie pin, the danger of instant nudity retreated considerably. Then during the afternoon I hunted down the purser and, by dint of offering an enormous bribe, found a stray maid willing to come with a needle and thread to sew me into the folds and tucks.

  And in truth, the emerald necklace looked magnificent nestled among the peacock feathers on the puggaree.

  When the maid had scurried away with her needle and her payment, I sat down to arrange my hair. Indian women tend to wear theirs gathered into a heavy knot at the base of their necks, which was not a style I found easy to arrange without assistance. As I was struggling to contain my own hair, which was sufficiently long but lacked the malleability of black hair, Holmes came in. I glanced in the glass, and had to smile.

  “You look regal, Holmes.”

  He walked over to where I sat, and wordlessly removed the brush from my hand.

  Where Holmes learnt to arrange a woman’s hair I never knew—never wished to ask—but he was remarkably proficient at it. It was, however, never easy to stifle the sensations caused by his strong hands in my hair, the palm smoothing the strands after the brush had passed through, the clever fingers working their way from one side to the other, gathering the heavy length in a controlling grip, tugging and smoothing and shaping. In this instance, lest something begin that put all our preparations to naught, I shut my eyes and thought of England, horrible and cold under the snow, wet and miserable and filled with political turmoil. His long fingers smoothed and twisted, sending delicious tingles down my spine, and cold England faded. But in a few minutes my hair was sleekly gathered in a secure but comfortable knot, and Holmes’ hands drew away, after a brief grasp on my shoulders and the salute of a kiss where the heavy bun now lay against my neck. I pushed away a shiver and reached firmly for my ear-rings, then draped the breath-fine silk scarf across my shoulders and slid my hand through the arm of my nobleman.

  Dignity, I remembered as we drew near the ball-room, was not a necessary component of a dress ball. The ducal version we had attended just the month before had been bigger than this one, and more elaborate, but the passengers made up for numbers and style in sheer high spirits. I balked just inside the entrance, and Holmes spoke into my ear.

  “I believe we shall both require a quantity of champagne to get through this. Wait here.”

  Obedience occasionally has its place, particularly when it allows one’s husband to press through to the nearest tray-bearing waiter. Holmes took many admiring looks, from women for the most part, and amused me by appearing oblivious of all. He returned with two glasses of the fizzy stuff, which we lifted to each other, then poured down our throats.

  One problem with fancy dress comes when one wishes to find a particular person whose disguise one does not know. I was quite certain that Sunny Goodheart was not yet here, since there was no sign of a snake, nor of the snake-dance line of males that was sure to follow as soon as she passed through the room. And although her brother’s height should have made him instantly recognisable, a number of tall hats and puggarees protruded above the heads, concealing their wearers’ stature. Holmes and I waited, drinking our wine, turning down dance offers from individuals of both sexes and (apparently) neither.

  Then a ripple ran through the room, and I turned, already smiling, to see the snake charmer. And my suspicions were correct, it was an extraordinary costume, which on a less naïve and charming individual would have been instantly engulfed in a travelling rug and ushered briskly outside. As it was, Sunny looked like a child dressed in a harem outfit, her wriggles for fun, not seduction, her innocence shining out under the sinuous creature that lay across her shoulders. The dress was not quite as form-fitting as the snake’s skin, but was not far off. What saved it were the multiple layers of scarf she wore over it, gauzy and shifting. The effect was that of a snake shedding its old and lacy skin for the bright, snug new one beneath. I tipped my head to the man at my side and murmured, “If they’re aiming her at their maharaja, all they have to do is make sure there’s a fancy-dress ball.”

  “Pardon?” asked a strange voice.

  Startled, I glanced up at the person beside me, whose ears were somewhat higher than those of my husband, and who might therefore have missed my hugely impertinent words. It was Thomas Goodheart, but to my enormous consternation, it was also Sherlock Holmes—not he of the Sussex cottage but the figure of stage and, recently, screen, complete with deerstalker, absurdly large calabash pipe, and tweed cloak.

  I gaped at the figure, my mind working furiously to understand the meaning of his costume. Tom Goodheart, in the meantime, allowed his glance to trail down my own length of silk. “You would look at home in Jimmy’s palace, Mrs Russell. Very, um, authentic.”

  “I, er, thank you. You too. That is to say, not in the palace.” You’re babbling, Russell, I said to myself. Stop it. “Your sister’s costume is extraordinary.”

  “Isn’t it just? I can’t imagine what my mother had in mind, allowing that. Still, it’s not as bad as it was before she added the scarfs and scrubbed off her rouge.”

  “She’s a great girl,” I said.

  “Yes, she’s all right. She’s very fond of you.”

  What is it about the subtle signs between men and women? The words themselves were completely innocent and his eyes remained on my face, but some tiny pause before the word “fond,” some slight emphasis of voice or intensity of gaze, made it abundantly clear that Thomas was talking neither about his sister nor about mere fondness. For the first time, I became conscious of a streak of iron beneath the waffle, and caught a glimpse of someone older and considerably more determined under the rich boy’s bland features.

  And then he was looking out over the crowd, and Holmes was there with another glass of champagne, and the sensation was gone completely. Thomas Goodheart was merely the superior older brother of a kittenish girl who had befriended me, a young man patiently enduring a rather boring party for the sake of his family.

  But I did not think I had imagined the glimpse of iron, nor the meaning behind his words.

  And I began to speculate whether the likes of a Berlin cabaret might not be considered downright wholesome by Mr Goodheart, if perhaps the lessons in depravity Holmes had mentioned might not apply to certain American aristocrats among the rajas.

  Villain, I would now believe. But also, I had to agree, what sort?

  Without realising I had done so, I found myself drawn slightly away from the stagey Holmes until my arm pressed against that of the maharaja’s ornate coat. Holmes glanced at me, surprised at my uncharacteristic demonstrativeness, then frowned slightly at whatever remnant of discomfort he glimpsed on my face. But it was gone in an instant, and I stood away and raised my glass in a toast to the festive gathering. Goodheart drained his glass, as did Holmes and I. I do not know about Holmes’, but
this particular drink was nothing more intoxicating than ginger beer.

  And so it continued throughout the evening, with every other glass he put into my hand containing sweet nothingness. Tommy, however, continued to down his bubbly wine, with the predictable results when the strength of that substance is underestimated. The young man became increasingly intoxicated, and although Holmes appeared to match him in consumption and in effects, I knew my husband well enough to see it for an act.

  Goodheart’s drunkenness was not an act, although the slipping of his controls was not wild and overt. No, it came out in two ways, one of which he had already shown me, and which Holmes soon witnessed for himself. Holmes was enough of a professional to control his rage, and was also sure enough of his wife and partner’s strength and self-respect that he did not feel the need to protect her by a simian pounding of chest, or of Goodheart’s face. But it was an effort for him to stand by with smiling incomprehension and good will as Goodheart made one suggestive remark after another in my direction, and I was glad for his sake when the young man’s intoxication ripened and bore fruit in the form of a hobbyhorse.

  “These people, they haven’t a clue,” he declared, sweeping his glass at the room. Holmes plucked it from his hand and substituted a miraculously full one, and Goodheart slurped it with a scowl. “They haven’t a damned clue. Pardon my French, Mary.” I had not given him permission to use my first name, but I was hardly going to object now.

  “That’s true,” Holmes agreed emphatically, then drew his eyebrows together in exaggerated confusion. “What about?”

  “The world,” Goodheart explained, pausing to belch lightly. Fortunately, he did not stop with the generalisation, but went on. “Look at them, prancing about like a bunch of aristo . . . , ’rishtocrats with the mob pounding on the gates. Like France, don’t you know? Haven’t a clue that there’s a mob out there.”

  “With guillotines,” Holmes encouraged.

  The tweed deerstalker wagged enthusiastically. “Right, you are so right.” His diction was sliding, the dental sounds long turned to mush, the “s” sounds now “sh.” Soon the labials would become difficult; in another half hour, he’d collapse with his head on the table.

  “But look what’s happened in England,” Holmes urged. “The Red Flag is practically flying over Parliament.”

  Goodheart’s eyes tried to track, with limited success. “Right,” he said, although he sounded somewhat dubious, as if unsure why Holmes had introduced politics into the discussion.

  “Isn’t that a good thing? To have a Labour victory?”

  “Of course,” he said, more stoutly now. “But they think it’s the end, when it’s only the beginnin’.” It sounded like a quote pulled from memory, and served to confuse him for a moment. Then he rallied, raised his glass, and shouted, “By s’prise, where it hurts!”

  But the effort was too much—either that, or some vestige of self-preservation ordered him to be silent; in either case the effect was the same. He let his glass fall to the floor and slapped his palm across his mouth in the gesture of a child hushing itself, or in the more likely identical motion of a man whose stomach is on the verge of rebellion. I took a hasty step back while Holmes seized the man’s free arm and hustled him speedily out of the doors and to the railing, where the deerstalker caught the wind and sailed off into the night.

  A gentleman in the P. & O. uniform came to tidy away the broken glass, and another appeared to help Holmes lead Goodheart away. So much for in vino veritas.

  I traded my glass of sweet nothing on a table for one of the real thing from the first passing waiter, and went outside for air and thought. After a while a snake-dance of celebrants came shuffling out the door, Sunny Goodheart at their lead laughing gloriously at her long tail of admirers.

  I put down my empty glass and went to bed.

  Chapter Five

  The following day we came to Aden and the mouth of the Red Sea, where the ship would pause for a few hours to take on coal. This would be our last land until Bombay, and Holmes and I were among the few walking wounded of the night before who waited to go ashore. The hills around the town seemed covered with tiny windmills, spinning in the hot wind, and the instant the ship dropped anchor, the sea around us filled with small canoe-type boats paddled by young boys, calling for the passengers to drop coins for them to dive after. From where I stood at the rail, the water looked so murky, thanks to the steamer’s huge screws, that I couldn’t imagine the boys seeing anything smaller than a gold guinea flashing past, but clearly the exercise was worth their while, or they wouldn’t have risked the sharks.

  Heat settled over us as the launch approached the town, making me glad for once of the topee’s shade. We passed through the canoes and the dhows to tie up at the pier and be ceremoniously handed off; the solid ground felt oddly unforgiving beneath my feet, which in the eight days since leaving Marseilles had grown accustomed to the rise and fall of the decking. The air smelt intense, marvellously complex with the odours of dust and spice and animals, and only occasional whiffs of burnt fuel.

  Our first stop was the post office, where we retrieved a handful of letters, including one from Mrs Hudson and two from my solicitors in London. A quick glance through them showed that there was nothing of any great urgency, although I did send off a telegram to the legal people to say that I’d got their letters and would write at leisure. We then slid the post into our pockets and turned into the bazaar.

  Aden rides the border between several worlds, all of them represented in her marketplace. Skin tones from ebony to ivory, a thousand shapes of head covering, dialects to keep a linguist in ecstasy for a lifetime. Three dusty Bedu slipped down the streets behind a pair of British soldiers; a dark-skinned Jew displayed his copper pots to an African Moslem headed home from Mecca; four British tars with their distinctive rolling gait haggled with a Christian shopkeeper over the price of a small carpet; a pair of Parsee women, wrapped in loveliness and followed by a pair of watchful men, fingered lengths of brilliant silk; a British captain strolled with his lady, his eyes on her and not the pick-pocket trailing close behind.

  All that in the first fifty feet, before Holmes ducked inside a gap between shops. However, I was ready for it, and made haste to follow him.

  The noisome passageway was clotted with filth, its air stifling, the darkness such that one was tempted to feel for the walls—but for the knowledge that one really didn’t want to touch what was on those walls. I took half a dozen steps and stopped, waiting for my eyes to adjust before I found myself stepping into a coal cellar.

  Then a door opened and the end of the passageway grew light, and I picked my way through unexamined shapes in that direction.

  The room at the end was considerably tidier than its approach. It was a small space with a high ceiling, light but shaded from the direct sun hitting the courtyard outside its latticed windows. As soon as the door closed, the room’s fragrance of jasmine-flower and musk reasserted itself; it even seemed cooler in here, although it was probably an illusion brought about by judicious use of blues and greens in the hangings, and the pale wood of the walls and chairs. Just as, I noticed, it seemed larger than it was, since all the furniture was somewhat smaller than normal.

  A light and lightly accented voice interrupted my survey. “You like my house, Miss Russell?”

  I whirled, unaware that there had been anyone in the room. I had to look around for the owner of the voice, then look down, to find a tiny figure scarcely four feet tall, nearly hairless but wizened with wrinkles, seated in a nest of silk cushions beside a burbling hookah.

  “It’s very attractive,” I replied. “How do you know me?”

  He giggled, a sound I normally mistrust in a man but which seemed natural in him. “We have, shall I say, mutual friends. And you, Mr Holmes. I had not thought to lay eyes on you again this side of Paradise.”

  “Good of you to imagine I might be headed in that direction, Solly. Russell, this is Suleiman Lal. Suleiman is th
e uncrowned king of Aden, and this room is the junction-box through which all the power of the Red Sea is dispersed. The state of the hall-way outside is his little jest.”

  “I imagine it also keeps away stray tourists,” I said drily.

  “Precisely,” said the small man, and took a draw at his pipe. “You have come for your mail, I think?”

  “To see if there was any,” Holmes replied.

  “In the cigar box on the second shelf,” said Lal. Holmes stepped over to the diminutive shelves and drew out the wooden box, thumbing open its lid and taking out the pieces of paper therein. They were not mail, but telegraph flimsies. “Please, do read them,” the small man urged. “You may wish to send a reply. And while you do so, we shall take tea.”

  With that, a narrow door behind Lal opened silently and a very dark-skinned man of normal height padded in with an ornate brassware tray set with the makings of an Oriental tea. Lal laid his pipe aside and shifted forward to pour from the tall pot into the handleless porcelain cups, and as the odour of mint filled the room, I was transported back to Palestine. Yes, this was already sweetened, and I slurped at the scalding, syrupy mint essence with pleasure.

  Holmes read the telegrams and handed them to me. Both were from Mycroft. They read:

  YOUR PRINCE INDEED OF QUESTIONABLE VIRTUE

  MAKING ENQUIRIES RE AMERICAN

  MYCROFT

  Followed two days later by:

  TGH ACTIVE POLITICALLY AT UNIVERSITY NO CHARGES BUT MOTHERS GURU ARRESTED TWICE SPIRITUALIST FRAUD NO CONVICTIONS

  TGH SEEN IN COMPANY OF MOSCOW SECURITY

  SUGGEST YOU MENTION TO FRIEND IN DELHI

  MYCROFT

  “TGH” was doubtless Thomas Goodheart; his “political” activity at Harvard (to Mycroft, “political” would be synonymous with “subversive”) and his proximity to “security” in Russia went some way to justify Holmes’ interest in the man. Goodheart might be nothing more than Holmes’ shipboard hobby, but I agreed that whomever we were seeing in Delhi should be informed of our chance meeting.