equal daughters
Title: equal daughters
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (movie)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen (mild Holmes/Irene)
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes: Thanks to faryfly and ariadnes_string for the excellent beta! Any remaining fail is mine, and mine alone. I'm just so very happy that I've finished something. Anything. Let's hope it takes.
Summary: "Shall I answer chronologically? Or alphabetically?"
America by Walt Whitman
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair'd in the adamant of Time.
On October fourth, 1858, one undistinguished girl-child was born in Trenton, New Jersey to a farrier and his wife. Both of them were hoping for a boy and neither of them was particularly excited to be expecting at all. The child was named after her paternal grandmother, a mediocre cook in the Wingate home.
(On October fifth, 1858, William Dyce is inspired to paint. A painting which later disappears from a city which Irene Adler happens to be visiting.)
Irene Adler was eleven years old when it started. It was a comb on the vanity of her employer. The comb was not the prettiest or even the most expensive. It was sterling silver and rather plain except for the silhouette of a dove in flight.
(Later, in Seville, Irene learns that the Spanish word for dove is the same as the word for pigeon.)
There was a tightness inside of her. Like someone tuning a fiddle, but without any control. And if didn't stop soon, she was going to snap. Sweat broke out on her palms and she could hardly breathe. The comb. Only when it was in her hand, the teeth biting into her skin, the metal warming with her body heat, only then did it stop.
And thus Irene was confronted with a particularly brutal truth: she could not help herself.
A few years later, it became common knowledge who the thief in the Wingate household was. The butler stumbled onto the hidden compartment in the kitchen floorboards and a number of things spilled out, not the least of which were Mrs. Wingate's pearls and Mr. Wingate's emerald cufflinks. Thus, Irene was thirteen and turned out of her home as a disgrace. She wandered through the streets of Trenton for a week. It was easy enough now to steal food. Sometimes she had to steal other things, but she tried to make them small. A marble, a button, a hair pin. But she was found out, rather sooner than she expected. The store owner was kind enough not to alert the authorities, officially, but he did give her quite the lecture about the evils of crime and the benefits of an honest day's work.
Irene left that conversation possessed of new knowledge. One, she needed a bigger city to get lost in. Two, she was at least partially suspect because of her now ratty clothing. Three, that she was not made for an honest day's work so she ought to get better at this business.
(Days later, Chicago catches fire. Irene Adler is in New York City. There are witnesses.)
Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in Irene's life in the spring of 1878 on board the trans-Atlantic liner Republic. She hadn't wanted to leave, but she was running out of cities. She'd been becoming increasingly well-known in America, due to her early amateur mistakes and her recent zeal for headlines. It was a coincidence or, perhaps, serendipity that Holmes' cabin was but a few doors from hers. He wasn't young, but young-ish, or perhaps just a little childish. And sharp.
Irene picked the pipe right out of his trouser pocket at dinner. The tobacco was a special blend, and expensive. She made it last and never forgot its crushed, earthy smell.
(Mycroft has been missing that pipe much longer than Sherlock.)
The second time she met him was 1880. He was sitting alone in a Parisian cafe. Irene did not find him by accident, nor did she come as herself. She had made herself into a barely respectable ballet dancer, with an appearance to match. A black wig, graceful movements, feet at rest in third position. Eyes re-shaped by heavy kohl, a stinging solution applied to her dimples to make her cheeks rounder, change the apparent structure of her face. She met his jittery eyes at the door, crossed the room light on her feet, and sat beside him with a gentle smile.
"My name is Charlotte," she said in perfect French. "I may be wrong about you, monsieur. And if I am, I beg your pardon. But if I am not, then I think you and I should be very good friends."
"You're wrong," he said flatly and returned to shredding a newspaper into very small pieces.
"Am I, monsieur?" From her shirred cuff, she produced a clear glass vial of cocaine and a small syringe.
He looked at it and away, silhouetting his wild hair and unshaven face against the red fabric of the cafe booth. Irene imagined that he could be very staidly handsome, if he wanted.
She shifted slightly in her seat, turning her back and adjusting her skirts and train to distract and disguise while Sherlock Holmes injected himself with seven percent solution. The transformation was immediate.
"Listen, Lottie," he said conspiratorially.
"Charlotte, please," she corrected him.
"Let's not insult either of our intelligences by pretending that you are, in fact, a woman named Charlotte. I'm not entirely certain you're French."
Irene smiled wickedly, delighted.
"So. Lottie. Are you hungry?"
"Starving."
They ended up at a tiny restaurant, shoe-horned in between a dress shop and an apothecary she knew very well. The food was awful.
"But," Sherlock said, "the wine list is superb. A claret, I think."
"Have they got an 1858?"
"They do." He smiled, a reward. "Amazing how a comet can affect the body of a wine."
"Indeed."
While the sommelier retrieved the bottle, Holmes offered her some cocaine. She declined and suggested that he find a friendly doctor to procure the stuff legally.
(At dawn, they make their farewells. Irene is pleased two-fold. She has sold everything she lifted from the apothecary--it was quite a bit but he made a rather nasty comment about her dress. She has also spent an evening with Sherlock Holmes. As a keepsake, she has stolen a teaspoon from the cafe, the cork from the wine bottle, and some silverware. The latter she did not intend to take, but left with anyway.)
Three years after meeting Holmes, Irene met Watson. She pounded on the door to 221B until he answered, at which point she thrust the puppy at him.
"What the devil?" He neatly retreated a few steps.
"Dr. Watson, I presume."
"And you are?"
"In a hurry. Here, take him and I'll be out of your way."
He looked more closely at her dress. The hem was torn in two places and the elbows were black with soot. "Where's Holmes?"
She sighed. "He'll be right as rain in a few hours. I have every confidence that the Yard will find him shortly."
"Where is he?"
"Take the dog and I'll tell you."
The bulldog puppy squirmed in her hands and made a few snuffling noises, but Watson stood firm.
"Man's best friend. Loyalty, courage, steadfastness." No response. "He'll lend an air of respectability to the place," she suggested innocently.
Watson's eyes narrowed. The dog began to whine.
"Fine." Irene sighed. "I'll put him out in the street. I'm sure he can dodge cabs with the best of them."
The dog's soft pink feet paddled air.
"Alright, alright. Give me the damn thing." The puppy was shivering with nerves and Watson tucked him neatly into his suit jacket. "Where's Holmes?"
"A boathouse in Greenwich. A boat, actually. Well. Half a boat. Don't worry. I tied his ankle to the dock."
"Mrs. Hudson!" Watson yelled, absently scratching the dog's muzzle. "And where the hell did you get the puppy?"
"Ah, yes. Well, the Bulldog Club keeps a kennel--"
"You stole it? You actually stole a puppy?" He made it sound as vile as high treason.
I didn't have a choice, she thought. "You can return him."
"I most certainly will." But the puppy's breath was warm and moist against his vest, as it had been against her bodice.
Somewhere, close by, a bobby whistled.
"It's been a pleasure, John. Give Sherlock my best."
And then she disappeared for five years.
(When Holmes has regained consciousness, removed most of the splinters, and changed clothes, he questions Watson about the provenance of the dog. Watson claims to have purchased the dog because it would lend their rented rooms an air of respectability. Mrs. Hudson understands that to be her job, but holds her tongue. Holmes doesn't believe Watson for a moment but, at that point, the puppy pees on an important experiment. Incensed, Holmes names the puppy after his least favorite prime minister.)
Perhaps, she thought, perhaps if she had all the things she wanted, she could stop taking things. So Irene made a list of all things that she always wanted. It was a very long list. Irene was more or less cataloging the antiquities of the Louvre when she realized that she didn't want this or that marble--my God, where would she put it? She wanted to stop wanting it.
A house, she thought, a house where everything is mine so if I take something, no one cares. No more inspectors or policía or jealous wives. A life where everything is mine.
So she found a young, almost handsome lawyer. And she worked at being in love with him until he proposed.
(Of course, nothing is ever this simple. Watson, finding the entire incident too interesting not to relate, is faced with the crisis of inventing a fictional life for her. He can't bring himself to insinuate that Sherlock Holmes, the gentlemanly if eccentric consulting detective, fancies a world class criminal. He makes her an opera singer, which she finds both creative and humorous. Irene cannot carry a tune in a bucket. The part about Wilhelm, though, is entirely factual.)
Distracted by the work of pretending for Godfrey and the very real threat of the King of Bohemia, Irene did not recognize Sherlock until it was almost too late. Something about the blood on his face, though, reminded her of the incident in Greenwich, and her mind was filled with the endearing image of a thin, slumbering detective in half a boat. After the 'fire', she followed him like a pathetic, nervous duckling.
But, no, she had promised herself to stop wanting things. Especially those things which she could not have. She could not have his victorious arm slung over her shoulder. She could not have his undisguised laughter. She could not have his moods or his shaking withdrawal or his giddy and half-guarded dinners. She could not have his special pipe tobacco, for she had smoked it all years before.
"Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes."
(Watson later asks Holmes why he kept the portrait. Holmes replies that he finds it useful, in the eastern fashion, to meditate upon when he feels he needed to understand a particularly devious element of the mind.)
One day, in Germany, Irene went to the market to buy flowers and came home with a persimmon as well. It was a surprise, undressing that evening and finding it tucked into the folds of her bustle. Irene hated persimmons. She tried to stay in, to focus on her reading or her embroidery or her lock-picking. But, inevitably, she would feel the prickling in the soles of her feet and the tightness in her spine and it wouldn't go away until she had something that didn't belong to her.
They went on vacation and Irene made off with a minor Van Eyck. Sherlock Holmes was called in to retrieve it. Tired and somewhat disgusted with herself, she surrendered the painting. And left with his pocket watch and billfold. Out of spite, not compulsion. She picked the shoddy police handcuff lock with a hair pin and slunk home to Godfrey.
(It is winter in 1889. She gives the watch to Godfrey and uses the money to travel to England.)
She went to the Grand to meet a buyer for a small, but precious item obtained in a somewhat indiscreet fashion. With an anonymous shopping bag and a carefree smile, Irene entered the room with the key that had been waiting for her at the front desk.
"Mrs. Norton?" It was Sherlock. Of course.
"Damn." She kicked the door shut behind her. "It's only a little egg. Not even one of the Tsar's."
"And yet."
She reached into her innocuous shopping bag and Sherlock aimed a pistol at her.
"Is that strictly necessary?"
"I think so, yes."
"Because of the boat in Greenwich?"
"Because you eluded me when last you were in London. And that I find disturbing."
Irene handed the bag to him, and he removed the egg.
"This is paste and varnish," he said flatly. His pupils were unnaturally large. He had dosed himself.
"Yes, well. The note you sent me smelled like your tobacco. Though your handwriting was entirely disguised."
"Indeed." He began to pace.
"I've upset you."
"Not at all, I assure you."
"Allow me to make it up to you."
He raised an eyebrow so patrician, so contemptuous that she couldn't help but laugh. Irene extended her arm and from the flounced cuff produced a pipe which Sherlock had been missing since 1878. She arranged a pleasant smile on her face.
"Mycroft's pipe...the Republic," he said numbly. "Lottie? Lottie the dancer with the too-perfect French."
"Tell me. Did Watson keep the dog?" Struck by his expression, she soldiered on. "I apologize for the Van Eyck business. It was terribly careless of me. I used the money for the train and the ferry. I'm sorry, but I had to give the watch to my husband, to throw him off my trail. He suspects I am sleeping with other men."
"Are you?"
"I'm certainly trying, Sherlock." She waited, quietly re-fastening the cuff of her dress.
"American she-devil. Not fit to lick the boot of an honest Englishman." And then he turned his back on her.
"Well." She stood to go, smoothing her skirts. The one man who didn't bore her. The only one. Irene picked up the egg. It had taken no little technical skill to assemble. Almost unwittingly, she looked around for some little thing of his to take. She had a great deal of pride, and it was not difficult to feel when it had been hurt. Alas, he had left nothing out for her.
He caught her by the shoulders just before she reached the door.
"I don't believe you."
"About what?" she asked, surprised and suddenly breathless.
"The egg."
Irene did not struggle a whit while he searched her, but only because she knew he would like that. He started with her hat, destroying the tulle flowers and tearing out the seams. She looked up, exposing her throat while he briskly unlaced her walking jacket, palpating every inch of the fabric. The skirt was next, and though he was a little rough, she smiled. But only because she liked it. He removed her stockings and her shoes and ran his hands through her hair. And then her corset--the first lungfuls of air all day made her dizzy, giddy.
They were both breathing heavily and flushed when he gave it up. Irene patted her face with the back of her hand. She wouldn't have bothered with all the powder if she'd known she was going to really enjoy herself. Watching him carefully, she began to remove her chemise.
"What are you doing?"
"If one cannot be clever, one ought to be assiduous." She smiled knowingly. "You're right. I brought the egg with me, Sherlock. And you haven't checked all of me."
(In the morning, the cracked and empty shell of the false egg sits on her empty pillow. The real egg was, of course, inside of it all along.)
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (movie)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen (mild Holmes/Irene)
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes: Thanks to faryfly and ariadnes_string for the excellent beta! Any remaining fail is mine, and mine alone. I'm just so very happy that I've finished something. Anything. Let's hope it takes.
Summary: "Shall I answer chronologically? Or alphabetically?"
America by Walt Whitman
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair'd in the adamant of Time.
On October fourth, 1858, one undistinguished girl-child was born in Trenton, New Jersey to a farrier and his wife. Both of them were hoping for a boy and neither of them was particularly excited to be expecting at all. The child was named after her paternal grandmother, a mediocre cook in the Wingate home.
(On October fifth, 1858, William Dyce is inspired to paint. A painting which later disappears from a city which Irene Adler happens to be visiting.)
Irene Adler was eleven years old when it started. It was a comb on the vanity of her employer. The comb was not the prettiest or even the most expensive. It was sterling silver and rather plain except for the silhouette of a dove in flight.
(Later, in Seville, Irene learns that the Spanish word for dove is the same as the word for pigeon.)
There was a tightness inside of her. Like someone tuning a fiddle, but without any control. And if didn't stop soon, she was going to snap. Sweat broke out on her palms and she could hardly breathe. The comb. Only when it was in her hand, the teeth biting into her skin, the metal warming with her body heat, only then did it stop.
And thus Irene was confronted with a particularly brutal truth: she could not help herself.
A few years later, it became common knowledge who the thief in the Wingate household was. The butler stumbled onto the hidden compartment in the kitchen floorboards and a number of things spilled out, not the least of which were Mrs. Wingate's pearls and Mr. Wingate's emerald cufflinks. Thus, Irene was thirteen and turned out of her home as a disgrace. She wandered through the streets of Trenton for a week. It was easy enough now to steal food. Sometimes she had to steal other things, but she tried to make them small. A marble, a button, a hair pin. But she was found out, rather sooner than she expected. The store owner was kind enough not to alert the authorities, officially, but he did give her quite the lecture about the evils of crime and the benefits of an honest day's work.
Irene left that conversation possessed of new knowledge. One, she needed a bigger city to get lost in. Two, she was at least partially suspect because of her now ratty clothing. Three, that she was not made for an honest day's work so she ought to get better at this business.
(Days later, Chicago catches fire. Irene Adler is in New York City. There are witnesses.)
Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in Irene's life in the spring of 1878 on board the trans-Atlantic liner Republic. She hadn't wanted to leave, but she was running out of cities. She'd been becoming increasingly well-known in America, due to her early amateur mistakes and her recent zeal for headlines. It was a coincidence or, perhaps, serendipity that Holmes' cabin was but a few doors from hers. He wasn't young, but young-ish, or perhaps just a little childish. And sharp.
Irene picked the pipe right out of his trouser pocket at dinner. The tobacco was a special blend, and expensive. She made it last and never forgot its crushed, earthy smell.
(Mycroft has been missing that pipe much longer than Sherlock.)
The second time she met him was 1880. He was sitting alone in a Parisian cafe. Irene did not find him by accident, nor did she come as herself. She had made herself into a barely respectable ballet dancer, with an appearance to match. A black wig, graceful movements, feet at rest in third position. Eyes re-shaped by heavy kohl, a stinging solution applied to her dimples to make her cheeks rounder, change the apparent structure of her face. She met his jittery eyes at the door, crossed the room light on her feet, and sat beside him with a gentle smile.
"My name is Charlotte," she said in perfect French. "I may be wrong about you, monsieur. And if I am, I beg your pardon. But if I am not, then I think you and I should be very good friends."
"You're wrong," he said flatly and returned to shredding a newspaper into very small pieces.
"Am I, monsieur?" From her shirred cuff, she produced a clear glass vial of cocaine and a small syringe.
He looked at it and away, silhouetting his wild hair and unshaven face against the red fabric of the cafe booth. Irene imagined that he could be very staidly handsome, if he wanted.
She shifted slightly in her seat, turning her back and adjusting her skirts and train to distract and disguise while Sherlock Holmes injected himself with seven percent solution. The transformation was immediate.
"Listen, Lottie," he said conspiratorially.
"Charlotte, please," she corrected him.
"Let's not insult either of our intelligences by pretending that you are, in fact, a woman named Charlotte. I'm not entirely certain you're French."
Irene smiled wickedly, delighted.
"So. Lottie. Are you hungry?"
"Starving."
They ended up at a tiny restaurant, shoe-horned in between a dress shop and an apothecary she knew very well. The food was awful.
"But," Sherlock said, "the wine list is superb. A claret, I think."
"Have they got an 1858?"
"They do." He smiled, a reward. "Amazing how a comet can affect the body of a wine."
"Indeed."
While the sommelier retrieved the bottle, Holmes offered her some cocaine. She declined and suggested that he find a friendly doctor to procure the stuff legally.
(At dawn, they make their farewells. Irene is pleased two-fold. She has sold everything she lifted from the apothecary--it was quite a bit but he made a rather nasty comment about her dress. She has also spent an evening with Sherlock Holmes. As a keepsake, she has stolen a teaspoon from the cafe, the cork from the wine bottle, and some silverware. The latter she did not intend to take, but left with anyway.)
Three years after meeting Holmes, Irene met Watson. She pounded on the door to 221B until he answered, at which point she thrust the puppy at him.
"What the devil?" He neatly retreated a few steps.
"Dr. Watson, I presume."
"And you are?"
"In a hurry. Here, take him and I'll be out of your way."
He looked more closely at her dress. The hem was torn in two places and the elbows were black with soot. "Where's Holmes?"
She sighed. "He'll be right as rain in a few hours. I have every confidence that the Yard will find him shortly."
"Where is he?"
"Take the dog and I'll tell you."
The bulldog puppy squirmed in her hands and made a few snuffling noises, but Watson stood firm.
"Man's best friend. Loyalty, courage, steadfastness." No response. "He'll lend an air of respectability to the place," she suggested innocently.
Watson's eyes narrowed. The dog began to whine.
"Fine." Irene sighed. "I'll put him out in the street. I'm sure he can dodge cabs with the best of them."
The dog's soft pink feet paddled air.
"Alright, alright. Give me the damn thing." The puppy was shivering with nerves and Watson tucked him neatly into his suit jacket. "Where's Holmes?"
"A boathouse in Greenwich. A boat, actually. Well. Half a boat. Don't worry. I tied his ankle to the dock."
"Mrs. Hudson!" Watson yelled, absently scratching the dog's muzzle. "And where the hell did you get the puppy?"
"Ah, yes. Well, the Bulldog Club keeps a kennel--"
"You stole it? You actually stole a puppy?" He made it sound as vile as high treason.
I didn't have a choice, she thought. "You can return him."
"I most certainly will." But the puppy's breath was warm and moist against his vest, as it had been against her bodice.
Somewhere, close by, a bobby whistled.
"It's been a pleasure, John. Give Sherlock my best."
And then she disappeared for five years.
(When Holmes has regained consciousness, removed most of the splinters, and changed clothes, he questions Watson about the provenance of the dog. Watson claims to have purchased the dog because it would lend their rented rooms an air of respectability. Mrs. Hudson understands that to be her job, but holds her tongue. Holmes doesn't believe Watson for a moment but, at that point, the puppy pees on an important experiment. Incensed, Holmes names the puppy after his least favorite prime minister.)
Perhaps, she thought, perhaps if she had all the things she wanted, she could stop taking things. So Irene made a list of all things that she always wanted. It was a very long list. Irene was more or less cataloging the antiquities of the Louvre when she realized that she didn't want this or that marble--my God, where would she put it? She wanted to stop wanting it.
A house, she thought, a house where everything is mine so if I take something, no one cares. No more inspectors or policía or jealous wives. A life where everything is mine.
So she found a young, almost handsome lawyer. And she worked at being in love with him until he proposed.
(Of course, nothing is ever this simple. Watson, finding the entire incident too interesting not to relate, is faced with the crisis of inventing a fictional life for her. He can't bring himself to insinuate that Sherlock Holmes, the gentlemanly if eccentric consulting detective, fancies a world class criminal. He makes her an opera singer, which she finds both creative and humorous. Irene cannot carry a tune in a bucket. The part about Wilhelm, though, is entirely factual.)
Distracted by the work of pretending for Godfrey and the very real threat of the King of Bohemia, Irene did not recognize Sherlock until it was almost too late. Something about the blood on his face, though, reminded her of the incident in Greenwich, and her mind was filled with the endearing image of a thin, slumbering detective in half a boat. After the 'fire', she followed him like a pathetic, nervous duckling.
But, no, she had promised herself to stop wanting things. Especially those things which she could not have. She could not have his victorious arm slung over her shoulder. She could not have his undisguised laughter. She could not have his moods or his shaking withdrawal or his giddy and half-guarded dinners. She could not have his special pipe tobacco, for she had smoked it all years before.
"Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes."
(Watson later asks Holmes why he kept the portrait. Holmes replies that he finds it useful, in the eastern fashion, to meditate upon when he feels he needed to understand a particularly devious element of the mind.)
One day, in Germany, Irene went to the market to buy flowers and came home with a persimmon as well. It was a surprise, undressing that evening and finding it tucked into the folds of her bustle. Irene hated persimmons. She tried to stay in, to focus on her reading or her embroidery or her lock-picking. But, inevitably, she would feel the prickling in the soles of her feet and the tightness in her spine and it wouldn't go away until she had something that didn't belong to her.
They went on vacation and Irene made off with a minor Van Eyck. Sherlock Holmes was called in to retrieve it. Tired and somewhat disgusted with herself, she surrendered the painting. And left with his pocket watch and billfold. Out of spite, not compulsion. She picked the shoddy police handcuff lock with a hair pin and slunk home to Godfrey.
(It is winter in 1889. She gives the watch to Godfrey and uses the money to travel to England.)
She went to the Grand to meet a buyer for a small, but precious item obtained in a somewhat indiscreet fashion. With an anonymous shopping bag and a carefree smile, Irene entered the room with the key that had been waiting for her at the front desk.
"Mrs. Norton?" It was Sherlock. Of course.
"Damn." She kicked the door shut behind her. "It's only a little egg. Not even one of the Tsar's."
"And yet."
She reached into her innocuous shopping bag and Sherlock aimed a pistol at her.
"Is that strictly necessary?"
"I think so, yes."
"Because of the boat in Greenwich?"
"Because you eluded me when last you were in London. And that I find disturbing."
Irene handed the bag to him, and he removed the egg.
"This is paste and varnish," he said flatly. His pupils were unnaturally large. He had dosed himself.
"Yes, well. The note you sent me smelled like your tobacco. Though your handwriting was entirely disguised."
"Indeed." He began to pace.
"I've upset you."
"Not at all, I assure you."
"Allow me to make it up to you."
He raised an eyebrow so patrician, so contemptuous that she couldn't help but laugh. Irene extended her arm and from the flounced cuff produced a pipe which Sherlock had been missing since 1878. She arranged a pleasant smile on her face.
"Mycroft's pipe...the Republic," he said numbly. "Lottie? Lottie the dancer with the too-perfect French."
"Tell me. Did Watson keep the dog?" Struck by his expression, she soldiered on. "I apologize for the Van Eyck business. It was terribly careless of me. I used the money for the train and the ferry. I'm sorry, but I had to give the watch to my husband, to throw him off my trail. He suspects I am sleeping with other men."
"Are you?"
"I'm certainly trying, Sherlock." She waited, quietly re-fastening the cuff of her dress.
"American she-devil. Not fit to lick the boot of an honest Englishman." And then he turned his back on her.
"Well." She stood to go, smoothing her skirts. The one man who didn't bore her. The only one. Irene picked up the egg. It had taken no little technical skill to assemble. Almost unwittingly, she looked around for some little thing of his to take. She had a great deal of pride, and it was not difficult to feel when it had been hurt. Alas, he had left nothing out for her.
He caught her by the shoulders just before she reached the door.
"I don't believe you."
"About what?" she asked, surprised and suddenly breathless.
"The egg."
Irene did not struggle a whit while he searched her, but only because she knew he would like that. He started with her hat, destroying the tulle flowers and tearing out the seams. She looked up, exposing her throat while he briskly unlaced her walking jacket, palpating every inch of the fabric. The skirt was next, and though he was a little rough, she smiled. But only because she liked it. He removed her stockings and her shoes and ran his hands through her hair. And then her corset--the first lungfuls of air all day made her dizzy, giddy.
They were both breathing heavily and flushed when he gave it up. Irene patted her face with the back of her hand. She wouldn't have bothered with all the powder if she'd known she was going to really enjoy herself. Watching him carefully, she began to remove her chemise.
"What are you doing?"
"If one cannot be clever, one ought to be assiduous." She smiled knowingly. "You're right. I brought the egg with me, Sherlock. And you haven't checked all of me."
(In the morning, the cracked and empty shell of the false egg sits on her empty pillow. The real egg was, of course, inside of it all along.)