creepin with the sailor next door
Island life is not as stimulating as life in London. Even with the variety of people here and the strange occurrences, Holmes finds himself feeling idle much of the time, and the lack of food of any substance or flavor or worth has left him quite unhappy and in need of a good, absorbing distraction. The best answer he could think of was to recall some of his pastimes in London and find a way to recreate or adapt them to the island.
Solving a mystery would be difficult. Seeing an opera would be impossible, but acting would perhaps be something doable. Surely there's some pool of talent, but when he begins considering whether he would like to endure mediocre talents, he becomes less excited about the idea. Maybe he could don a costume and wander about the island, pretending to be someone else. Occasionally that yields interesting results.
And from there it isn't a very difficult leap at all as to how he ought to spend the afternoon.
He waits until Watson leaves for a walk with Nell, which means he has roughly 20 minutes at minimum to get together a scruffy outfit not unlike what a sailor would wear own at the docks. It takes him slightly longer to decide how much makeup he ought to apply, how severely he ought to change his appearance. To make himself completely unrecognizable seems... odd, and he isn't sure how Watson would like that anyway. But if he looks just the same, the game is lost.
He leaves his nose largely the same and arranges his hair differently, adds a scar or two, settles on a way to set his shoulders, and gives himself a more weathered appearance. He wouldn't be recognizable immediately, but once Watson identifies him, he ought to be able to see that the man before him is what Holmes would look like had he been a sailor.
After that it's a matter of coming up with a cover story, which is quickly done, and then he must somehow find a way to wait patiently until Watson arrives, testing out his character, selecting the appropriate accent and inflection for his words.
Solving a mystery would be difficult. Seeing an opera would be impossible, but acting would perhaps be something doable. Surely there's some pool of talent, but when he begins considering whether he would like to endure mediocre talents, he becomes less excited about the idea. Maybe he could don a costume and wander about the island, pretending to be someone else. Occasionally that yields interesting results.
And from there it isn't a very difficult leap at all as to how he ought to spend the afternoon.
He waits until Watson leaves for a walk with Nell, which means he has roughly 20 minutes at minimum to get together a scruffy outfit not unlike what a sailor would wear own at the docks. It takes him slightly longer to decide how much makeup he ought to apply, how severely he ought to change his appearance. To make himself completely unrecognizable seems... odd, and he isn't sure how Watson would like that anyway. But if he looks just the same, the game is lost.
He leaves his nose largely the same and arranges his hair differently, adds a scar or two, settles on a way to set his shoulders, and gives himself a more weathered appearance. He wouldn't be recognizable immediately, but once Watson identifies him, he ought to be able to see that the man before him is what Holmes would look like had he been a sailor.
After that it's a matter of coming up with a cover story, which is quickly done, and then he must somehow find a way to wait patiently until Watson arrives, testing out his character, selecting the appropriate accent and inflection for his words.