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By Root 308 0

which the mind does not. Perhaps what we call the heart is simply a more efficient means of evaluating data. Perhaps I mistrust it because I cannot see the mechanism working. Perhaps it is time for me to retire once and for all. Do not worry," he said in response to my brief stir of protest, "I shall see this case to its end before I turn to learning Syriac and Aramaic and spending my days correcting your manuscripts. Until then, however, we must assume that the old man still possesses his full wits and that his nerviness is not unjustified. Take care in that house, please, Russ. For God's sake, don't be absentminded."

Holmes, although as energetic and scrupulously attentive to detail in the physical aspects of marriage as ever he was in an investigation or laboratory experiment, was not otherwise a man demonstrative of his affections (a statement which will come as no surprise to any of Dr Watson's readers). His proposal of marriage was less a proposal than a challenge flung, and expressions of affection tended towards the low-key and everyday rather than the dramatic and intermittent. I believe the reason for this was that I had become by that time too much a part of him to be the focus of the great alternating sweeps of manic passion and grey despair that had been characteristic of his earlier life. At any rate, I answered him lightly, but acknowledging his serious intent.

"You have succeeded in setting my nerves on edge, I assure you. At the slightest creak of a floorboard, I'll be out of there like a shot."

PART THREE

Tuesday, 28 August 1923-

Saturday, 1 September 1923

In a man's letters his soul lies naked.

— Samuel Johnson

TWELVE

mu

Tuesday was a day of preparation, a time of backstage hustle and the anticipatory discord of instruments tuning. I spent the better part of the morning in the shops, assembling a wardrobe appropriate to a salesgirl or a colonel's secretary, and most of the afternoon rendering my purchases down into a state of shabby gentility by the judicious use of too-hot water and an overheated iron, and by replacing the odd button with one that almost matched. Shoes were a problem, but in the end I settled on a good pair, for the strength of the heel and the relative comfort of the toe, and added a patina of age with grit and a poorly matched polish. The effect I was aiming for was someone who understood quality but couldn't quite afford it. Beyond this, my character's clothing needed to be innocently seductive, with the emphasis on innocence. Young, naïve, unprotected, determined, and a bit scared— that was the image I held in front of me as I tried on white lawn blouses, looked at embroidered collars, and studied the effects of different sleeves. I even bought six lacy handkerchiefs embroidered with the letter M.

Holmes came in at three o'clock. He had left immediately after breakfast, dressed in a singularly Lestradian brown suit (the sort that is obviously purchased with an eye to shoulder seams and the amount of wear the knees will take), a soft brown hat that looked as if it had shrunk in the rain, a new-school tie, and sturdy shoes, sporting a moustache that resembled a dead mouse and a tuft of whiskers in the hollow of his left jaw that the razor had missed. He returned smooth of chin and sleek of hair, gloriously resplendent in an utterly black City suit cut to perfection and a shirt like the sun on new snow, a tie whose pattern was unfamiliar to me but which evoked immense dignity and importance, cuff links of jet with a thread of mother-of-pearl, shoes like dancing pumps, a stick of ebony and silver, and a hat ever so slightly dashing about the brim but of the degree of self-assurance that guarantees there will be no label inside. Under his arm, he carried a bulky, roughly entwined brown paper parcel that reeked of mildew and the cleansing solution used in gaols and hospitals.

"Natty duds, Holmes," I commented deflatingly, and turned to hang another maltreated, over-ironed blouse from the door frame. Mycroft's rooms smelt like a bad laundry, all steam