The Game - Laurie R. King [22]
“A costume ball is all about masks and the freedom they confer on the wearers. I wish to see what the fellow looks like when he imagines himself concealed.” Seeing that I had my hair wrapped into place, he handed me a pin.
“Ah,” I said. “You wish to get him drunk and see what he lets slip.”
“Sometimes the old methods are the best,” Holmes said, although he looked somewhat abashed at the admission.
“You think Goodheart is some kind of a villain?”
“I think it possible, although it is far from clear whether his particular brand of villainy need concern us. Still, it is the sort of thing Mycroft likes to hear about, to pass on to his fellows. Assuming,” he muttered, “anyone in the incoming government will be interested in stray Bolsheviks.”
“Oh, very well, I shall go if you wish. But I don’t know what sort of costume we might pull together at this late date—all the Cleopatra masks and chimney-sweeper’s coats are sure to have been taken. And I do not think it at all appropriate to dress as Lady Godiva,” I said, picking up an extra and unnecessary hair-pin and jamming it in for emphasis.
“I have an idea,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, stifling a sigh. “I was afraid you might.”
A sari is not a carefree sort of garment. To a person accustomed to clothing that remains where it was put, the lack of any fastening more secure than gravity is, to say the least, disconcerting. A sari, I found when Holmes presented me with the thing, was little more than a remarkably skimpy blouse and an enormous length of impossibly slippery silk, which is arranged into intricate folds and tucked into what amounts to little more than a piece of string around one’s waist, after which the loose end (hah! It is all loose end.) is drawn gracefully up across one’s chest and over the opposite shoulder, where it then spends the entire evening yearning to slither to the floor, taking the rest of the garment with it. If the wearer were to suck in her stomach, many, many yards of silk would collapse into a lovely pool on the floor around her near-naked legs. And this was before I added the gossamer silk shawl over my head and shoulders.
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