The Glorious Disguise (My Dearly Beloved Detective)

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THE GLORIOUS DISGUISE

Fandom: My Dearly Beloved Detective

Summary: On a quiet night in front of the fire at 221B Baker Street, Shirley tells Jane about the greatest disguise of her career.

Characters: Shirley Holmes/Jane Watson

Words: 2,700

Notes:

For sanguinity, for Holmestice.

Dear Sanguinity, you are a pillar of the Holmestice community in general, and an inspiration to me in particular, and here is a Holmestice treat for you! You asked what led Shirley and Jane to apply for these roles; and you often mention your love of “old and deep relationships with a lot of history in them.” I’ve tried to give you a little of both those things.

To those who may not know “My Dearly Beloved Detective”: In this ‘verse, Sherlock Holmes is fictional, but people kept looking for him and his detective skills, so eventually a real detective agency was set up at 221B Baker Street. Shirley Holmes and Jane Watson are the two women who stepped into those famous literary roles.

And by the way, in the film Shirley and Jane part ways at the end, but in my world that never happened. :-)

Thank you to colebaltblue for betaing and enthusiasm!

Read on AO3, or here below:


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The fire burned low in the grate, mumbling to itself as the occasional coal shifted and settled. There was a patter of raindrops outside, there was a decanter of whisky on the end table, and there were Shirley and I, in our armchairs on either side of the fire.

I have always loved these quiet moments at the close of each of our days. We pursue ruffians, we don disguises, we conceal ourselves behind dustbins in insalubrious corners of London – in short, we have a great deal of fun – and then at the end of each day we come back home to Baker Street to think back over it all.

Her gaze on the fire and her finger circling the rim of her glass, Shirley asked, “Jane, have I ever told you about my first case? The incident, I mean, that made me think I could take on the role of Sherlock Holmes.”

I sat up straight in my chair. Even now, Shirley rarely talked about her life from the days before we had met, and every small piece of her history she offered up was a thing to be treasured. She liked to be an enigma, and she knew it and I knew it. We were both of us in the business of loving mysteries, were we not?

“No, but do tell me now,” I said, and my eagerness made her smile. I set my glass aside and turned my full attention to Shirley. The firelight played across her face, highlighting its angles and her expressive eyes. Shirley’s face is a cinema all its own.

“I had gone to visit an old school friend,” she said. “My only school friend, I ought to say: Victoria Trevor.”

She leaned forward to open the drawer of the little table that stood near the fire, then handed across to me a small cylinder of tarnished metal. I picked open the tape that bound it and withdrew a smudged sheet of grey paper. On it were words in a scrawled hand, in a language I didn’t recognise. I looked over at Shirley.

“That note arrived by post while I was staying with the family,” she said. “It’s written in Norwegian. Victoria’s mother nearly fainted at the sight of it, Jane. I had surmised early on that, although a long-time resident of England, she was originally from Norway. There was a hint of it in her vowels, and in the way she pinned her hair.”

I grinned to think of Shirley as she must have been in those days, much younger and yet fully as observant as she was now.

“The note was a threat,” Shirley went on. “A man from the mother’s past, threatening to reveal a past shame and demanding payment in exchange for silence. I was able to deduce, however, from certain turns of phrase in the note once we had translated it, that this man, too, was hiding a shameful secret. I advised Victoria’s mother on how to reply to him, neutralising his threat with her own. An inelegant solution, perhaps, but effective.”

“Wonderful!” I cried, delighted as always at the way Shirley’s mind sought out solutions as easily as other people might draw breath. “How fortunate for that poor woman that you were there to help her.”

“Yes, perhaps so. And yet even more, I consider myself to have been the fortunate one that day.”

“But what do you mean?” Carefully, aware now what an important memento of Shirley’s early life I held, I tucked the note back into its cylinder and returned it to her. Then I took up my glass again, and settled more deeply into my chair to listen.

Shirley returned the metal cylinder to its place and slid the drawer closed, before speaking again. “Victoria and her mother were both very grateful. Her mother said, ‘Miss Holmes, you have an eye for seeing what others don’t notice, and a mind for thinking what others can’t imagine. In your life you’ll find those to be valuable skills’.” Shirley swirled the whisky in her glass, the amber of it catching the firelight. “I tucked those words away in the back of my mind for a long time. It was only when I saw the advertisement for this position, to fulfil the role of Sherlock Holmes for the public, that I thought of them again. Truthfully, Jane, I’m not sure I would have dared to apply for the role otherwise.”

“You, Shirley?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. “But you’re perfect for it! You’re brilliant at deduction. You of all people must know that.” I’d spent years observing and admiring the speed of Shirley’s mind, the ease with which she took in scraps of information and formed them into a whole that told a story. I couldn’t imagine her doubting those skills for even a moment.

She glanced at me and quirked the little smile that meant I was about to see a bit of her she didn’t usually show.

But all she said was, “Do you remember the first time we dressed as men?” And I must say, it didn’t seem entirely kind of her to bring that up out of the blue.

You see, the first time we disguised ourselves as men, it nearly ended our partnership.

The short version of the story, if there can be a short version of such a thing, is that we were disguised as gentlemen in the course of investigating a case, and were nearly found out. I was upset; Shirley was unsympathetic. I cried in the middle of the street; Shirley berated me for not having more fortitude. I very nearly left 221B Baker Street for good.

What brought me back – cautiously at first, and then with increasing certainty – was that Shirley showed she understood why I’d fled our partnership that night after she’d pushed too far, and she showed me she was sorry.

Oh, she didn’t say it in so many words. But she took pains to show me, in the weeks and months and even years that followed, that she saw me as a partner, not merely a pupil to be lectured. That she valued the ways in which we were different, and didn’t expect me to be a perfect copy of herself in all things. I don’t think I could love her as I do, had she not made that effort. Admire, oh yes, but not love.

And I was sorry too, for having given way to such a fit of passion that I’d been ready to walk away because of a single bad day. So I worked hard, in the time that followed, to show Shirley that I believed in her methods, and that I was willing to learn the art of disguise.

(It turns out disguise is quite amusing, did you know? We are both now rather expert at walking with the sauntering stride of a man, and sometimes we wear our false moustaches at home simply for a lark.)

It took time to reach the partnership we have today, but I believe we’ve been the stronger for it. We are both possessed of strong opinions, but we are willing to give way when we see that we have been wrong. And that has made all the difference, I think.

Shirley looked at me now, and of course she saw where my thoughts had travelled, the unpleasant night I was remembering. She inclined her head in apology. “I should have expressed myself more clearly. What I meant to say was this: Do you remember how uncomfortable it was at first to don an unaccustomed disguise, and that the only cure was to wear it repeatedly until it came to feel natural? These days, I dare say, we both don such disguises without a thought.” She looked at me, waiting to see me nod in understanding. Then she said, “Confidence is another such disguise.”

I blinked at her, for I’d never thought of it in such a way.

Shirley set her glass aside, with her gaze turned away from me. “Much as you are always so unwilling to concede the fact, Jane, I have the same failings as anyone. When I see an advertisement for an unusual and highly specialised position, my first thought is not necessarily that I am the perfect person for the job. More than likely, I think instead of the ways in which I am not suited, and allow my eyes to skip onwards.”

I stared at Shirley, for the words she spoke could have come from my own mind. When I first read the advertisement in the papers, I did not in the least think myself qualified to be a “detective in the service of the public, on the model of the famous Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr Watson.” I dare say it was only because of the voice in the back of my mind, the one that sounded suspiciously like my father and told me I could not possibly be successful at such a thing, that I thought defiantly: Well, then I shall.

But Shirley, whose brilliance is renowned: what cause did she have to doubt herself?

“As I scanned that advertisement,” Shirley continued, “my chief thought was that, though I have some small skill at intellectual puzzles, I am no Sherlock Holmes. I might very well have turned the page and thought no more about it. But in that moment, I recalled Victoria’s mother’s words: that I had the right sort of eye for the work, and that my unusual way of thinking could perhaps even be called a skill. And then it seemed to me possible that I could, after all, dare to be not only a Holmes, but the Holmes.”

“Shirley,” I cried, setting my own glass hastily aside for fear I would slosh its contents about the room in my passion. “How could you ever have doubted it? Surely you must have known there could be no one better for this role than you.”

Shirley glanced across at me and gave that little lift of one eyebrow at which she is so expert. “Ah, Jane, truly, do you persist in putting me on a pedestal still, after all this time?”

I flushed at her teasing, as she surely knew I would do. After so many years, we are quite practised in our actions and reactions.

But then she reached across the space between us (our chairs being intentionally arranged in such a way that an arm can extend between them with no trouble) and threaded her fingers through mine. I raised her hand to my lips to press a kiss to her knuckles, and saw her smile. Then I let our joined hands rest again on the arm of my chair.

“I assure you, Jane,” Shirley said quietly, “I am as mortal as anyone, and with all the attendant weaknesses. But I have learnt, especially in a world run by men, to settle confidence around myself like a disguise. And like a disguise, it grows more comfortable with each wearing.”

We were both quiet as I contemplated these words.

Then, to my surprise, she spoke again: “And never mind about the pedestal. My sentiments in return are, after all, very similar.”

With that startling statement, she squeezed my hand and released it, turning to take up her glass once again.

The fire crackled gently to itself as I sat there struck by her words. Such overt expressions of affection from Shirley, although rare, are quite dear to me.

Still considering her words about the donning of disguises, I asked, “Do you remember the first case we solved together? The poisoning in Lauriston Gardens?”

Of course she did, the lift of her eyebrows said.

So I went on: “Do you know, I was terrified I would be useless. I kept wishing we could run back here to Baker Street, to consult our copies of the books and see what the real Holmes and Watson would have done. But then someone turned to me and said, ‘What do you think, Miss Watson?’ And there was no time to look anything up in a book, so I blurted out what I thought: that there must have been two murderers, not one, judging from how many footprints we’d seen outside the house. It wasn’t a bad deduction was it, for a start?”

Shirley’s eyes were warm on me. “Not bad at all.”

“So I suppose that’s much the same as what you’ve said about wearing a disguise: the first time, I answered even though I wasn’t sure what I had to say was worth anyone’s while. But it went sufficiently well, so the next time and the next I dared to answer too, and I’ve kept answering ever since!” I laughed, thinking how timid I’d been in those earliest days at 221B Baker Street, in awe of Shirley and her brilliance, and of all that was expected of us.

But Shirley looked serious, and said, “I do hope, Jane, that the role has grown to suit you, and that there is no longer any pretending necessary in order to believe you belong in it.”

Could she truly be uncertain of that? She, who can deduce a man’s profession from the type of dust that has settled on his hat, did she truly not know?

“Shirley,” I told her. “I am happy every day here. I’m happy solving cases, I’m happy helping clients, and I’m always happy with you. This is where I belong, there’s not a bit of me that’s left uncertain. Can you really have any doubt?”

She was silent a moment, her gaze fixed on me. I’ve never known another face like Shirley’s, so stern and yet brimming with emotion, if you know how to read it as I do. Her whisky glass had once again been abandoned to the end table.

At last she said, “The evidence of my ears and eyes tells me as much, it’s true, as we go about our days. And yet somehow it’s pleasing to hear it said directly.”

I grinned at that, because if overt expressions of affection are rare in this household, requests for them are even rarer.

“Shirley,” I said solemnly, “If the confidence to do this work is a disguise that must be taken up deliberately, then I suppose I made the choice years ago to try it on, for over the years I’ve come to find that it fits very well indeed.”

She nodded.

“And what’s more,” I went on, “it is not only the work that suits me well. This flat, too, our own little 221B Baker Street, is so very pleasant and cosy. I’m glad every time I look around and think how fortunate we are to live here. And even more than that, do you know what pleases me very much?” I reached across again to clasp her hand in mine. “It’s the partner I found, when I first answered that advertisement seeking two detectives. For she’s exceedingly brave and frightfully clever, and kind-hearted, too, though she doesn’t always like to show it. She has the loveliest face, and cuts the most graceful figure –”

“All right, enough!” Shirley flung her free hand in the air to stem the flood of my praise, and I swear to you that she was blushing, just a little.

She gave me a sidelong look, and then we both started to laugh at just the same moment.

Shirley gave a little snort, quite unladylike. “Jane,” she said, “surely you know I consider you the best Watson any Holmes could ask for.”

At that I blushed a little myself, for indeed I did know that she thought so, and I considered it an honour.

The low flames murmured on contentedly in the grate. All was still in 221B Baker Street, as we passed a moment each in quiet contemplation of our good fortune.

Then Shirley rose from her chair, still holding my hand in hers, and leaned down with her other to bank the fire. “Come, Jane,” she said, standing again. “Shall we to bed?”

With the fire still warm on my cheeks, I followed her.

 

The End

 

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