A good corn syrup mixture was much more realistic.
The knot itself was more interesting. I examined it, photographed it, and made a note to look into it later. I’d just leaned back to take some shots of the scene when I heard footsteps on the stair.
“Holmes.” Watson pelting down the short hall, his trainers squeaking on the hardwood. “I heard you yell—I—” He pulled up short.
“Not a body,” I said.
“No.” He looked down at it. “More like a dead sheet monster.”
“Anwen stood me up.”
“She’s actually right behind me,” he said, squatting down next to the figure. “With Dr. Larkin. She’d gone to meet her to get the keys, in case the theater wasn’t unlocked. But I guess she had to run around to track her down, Dr. Larkin was in a meeting in another building—”
“With the Soc’s new director, actually,” Dr. Larkin said, stepping into the hall, Anwen just behind her. “You’ll meet him tomorrow night. Dear God, Charlotte, what happened?”
A clumsy but effective announcement that this campaign of fear hasn’t ended, I thought, but what I said was, “I don’t know, I’m all shaky,” and threw myself into Watson’s arms, my fists tucked up against his chest. Quickly, I pulled off my gloves and stuffed them between the buttons of his shirt, then down. He stifled a yelp. I suppose it would be surprising, having a ball of warm latex shoved under your clothes without warning.
“Pretend I’m upset,” I whispered.
“She’s had a scare,” he told them as I pushed my face into his shirt. “I don’t know if there’s someone you need to report this to, or what, but I think I should get Charlotte out of here.”
I looked up tearfully at Dr. Larkin, whose brow was furrowed—Who do I call, I saw her think, what do I say that can keep the program open—and at Anwen, whose face was a perfect blank.
“They’re going to cancel the show,” she whispered finally, and there was something different about her voice, about her accent.
Dr. Larkin jumped in before I could place it. “Don’t say that,” she told Anwen. “I’ve called in help, you know.”
“But you’re not—”
“Even if I’m not the director, I still care,” Dr. Larkin said, because of course she did. She wanted her job back. “We’re working with some really excellent consultants to get to the bottom of this, and I’m sure . . . I’m sure . . .”
She trailed off, perhaps in part because the consulting detective she had hired was still sobbing prettily into her boyfriend’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I lost someone close to me last year, and—”
Watson stiffened. I suppose it was in poor taste to bandy around August Moriarty’s death like this, but I also thought that August himself would probably not have minded. Any port in a storm.
“I can still run lines,” I told Anwen. “I think. Maybe? But can we just go somewhere else?”
“I’d prefer that the both of you leave,” Dr. Larkin said. Her eyes flickered down to the faux body, and she thought, They’ll cancel the program entirely, we’ll lose our endowment, my car payments will keep being late, I’ll lose my flat—
How did I know? She said a version of those things to me when she asked me to take on the case. When faced with our worst nightmares, we don’t tend to think new thoughts.
“Are you calling in the police?” Anwen asked the professor, and her voice was back to normal: Welsh, feminine, musical.
“No. Why would I? Harmless prank, really. No, the two of you go off and run lines—perhaps at Charlotte’s flat? I visited her uncle there. He’s lovely. Nice big space. Yes, excellent—” and she began casting around for the supply closet.
Anwen uncrossed her arms, adjusted her skirt. She glanced from me to Watson. “If it’s not an imposition,” she said. “You can come too, Jamie. If you want.”
At that, I pinched his leg.
“No!” he yelped. “No, go on. I, ah. Have a lecture.”
“Are you sure?” I asked him, sniffling.
“I’m sure,” he said, and reached out, very gently, to brush away a tear from my face. His dark eyes softened. He really was a better actor than I gave him credit for. “I’ll see you later, pumpkin.”
As I led Anwen out to the street, I texted from my bag: Watson?
Yes, pumpkin?
New condition: you cease and desist all gourd-related nicknames.
Done. But pinch me again, and I’ll start calling you pickle.
Do that, and I will find and then publish your diaries on a website with a vociferous comments section. Though I was not a gourd, I was most definitively not a vinegar-soaked phallic object.
Noted. Good luck with Ophelia. Dinner tonight?
Yes.
Somewhere nice? I’d like to take you somewhere nice.
“Coming?” Anwen asked.
Fine, I said to Watson, and “yes,” I said to Anwen, though the shake in my voice was from a fear of something visceral, something terrifying and strange.
A date with Watson.
Eight
HAD IT BEEN MY DECISION, I WOULD HAVE NEVER ASKED Anwen back to my flat.
Why on earth would I give a suspect access to my living space? At the very least, they might be able to draw conclusions about me or my habits that might blow my cover (I would, for instance, have a hard time justifying the brick-sized moisture-analyzing machine I kept on the radiator, which was still not providing accurate information on why my cat Mouse had developed an alarming little cough). At most, the suspect would be able to sabotage me where I lived. I had recently spent a year of my life ripping apart each room I lived in for recording devices, small explosives, itching powder, and similar; I was rather invested in never having to do that again.
Even then, I had learned very little about Anwen that was immediately alarming. Humans are simple creatures; the most highly accomplished of us even more so. When you pair intellect with the sort of razor-sharp focus that brings you to a school like Oxford, you’re more or less slapping a pair of blinders on the human horse. Your goal is dead ahead; distraction is all around; it does not behoove you to think of anything but your heaps of homework and whatever small hobby you’ve adopted to keep you from losing your mind. You don’t have time to consider things like the psychological profile of a girl (me, for instance) who owned both a complete professional-grade chemistry set and a pair of well-worn velvet loafers with embroidered alpacas on the toes.
Anwen, however, was different.
I’d noticed her caginess the night before, at dinner, when she’d continually drawn our attention back to Theo and Rupert. I’d noticed her slip from a perfectly unremarkable Welsh accent into something far rougher and burrier in the theater. I hadn’t drawn any conclusions yet, though I’d been tempted to. If nothing else, I’d learned my lesson about theorizing in advance of having all the facts.
It was tempting, though, to wonder why Anwen looked so taken aback as she walked into my flat.
Watson, in his previous accounts of our adventures, has fussed about the strangeness of my previous living quarters. As they were my quarters that I had arranged how I pleased, I can’t comment on their eccentricities. (Plenty of people collect spoons, of all things. Why on earth am I not allowed to collect skulls?)