"What was the point of this destruction, Holmes? Why attack the clothes, and not us? Even Billy wasn't badly hurt, just parked to one side. Do you mind if I open the window a bit?"
"It is a bit thick in here, isn't it? That's good. Better close it in a minute or two, though, we don't want our voices heard. Why indeed, as you say, might a foe he content with a few clothes and the seat cushions of an old cab? Except to show us that she knew where we were, and that she could as easily have done the same to our bodies as your clothes. And finally, to thumb her nose at me by pulling my own trick of leaving reversed footsteps, and topping it off with Baker Street mud. It was a demonstration, no doubt about that, but was that all? I think not. Look closely at the slashes on the seats, there." He arranged the last set of photographs so that they overlapped, to place the seat in a continuous line.
"Do you see something?"
I looked at the shredded seats, the cuts that crossed, met at their lower ends, and ran parallel. I laid my spectacles to one side and squinted hard at the clear black and grey images. "Is there a pattern?" I asked, hearing the excitement in my voice. "Hand me that pencil and pad, would you, Holmes?" The first two cuts crossed each other in the middle, and I wrote an X on my pad. The next two met at the lower edge of the seat, a V. After some minutes and discussion with Holmes, I had a string of Xs, Vs, and straight lines on my pad that looked like this: xvxvnxxiixnxxiixxivxxxi
"Roman numerals?" I wondered. "Does this mean anything to you?" I asked Holmes, whose steely eyes were studying the page intently. I could see that it did not, so I put on my glasses and sat back. "A string of twenty-five Roman numbers. Do they add up to something?" I did the simple sum in my head, ten plus five plus ten and so on. "One hundred forty-five, if they make up twenty-five separate numbers. Of course, they could say fifteen, seventeen, twenty-two, twelve, and so forth."
"What would that come to?" "There won't be much difference, because of the nature of Roman numerals, but it comes to, let's see — 143."
"Interesting. And the number between them is 144, a dozen dozen."
"And the two sums added together make 288, which is the number of dollars my father had in his desk when he died. Holmes, these numbers games could go on forever."
"What if we translated the numbers into letters, one of the more simplistic codes?"
We scribbled and thought, but came up with nothing.
Reading it as 15, 17, 22, 12, 22, 24, 20, 11 yielded gibberish as OQVLVXTK, and no other combination made any sense either. I finally pushed it away.
"There are just too many variables, Holmes. Without a key we can't even know if it's a word, or the combination to a safe, or a map coordinate, or — "
"Yet she left it for us to find. Where could she have put the key?"
"Judging from her previous style, I should say that the key is both hidden and completely obvious, which is always the most effective means of hiding something."
It was very late now, and my eyes felt gritty. I picked up the conversation where we had left it before the slash pattern had appeared.
"I agree that she was demonstrating her cleverness. She won a number of points in that round. I wonder what her next move might have been had we not been spirited away by Mycroft. Cutting off Watson's nose to show that she could have taken his head?"
"More to the point, what will her move be now, when we walk openly home? For how long will her wariness last before she thinks it is perhaps not a trap, that we truly are divided and the trauma of it has made me an empty wreck? Mere extermination is not what she wants, apparently. She wishes to ruin me first. Very well, we'll give her that, and wait for her to move."
He carefully inserted the papers and photographs back into their oversized envelope and stood looking down at me.
"Well, Russell. Thank you for showing me Palestine. It may be a long, long time before we are able to speak freely. I shall say good night, and good-bye, and we will meet when the prey takes the bait and comes into our trap." His lips gently brushed my forehead, and he was gone.
Thus began our act of alienation. Holmes and I had only a few days to perfect our rôles of the two friends now turned against each other, the father and daughter alienated, the near-lovers become bitterest, most implacable of enemies.
It takes time to develop a part, as all actors know, time and an exploration of the nuances and quirks of the person being played. We had to be word-perfect before we reached England for the trap to be effective. We had to assume that we were being watched at every moment, and a slight slip of affection could be disastrous.
It is a truism of the actor's art that one can play only oneself on the stage. To be fully effective the actor must have a sympathy for the character's motives, however unsympathetic they might appear to an outsider. To a large extent, the actor must become the character if the act is to be effective, and that is what Holmes and I did. From the time we rose in the morning we did not play enemies, we were enemies. When we met it was with icy politeness that rapidly disintegrated into vicious attacks. I grew into the rôle of the young student who had come to view her old teacher with withering scorn. Holmes responded with malevolent counterattacks and the full strength of his razor-sharp sarcasm. We cut each other with our tongues and bled and crawled off to the sanctuary of our individual cabins and came back for more.
The first day was technically difficult, keeping up the persona in front of my real face, continually thinking, what might I do at this point if I really were this way? And how ought I respond to that? It was exhausting, and I went to bed early. The second day it quickly became easier.
Holmes never looked out from behind his mask, and mine too was now firmly in place. I went to my room early to read but found it difficult to concentrate. My mind wandered off. What on earth was I doing here? I ought to be in Oxford, not on this boat. I had no business taking off this time of year. Even basic work was impossible in this battleground. Perhaps the captain might let me off in France and I could take the train home. Probably be faster, and certainly more restful. I wonder — I jerked to attention, horrified. These were not the thoughts of an actor; this was the character thinking. I had become, for a moment, the person I had played throughout the day. I sat appalled at the implications: If this could happen after less than forty-eight hours of play-acting, what would happen after days and weeks of it? Would I be able to shut it off at will? Or, my God, would it become a habit too firm to break?
"For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?" Wouldn't a nice clean bomb be better than losing Holmes? A malevolent voice seemed to murmur beneath the engine throb.
"If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning." I went out into the common room for some brandy, and Holmes passed me silently as he went into his room. I stood in the dark, looking out at the black sea until the glass was empty, and went back to the hallway.
Holmes had left his door slightly ajar, and my steps slowed.
I stopped and let my shoulder and head come to rest against the wall, not looking in at the segment of his room that was available to my eyes.
"Holmes?"
"Yes, Russell."
"Holmes, when you have acted a part for some days, do you find it hard to drop it?" "It can be difficult to shake off a part, yes." His voice was calm, conversational. "When I spent a week working on the docks on a case many years ago, the day after the man was arrested I dressed and went out at the usual time, and walked clear down to Oxford Street before I came to myself. Yes, a part can become habitual. Had you not realised that risk?"