Call Boy
It is a well-known fact that I am not fond of women. More specifically, I am not fond of women who insist upon being overbearingly feminine. I simply cannot see what makeup and tight-lacing helps. While on the topic, may I say that all that coquettish batting of long eyelashes is far more annoying than attractive.
Because the fairer sex was much more Watson's area of expertise, it was he who was sent to talk to our latest client when I suspected she had not told us the full story about her late uncle's will. I had a theory that she was lying about something to preserve her family's dignity, and I required all the facts if I was to be expected to solve the case.
The countess was a woman tiptoeing towards middle age and denying it firmly, using every beauty product and pounds of powder to back up her insistences. She was married, but the stories on the Ton said that the count had not been on English soil in a good five years.
Although I was sorely tempted to listen to the conversation with my ear pressed up against the door, I instead gave my long-suffering friend a scrap of dignity and enjoyed a glass of excellent brandy in the sitting room until the unconventional interrogation was over with.
When the butler led Watson to me, I had to stifle an entirely cruel snicker. Someone with very red nail polish had attempted to wrestle the poor man's collar off, he was scented heavily with perfume, and jaw and cheek were peppered with very unladylike lipstick.
"Come, old chap," I said as I rose, struggling to keep a straight face. "You may tell me what you learned in the hansom."
Watson growled with uncharacteristic malice, wrenching his askew collar back into place, whipping out his handkerchief for to remove traces of his assault from his face. "I only did this because lives hang in the balance. I'm a doctor, Holmes, not a call boy!"