Disclaimer: This fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read so all mistakes are mine. And may I give a shout out to all who have read and reviewed: thank you!
CHAPTER THREE: THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR
Having ascertained- thanks to a hasty call to the current Quartermaster from a pay-phone- that this Sigur Holmes was indeed in his employ, and had indeed not been seen in more than 24 hours, Lexie grabs a taxi and tells the driver to take her to The Red Room in Soho.
He knows where it is: Apparently, it's famous.
Apparently, Lexie had also underestimated how little she wanted to be stuck in The Circus tonight.
"Auditioning, are you?" The cabbie leers at her in his mirror, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Lexie rolls her eyes. "On her Majesty's business, my good man," she answers tersely.
While she is aware that she ought not to shoot civilians, she can't help but grip her snub-nosed little revolver, secreted safely in her purse.
The cabbie gives her an exaggerated pout. "Tits like those don't belong on a copper," he sniffs. "If you ask me-"
"I didn't." Lexie cocks an eyebrow at him. "Boots like these, however," - and she gestures to her exquisite new leather knee-highs- "may well belong lodged somewhere to the left of your rectum, dear, should you keep me waiting." She draws on every ounce of posh, private school educated diction and gestures imperiously. "Red Room. Now.
Get me there in less than half an hour and there's a good tip in it for you."
And with that she leans back in the seat and watches the lights of London go by, already planning her next move-
"Wait," Sherlock interrupts. "Wait. Are you telling me that the British government trusted you to carry a revolver?"
He looks at his mother- the woman who could burn water- in horror and the older woman gives him a supremely smug smile.
"Will," she says serenely, "however did you think Myc learned? And your father?" She shoots a wink at Molly, patting his hand indulgently. "I know you like to think that you and John invented adventure, darling, but I'm afraid you're more a chip off the old block than a black sheep of the family- In this regard, at least." She leans into Molly and lowers her voice conspiratorially. "He is, alas, something of a late bloomer romantically, something I assure you he certainly doesn't get from my side of the family-" She frowns- "or, come to think of it, his father's-"
The tips of Sherlock's ears turn puce.
It is made worse by how obviously Molly is trying not to smile.
"Weren't you telling a story?" He asks tartly, to which his mother merely beams and mouths we'll talk later to Molly.
No you bloody won't, Sherlock mouths back.
"I was telling a story, dear-heart," Mummy points out, voice angelic, "until I was rather rudely interrupted by one of my children-" She smiles triumphantly. "Perhaps, if you wish me to continue, you should curtail your tendency to comment- Hmm?"
And beneath Sherlock's mutinous glower- and Molly's traitorous giggle- she returns to 1961.
By the time they get to The Red Room, the cabbie's face has turned woefully sour.
Were Lexie the sort of woman who cared about that sort of thing she would feel terrible, but alas, she is not and so she merely pays the fair, tips him handsomely and then exits his car with her usual insouciant ease.
She shoots him an airy wave and he flips her the finger as he pulls off.
Lexie narrows her eyes, memorizing his plate number, and decides that tomorrow he is going to get a visit from the Inland Revenue. (Needless to say, it will not be a visit which he enjoys, but then given how much joy he spreads, perhaps that is just).
That decided, she straightens her skirt and coat and moves towards the corner on which The Red Room is situated. The streets are alive with men in suits, hats pulled down against the rain and curious eyes darting at each bar and alleyway they pass. Girls in short skirts and high heels primp and preen in doorways, sheltering from the drizzle and giving them the eye- They stay warily clear of Lexie, perhaps sensing that she's not here for fun.
Like many clubs in this part of Soho, The Red Room lies down some decidedly dodgy-looking stairs, a neon model of a dancing girl flashing gaudily above the entrance, the prices of the different acts advertised on tatty-looking bits of cardboard as Lexie descends-
My, she thinks sarcastically, but life as an agent is glamorous…
At the bottom of the stairs she finds a beaded curtain, and behind it there's a pretty, dark-haired young woman with massive brown eyes and a pixie-ish short haircut; she's wearing a pair of knickers, a pair of sparkling nipple tassels beneath a transparent babydoll nightie, and (hidden by the desk at which she sits) a pair of industrial-looking slippers and socks with come right up to her knees.
She also has a shot-gun resting in her lap. A large one.
Lexie's opinion of her goes up substantially.
"Three and five in, ducks," the girl says, her voice bored.
She doesn't look up.
Lexie frowns, realizing that she doesn't have that much in her purse after taking the cab here.
"I'm terribly sorry," she says, "but I'm not here to visit-"
The girl doesn't look up from her novel, some lurid thing with a picture of two women kissing on the cover.
"Three and six," she repeats, "everyone pays in, unless you're a guest, which I happen to know you're not."
And she smiles to herself, eyes never leaving her book.
Inspiration hits. "I'm here to see Martha," Lexie announces grandly. "A friend of mine said to look in on her- his name is Sigur. Sigur H-"
She doesn't even get to finish the word before the girl is up from behind her desk, one hand gripping her elbow. "Shut up!" She hisses, looking around in worry. "Bloody hell, I thought you secret agents were supposed to be clever!"
Lexie puts it together. Cocks an eyebrow. "Martha, I presume?" She says and the other woman sniffs. Cocks an eyebrow right back.
"And what about it?" She asks tartly. "You're going to help get poor Siggie out of here, are you?"
Poor Siggie? Lexie only barely manages to keep herself from rolling her eyes. "Of course I am," she says instead, her voice managing to sound a great deal more confident than she feels. "I just need to find out where they're keeping him- Have you any idea about that?"
Martha snorts. "Of course I know where he is, ducks," she says, "but you can hardly sidle in there and get him, not with Tommy The Pigeon and Stick Dunne watching him-"
Martha's about to iterate what other difficulties lie between Lexie and her target, but before she can a shot sounds sharply, and suddenly both women's nights get a whole lot worse.