Early, down in Hudson's – still one of those decent hours Holmes has heard tell of and so rarely experienced. It's busier. There's more life in it too, and of a more joyful sort. The real and the honourable people are still round and about. He's so rarely seen it like this. He thought of taking the baize out of his case, setting it out on the usual table in the usual fashion, and he even had his hand on it before he decided it can keep until later. There's nothing on the table in front of him but a glass, half-full and carefully kept, and his drumming fingertips. There's a silver dollar close to it, riding his knuckles, but that's all.
He told himself all day not to do this. It is a foolish waste of time, in his own opinion, to come here early, to suffer the sidelong glances and have to listen to all the endless chatter of town life and gossip and the day's business. It's murderous dull. All day he's been telling and telling, he ought not put himself through it.
How can he insult Mycroft this way? He ought to cower away and hide with face with the shame of it. After all, wasn't it only last night he was hauled up before that venerated brother, like a leg-ironed runner before the judge, and told that trouble was coming? Only last night. How can he be so bold, as to sit here like there might be something to see already? How can he spit in the face of his brother's great omnipotence, have so little faith in it as to think Mycroft was only looking one day into the future?
A faithful and a trusting brother would have thought he had but plenty of time. A faithful and trusting brother wouldn't have come here at this otherworldly, citizenly time of the day until next week at the very earliest.
Faithful and trusting would have missed every damn second of the action; the preacher walked in about ten minutes since.
He has come, like any visitor to the town might, asking questions. To listen to him, you might think some of the stories that ran ahead of him like birds scattering over a forest might have been outright wrong as well as too late. He was asking the sort of things that it is said a red-haired boy comes asking before him.
But he asked them loud. He asked them with the accent and eloquence of a cultured stranger, and asked them in such a way as to gain the respect of that formidable old mistress of the bar and the attention of all others. As to what he is, his style of dress gives that away, but it gives them away too loud. Modest cut, sober-black and white, that's not a preacher's self-imposed uniform, it's an actors costume. His buttons give him away. Too bright, too new. A little trick of vanity that complacency allows. Holmes sees it.
So yes, he is a fake, but that was never going to be a surprise.
One of the distinctly limited joys of Holmes' expensive education, he has an example for everything. Seneca was the man that said common folks hold God up to be a truth, wise folks hold him false. The rulers, the wise old bastard said, are the ones that call him useful. And since Holmes has only rarely met a clergyman who wasn't a ruler of some small sort, or thought he was, he has drawn a contentedly biased conclusion from that.
He is, naturally, the only one who's noticed. The down-to-earth traveller has thoroughly charmed even that great lady who keeps this saloon open and peaceful. Why, when he asked if there might be somewhere nearby that he and his companion might eat, Mrs went out back and took the food direct from Mr's lap, now that there were paying customers to give it to.
That companion is one strangeness, Holmes must admit.
The woman ought to be wearing a wedding band on her finger. Whether they're married or not, she ought to be wearing one. It's simpler if she's his wife. They pretend or they do it for the piece of paper or there's some honesty in it, whatever the story, they ought to be married. A preacher needs a wife, and a woman along the road needs a husband. The two protect each other from scandal and calumny, and they get asked far, far fewer questions. And yet, there are no rings. Companion is the word he used. Now, as Holmes watches, they talk in quiet confidence the way he's never yet seen a married couple do. He says something funny and she's got a cruel smile.
That single spark of real honesty, Holmes could almost doubt what he's supposed to know about them.
In that second of hesitation, he makes a decision. He empties the glass in front of him, drops the dollar into his pocket, and picks up his case.
He doesn't make for the main door but slides to his left, past the lonely piano, behind the curtain that backs it. With barely a ripple, he vanishes out of the saloon and into the storeroom. With the heat, all the doors are open. One looks into the house, and he tips his hat to the hungry Mr Hudson. The other opens out to the back, to fresh air.
God comes in the front door, wickedness that's been told to keep its nose out slips off another way. It's called cutting one's losses and it is as much a part of a gambler's trade as a particular deck of cards and dice with the right drill holes in and a loaded gun close by. Sherlock is going home. It's alright if you don't believe it. He almost don't believe it himself.
He manages to get one foot to the dusty ground beyond the door.
A heavy hand seems to be waiting, right there in the air, just at the height of his chest, to push him back inside. Stunned by the suddenness and serendipity, he looks only at the hand for a second before he realizes it's attached to an arm, and the arm is attached to a sheriff. He looks, then, beyond Lestrade, out to the street. "But I'm leaving," is the only murmur that comes to him. "You always want me to leave when there's honest folk around."
The hand stays resolutely where it is, exerting just a little pressure until Holmes falls obediently onto his back foot. It stays where it is even when he turns around, taking up a position just one inch too low down to be friendly on his back, and still keeping up that little push. And yet Lestrade sounds as agreeable and lyrical as ever. "Stay a while. I'll buy a drink, hm? My apology; we were less than kind to each other last night."
'We' does not mean himself and Holmes. Holmes never had any opportunity to be less than kind, or to take any action that wasn't prescribed to him. 'We' is Lestrade and Mycroft. One so cruel as to threaten the very package he was delivering, and one so cruel as to ask the other to leave.
This is not about apology, or a drink bought. This is about who is sitting out in that saloon and what Lestrade wants to know about them.
Still, the drink bought helps. This time there are two hats tipped to the silent, sedentary Mr Hudson, and they both come back through the curtain. Like a magic trick, Holmes thinks darkly, one steps in and two step out. This time he's forced to sit at the bar itself, with Lestrade looking too obviously at the preacher's reflection in the mirror behind the glasses. He looks from that, to Holmes, back again, back again. Holmes makes a show of blank, wide-eyed stupidity. "What?"
The sheriff's grimace is the most joy he's found in this day. "The strangers-"
"Strangers? How would I know who was local or not? I come down here late and every night somebody walks me home. How would I meet ordinary folk?"
It doesn't go over. Not for one second. He didn't expect it to, but he had hoped Lestrade's frustration might build, and allow his pleasure in it to do the same. Nothing happens. He gets a cold glare and the more direct question, "What do you think of them?"
"Nothing much. I think he's any other charlatan and the scurrilous rumours about the lady are probably true."
"What do you base that on? A little wishful thinking, perhaps?"
No. Quite aside from the fact that that's not the sort of wish that fills Holmes' thoughts, there's too much hard evidence to disservice by allowing wishful thinking to enter into it. He bases his opinion upon the loose, carefully careless way she piles up her hair – no self-respecting sect devotee would stand for it. Upon the way her hand will occasionally brush her neck, expecting to find skin, and how it hates the stiff scratch of the high button collar. No ring. No ring. Even the pretence of marriage would be the loss of a certain freedom. Upon rouge and red shoes and, "Eyes."
Lestrade takes a painfully obvious look into the mirror. "What are you thinking? Mexican, Italian?"
"Twixt you and I, I thought French." A pair of undoubtedly French eyes are narrowed at him. "That ain't what I mean. Look how they move."
They pick out men. More than that, they pick them out in the same way and assess them on three key points in the same order each time. She looks for a broad chest and shoulders. Not finding that she moves on. Finding it she glances next at the crotch, and if again satisfied, onward finally to the face. Less a harlot, more a connoisseur, but Holmes imagines explaining that to Lestrade and decides he maybe ought to pick his battles.
Eyes say a lot about her fellow diner too. His are still. Visitors don't have any stillness. They're never comfortable or quiet. They look at everything, twice and three times, never recognizing it, seeing every face just enough to ask themselves if they've seen it before. But these eyes are dark and glassy. They look upon the world like it was a photograph of a life they've lived a hundred times over.
Holmes catches just a glimpse of his own reflection and looks down into his glass instead.
"Sheriff, tell me something. Do you want to ask more questions, and have me answer in words what you could answer yourself just looking at them? Or do you want an honest opinion and we can all be on our merry ways?"
With a wry laugh, "A year and more now, I've known you, and never once knowing you to make a success of an honest opinion. Try it, though. We'll see."
"My honest opinion is that they are frauds, but not in any way like to cause damage. They stay a couple of days, put on their little show, sell a few bottles of river water. Your townspeople will have a good time. Some of the more… sensitive among them might even get some healing, if only out of their own heads. And then the travelling show will do what it does, and travel."
He looks around at the Sheriff, expecting these sage words to have had some effect. Even derision would be an effect. But nothing has changed. The lawman still has a glitter and zeal of imagining terrible crimes, tight nooses. Holmes worries, sometimes, what goes through that man's head, especially when he's looking at the prettier of the two necks on display. "You ain't even heard that, did you?"
"I thought I might ride out round the edge of town. Look and see where they're hitched up, hm? Ride along with me."
"No, sir."
There's still whiskey in the glass, but Holmes pushes it away from him. For the second time tonight, he starts to get up. Lestrade takes hold of his sleeve, missing any arm underneath. "Now, come on. What's the matter with you?"
"It is my brother's honest opinion that I ought to keep away from this."
Lestrade's new grin is meant to be winning. It's meant to be a joke between friends, their little secret. It doesn't go over, not for one second. "And how much heed do you intend to pay to your brother?"
"About as much as I can bear to," and Holmes grabs back his arm. This time, he leaves bright and bold at the front door so he can't be forced back inside. Strange, to step outside and still find daylight. He mutters the last of his answer into the glare of the sun, "And maybe a touch more."
