Part XXIV

As the train left the great steel towers and smoggy air of the city, the landscape outside grew steadily greener and greener. Sherlock seemed to be meditating, sprawled along his seat with his hands in his usual thinking pose. Mary was staring out the window; John peered out of his compartment door once in a while to glance up and down the hallway.

"You're very jumpy," Sherlock murmured. "I suppose it's got something to do with seeing Molly's ex?"

"I guess; he was giving me a rather… suspicious feeling."

"I should probably mention that I saw a crate of dynamite being hauled onto the train earlier?" Sherlock's eyes were still closed. "Looks like the type we found in Mr. Rucastle's basement –"

"And you didn't think to tell me this because?"

"Because if we're lucky, it'll have nothing to do with us."

John sighed. Being a Protector Assistant meant assuming that any threats made in the general area were directed at your charge. With a charge like Sherlock, chances are most of them were.

"Do try to relax. If you find anything that satisfies your suspicions, I trust you will get us to safety."

"That's comforting," John muttered. Mary sniggered.

The train rumbled through bucolic pastures and lush forests. It was heartening to see that the countryside still existed, especially after the smog-filled air of London. The sky above was almost as blue as Sherlock's eyes at the moment, as the Consulting Detective stared up at the rattling roof of their compartment.

"Excuse me," he said suddenly, getting up and swinging into his coat before stalking out of their compartment. John looked at Mary, shrugging.

"He does that," he explained as she quirked an eyebrow inquisitively. "How have you been, then? Looking forward to the next term?"

Mary laughed harshly, slouching down in her seat and fiddling with the ribbon on her bonnet. "Hell no," she sighed.

"Why?" he asked.

Mary rolled her eyes. "At the mid-summer meeting at our school we received the rosters for the next term. Everyone cringed at mine. There's a boy coming into my class who appears to be… a problematic child."

"How problematic?"

"He'd make every other problematic child look like an angel." Mary pouted. "And I'm quoting Westley Stoper. He had the boy last year."

"Oh dear." John shook his head. "What has he done?"

"Apparently he watches the older children dissect mechanical animals for science class and then he goes and does it himself. Except he doesn't just dissect them; he does it to them when they're alive. Rips them apart."

John winced. Everyone knew that machines had to be treated with respect; the dissecting specimens had all had their generators and memory plates removed prior to examination, and often they were reassembled afterwards. Mechanical animals were treated with care.

"He's also subject to being bullied by the other boys, which might make him seem a bit more… sympathetic? Except Mr. Stoper said that around Christmastime last year this boy had done something to the other boys that made them fear him. They used to torment him about wetting the bed, but now…" she sighed.

"What's the boy's name?" John asked.

Mary looked at him seriously. "Herman Rucastle."

"Rucastle!" John exclaimed, eyes wide. "I know him!"

"You do?"

"I'm pretty sure we're referring to the same Rucastle boy. Sherlock had to investigate his father several months ago and I heard he had been tormenting clockwork mice during our case. Sherlock said the boy was a bed-wetter."

"Coincidence?" Mary suggested.

"Possibly, possibly not. Either way, Sherlock said he was a psychopath in the making."

Mary's face paled. "Oh dear…"

She looked so morose that John put a comforting arm around her. "I'm sure you can convince him to behave. You're a very clever and persuasive woman, after all," he reassured.

Mary laughed ruefully. "You flatter me, John. I don't think that'd be enough."

"Hey, it's true. And we can hope."

The door to their compartment reopened at that moment. John withdrew his arm as soon as Sherlock entered, triumph gleaming in his eyes.

"Well?" John asked as Sherlock resumed his seat.

"Are you feeling lucky?" Sherlock asked.

John frowned. "What?"

"It's a simple question, John."

"I don't know, should I?"

"No." Sherlock steeped his fingers together in his thinking pose. "John, do you have the false moustache?"

"What?" John asked.

"The false moustache. I slipped it into a pocket on your utility belt this morning. Take it out and put it on." The Consulting Detective turned to Mary. "Miss Morstan, I need your clothes."

John and Mary both stared at him as if he'd grown two heads. "Excuse me?" Mary hissed.

"Quickly, Miss Morstan, we haven't a moment to lose." Sherlock was already undoing the buttons on his vest. "We need to exchange clothes."

"Sherlock, what on earth –"

"I'll explain in a moment!" Sherlock continued to stare pointedly at Mary until she huffed and started undoing her coat buttons. Satisfied, Sherlock averted his gaze to let her have some privacy. "It's a simple matter of fashioning three disguises in a short amount of time. John, the moustache is upside-down."

"Sorry." John scowled at Sherlock. Mary handed him her looking-glass. "Thanks." He reapplied the false moustache, patting it into place hastily and giving it a couple of contemplative strokes. "Now explain, Sherlock. Why are you making Mary switch clothes with you? Why do we need disguises all of a sudden?"

"Because we're not lucky," Sherlock replied matter-of-factly as he undid his boots and trousers and slid them off, folding up his clothes and handing them to a rather flabbergasted Mary. She had undone her dress and was making her way through her petticoats. "The corset, too, if you don't mind," Sherlock snapped, reaching over to help her unfasten it. John and Mary were both very pink with embarrassment at this point.

"What do you mean by we're not luck – oh." John was pointedly looking away from Sherlock and Mary as Sherlock put the corset on himself and Mary strung it up for him, pulling a little tighter than necessary. "The dynamite was meant for us?"

"Precisely. I'd stopped by the cargo hold on my way up and down the train. The cargo is stashed right before the junction with the next set of cars; this train has the unique design of cargo holds at both ends of every passenger car, probably to reduce the rate of losing valuables in the cargo holds if the train gets derailed. The crate in the cargo hold bears the Anarchist symbol – in fact, I do believe it's the same crate of dynamite we encountered in the basement of Copper Beeches."

"You think they're going to derail the train?"

"At least attempt to do so, yes," Sherlock muttered, rolling on Mary's stockings. Mary was clambering into Sherlock's trousers, rolling them up as she went. Sherlock started putting on the various petticoats. "As I went to the W.-C., I narrowly avoided a brick that fell from the second-storey seats. It could have been on purpose, or it could have been an accident. I'm inclined to think it was on purpose, because when's the last time you found a brick outside the cargo hold on a train?"

John raised an eyebrow. Mary undid her bonnet as Sherlock threw on the over-petticoat and the dress. Sherlock turned his back on John, gesturing to the fastenings. Rolling his eyes, John started hooking everything together.

"You look hilarious," Mary snorted as she wrapped Sherlock's scarf around her neck and grabbed John's bowler hat to hide her ringlets.

"Har har." Sherlock put on the bonnet. "As I was saying, though, when I went to the W.-C. I bumped into the man you saw on the platform."

"Jim the Teacher?"

"Mm, yes. Well, no. And yet…"

"What do you mean?"

"That wasn't him."

"So?"

"It was an impostor. Very cleverly done to look like him, but not him."

"How could you tell?"

"Obvious. When a person's hair is slicked back, it makes their forehead and hairline quite obvious. Jim's hairline has a very wide and rounded-out widow's peak, but the impostor doesn't have a widow's peak at all. Then there was a discrepancy between the eyebrows and hair – the hair is dark, yes, but on Jim his eyebrows are merely trimmed, while on the impostor the eyebrows are trimmed and pencilled in to look darker. Plus, her eyelashes aren't tinted, there's no taurine cream around her frown lines, and her watch is a fake."

"Her?" John echoed. "The impostor is a –"

"A woman, yes. Wider hips, curvier gait. It's an effective disguise from afar, but…"

"But disguises are always obvious with you." John rolled his eyes. "But how do you know she's dressed to look like Jim and not some other bloke who looks like him?"

"I dropped my phone. She picked it up for me. Obviously she's trying to fake his voice as well, and she stared at me in the same manner as he. And when she handed the phone to me, I could see the Anarchist symbol on her wrist. Jim himself may not be an Anarchist, but this woman is and she was obviously impersonating him." Sherlock gestured for Mary to apply some makeup onto his face; John had to snigger at the spectacle. "Shut up, John, next time you'll wear the dress."

"I hope we won't have to resort to cross-dressing for the next case, then," John replied cheerily. "You don't look too bad as a girl, though."

"The voice's a lost cause," Mary remarked. "Too low."

"Oh, shut up." Sherlock took a deep breath and started speaking in a breathy falsetto that had John and Mary screaming with laughter. "How the hell do you breathe in these death-traps, Mary? They're simply insufferable!"

"I don't know, but I respect Opera Singers for having to sing in them," Mary replied, grinning from ear-to-ear. Sherlock's clothes were slightly baggy on her, but then again his shirts were often rather tight on him. John wasn't sure if that was intentional.

There came a sudden knock at the door. "What is it?" John called.

A muffled voice came through the door. Sherlock listened intently. "Ah, a Porter," he muttered. "Here to check the tickets. Get the tickets, John."

John and Mary produced the tickets. Sherlock swung the door open and smiled sweetly at the Porter, batting his eyelashes. "Good morning, sir!"

"M'rnin'," muttered the Porter, doffing his hat briefly before stepping into the room. "T'ckets, please."

John handed him the tickets. The Porter looked oddly at all three of them.

"Oo's goin' t' Bright'n?"

"Me," Sherlock replied breathily.

"'N your name is?"

"Kratides, sir. Sophy Kratides."

The Porter nodded dubiously. "'N you two?"

"We're going to the South Downs," Mary replied in a deep voice. "My name's Martin."

"I'm Doctor…" John trailed off, trying to think of a suitable last name.

The Porter's eyes narrowed. "Doctor 'Oo?"

"Doctor… The Doctor!"

"The Doctor." The Porter's lips curled.

"Yes, I'm the Doctor." John nodded enthusiastically. "Martin here needed a bit of air; I was just accompanying him…"

As John distracted the Porter with a long-winded explanation for going to the South Downs to cure 'Martin's' rheumatism, Sherlock silently reached out and removed the pistol from the Porter's belt. He cast his gaze downwards, and slipped out the knife whose hilt was poking out of the Porter's boots. Grabbing both weapons, he slowly ascended until he was behind the Porter with both weapons pointed at him.

"John, shut the door."