Prompt: Hive, from zanganito
When Watson began to write and then to publish these little adventures he and I have from time to time, I had no inkling they were to change our lives so utterly. From a virtually unknown, and yes struggling, consulting detective I suddenly became someone who was easily recognizable on the street, even from a passing hansom.
This is naturally a disadvantage in a profession in which one must remain anonymous, but I let it pass (of more interest to me was the frightful way Watson took cases solved easily through rationality and analysis and turned them into romantic tripe suited only for penny dreadfuls, but that is another issue). However, as I sat at my mirror applying a disguise, it occurred to me that I now had to take extra care with my disguises, as my features had become so well-known. I frowned at my reflection, artfully applying smudges of dirt on my face so I might appear to be a common sailor. Watson tells me that my features are such that anyone who has seen me once or twice would easily be able to find me in a crowd and once pointed out that I should probably not be so easily recognizable from his stories if I did not have so distinctive a face. He might have been peevish at the criticism I had leveled upon the story of The Red-Headed League, though I maintain that I should not be so easily recognizable if he did not have an illustrator advertising my face throughout the Empire. Not to mention making it impossible for me to wear a deerstalker again, should I ever need to.
I applied some of the new theatre glue I had found to my cheeks, in order to affix some false whiskers. I had been assured by the shopkeeper that this new glue would last for hours under all sorts of conditions, after my last supply proved to lose its sticky quality after only four hours. The whiskers were full and bushy, and matched exactly to my hair color. I smiled underneath the hair, though my expression was hardly visible in the mirror. After placing a seamen's cap on my head and using an impermanent blue ink to apply a blue anchor tattoo to my wrist, even Watson would hardly know it was me (though he never does, dear chap. One would think after years of outlandish characters entering our sitting room, simple repetition would tell him they were likely to be me). A good disguise, of course, is all in the acting, and I was long practiced at mingling with the sort of rough men one found at the docks of the Thames.
I scratched absently at the whiskers as I went out in search of my quarry, a shipping company clerk who the sailors had reason to believe was cheating them of their wages. I saw a few of the better-dressed people around Baker Street look askance at me, for sailors were not a common sight in this part of the city, and only took it as proof that my disguise had worked. I was unrecognizable, in an area in which everyone knew me. I made sure to affect a clumping gait that suggested the sort of injury a sailor was likely to receive, though one long healed. I had once made a study of the way such injuries healed and their long-term effects, enlisting Watson for a long afternoon filled with diagrams until he insisted we go out to dinner. I scratched again at the whiskers, thinking idly that I may have ordered them with slightly too much hair. There was an uncomfortable tickle where the false beard met my cheeks.
The docks were teeming with activity and it was an easy thing to lose myself among the lower classes of London, where no one looked very closely at each other and indeed, one wrong look could end in worse than a fistfight. I grimaced, however, wondering how men who truly wore beards managed. My face was becoming most uncomfortably hot, though I managed to force myself not to scratch, or worse, to rip the false whiskers off and give away my disguise.
The shipping clerk who I had been hired to investigate on suspicion of fraud was at his desk and I joined in with the men loading the ships to keep a close watch upon him, though this was made more difficult by how often I had to stop to scratch. What the deuce was wrong with these whiskers? I noticed some of the other men looking at me strangely, and I hastily retreated. Too much attention and they would realize I was not supposed to be there at all. I would have to attempt this another day, after some time when no one would remember the odd fellow who kept scratching at his face. Deuce! A whole day and perhaps more wasted, though I could hardly keep my mind occupied on how frustrated I was when I kept having to force myself not to scratch. It was all I could do as I hurried back to Baker Street not to rip the offending whiskers from my face, though I did so the instant I shut the door behind me. Once back in my room removing all other traces of the common seaman, I noticed the reason for the offending itch immediately. A red blotch covered the bottom half of my face on either side. I poked it, noting the raised red bumps that were extraordinarily itchy. I examined the full, black whiskers again, hoping that they were not infested with some pest such as lice. Mrs. Hudson should never forgive me if that was the case, but I knew the proprietor of the wig shop and had never had any such problem before. He kept a fastidious shop that would no doubt put many a hospital to shame (I have learned a thing or two from Watson. Should I ever be injured for any reason I shall insist he treat me in our Baker Street rooms).
Thankfully, when I awoke the next morning the red blotches had all but disappeared, and I spent the day in organizing the financial records of the shipping company so I could prove the fraud. Watson was out all day at his rounds, and I was so intent I hardly noticed the time passing until he was returning to dinner, at which point I remarked that I should be out all the next day, searching for the shipping clerk. I appeared to be fully healed and anticipated that the case should be solved by the end of the next day.
This, however, required the use of the disguise once again, though this time I barely made it down the stairs before it felt as if my face had suddenly gone on fire and I ran back up, sure I could not make it through an extended stake-out at the docks. I tore the false beard from my face and tossed it aside. "Whatever is the matter, Holmes?" Watson asked mildly.
"Those infernal whiskers have caused me such a itch!" I said, gingerly touching the offending areas. The small red bumps I had noticed previously appeared to be larger to my touch then they had the first time, and I groaned in frustration as I took the small mirror Watson so kindly handed me. My face, even in the small mirror, was puffy and inflamed, and no one should have recognized me. Pity that I could not investigate crimes in this condition; no one should have known it was me. I tightened my fingers into a fist so that I would not scratch. If I did, I was likely to draw blood, so terrible was the itch.
"That does look serious, Holmes," Watson said, examining both sides of my face. "Are you certain it was the whiskers?"
"What else could it be?" I asked peevishly, though his question raised a prospect I had not thought of. With notoriety comes enemies, particularly when one deals with crime. I had already dispatched of the criminal mastermind, Moriarty, and his henchmen, but there still remained many others eager to take on the mantle of greatest criminal in London. Any one of them could have found an opportunity to poison me. "Watson, you are right!" I said. "Here," I thrust books of poisons at him from my bookshelf. "We must find one that accounts for these symptoms."
"Are you sure it is poison, though, Holmes?" Watson asked, leafing through one book and raising his eyebrows at a particularly grim depiction of the effects of hemlock.
"We cannot be certain until we search through every possible cause!" I said, sitting upon the floor with an enormous encyclopedia of poisons balanced on my knee. Watson, I was irked to see, merely placed his book unopened on the chair and bent to pick up my abandoned whiskers. He looked at them closely, fingering the inside and sniffing at them.
"How do these stay upon your face?" he asked at last.
"Theatre glue, Watson," I said. "Painted on and held in place for barely a minute, it will last for hours. An ingenious invention. In fact, I have only just acquired a new type that I was promised will hold through all conditions." I had been thrilled to find that someone else had obviously contemplated what should happen if a false beard needed to stay in place if one was suddenly thrown into a body of water and then accordingly invented a glue that should do just that.
"May I?" Watson asked, gesturing towards my room.
"For heaven's sake, Doctor, you do not need my permission," I said irritably. I never asked permission when I needed to search his room. Watson disappeared and reappeared a moment later, examining the container of theatre glue.
"Do you know what is in this, Holmes?" he asked. "It does not say."
I could have told him in detail its chemical composition but I was engaged in reading about the effects of cyanide (though this did not seem to be the cause of my itch) and merely threw him a dark look. "Whyever does that matter?" I asked.
"Because that," Watson said, bending down and pointing to the red blotch on my jawline, "is a hive, and a rather large one. I think it likely you are allergic to the ingredients in this glue, Holmes."
Oh. That, as I was fond of saying myself, explained perfectly all the facts and was considerably more likely than my being poisoned. The more I thought of it, the more likely it seemed. Surely if I was to be poisoned, I should have some idea of who I had offended enough to resort to murder. It was a new mix of glue, and therefore likely that it contained ingredients that were not in the previous product I had used. I supposed living with a medical man had its uses, and I should be prepared to give way in cases where his expertise was greater than mine. Watson was looking at me knowingly, as if to point out himself how rare those occasions were. "That...does seem plausible, Doctor," I said, putting away the enormous encyclopedia and getting up. "Only tell me one thing," I added, as I scratched and scratched so that it seemed as if I would scratch my whole face off. "Is there something you can do to rid me of this infernal itch?"
Watson chuckled. "I have some cream that should help. It is what I give to the children who have chicken pox. You should be clear of it in a day or two." He dug some cream out of his bag. "Though you shall probably have to find a different means of disguising yourself."
"Hmmph," I said, taking the cream and applying nearly half the jar before I sighed in relief as the burning itch ceased. "Perhaps I should simply grow a beard. It would certainly be easier."
Watson's horrified expression told me what I needed to know about this proposal and I was unable to stop myself from collapsing into giggles, and after a moment he joined me. "I do hope you were joking, Holmes," he said.
"Do not worry, Doctor," I said. "No doubt if I were to grow my own whiskers, Paget should draw me with a handlebar mustache and sideburns instead. The poor man is confused enough about my wardrobe that I think I shall spare him that, at least."
This caused Watson to laugh so uproariously that Mrs. Hudson thumped on our floor with her broom handle, marking the first time she has ever told us to be quiet, gunshots and midnight violin solos notwithstanding, a feat of which Watson remains thoroughly proud, in a rueful sort of way, and I continue to bring up shamelessly as it causes me no end of amusement.