The Detective and the Woman by Amy Thomas

same to you. I am willing to take the chance for the sake of the case. I believe that purposeful ignorance on your part will make your tasks much easier and put you in less danger if anything should go wrong.’
    ‘Very gallant of you,’ I said, in a tone that said the opposite.
    ‘Not noble,’ he replied seriously, ‘but necessary.’ I looked into the detective’s face and studied it for a long time. We had been in a position of some trust for several days, but I had not felt particularly vulnerable. I had beaten the man once, and I believed myself capable of doing so again. This was different; this required me to put my concerns aside and believe that he had my interests in mind. It required me to act like a client.
    ‘Fine,’ I said, none too gracefully.
    ‘It’s almost a pity,’ replied my companion. ‘You do Jane Perkins terribly well.’
    ‘Likewise,’ I said, arching an eyebrow. ‘I find Tom Perkins’s silence remarkably refreshing.’
    Holmes motioned me upstairs imperiously. ‘Disappear Jane Perkins and reappear Lavinia James,’ but my mind belonged to Irene Adler, and, truth be told, I enjoyed Holmes’s dramatic streak immensely.
    I found it a strange process to feel Jane’s creases and blemishes melt away from my face and Irene reemerge to share her visage once again with the demure Lavinia. With relief, I traded the tattered and stained cotton dress of the morning for one of my own, a conservative brown frock that I usually wore to travel—nothing special, but fully respectable. Finally, I rearranged my hair, laughing to myself at the intentional mess Holmes had made of it. Before I left the room, I couldn’t resist dabbing a small amount of the detective’s rouge on my pale cheeks. A respectable woman like Lavinia James wouldn’t have dreamed of painting her face, but I had no such reservations, and the colour appeared natural. I amused myself imagining how horrified a real Lavinia would be at the amount of paint I normally wore when I performed.
    ‘You’ll have to wash your face again,’ Holmes announced unceremoniously when I again joined him downstairs. ‘You look painted.’ I did as he said with the utmost annoyance. He shook his head again when I tried to return to my place behind the store counter. ‘Lavinia James remains on the other side,’ he said. ‘As we currently appear, if we are seen to be familiar, suspicion will be immediately aroused no matter who our observer is.
    ‘Fair enough,’ I said, taking up a can of beans with mock seriousness. ‘Are we permitted food, or is that forbidden during this phase of the investigation?’
    ‘Not at all,’ Holmes answered. ‘Feel free to eat any of the wares; just take care to do so out of view of the road.’ I ducked behind a barrel to absorb my meal.
    Five minutes later, a customer walked through the doorway of Sloane’s General Store. As quickly as I could, I slipped into the furthest recess of the room, a back corner behind tall wooden shelves, trying not to think about what sorts of creatures might have chosen to share such a hiding place.
    The customer was a young woman whose white lace dress obviously belonged to someone far too well-heeled for this section of Fort Myers. She turned her face toward Holmes and smiled in response to his abrupt greeting, and I saw who she was: Marion Edison. True to form, Holmes didn’t even flinch. ‘Need anything particular?’ asked the American accent of Tom Perkins.
    ‘Nothing,’ she answered, a little too brightly. ‘I’ll just look around.’ I didn’t move a muscle, hoping she wouldn’t venture beyond the shelves near the front of the store. Thankfully, she left within ten minutes, thanking Holmes in a forcedly cheerful voice before she stepped into the street. Once she had gone, Holmes waited a few moments and quietly followed her out. I didn’t dare to show myself until he returned several minutes later.
    ‘All clear,’ he said after he’d shut the door behind