Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(74)

From outside she hears the beep-beeping of a truck backing up. A phone rings in the outer office.

“How much?” she says.

He winks and claps his hands together. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Angie. No bullshit.”



Two months later, the movie begins shooting. Day one, Angela arrives early. A makeup artist who introduced herself as Briana is stippling Angela’s face with liquid latex aging makeup when Ruby arrives. She’s wearing a short dungaree skirt with a frayed hem and a T-shirt the same orange as the fake Birkin. The cell phone she’s clutching is encrusted with red rhinestones. Branding. It’s all Angela can do to keep from rolling her eyes.

“I’m super nervous,” Ruby says, dropping her phone in the purse. “That hair,” she says, studying the Irene Adler wig of wild auburn curls that’s waiting patiently on a blank-faced, Styrofoam head. “Looks like I’m playing a Wookie.”

Angela laughs. Briana squeezes her shoulder and says, “Don’t make me have to start over with this. You can talk but try not to move your mouth.”

With Ruby watching, Briana finishes with Angela’s face. The aging makeup is extraordinarily natural. When Briana pins on Mrs. Hudson’s granny wig, it’s scary. Picture of Dorian Gray scary. She’s going on camera looking like this? If she’s lucky, no one will recognize her, because there’s no way she can make this part into a bravura turn.

“I’m so nervous,” Ruby says. “Seriously, I hope I don’t forget my lines.”

Last night Angela studied the new script, learning her lines for the scenes scheduled to film today. Mrs. Hudson has exactly two. “But Mr. Holmes, you have to eat something!” and “Dr. Watson, just look at you, half-soaked to the skin!” Preferably not delivered through clenched teeth.

She’s learned Ruby’s lines in her first scene, too, all eight of them. Ruby also gets to fire a gun at burglars and emote like crazy. If Angela were directing the film, the drama of that opening would take place in Ruby’s face.

“You’ll be fine,” Angela says.

“You think?” Ruby’s eyes go wide and her lower lip trembles as she kneads her hands. Overacting could get to be a habit.

Angela smiles, feeling her face pull. Mentor her, she recalls Lancaster’s instructions, reminding herself of the reason why, for once, she’s being paid well above scale. “You do improv, right? Make the words your own.” This is a safe bet because it’s unlikely that Lancaster has read the script all that carefully himself. He calls himself a big picture kind of picture maker.

“Really? Is that, like, okay?”

“Just remember, Irene Adler is It-AL-ian. Or that’s her schtick, though she was born in New Jersey. Donna fatale. Eez all about affect.” Angela gives a hand flourish.

Ruby gives her an odd look, and Angela realizes she’s the one who’s overacting now. Actresses may be self-obsessed, but even young ones are rarely stupid.

“The lines are the easy part,” Angela says. “Emote, but don’t lose yourself. Think about the conflict. Holmes wants to uncover, to reveal. Irene is the enigma who refuses to yield her secrets. She’s proud. Her goal . . . is to hide.”

“Hide.” Ruby nods, apparently mesmerized, though the advice couldn’t be more basic. “Something she can’t afford for anyone to find out.” She adds, as if to herself, “Or promised not to tell.”

Angela stands and Ruby takes her seat at the mirror. Briana snaps open a fresh cloth and drapes it over Ruby.

“Go out there and knock ’em dead,” Angela says, gazing at her own reflection in the mirror, indulging for a moment in the fantasy that she’ll go onto the set, rip off her Mrs. Hudson wig and makeup, and take over as Irene Adler.

“Just watch me,” Ruby says, her face animated with inner light and a yearning tinged with sadness. The camera is going to love her.



On the soundstage forty minutes later, Angela sits next to Anthony Fox, who’s made up as Sherlock with a few days’ worth of grizzle on his face and wearing a rumpled silk dinner jacket. In his first scene he’s supposed to be wasted, bored out of his skull with no puzzle to harness his prodigious intellect. Members of the crew in baseball caps, their muscles bulging under de rigueur tight black T-shirts, upend Victorian furniture and adjust brocade drapes in the drawing room set. Taunting Angela from over the fireplace is the painting of her as Irene Adler, the prop from the earlier movie.

Cameras move in position. Technicians tinker with the lights.

“Where the hell’s the girl?” Lancaster directs the question at Angela.

“I’ll go check,” Angela says. She’s happy to be doing something other than waiting. She makes her way to the exit, carefully stepping over cables that crisscross the concrete floor of the soundstage. Her neck itches from the high starched-lace collar and she’s sweating under padding that thickens her chest. The latex makeup makes her face feel as if she’s got her head stuck in a surgical glove.

As she nears the dressing room door, she hears Ruby’s plaintive voice. “Why is this happening?” And, “Oh . . . my . . . God.”

Angela knocks gently. “Ruby?”

From the other side of the door, sobbing.

“Ruby, they’re ready for you.”