The Ruins

by "nineteen year old not quite a lady"

Part Two:

(Fall of 1917)

Mary

"Thank you."

"Learn something here. Find some teachers and learn something."

These parting words were the last that Mary Russell and her aunt ever spoke to each other.

They never saw each other again after that final farewell at the train station. Mary strode into her Oxford life and her aunt went with equal confidence into her own endeavors. She did miss the girl, though. As she watched her niece board the train without looking back, she found (with feelings bordering lightly on disgust) that she actually missed the girl. She knew that Mary would not miss her: she knew this and she approved of it. Mary walked off into the academic life of Oxford without pretending to feel anything but respect and gratitude toward her aunt. This was the Mary she had built.

Mary felt grateful for the guidance of her aunt and respected her abilities, but she did not love her. Mary Russell did not love. She did feel as much affection for her aunt as was humanly possible, and she knew that her aunt understood. However they both had agreed to continue with separate lives, they had also agreed that the business arrangement they had shared would remain the same, except lacking the personal contact between them. Mary thought the risk inherent in having constant meetings with her aunt and business associate would be too much to chance now that she was a student at Oxford. Twice-weekly visits would be too unusual and Mary felt the potential attention it would draw to her would only be a negative influence on her life. Her aunt agreed and they designed a system to continue with their enterprise by means of the post. Both parties were very satisfied.

Mary moved cautiously through her new living quarters, grimacing at the amount of activity and noise that was being created by parents helping their daughters move and giving tearful goodbye speeches. She marked the possible escape routes from the building as easily and effortlessly as she marked the people moving around her. She found the space she would be occupying for the next year, put her belongings down and as she looked around the medium sized, tidy room, she felt physically ill. The noise from the leave-taking families grew impossibly loud and the effort it took think above that sound made Mary feel like screaming. It seemed as if the walls were closing in on her and she suddenly longed to flee from this place into one of her lairs. She was struck with homesickness for her dressing rooms, her schemes, her old life and she missed the safety and security of her aunt. She took three long deep breaths and started to feel slightly more relaxed. She rummaged through her case of books to give her hands something to do. Laying her long and scarred fingers on the solid bindings of her academic life lifted the remaining veil of claustrophobia. By the time her first visitor arrived, Mary's smile was firmly back in place as she bemusedly examined the supposedly sturdy workmanship of a university bookshelf that had just dropped two tea chests worth of books to the floor. Mary pursed her lips and lay on the floor attempting to determine whether or not the furniture could be fixed with the tools she had at hand. More suitable for breaking into the homes of unsuspecting victims and leaving without a trace, Mary smirked at the idea of using the trappings of her profession for such a mundane purpose but thought that depending on how the thing exactly had broken, she could repair it with a nail or a screwdriver. She was reaching for her tools and was startled when a knock came on the door.

"Come in," she called.

"I say," the newcomer's cultured voice began, changing in tone from casual greeting to mild amusement. "I say, are you all right?"

Mary turned around, rearranging her glasses so better able to see her visitor. The woman was older, mature looking, well dressed and wearing a gold locket around her neck. Mary moved some papers over her tools (the screwdriver was near the top) and slipped into an act of confused innocence.

"All right? Of course. Oh, the books. No they didn't fall on me; I lay on them. I don't suppose you'd have such a thing as a screwdriver?"

"No, I don't believe I do." The stranger's voice was low and intelligent though there seemed to be a hint of amusement behind her words.

"Ah well, the porter may. Were you looking for someone?"

"You."

"Then you have found her."

"Arthur Bellingham," the woman said flatly, studying the girl on the floor before her.

"I beg your pardon?" Mary's pulse raced but her face remained puzzled and innocent, the all-purpose face that had also proved to be a tool of her career, the face of an Oxford undergraduate involved in nothing more morally reprehensible than sneaking a cigarette from her mother's handbag.

"I beg your pardon, are you hard of hearing? I said the name Arthur Bellingham. A name with which you should be very familiar. Especially since you and your aunt have been receiving one thousand pounds a month from the poor Mr. Bellingham, in exchange for your silence concerning his nightly activities."

"I'm afraid I do not know what you're talking about, Madam Mary said, trying a smile strictly reserved for the very infirm and confused elderly portion of the population she had occasionally manipulated.

"What you might have not known about your dear friend Arthur is that Parliament is not the only concerned party were his secrets to become common knowledge."

"And just what secrets are those, Madam? Naturally, you won't mind if while you tell me, I ring for the porter and have you escorted from the building?"

"Not at all, Miss Russell. It is a rather long walk to my rooms on campus, but I should very much enjoy the company. But before you have me ejected from your living quarters, perhaps you ought to fix that bookshelf with some of those tools you're hiding under those papers. And then perhaps we might discuss your knowledge of Mr. Bellingham in front of the headmaster."

Mary went very still and studied the woman before her with moderately alarmed attention.

"I suppose it would be ungracious not to invite a distinguished mathematics professor in for a cup of tea," she conceded. "Would you mind closing the door, Madam, the room will get chill," she said easily with a smile. Mary was very gratified to see that now it was her maths professor who looked surprised. The woman bowed her head slightly and smiled.

"My compliments, Miss Russell. I had heard about that mind of yours and I admit I was afraid that my representatives had been, shall we say, exaggerating your abilities in order to promote their own careers. I am very glad to see that they were not."

"Your representatives?"

"I do apologize, Miss Russell. My name is Patricia Donleavy. I see you haven't heard of me."

"No, Madam, I haven't."

"So your deductive abilities aren't all encompassing, then?

"I see with my mind, Miss Donleavy, not with a crystal ball," Mary said, her voice tight with caution and pride.

"Again, I apologize. I meant no offense."

"Then what do you mean, Miss Donleavy?"

"Please, call me Patricia."

"What can I do for you, Patricia? You must know that I would have prepared for the possibility that my private activities might become public, you must have known that I would have ways of... disowning the blame and making myself seem the picture of innocence. So your threat concerning the headmaster and the unfortunate Mr. Bellingham are harmless. Just as you knew they would be. I cannot imagine what brought you here, Madam, aside from a desire to demonstrate your intelligence."

"I came to offer you a position in my organization, Miss Russell."

"Call me Mary," was her automatic reply.

"Mary, then. You do not seem overly impressed."

"I find that I'm starting to regret that I haven't heard of you. How exactly are you connected to Bellingham, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Not at all, my dear. May I sit down?"

"Of course."

"Thank you."

A knock came on the door. Mary looked at Miss Donleavy and called a greeting. The newest visitor was a plump, gaudily dressed young woman who Mary granted a cursory look and then dismissed. Mary's attention was completely taken up with the woman sitting gracefully in a plush corner chair and the newcomer barely registered.

"I'm sorry, I'm very busy," Mary said absently, moving to close the door.

"My name is --"

"I apologize but I just don't have the time right now --"

"Miss Russell, I'm from OUDS --"

"How nice for you, but I'm afraid I'm not interested in the theatre." With this declaration she firmly shut her door and turned back to Miss Donleavy.

"Do you know who that was?" Miss Donleavy asked politely.

"It was Veronica Beaconsfield, wasn't it? I did some research on her family in case... the opportunity to do business with them ever arose.

"I see. Shall we speak freely now, Mary? Regarding Mr. Bellingham and my offer of employment?"

"As you wish, Patricia," and she sat down in the chair across from the professor.

"Some years ago I inherited an organization, a business empire you might call it. I actually like to think of it as a family business, and I wish you to become a part of it. An important part. This business is extremely lucrative and is carried out through loyal representatives both here and abroad. And though I inherited the business through my father upon his death, I was really more interested in the mathematics than the organization. It ran itself, really, while I went to school. So I direct the focus of the organization while the actual mechanics of it are carried out by my employees."

"The focus being...?"

"It would be more accurate to describe the organization as having a variety of focuses. The main entity, if you will, supplies the customer with things that are necessary in his or her life, but which regrettably for the consumer, are decidedly against the law."

"You run the opium den that Bellingham frequents?" Mary said thinking quickly, her voice remaining casual.

"Very good Mary!" Patricia's tone was one of delight and encouragement and she continued speaking, "I also have a hand in the supply of young women who keep his company."

"Narcotics. Prostitution. Please, Patricia don't hold anything back," Mary said with lightly cool sarcasm.

"I am being honest with you Mary."

"And I appreciate that honesty. But you neglected to mention that you provide the service of silence concerning these activities, for a small fee of course."

"Of course," Patricia smiled and in that smile of cruel awareness and malign intelligence, Mary saw in the other woman what she had seen only when looking into a mirror.

"You are almost too fast for me, Mary. One thing that will be necessary if you should decide to work for me is the virtue of patience."

"I apologize, Madam. In my line of work, the cultivation of any virtue is a rare thing indeed."

"I was just coming to that function of my organization when you spoke. May I ask what prompted your observation?"

"Simple really. What danger would the public's knowledge of Mr. Bellingham's activities be to you? Despite an open revelation of his secrets he would, I have no doubt, continue to use the narcotics you supply and he would still desire the company of your willing young ladies. The danger, then, is in fact, the secret. What good is blackmail if there is nothing to conceal? Blackmail cannot exist without confidentiality. And that leads me to believe that despite the so-called variety of the services you provide, there exists one element of consistency between them. In addition to your provision of the service itself, which the customer may or may not consider a long-term commitment, the price of your silence is what makes your business the lucrative enterprise it is today."

"Oh, Mary. I must congratulate you, very good indeed." The eyes of the older woman fixed on those of the scarred undergraduate.

Mary waved the compliments away dismissively and leaned forward intensely, her face mere inches from that of her guest. The tone had changed in the room, gone from civil and light to cold and dark. Patricia noted the change and did not flinch away from what she saw in the face across from her.

"This is business, Patricia, not pleasure. I did not provide you with that childish deduction in order to elicit complimentary phrases. I am not a performing animal that requires motivation by way of punishment and reward. Simply put, I do what I want. And you might take care to remember that Patricia, no matter who your precious father was."

"Mary please, it would be so regrettable if it were to become necessary for me to have you killed. I have an employee waiting outside your door who would hurt you -- by my direction, of course -- and if I were to so wish it, there would be such a fuss at a prominent young woman's apparent suicide," Patricia's voice began tense and hard, becoming soft and lightly amused as she continued.

"So silly. So much innuendo. So much public revisiting of your past. You might have that marvelous brain, my dear, but you're not the only one. And I have the power to use mine to destroy or create. I run a successful international organization that is second to none, I have outlasted Scotland Yard and law enforcement at large, and money is not all I have inherited from my father. So you, my girl, might take care to remember that as well."

Mary's anger evaporated immediately to be replaced by an emotion she had not felt in some time: fear. She felt absolutely confident that the Patricia Donleavy would be able to do those things and more, and that this woman with would probably enjoy them. So she spoke with caution and humility.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Donleavy and ask while we're both taking care to remember certain things, we not forget about the issues at hand." Mary's apology was delivered with a gentle smile. Patricia was calmly surprised to see that Mary's eyes had turned kind, with no former traces of their anger and that she continued speaking quietly and calmly "My father, too, passed away and I did not mean to disparage your obvious love of your father in any way, but I am still interested in your idea of employment. If you are still interested in offering it to me, that is."

"I am, but it seems there are certain things we need to have straightened out before we proceed."

"Oh?"

"You seem to regard me with a certain... contempt that I, for the moment, find interesting, but interest will quickly turn to annoyance if it persists. Now I've already threatened to have you killed, and that threat only works a few times, believe me. If we are to work together, if we are to become partners -- yes, partners, Mary! Please don't look so surprised -- did you think I would invest so much time in your recruitment only to condemn you to playing the enforcer with the customers who didn't pay their debts?" She spoke with a gregarious excitement and light hearted tone that Mary both recognized and found disorienting. "Only to condemn you to playing the medium with the customers who don't pay their debts! I might as well hand you a wash rag and tell you to clean the floors of my home for all the squandering of your potential it would do. And you not fulfilling your potential hurts me."

"What you have mistaken for 'contempt,' Patricia, is merely unfamiliarity with your methods. In my small experience, those who let emotions interfere with their tasks end up paying the price. I believe that emotion must be kept separate from deduction if the mind is to be used to its fullest potential."

Patricia paused and cocked her head inquisitively to the side, then leaned backward into her chair and sighed deeply in contentment, looking at the girl from under intent but half-closed eyes. "They told me about you, my dear. But they... did not do you justice. You so closely resemble... another in my life that I have no wish to delay our partnership another moment."

"Another?" Mary asked hesitantly. At that question, Patricia Donleavy gave herself entirely up to laughter, filling the dark room with her merriment. Mary asked the question again but, at that time anyway, her new employer was incapable of answering. Patricia just laughed.

(August of 1918)

Holmes

"I don't like the idea of you going off alone, Holmes."

"Watson, I am well aware of your feelings on the subject of my little Wales adventure, but I will say again that I have no choice in the matter."

"Holmes, please, for the sake of your health!"

"My health is unimportant. What matters, Watson, in case you have forgotten, is the health of that child." Holmes pursed his lips and looked sardonically at his companion. "My health!" he snorted in derision, "Nothing is the matter with me, Watson. I am just as I ever was."

"Then you have deceived yourself."

"Watson! How you of all people could say this to me is beyond imagining," Holmes's tone was one of deep hurt and betrayal, in part designed to shift Watson's focus away. "Don't you trust my abilities anymore?"

"You are deeply ill, Holmes, and it is because I consider you my greatest friend that I am saying these things."

"What about me, Watson?" Holmes said quietly. "Don't you trust me, anymore?"

Watson sat down with a sigh and looked up at his friend who had for the first time since the conversation began paused in gathering the materials he would need to go to Wales.

"I trust you, Holmes," Watson said tiredly.

"Good fellow! Then we are in agreement and are quarreling over nothing!" Holmes said jauntily.

"We are most assuredly not in agreement and we are quarreling over your life! If you consider your very life to be nothing, then think of where that girl would be without it."

"That is exactly my point, Watson," Holmes said soothingly and turned back to his supplies. "Where would that girl be without me? She would be left to the incompetence of parents deranged with grief and a collective police force that over the years I have come to decide is merely deranged.

Holmes frowned at a stack of books and had already dismissed his friend from his mind when Watson spoke again.

"It is you, old friend who have missed my point. If the police and parents do not have your life to factor into their investigative effort, then the girl at least does not have your ineptitude to concern them."

Holmes turned slowly back to his companion with a shocked expression on his face. If his earlier emotion of hurt had been even slightly manufactured, this one was not. He was rendered speechless by the sadness he saw in the eyes of his friend not to mention the accusation he had made.

"In the time we have spent together over these past years, I had trouble believing my eyes. You'd come so far out of the reach of cocaine and then you seemed to... waste away."

"My eating habits are as --"

"As they've always been, yes, I know," Watson said with light sarcasm. "That's not the kind of wasting away that I mean. I mean from the inside, Holmes. I'm talking about your mind, your faculties. You're consuming as much cocaine as you were when I first knew you, you leave morphine about and I'm not a fool, Holmes, I am a doctor and I know what heroin looks like. I have sometimes envied you your cleverness, Holmes, but never your mind. If this is where it leads you, and I see that it has, then all I can do is pity you for it. The thing that hurts the most, aside from your determined self-destruction, is that you didn't even think I would notice. You hold me in that low a regard that you didn't think I would notice when my friend is slowly killing himself. But you're not thinking of anyone but yourself anymore. You just want to keep busy no matter what the cost so you won't see how alone you've become." Watson stood up and strode over to his thin grey friend and spoke with quiet, tired anger.

"Over these years, I have seen you become infested with narcotics. And I've seen you make mistakes, Holmes. If there is a phrase in human speech that I never thought I would hear myself say, it's that one. I've seen you notice your mistakes and blithely continue to accept clients, to not rest or eat! Just more damnable drugs! You have made a mockery of what you were and in doing so you endanger the lives of your clients, not to mention your own... and there's nothing else to say, really."

"I think you've said enough," Holmes said hoarsely grasping the bindings of his books in his pale hands.

"It could never be enough Holmes, not until you realize what you have become, what you are doing to hurt yourself and the people who care about you."

Holmes turned back to his friend, ready to put him in his place with a thousand sarcastic comments... and then he saw Watson's face. He saw the eyes of his friend clearly, he saw the lines in his face and finally Holmes saw himself reflected in the laboratory cabinet Watson was standing in front of. He finally saw what he had ignored for the past year; he saw the reflection of his destruction.

Watson moved to his friend and cautiously touched him on the shoulder. "There is still time, Holmes. Rest, try to regain what you've lost before it's too late."

"You don't understand, you couldn't... the girl... Jessica Simpson... she needs my help," Holmes said slowly, gaining arrogance with every word in order to mask his confusion and pain. "So you'll forgive me if I don't ask you to stay, but I have a previous matter that demands my attention. We'll continue this conversation when I return. Good bye, Watson." He was out the door with his supplies before another word could be spoken. Watson heard Mrs. Hudson's faint exclamations from the kitchen as the front door to the Sussex cottage slammed shut.

"Good luck, Holmes," Watson said quietly before leaving the room and moving his rotund figure to where Mrs. Hudson stood, puzzling at the rapid departure. He turned away from her perplexed expression towards the direction he had come from and slowly closed the door on the stale, cluttered laboratory.

Holmes held his temper in check until he was alone in his first class train compartment. The train was due to arrive in Bristol that evening and from there he would assume his disguise and enter the custody of Inspector Connor. So he filled the hours before the Bristol arrival with a furious pacing about the compartment and a non-stop smoking of his strongest shag tobacco. He considered sending Watson a telegram and then realized he had no idea what he would say. Holmes just kept seeing and hearing Watson's bland imperceptive eyes and his pitying voice and he could not get the words his friend had spoken out of his mind. The idea that Watson, Dr. John H. Watson, was telling Sherlock Holmes that he, Holmes, was incompetent!

"The very idea!" he sputtered to himself, the words sounding false to his own ears. To give his hands something to do he rummaged through the supplies he had brought. Most were the essentials he would need in order to assume the gypsy disguise and persona, the rest were papers he had grabbed at random when he had stormed out of the cottage. He looked over the clipping on top of the pile:

He checked the date on the top of the clipping and in disgust crumpled the piece of newspaper into a ball. He looked out the compartment window with a scowl and turned away from it as soon as he saw that the only thing visible in it would be his own reflection. His anger returned, full and bright and through it, he saw the encounter with Watson clearly for the first time since he had left his Sussex refuge. He saw what he could not have before, the fact that he had run away. Anger passed and he was struck by a wave of sadness so powerful that the pain it brought was almost physical, but it was only his heart that was aching. He covered his face in his hands for a moment, took a deep and purposeful breath and murmured aloud.

"I wish... I need..." But he didn't know what he needed and couldn't articulate his wish so he fell into silence again. He had fled from one of his oldest and dearest friends like a frightened child. This thought led him to a momentary and fruitless speculation of the condition of the girl, Jessica Simpson. In the well lit compartment, Holmes utterly dismissed the girl from his mind and thought only of what Watson had said. The fact which Holmes hadn't the chance to share with Watson and which had completely left his mind during their confrontation was that the girl was undoubtedly already dead. This deduction made it easy to turn from her to other things, to himself. Who was he deceiving? He had run from his home because he had been afraid. Was still afraid, in fact. But no matter. For the first time in ages he was going to take an accounting -- with no self-deception, no well-meaning reassurances. He was going to use on himself the mechanism that had, until recent years, served him so faithfully and with such precision. His mind turned inward again but without the indifference that had followed his immense depression as surely as night followed day, and that had made such a marked impression on his abilities in these later years. His eyes grew clear and faraway and he finally understood the fear that had driven him to his current state. He was afraid of what he might find out about himself and what he already knew, but had neglected to see. As a little girl in the dark fell asleep exhausted and bruised, Sherlock Holmes was waking up. At this moment, at ten thirty one in the evening in a bright and modestly decorated train compartment, he stopped caring about auburn haired Jessica Simpson. For Holmes, that case was already over.

For her, it was only the beginning.

Jessica woke from a nightmare, moaning into the expanse of the tent as she tried to make the memory of the dream go away. It wouldn't, the image of her parents trapped in their now bomb-riddled home was imprinted on her mind and the more she tried to think of something, anything else, the more she thought of what she dreamt. Something was different though. She tried to isolate what it was but the image of the skulls of her parents turning to ash while she climbed over rubble to reach them and while the air raid siren went on and on, intruded on her thoughts and she moaned again as she reached over to feel for her mother. Jessica absently wiped off her face with her hands noticing even in her preoccupation that suddenly her face hurt very much and that her hands seemed to be stuck together. Trembling, she raised her hands to her face and in the uneven darkness surrounding her she saw that they were tied with rope. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at her hands and as her chest rose and fell in a small burning breath, she suddenly she remembered everything. The men who had come, the horseback ride of which she still had only the most panicked recollections, the confusing woods and the man who had clouted her face after she had run. The room she was being held in now for a blur of days had replaced the cloth interior of the tent and that what she thought had been an air raid siren in the distance was her guard whom she had, in a burst of wild hilarity before she had fallen asleep that first night, nicknamed "The Whistler." She remembered crying for her mother while this man had watched her blandly, whistling one song over and over again. She remembered wondering whether the sound of that tuneless repetition would be enough to drive someone completely mad. She remembered calling out for her father over and over again until her throat was hoarse and the storm of her tears kept her from speaking at all and that exhausted, she fell asleep on the floor in the dark with her father's name on her lips and in her heart. She remembered.

Her guard stopped whistling and his eyes went deferential.

Jessica heard the sound of a door being opened and shut, the noise bringing her out of her reverie. The guard stood aside and let the visitor enter the room. Jessica raised her eyes which shone with tears in the dim light and, looking at the visitor's long frame covered in an expensive dress, whose hair lay in two long blonde plaits, and with a coldly harsh face set off by intelligently intense blue eyes, Jessica understood that it would all begin, again, in the dark.

And that this is when the real nightmare would start.

The visitor looked at the guard and he scurried from the room, closing the door behind him and cutting off the amount of light that streamed in. Jessica sensed that the woman was moving about in the darkness and she supposed that this would have frightened her badly if she hadn't been so tired. She simply waited for this woman to do what she came to do, whatever horrible thing it might be. Jessica heard a thin scraping sound and saw a flicker of light in the dimly moonlit room. The woman was kneeling on the floor, lighting a small candle. The cheery light it created deeply contrasted with Jessica's current impression of the space she had occupied for the past... however many days had gone by.

"There, now that's better," the woman said affectionately and she held her long hands over the small flame as if drawing warmth from it. Jessica screamed inside her head, Run! Run! Go while she's on the ground, you can make it to the door! Jessica looked at the now closed door and at the woman sitting on the floor. The woman cocked her elegant face to one side and smiled down at the girl, as if reading her thoughts. With a motion that tossed the blonde plaits over her shoulders, she too looked at the door. Her smile widened, never reaching her eyes, and those Jessica thought, remained calculating and unbearably cold. And intelligent. With an intelligence that would cut you if it wanted to... if she wanted to.

"My name is Mary, and I am terribly sorry about all this, Jessica. I hope you can understand."

"I don't understand anything," Jessica replied softly.

"I know," Mary said sympathetically. "It's all such a puzzle to you, isn't it, Jessica? By the way, you wouldn't mind moving closer to me, would you? I hate having to shout across the room like this."

"Why not," Jessica said weakly and walked to the space opposite of Mary.

"Why not, indeed?" Mary said, sounding pleased. Jessica felt Mary's gaze on her face though Jessica seemed only capable of raising her eyes to the small flicker of candlelight.

"You know Jessica, I am sorry about your being struck. But girls who are naughty must be punished, don't you agree? And you've been such a good girl since then!" Mary smiled benevolently down on the girl.

"So who will be punishing you, miss?" Jessica nerved herself to ask.

Mary reached out for the sides of Jessica's face firmly with her long strong hands, ignoring her captive's instinctive movement away from her touch. She tipped Jessica's face upwards so that one could not help but look into the eyes of the other. Mary's eyes crinkled momentarily and she released the girl.

"Hmmm... you're not as silly as I thought," Mary said lightly, as if amused. Jessica grunted in derision. Mary paused and spoke again.

"I have taken you, Jessica, because I would like some money from your parents. I'm not going to pretend it's all about principles or espionage or the War. It's been all about money, Jessica. And I think you might have learned these past few days that money can be more powerful than any of those other things. So, your parents will pay me and you'll go home... if they still want you, that is."

Mary touched Jessica's face again but with such gentle concern that she reminded Jessica of her mother for a moment. Jessica swallowed, hard, and a silent tear slipped out from beneath one of her downcast eyes.

"I've wondered about that myself, little Jessica. Why hasn't your father paid me by now? What are he and your mother doing? Could it be even, and I almost can't bring myself to say it, that they don't want you back? That they've stopped loving you?"

Jessica clenched her teeth behind her trembling lips, her throat was closed and fiery. Jessica looked up again, a sob trying to break free from her heart when suddenly it died away. Mary's eyes were intent and completely dead, like the eyes of some sort of animal. Her sympathizing voice and caring tone were just lies. The realization brought Jessica out of her subdued tiredness and infused her with new, confident energy. And new strength, as well. Mary noticed the change in the girl's face and posture but couldn't identify what had caused it.

"My family loves me. You stole me and they love me and they'll come for me," Jessica said, meeting Mary's eyes squarely with her own.

Mary was taken aback for a moment at the girl's surprising resources, "What an unladylike outburst, my girl!" She sighed and resumed her maternal posturing, rising and smoothing the folds of her dress exactly as Jessica's mother had done a thousand times.

"We will have to continue this discussion when your behavior is more appropriate. What would your parents say if they had seen that unbecoming display, I shudder to think," she added judiciously.

"My mother and father would be proud," Jessica returned. "How would your mother and father feel if they could see you, Mary?"

Mary's hand faltered on the door knob and she turned towards the girl slowly, her eyes wide and unbelieving and, Jessica privately thought, a little bit hurt. This comment had reached her captor in some way, as the one earlier about being naughty had not and even Mary's dead eyes couldn't hide that bit of information.

"What... did you say?" Mary tilted her head towards the girl who was no longer cowering on the floor or sitting submissively, but standing tall and unafraid.

"You heard me. I think you break their hearts."

With an almost inaudible cry, Mary, whose lips were set into a snarl, broke and whirled over to the girl, her horrible eyes dark with rage, but less as well. Quieter somehow, lost. She grabbed the girl and raised her fist to darken the other side of the child's cheek, when a shadow fell over them both. Jessica turned noticing for the first time the open door and light that streamed in. Mary breathed heavily for a few more seemingly long moments when Jessica was sure that Mary would either kill her, or start crying.

Mary registered the shadow, understanding it and she regained her self-control. Jessica craned her neck around her attacker, but all she could see was a blurry, dark figure standing in the doorway.

Making an effort to relax her form, Mary got a hold of the girl's face, gently this time. "If you wish to avoid having a matching bruise on that other cheek, Miss Jessica Simpson, I should remain quiet if I were you." Mary roughly pushed the girl past the figure in the doorway to the bottom of the staircase that led up to the main rooms of the house. Her guard stood there, smirking and he held her bound hands in a filthy one of his own. Jessica could feel the urge in her to run to the top of the stairs, to do anything to just get out of that room and away from these people, to climb each stair until there weren't any more, and restrained herself. She looked up at her guard and thought that maybe that's what they wanted her to do, so they, and especially She, could have an excuse to hurt her again. While Jessica stood looking up at her guard and thinking very hard about the staircase, Mary, and the figure whom Jessica still had not seen clearly, stood in the room where Jessica had been held, their heads bent in discussion.

"I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you, Mary. You have done so well, my girl, but the task is not quite finished yet."

Mary nodded and the figure who Jessica now knew was a woman, called out to the guard at her elbow.

"Bring the girl back in here, Simon." Jessica's view of the staircase disappeared around a corner as she stepped through the doorway again. Jessica had an idea that this is what hell might be like... escape before you, just always out of reach. Curiously enough, Mary held out a pen, paper, and envelope to Simon (who was and would always remain, to Jessica at least, "The Whistler") who took them willingly enough. Mary droned on dictating, while Simon scratched the pen against the paper and outside of the envelope, but all Jessica could see was the figure who had cast the shadow, the figure who stood at a distance watching them all. She seemed to have picked the darkest corner of all to stand in, but Jessica thought she could make out a necklace around her neck. A necklace that sparkled with a golden light and eyes that gleamed like dark pools.

When it was done and Jessica could only wait for what would happen next, Mary turned to her with no trace of her former rage and said, "We have a little message for you to deliver, Jessica. It's for your Mr. Sherlock Holmes, your shining rescuer." Mary turned to the figure slightly and smiled knowingly.

"When you wake up, little one, you must be sure to give him this," cooed the dark figure.

"When I wake --" Jessica began questioningly until something pinched her arm. Her last thought before she succumbed to falling sensation was, It begins again in the dark. And this thought made her feel like screaming. The last image was of the staircase, bright but leading to nowhere and to nothing. Then she was gone.

The two women watched as the girl crumpled to the floor. Simon put the envelope on a nearby table and Patricia handed Mary a revolver. Mary and Simon turned to the child, but Patricia only looked at her student. Mary looked at the girl who had hurt her, who had made her remember. Simon only smirked and whistled some nondescript tune. She turned from Jessica to Simon and shot him once, killing him instantly. She swiftly walked out of the dark room and went up to the kitchen where three of the hired men were playing cards. She shot them all, one after another before any had a chance to react. The last man came through a connecting door looking alarmed, but without a weapon, and Mary killed him as efficiently as she had killed the others. His last thoughts, seeing her gracefully stride into the room with the revolver, hearing the noise of the bullet but without feeling the pain, were of her face and where he might have possibly seen it before. As he died he finally recalled where he had seen her and he was faintly amused by the memory. It was in church, when he had been a child. Her face was that of an angel, surrounded by a brilliant light and with the chilling beauty of a stone sculpture. Her eyes were completely blank and somehow heartbreaking anyway. She was very beautiful and very alone. She shone like an angel and as the last hired man died, she dispassionately watched him to make sure her job was done. She went back downstairs where Patricia was sitting next to the candle and covering the sleeping child with a blanket. Patricia's necklace flickered in the candlelight and Mary wasn't surprised when Patricia snuffed out the small light.

"It's done," Mary said, standing with the revolver held out to her employer, her eyes remaining fixed on those of her friend and superior. Patricia smiled dazzlingly and slowly reached out for the weapon, her hand overlapping the scarred and clever ones of her pupil.

"It's all right Mary," she said gently. "You were wonderful, my dear, just wonderful." She paused and took another look at the girl standing before her who seemed enthralled by the thin hiss of smoke drifting up from the extinguished light.

"You never are fond of a well lit room, are you, Patricia?" Mary said suddenly looking at her friend.

"No," Patricia ceded. "But you are, my girl. You have been made for it... did you enjoy that, my girl?" She continued, and reached out to grasp her pupil by the shoulders, tipping Mary's head downwards to look her in the eye.

"Mary... did you --"

"No, I didn't. I'm sorry, but I didn't. But it had to be done."

Patricia squeezed her shoulders reassuringly and walked towards the door.

"Let it go, Mary."

Mary took one last look at the girl, then turned away and followed her friend.

"I already have," she said quietly and leaving the sleeping child on the floor of that room, she left a piece of herself there as well. A part of herself that she hadn't thought existed anymore, assuming it had ever existed in the first place, which she sometimes doubted. Times had changed, and she had made choices to change with them. There was nothing in her anymore that would allow her to go back. The urge to go forward, though, was stirring.

The tests Patricia had put before her apprentice -- the organization and carrying-out of Jessica Simpson's kidnapping, her ability to eliminate the men they had employed and worked with -- and perhaps the most important to Patricia -- Mary's idea to send a message to that senile sleuth -- Mary had excelled on these exams. Patricia would not have expected any less, but the resources and creativity of her apprentice and up and coming partner still had the potential to pleasantly surprise her.

Mary and Patricia closed the door to the home where part of Jessica Simpson's childhood had been drained away and together they walked into the cool night air. They had no delusions about what their next plans entailed. They were preparing for battle. And they were ready.

The meeting with inspector Connor and the Simpsons went as well as Holmes could have expected. Holmes went through the motions of caring, Connor went through the motions of being protective about jurisdiction and the parents went through the motions that their lives hadn't ended. Holmes was demanding, Connor was agreeable and the parents of the girl were understandably distraught. He went over the fundamentals of the case with a cold competence that left the family (and Inspector Connor, too, though he would not admit it) feeling somehow more upset than before. He took his leave from them with a darkened cheek bone, complimentary of a young constable who took offense at the pickpocket gypsy, and was on the trail. He first traveled to the cold remains of the campsite, examining the desolate scene with detached skill. His eyes wandered from object to object -- the hole in the tent seam for the tube of sleeping gas, the evidence of the girl's abduction by horseback. Something of no importance stood out at him, a doll. Dull and wet and discarded. He reached out for it and withdrew his hand just as quickly. He shook his swarthy head as if to clear his thoughts and set out for the exploration of the surrounding area. Hours later, he had found the tracks of the girl. He saw that she had run and found the signs of her flight, due more to luck on her part than any conscious effort, he deduced. He found his spirits lifting a little, as if it made any difference now.

The next few days were a blur of rural, cold communities for the lone gypsy carrying no possessions but what he could carry. He seduced them with his violin and garrulous manner and in exchange learned nothing to do with the kidnapped child. Until one night during a rousing concert at a local pub, while amusing the townspeople by trying play the violin upside down, his current drinking companion (who had by now requested the song "Greensleeves" half a dozen times, each time changing the name of the woman he was requesting it for) mentioned a group of strangers, a naturalist men's club from London, in the area for a sightseeing venture. They kept to themselves, Greensleeves -- for Erin, Ashley, Jenny, Moira, and Dottie, please Mr. Todd -- who had said the youngest of the six had bought food from the man's (whose name was formally Sean and though Sean had not revealed this to the gypsy, he nevertheless knew anyway) brother's wife's daughter's friend's family and had exchanged pleasantries with the handsome young lad. When Holmes pressed his companion (amidst much talk of other things) it was revealed that the lad had been intelligent, young and well mannered... and had also let slip the location of the large house where he and his colleagues were staying. Beyond that, his local informant couldn't be quite sure exactly what they had talked about... an awful lot of drinking had gone on, and the young lad had been buying, so the rest was slightly muddy. (Sean neglected to tell this new friend that in actuality, muddied memory was much less accurate than no memory at all and that after their night of carousing, he had woken up at noon the next day, lying in the street, wearing a women's handkerchief on his head) It took almost no time at all for Holmes to get together a group of men who wanted to initiate the outsiders to Welsh customs with a bit of rural hospitality. His fiddle rang through the night air jauntily and the other mates followed behind, singing the tune loudly. He found the house easily enough -- it stood out from the ground alone with no vegetation or trees surrounding it, making it altogether singular in its appearance. He fell behind in the group as they marched on and past their destination, which by now had seemed to be forgotten by all. He fell over in the road, trying to tune his fiddle and lay there laughing drunkenly until the sounds of the group ahead had faded in the distance, and the ordinary night sounds had resumed. He swayed up to the door, falling over again and weaving badly. He thumped on the door, muttering to himself.

"Anybody in there?" he yelled. All was silent.

"You think you're too good for the likes of us, do you -- well that's just fine with me," he called, listening hard. He kicked the door in, laughing, but the heavy laughter died in his throat as he saw the fingers of a hand stretched out through the doorway of the kitchen in a grisly beckoning gesture. He weaved to the kitchen in case anyone was covertly watching him and sat down hard. Four men had been killed, three where they sat, and one as he had entered -- the one whose fingers had curled up in a beckoning gesture that had initially so startled Holmes. He got up, unsure whether his current position on the floor was genuine or manufactured for criminals or witnesses and began his search of the rest of the house. He had searched every room and was just going down the stairs to the basement when unshakeable thoughts seeped into his heart. I killed her, I killed her, this girl is dead and I am the reason. He felt certain of what he would find when he pushed open the door that stood ajar at the bottom of this staircase and paused at the top step, looking down. Without remembering exactly descending the stairs, he found himself in front of the slightly ajar door. He laid his fingers on it and pushed. For one of the few times in his life, Sherlock Holmes was genuinely surprised. The girl sat there, alive and well (except for one bruise, his mind added). She sat across the room from a dead man who was shot in the same manner as the others. The room was empty aside from those two. He crossed it quickly to her, remembering at the last moment before he reached her that she probably thought he was a drunken townsperson.

"Jessica?" He whispered softly, not touching her. She was silent. He licked his lips and tried again. "Jessica, are you all right? Your parents sent me to take you away from the people who have hurt you --" He stopped speaking when she raised her eyes to his grey ones.

"Are you Sherlock Holmes?" she asked.

"Yes, Jessica I am, how did you know that?" Without a word, she walked over to a table in the corner and gently took a rough envelope from it.

"I have a message for you," she said softly.

End of Part II