Untitled

by Smartmouth15

One seemingly normal August day in 1915, I was traipsing around the countryside of the Sussex Downs with my nose in a Virgil novel, when I stumbled, quite literally, upon my destiny. My destiny came in the form of a tall, dangerously gaunt man in his mid 50's with an eagle-like nose and a chin set with determination. His eyes were gray and piercing as they looked at me with a sort of bored amusement while I vented my adolescent fury about the world on him simply because he was in my way. After a few moments of brief and rather insulting conversation (on my part), and my assurance that no, I was not a boy, we had what one might call a battle of wits. In explanation about the confusion concerning my gender, I have come to find women's clothing to be incredibly impractical and worrisome, so I did, and still do, dress in men's clothing, with my hip-long blonde hair tucked up in a cap. As a matter of fact, by that point in my life, I had successfully distanced myself from the frivolous female world. Five minutes had not passed in our conversation before I undoubtedly knew whom I was addressing, and I was disgusted with him and myself. The "him" I speak of was none other than Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the "World's Greatest Consulting Detective." I certainly thought it was a good thing that he was retired if he couldn't even distinguish my gender, and I proceeded to tell him so. This elicited the strangest (not to mention most beloved and shocking) sound, tone I would come to cherish forever: Sherlock Holmes dissolved in laughter. He then succeeded in shocking me again by inviting me to his house for tea. I could hardly object, and after normal introductions were made, a lifelong friendship was carved into stone.

Four years later...

The Gates of Be'ér Sheva

December of 1919 found myself, Mary Judith Russell, and my friend and partner Sherlock Holmes in the strange and exotic land of Palestine. We were there for two reasons: mainly to escape a foreboding enemy in London, and secondly because Holmes' enigmatic brother Mycroft had "business" for us to look into, "a matter of international importance." Mycroft, I have found, can often be more infuriatingly cryptic than his younger brother, although perhaps it is simply a matter that after four years, I have come to accept the annoying habits of the latter personage. I digress, and however interesting these passing thoughts are, the ensuing tale of mystery deserves far more attention.

With our arrival in Haifa (a seaport village bordering the Mediterranean) I was faced with two challenges, of which the first was taken care of rather more easily than the second. I was quite tall (5'11") to be of the female sex and of Arabic descent, and the fact that I had long, brilliant blonde hair, pale skin and deep blue eyes didn't aid the search for an appropriate disguise. The disguise did pose a challenge at first, but was eventually accomplished with the use of some vicious black hair dye accompanied by a turban, revoltingly putrid skin tint, and a fairly large selection of voluminous clothes bearing a distressingly close resemblance to bed sheets, which were expertly arranged by Holmes, making my transformation to Bedouin masculinity complete. The choice of my disguise's gender was not without argument, but Holmes relented after my determined statement that I absolutely refused to be dressed as a woman submerged in a culture whose treatment of the aforementioned sex I positively abhorred.

I soon learned that Holmes had spent several years of his youth in Palestine, and he had a distinct advantage over me because of my second challenge- I had an extremely limited knowledge of the Arabic language. I was a quick learner and was very good at languages (at that time I knew French, German, and Hebrew fluently), but the speed with which I was required to learn the foreign tongue to the point where my accents could fool a native would have been impossible had I not been under the strict tutelage of Holmes. He shoved verb forms and Arabic etiquette down my throat during our pedestrian journey to Be'ér Sheva, where we were to sneak into a Turkish general's residence and "borrow" a political document for Mycroft. The mission was to be nothing more than robbery, but since we were informed that the document jeopardized the national security of a country and had the power to bring the world to war, we naturally took all the extreme precautions.

We arrived in Be'ér Sheva three days and 65 miles later. Holmes had been notably irritable the last day, having run out of the foul tobacco for his pipe, and I had acquired a pretty pair of blisters on my feet from my chafing goat-hair sandals, but we both were eager to do the job that had brought us to this land. Once we had established some plan of action from our little room at an inn, we set out to buy provisions and gather important information at the central gossip place in any near eastern town: the marketplace. We learned a good amount of useful information, including the fact that the Turkish General Ozal was currently not in the country. This was an unanticipated advantage on our behalf because, in their employer's absence, the guards and servants were most likely not to be engaged in their respective duties. This turned out to be just the case when we arrived at the opulent mansion under the cover of darkness to find the whole staff in a drunken stupor. The robbery then, of the document, shifted from the most delicate of heists to a mere parlor game. Holmes and I deftly gained entrance to both the house and the safe with the use of my set of lockpicks, a shinier version of Holmes' own set, which he had given to me on my 16th birthday. I occupied myself searching the safe for the document while Holmes searched the other adjoining rooms. When my search proved futile, I went to join Holmes in the study, where I found him hunched over a man seated at the desk. The latter was incredibly still, but I asked the unnecessary question anyway. "Dead?" Holmes didn't look up at me, merely bit off the monosyllabic reply as if it were a curse. "Quite." It was silent for a few more moments before he gathered himself up and looked at me squarely down the bridge of his angular nose. "Worse yet, Russell. He was our General Ozal." Under my breath I let loose a florid Anglo-Saxon oath. "I thought this all was too easy. The document?" I asked hopefully. "The murderer has it I presume. There are slight paper cuts on the inside of the general's hands, he fought to the last."

We left the house and shortly thereafter found ourselves back at the inn. I promptly retired; overwhelmed both with exhaustion and a sense of failure I knew I was not alone in feeling. I closed my eyes and drifted off as the familiar and now somewhat comforting smell of Holmes' tobacco drifted in under the door. The next day I awoke to find Holmes gone from his room. This infuriated me to no end because Holmes, much like myself, is independent to a fault. We also share the nature by which we are fiercely protective of our own respective freedoms. This being the case, I did not comment when he returned. As soon as he came back, however, I left to trek the two miles to the marketplace near the city's entrance gates to buy coffee, and not entirely because we needed more.

When I had made my purchase, I started to walk in the direction of the inn when a familiar face stopped me short. It was the scruffy Bedouin in a wool abayya who had misinformed us about General Ozal's whereabouts. I was curious, so I went up to his caravan, and proceeded to buy three potatoes. I could not reach one that I wanted, so the Bedouin (named Ali) leaned forward from his perch atop the caravan and I got a quick whiff of some distinctly familiar and oddly out of place smell. I trust all my senses to tell me when something is not where it should be, and my nose was telling me exactly that. I stood there befuddled for a few moments before I paid for the potatoes and left without incident.

I took a long, scenic way back to the inn, not looking forward to spending time with the irritable Holmes I knew I would find there. When I returned many hours later, I ignored Holmes' ranting and forced myself to sit and think. What was that smell? Why was it out of place? Then all of a sudden, I knew. "Nephthalene-moth balls-wool abayya" I muttered, most likely making Holmes think I'd gone batty, but things were coming together. The pieces took awhile to fall into their appropriate places, but once they had, I know without a doubt that the Bedouin Ali was the murderer and the thief. Darkness would be upon us quickly, which also meant the closure of the marketplace. "Oh bloody hell!" I cursed under my breath as reality sank in. My oath had not been as quiet as I had meant it to be, and Holmes turned to me with one eyebrow slightly cocked and a curious expression wrinkling his brow. "Russell? What is it?" I replied, "Damn it, Holmes! We have to get to the gates as fast as possible!" "Russe-" he started to protest but was gut off abruptly by the somewhat violent and serious look in my eyes that I expected he was not used to seeing. "I'll arrange for a cab, but on the way I expect...Oh damn, never mind." With that he stormed off to find our transportation. One of the things I loved most about Holmes was his acute knowledge of my temper and when I was serious and didn't have time to engage in a battle over "authority," although he undoubtedly knew already that he had none over me.

We arrived at the marketplace just as the sun was slipping below the horizon, and caravans were being closed for the night. "Ali the Bedouin" was unsuspecting and Holmes and I quickly had him on the ground with his hands ties securely behind his back. We then proceeded to search the caravan for the document, which, needless to say, we found. After "Ali" was hauled away by the local police force, Holmes shot me a rather incriminating glare. I refused to acknowledge his attempt to make me angry, and simply smiled in his direction. After a long moment, he sighed and the glare left his eyes. "Alright, Russell...explain." I then proceeded to tell him that my interest was first sparked when I noticed at our first meeting that Ali was wearing a wool abayya, in the day time 90 degree weather of December in Palestine. To this minute observation Holmes seemed moderately pleased, being my mentor and educator these past four years. Then I told him that when I saw him at the marketplace the second time, I had smelt Nephthalene on him. Holmes, being quite the chemist, smiled and said "Ah yes. Mothballs. Very good Russell." It was then obvious to both of us that a Bedouin should not have contact to mothballs, being a fairly recent innovation that was still making its way in England. "Ali" was obviously British, and trying to make a good deal of money by selling the information contained in the document to any intelligence that would pay the highest price.

The boat journey home to London is not without interest though. It was the second day of our trip when Holmes approached to where I sat on the deck, looking rather pensive. He took the seat next to mine and stared at the sparkling water for a few moments before speaking. "I really must congratulate you, Russell. I must admit I failed to see, or in this case smell everything I should have about this case." He was being serious, rather too much so considering the current situation, and I was quick to give him a reassuring smile. I looked away when I spoke for fear of laughing. "Elementary, my dear Holmes."