Vanished

by Gean' Fuqua

(When Russell disappears, readers get only a glimpse of Holmes' actions - until now!)

The message was brief. Mary Russell was being questioned by the police; an address was added to that line. It had come from brother Mycroft. In half an hour I was across town and in a doorway near the front of the station. Fog had closed in, hanging like thin yellow drapes and feeling like rain suspended in the air.

I did not have long to wait before she appeared and leaned against the wall. My eyes had adjusted to the dim fog-drowned street and I was near enough to hear her breathing and knew she was alone. She and I had been at this cat and mouse game for three weeks, or perhaps in reality, it had been several years. I had pounced the idea of marriage between us in a jolting and joking manner. It was not a new idea to either of us, but we had refused to act on the obvious 'next step' in this partnership. She had escaped only to return with no mention of the proposition. It lay between us as unspoken words; both of us too proud, or too independent, or too stubborn to make the next move. I would wait. I knew she would never consent to a conventional marriage, which neither of us would expect. I had loved her from the first fate-destined day we met. Once realized, I had spent months - actually years - convincing myself of what should be done. It had proven much more difficult than most writers on the subject ever admitted.

I was long past the idea of a partner in practice when Mary Russell stumbled upon me on the Sussex downs. I had once thought of taking a partner, even searched for the right kind of mind to train in the methods and processes I used in cases. When I had given the idea up as lost, it appeared on the horizon - in the form of this young person with a mind that was a mirror of my own, reflecting a brilliance that stunned and rejected the ordinary. A girl, a female, the fairer sex. Fate or irony had placed her with me. Not only did she think as I thought, she acted as I acted, her voice was my voice. We could finish each other's sentences and answer questions before they were asked.

I knew her better than she knew herself. I loved her. In my mind, in that romantic center of affection called the heart, and in my immortal soul she was part of me as no other person had ever been.

Both of us had built a shell around the aspect of life involving emotions we were not ready to face. Mine came from a lifetime of tightly controlled thinking while hers came from a young life filled with tragedy that most humans did not face in a lifetime.

In the fog, she was relieved to see me, not as a rescuer but as a provider of food, a listener, and a warm bed. We chose to let other things pass unspoken. We parted for her to return to Oxford to prepare for her presentation. I was reluctant to see her go, yet had no reason to stop her or to travel with her. She would see it as interference. It was to prove to be one of the darkest, gravest mistakes of my life.

I kept busy before going to Oxford on Friday for her presentation. I had no premonitions, no insights, nothing that foretold the nightmare unfolding. I breathed, I slept, I ate without knowing how near disaster came.

Walking into the presentation hall, I encountered the quiet academic consternation among scholars, and no Russell. The day and the event of the culmination of her years of study with an audience of peers and she was absent. Selfishly, I thought I should know if something had happened to her. I could not be immune to catastrophe occurring to the person I held most dear without knowing it.

In a few hours, I learned that Russell had not been in Oxford. The possibilities seemed endless. Had she left London to be lost on her way? Or was she still in London? I could only hope that she had left London. It would be easier to track her in the country.

As much as I hated the telephone, I used it that day. Overwhelming panic could not take the place of a methodical search. This kept me sane. Discreet policemen, government agents, street watchers, hunters, dog handlers, men I had not contacted in 15 years were set into action. Mycroft sat in his office and did the same.

By the time I arrived in London, a number of wheels were in motion, but her trail was cold. Her apartment yielded little evidence other than that the barest preparations had been made for a short trip. Watson searched hospitals and morgues for young women, finding a pitiful number of unknowns, but none was Russell.

Fifty odd people and a dozen dogs were searching and seeking any sign or evidence of her whereabouts. By Saturday, most evidence, or lack of it, pointed to the country and we left London behind. At least no body had been found. In all the years of investigating, I had seldom encountered a situation of so little data. Mary Russell had vanished without a trace. Who could have abducted her was as great a mystery as where she could be. Every trail, any evidence simply disappeared. Even the one reliable report of an unconscious woman being dragged from a late train led nowhere. Except her description fit Russell.

Tuesday she was found. There had been reports in two locations miles apart which proved to be false trails. Then simple shopkeepers reported a town car in the area and foodstuffs purchased that indicated no cook in a rented house. The men did not seek local household staff. They kept a lonely house in a remote area. Policemen surrounded the house, but the car drove away minutes before we arrived.

In the end, it was surprisingly easy. We walked into the house unhampered. Men were rounded up for questioning which I left to others as I joined the search for Russell, or at least evidence of her survival.

I went first to the cellar knowing that to be the easiest place to keep a person locked and isolated. I would not imagine life without her. I nearly missed her in the darkness of that dungeon. I heard a whisper and saw a shadow of movement. She was here. She was found. And she was whole.

If I had taken a step toward her, she would have shattered. If I had touched her, I would have never let her go. I could not reveal the emotions that were boiling inside me without scalding her.

She had been an isolated prisoner deprived of food, light, and contact. I wanted to rage at her appearance but was jerked back to reality by the physical condition of her face, her eyes sunk into the sockets, her skin almost transparent; then her arm. Who could have done this to this woman? What vendetta, what quarrel, what vengeance could provoke this treatment? There was no doubt in my mind that I could kill with my hands whoever had done this.

The remnants of her clothing were rags. And without clothing she could not leave that prison. I could not carry her out of there and she hugged the edge of darkness until I returned with clothing. Just as she had known the limits of assistance I had required many months ago in Palestine, she realized she needed support but not total dependence.

Finally we were alone. Her hands trembled as fresh, cool air came in the window. She could not hold the cup, so I did while she drank. Only then could I touch her. She came with me to a chair and stayed there while I ran water in the tub. Washing away the dirt and grime would do much to restore her body for the days of mishandling. Her mind and spirit would require more.

Along with her clothing, I found the needle and syringe, long familiar objects to my hands; now needed by this woman who had come to mean more to me than life itself.

Her long hair had not had benefit of a comb or brush for many days. When I took the comb from her hand and began working the tangles out, she relaxed as much as she could on that edge of a nightmare of the past nine days.

The signs of dependency were all too obvious to one who had known the same, making it obvious that she had a physical need of the drug. I could not disguise my own despair when I pushed the needle into her arm. Her eyes met mine. When she drove the needle into the table, I knew she would overcome any developing dependency. My own relief was apparent.

We did not remain in that house longer than necessary. She looked back once as we left, then folded her legs on the car seat and leaned against my shoulder.

Watson met us at her flat, gave her some sleeping tonic, and Mrs. Q helped her to bed. I remained there all that first night and the next day. Only when Watson arrived did I consent to leave. She would recover but inside her locked bedroom the rages of physical desire, confusion, and despair drove her to restless constant movement. Watson and I did not speak of memories of similar situations.

Recovery occurred with time. She bathed and dressed, but refused to leave her bedroom. I treated her as I had been treated - physically putting her shoes and coat on her, pushing and pulling her to walk, while I talked.

Time passed and eventually she responded to my monologue and we were able to have a real conversation. I ached to have this woman reach out to me, but this was not the time. When she joked about fairies in the garden, I knew Russell was returning from the edge. There was a change in her response, not just from the terror and savage treatment of the past days, but a response that moved us to each other. An invisible wall around us had surrendered. Holding her in the park that night, I knew we had taken another step in the right direction, perhaps a giant step. Without words being spoken, I knew this woman loved me as I loved her.

Her insistence that she be the one to enter the refuge of Margery Childe was enough to turn my hair white! I had never been a good judge of the effects of costume on Russell and I almost stopped her. She had to prove herself and in this situation I could offer some protection at a distance. She was a success, finding papers that established our needed connection between her abductor, the murders, the smugglers, and the temple.

I could never have imagined how the events of that day would unfold. Her kidnapper and tormentor was dead. Russell had consented to marriage, helped along by the notion that I had drowned in the river then resurrected at her feet. Or perhaps it was the kiss. Her response almost had me on my knees. I watched her sleep, as peaceful as a kitten, and had a quiet chuckle. This partnership, this marriage, this wife would never be dull.