Mary Morstan did not wait for Mrs. Hudson to announce her. She flew in in a flurry and glanced around the room anxiously. Her face fell noticeably when she saw that the only occupant was a slightly bewildered (but nevertheless unperturbed) Sherlock Holmes, but she did not pause. She walked up to him and addressed him.
"Please, Mr. Holmes, tell me where John is. I must speak with him. Even if he will not see me, I must speak to him. Where is he?"
Holmes deliberately removed his pipe from his mouth without any hurry. "Last time I saw him, he said he was going to visit you."
"He did, about an hour ago. I would have come sooner, but it took so long to disengage myself from that horrid woman... oh, what have I done! If I had known she would be so cruel to him, I would not have let him come in!" She wrung her hands. "You mean you don't know where he is?"
"My dear Miss Morstan, if he is not with you, then I have no idea as to his whereabouts." He raised an eyebrow. "Pray, what exactly happened? And please sit down, Miss Morstan. You do not look capable of remaining standing any longer."
Mary seated herself on the opposite chair without comment, but she remained rigidly alert. "Miss Plumber, an acquaintance of mine -- oh, I wish I'd never met her! -- has, on her own invitation taken up residence in my house, supposedly to visit me. She had the... the audacity to... to claim that John was a.... that he.... oh, but Mr. Holmes, I know he is not like that!"
"Miss Morstan, if you would cease your affirmations of his innocence and actually tell me what happened, I might be able to help you," Holmes said, somewhat irritably.
"Oh yes, of course." Mary pulled off one glove fitfully, glanced at the fire, and then back at Holmes' face, dark and brooding in the flickering firelight. "She practically called him a philanderer to his face. I thought he would defend himself, but he didn't. He just said it wasn't true, and he left. And now I've come to apologize for his mistreatment, and he isn't here! I don't know what I..." She gasped suddenly, and raised her ungloved hand to her face, trying to stifle a sob. After a moment she continued, stumbling on through the sobs that insisted on bursting forth from her lips. "I don't know what I did, Mr. Holmes! I've never seen him like that! Is what she said true? Does he truly love me? Oh, I don't know, I don't know!"
"Calm yourself, Miss Morstan," Holmes said levelly. "It is not your fault, and a display of emotion will not help anything."
"Oh, but it is!" Mary cried, bursting into fresh sobs and burying her face in her hands. "He thinks that I doubt him -- oh, I wish I could tell him that it doesn't matter to me now if he did anything in the past! I know the kind of man he is now, and I love him! I only wish that I had told him! If I had told him, he wouldn't be missing now!"
"No." Holmes rose to his feet, and stood for a moment looking gravely into the fire. "It is my fault that he is gone."
Mary looked up at him questioningly, but he did not wait to meet her gaze. He had already walked determinedly into his room to get his overcoat.
"Where... where are you going?" Mary asked.
"To find him!" came the answer from the depths of Holmes's bedroom. He appeared a moment later, stuffing an arm through a coat sleeve.
"Miss Morstan, I would advise you to return to your home, as it may be a while before I recover him."
Mary rose. "No, Mr. Holmes. I'm coming with you."
He paused and stared at her. "You can't. Where I'm going -- where he probably went -- is too dangerous for a woman."
She tossed her head. "I don't care. I love him, and I'm going to help you find him. You can't get rid of me so easily, Mr. Holmes."
He sighed. "Very well. But you do so at your own risk."
"I am well aware of that," she replied in a businesslike tone, her former hysteria forgotten. "We had better leave quickly."
"Of course." He opened the door for her, and the two of them descended the steps out into the dark and rainy streets.
To be concluded in Part 4...