Chapter One

The Shot, In Which More Than One Person Is Wounded

"Mrs. Judson, will you please get the door?" Basil cried, annoyed at the constant knocking that was distracting him from his work. It had been about three years since his first case with Dr. Dawson and the death of his archenemy, Ratigan. But a new villain had appeared in London. Apparently, this new someone was trying to mimic Ratigan's methods of crime. "If I could just put a drop in this-"

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! The sudden loud knocking made him jump, and pour half the bottle of red fluid into the chemical mixture he had been trying to determine the hiding place of this new fiend with. It bubbled over, burning Basil's hand with lime green acidic liquid.

"For heaven's sake," he said, holding to his slipping patience with both hands as he dropped the beaker, which shattered on the floor, and frantically searched for water or a clean rag to get the sharply stinging acid off his hand. "Mrs. Judson! Will you please get the door!" he shouted knocking over bottles loudly in his search. This racket woke up Dr. Dawson, who was sleeping in the other room.

"What on earth?" he mumbled, pulling on his robe quickly as he stumbled into the main room, where Basil was still scurrying around. "Basil, what on earth are you doi-" "Dawson! Thank goodness!" Basil exclaimed, grabbing a corner of his robe, and wiping his hand off. No visible marks were shown on his hand, but it still stung sharply. "Basil, what happened? What are you wiping on my robe?" "Isn't it painfully obvious, Dawson? Someone's knocking on the door, and I'd forgotten that Mrs. Judson is visiting her sister in Whales."

"On a vacation that she needed desperately, being your housekeeper."

"Even so," Basil hissed, ignoring Dawson's jest, "could you please answer it."

BANG! A gunshot rang through the air, making everyone jump and making Dawson push Basil into his grate and poker, the latter flipping up and whacking him piercingly on the forehead. "Confound it, Dawson!" he muttered, putting pressure on the small cut the poker caused on his head with his stinging hand. The knocking persisted, however, but more feebly than before and with longer intervals between each knock. Immediately getting up and rushing to the door, he opened it with his free hand. As soon as he flung it open, he quickly put both arms out to catch a young, white furred mouse in her late teens to early twenties, who fell unconscious, a bullet wound in her side.

"Great Scott," Dawson exclaimed, rushing up next to them. "Dawson, take care of this girl," Basil ordered, hastily handing the girl's shoulder's to him as he ran out the door after the fiend. Sprinting into the middle of the street, he looked around for anyone in the streets. They appeared empty in the darkness of night, and not even a bystander frightened out of their wits or a policeman coming to see what the hell was going on were in the street. His head wound was bleeding profusely as he stood there, blocking his vision and making him feel lightheaded. But he was able to see a dark blue scarf that was dropped in a small puddle of water. Searching for possible suspect footprints with his magnifying glass, he found nothing distinguishable, but the mud told the escapee's story.

"Aha! So this person ran off, slipped in the mud and lost his scarf, but continued running all the same. Obviously, this person kept the gun, no sign of it anywhere." "Ugh," he groaned, putting his hand to his cut once again, both the cut and the hand causing pain to sharply cut both.

"Basil, come in quickly." Dawson called from the house. "I need to attend your cut and I think you'll recognize this girl. I need you to affirm who I think it is." That was the good thing about working with a surgeon. He could attend to the girl as Basil went to look for clues, and make sure that Basil wasn't seriously wounded himself.

"Then again, if I didn't have Dr. Dawson as an acquaintance, then I wouldn't have this cut to begin with." he thought as he stuck his magnifying glass into his coat pocket and walked back to the house, still pushing on his head wound. Dawson came out to meet him with torn pieces of cloth. "Here, push this on the wound," he instructed Basil, handing him a damp cloth. It stung keenly, and he pulled it away. "Urg, Dawson, I've had enough pain. Can't you just close the wound?"

"Basil, really," Dawson said, taking the cloth from him and pushing it hard on his forehead. "Hold this here. I don't have time for this. I still need to go to the girl." Scowling from the pain and being bossed around, he followed Dawson to the bedroom the both of them shared. She was lying in his bed, not as bloody as she was before, and her pale face much more recognizable. "What in heaven's name?" "Lily? What was she doing here?"

"So you think that she's Lily too?" Dawson asked, pulling out a bullet from her side. She stirred slightly. Basil bit his lip to keep from shouting…to keep from saying anything. Dr. David Q. Dawson had proven to him many times that he worked better if people weren't talking about anything but what they were handing him. "Pass me the needle," he instructed, pointing to the layout of sterilized instruments next to Basil. Basil quickly handed him the needle, already equipped with thread. As soon as Dawson had a good grip on the needle, he began sewing the girl's side back up.

"There," he announced triumphantly, cutting the string with his teeth. "That should do the trick. She'll be fine…I hope. That's the most I can do at the present." He backed away, wiping his hands on a rag. "Now about your head. We won't need as extensive measures, but I will have to wrap it up. I hope whatever was on your hand didn't get into the wound. It didn't look like something that would benefit it."

"No," Basil answered distractedly, still looking at the girl's face that was directed to him. "Isn't it amazing Dawson? The last time we saw this girl, she was the villain who stole the woman's emerald ring." "Yes it is Basil." "Now she's the victim. Why was she coming to us for help when we got her in jail?" Dawson immediately stiffened up as he took the cloth from his forehead. Basil would have dismissed the sudden tightening due to the eminent bandaging, had he not seen his guilty face. "Didn't we get her in jail?" Dawson turned his head away, apparently to gather the torn strips of cloth he had earlier. "No," he muttered, not looking at him. "I didn't give her to the police. I let her get away. It wouldn't have been justice, Basil." He said, looking at back up at him, who seemed on the verge of blowing a fuse, but didn't say anything.

"Have you ever asked why she stole that woman's ring in the first place? It was to pay for her brother's ransom money. He was being held hostage by-" "That still didn't keep those innocent people out of the picture," Basil strained, on the verge of shouting as Dawson was tying off the final bandage. "Basil, what makes you think that she wanted all those people to get shot? She gave the ring back before any of that happened. The fact that she had gotten us involved was what killed those people," Basil turned his head away, now that it was free from having to stay still and be bandaged, "and her brother," Dawson added, quietly. Basil stiffened, not having heard this side of the story before.

But all the same, he straightened his tie and started walking back to the other room. When he reached the doorway, he turned back to see Dawson dabbing wet rags on Lily's face. "When will she wake up?" he asked, hoping his voice didn't sound too worried. "I can't say," he answered, not looking up from his duties. "I'm not even sure she'll wake up at all."

Basil bit his lip, and slowly turned into the other room. His hand still hurt, and he needed to wash it off as soon as possible, just in case.