The Night of the Raven Redux
Thanks to Lucky Ladybug and Cal Gal for the plot bunny — and maybe a few details as well. :-) Thanks also to my son The Nerd for the input on the technobabble.
To recap:
Dr Loveless has kidnapped an Indian princess in order to lure Jim and Artie into his latest trap. Princess Wanakee's father and fiancé give Our Heroes three days to restore her to her people before retribution begins. Jim (and Artie as well, apparently) obligingly lets himself be captured and taken to the place where the princess is being held.
After a fight-filled escape attempt, Jim, to prevent Loveless from killing the princess, gives the *ahem* good doctor his word that he and Artie will not try to escape again.
Dr Loveless has invented a white powder that will cause whoever breathes it to shrink down to a mere six inches tall. Loveless makes a cigar with the powder in it and offers the cigar to Jim. After a few puffs, Jim collapses in Artie's arms, only to wake up in the world's largest bedroom.
Jim uses the bed sheet to slide down to the floor and is in the act of trying to get out of the room when Dr Loveless shows up. He has a cat, and Antoinette is carrying a dollhouse with a large window in its roof. She sets the dollhouse on the bedside table, then Loveless takes up Jim, opens the roof of the dollhouse, and puts him inside. Jim drops to the floor, looks around, and sees…
"Artie!"
With a chagrined look on his face, Jim's partner gave a little wave from the corner where he was crouching — no doubt to avoid being thrown all over the otherwise-empty dollhouse while Antoinette had been carrying it.
"Hey, Jim," said Artie sheepishly as Jim hurried over to give him a hand up. From outside the dollhouse they could hear the sound of the door being shut and locked, then two sets of footsteps moving away.
"Now I know you didn't accept a smoke from Dr Loveless, Artie — not after what happened to me!"
"Well… keep in mind I did let myself be captured after that window slammed shut behind you, trapping you here in Dr Loveless' house. But no, no cigar. It couldn't have been in the food either, since I didn't trust anything they gave us after you collapsed. Now…" He paused, considering, and waggled a finger in the air to help him think. "I remember walking over to that washstand they had by the door. I was dipping up some water to take to Princess Wanakee, and… Yes, and I heard the door open, so I turned to look. All I saw was a cloud of white powder and a vague impression of a face beyond it wearing a mask over his mouth and nose." He thought a bit longer, then shrugged. "That's the last thing I saw before I woke up inside this glorified toy-box and saw Antoinette peering down at me through the window there." He nodded toward the large diamond-shaped window above their heads.
"And the girl?"
Artie shook his head. "I have no idea what's become of Princess Wanakee." He gave a sudden chuckle. "Say, you don't suppose we could convince Loveless to let the princess play tea party with us, hmm?"
Jim shot him a look.
"Well, it would get all three of us back in the same place again!" Artie added. He looked up at the large window. "Hey, Jim, how tall do you suppose we are now?"
"Small enough that Dr Loveless' cat is bigger than a horse in comparison."
"Huh. So what do we do now?"
Jim gazed up at the window. "I gave him my word we wouldn't try to escape…"
"Yeah, and this is how Loveless repays your integrity! You know, we don't have much time left before Chief War Eagle lets his warriors off the leash, and an even harder task than usual at getting anywhere, considering our, uh… current condition." He spread his hands, calling attention to their size.
"I promised we wouldn't try to escape," Jim reiterated, "but I'd say as long as we're not trying to flee the main house itself, technically that's not escaping, is it?" He glanced at Artie, a twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, I like the way you think!"
Jim turned his attention to the window in the roof once more. It wasn't the only window in the dollhouse; there were several little round holes in the walls, apparently to give the occupants plenty of fresh air, but they were uniformly too small for either agent to squirm through.
"Bars on both sides of that window," Artie pointed out. "Almost as if Loveless intended them to be used as handholds."
Jim smirked. "Almost," he agreed. Then he gathered himself and leapt up, catching hold of the bars. A moment later he was sitting on the roof, looking around. "They left the cat in here, Artie."
"Oh? Where?" He pressed his face to one of the little windows and peered out.
"On the bed. It seems to be napping." Jim patted his clothing and frowned. "Hey, Artie. You got a rope on you?"
"I did when we left the train, yeah." Artie checked one of his favorite hidden pockets. "Here you go!" He pulled out the coil of rope and tossed it up to Jim.
"Got it." Jim uncoiled it and tied an end onto one of the bars. "Come on up," he said, dangling the rest down to Artie.
Shortly both men were on the roof. Artie frowned and jerked a thumb at the clothes rack on the other side of the bed. "Hey, what's with the bolero suit, extra giant?" he asked.
Jim touched the suit he was currently wearing. "I assume that's my real outfit, and this is the miniature Loveless said Antoinette made for my new self to wear."
"Really?" Artie looked down at his own clothes. "If that's the case, I really don't want to know who dressed us in the new suits after we were shrunken — although it might explain why Loveless' girlfriend was being so very flirtatious when she lit your cigar."
"Artie…"
"Hmm… Hey, look at this!" Artie reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the lockpick he'd used on the jail cell door earlier. "What's this doing here?"
Jim took it and looked it over. It was exactly the same gadget, complete with extendable tip. "Would Loveless really duplicate something like this?"
"Or for that matter, like this?" From another hidden pocket, Artie produced a small glass orb that fit easily within his palm.
"Smoke grenade?" said Jim.
Artie nodded. "Of the knock-out gas variety. I have a couple more of them too. What gives?"
Jim shrugged. "Well, we know that Dr Loveless has an aversion to searching his guests."
"Yeah, and it's gotten him in trouble before — with us!"
"And yet…" Jim glanced at the giant suit again. "What happened here? Did my suit shrink with me and they made that giant one to play games with my mind? Or is that my suit, in which case, why did your suit shrink with you?"
Artie gave a chuckle. "Your guess is as good as mine, pal!"
Jim continued to eye the large suit, gears plainly meshing away inside his head. "I want to get over there."
"Why?"
"Because if that is my suit, we might be able to raid my pockets and even out the odds that are against us."
Artie's eyebrows shot up. "All right," he said agreeably. "So what are we going to do about Mr Whiskers there?" He jerked his chin toward the cat.
"According to Dr Loveless, it's Miss Whiskers."
"Yeah, well, perhaps the good doctor needs to get his eyes checked, because I can see the wrong end of the cat from here, and that ain't no queen!"
Jim chuckled. "Queen?"
"Yeah, the proper term for a she-cat. And that, my friend, is unmistakably a tom. The, uh, proper term for…"
"…for a he-cat; I know." Jim rubbed at his mouth meditatively, looking over the situation.
Artie coiled up the rope and nudged Jim's arm. "Do you want to use this to tie up the cat?"
"No. For one thing I don't think we have enough rope, and for another, I don't think we'd be able to overpower our tabby friend and keep him immobilized long enough to get all four legs trussed up. However…" He looked down and spotted the plain white knobs on the drawer just under the edge of the table. "We should be able to unscrew one of those, right?"
Artie frowned. "Yeah. Why?"
Jim took the smoke grenade from Artie's hand and tucked it into a pocket. "Because our friend Mr Whiskers there could use a little exercise. Don't you think so?"
…
"Ready?"
"As I'll ever be," Artie replied.
"On three."
Artie counted off the seconds silently, then cupped his hands around his mouth and cut loose with, "Here, kitty, kitty!"
Mr Whiskers popped up his head and looked all around. At that instant, Jim threw one of the drawer pulls, launching it across the room. It bounced off the carpet and rolled away under a dresser.
With an enthusiastic "Mrrow!" the cat leapt off the bed and charged after the little knob. His tail lashed as he shoved the upper half of his body up under the dresser, lunging with his forepaws, trying to fish out the enticing bauble.
"Go!"
Both men jumped across to the bed, Jim with their rope draped over his shoulder. While Artie kept an eye on what Mr Whiskers was up to, Jim made a running loop in the rope and used it to lasso the top of the rack the giant suit was hanging on. Quickly he shinned up and started ransacking the pockets.
"This is my suit, all right," he called.
"Anything of use?"
"Of use, probably. The real question, though…"
"…is how can we carry it away. Yeah, I've been thinking about that. You've got a handkerchief there, don't you?"
"The size of a bed sheet."
"Bed sheet?" Artie glanced his way, a twinkle in his eye, and patted the quilt he was standing on.
"You know what I mean," Jim replied. "Artie, look out!"
"Hmm?" Artie whirled.
"Mrrow!" Mr Whiskers suddenly vaulted onto the bed, took a look at the strange sight of a man the size of a doll, and smacked at Artie with his paw, knocking him over.
Artie scrambled back as fast as he could, eyes wide, doing his best to keep out of the way of the swatting paws that might at any second unsheathe slashing claws.
"Artie, this way!"
Jim didn't have to holler twice. Artie clambered up and raced as best he could across the spongy mattress, heading towards Jim.
Something large and white billowed down over him, enveloping Artie completely. "Stay there!" Jim called, and he yanked from his pocket the smoke grenade Artie had given him minutes earlier. He caught his breath quickly, pulled the pin from the grenade, and lobbed it at the cat.
Artie stuck his head out from under the cloth — Jim's handkerchief, he realized — saw the flash as the smoke grenade erupted, spewing out magenta fumes right under Mr Whiskers' chin, and instantly ducked back under the cloth.
The cat, startled, batted at the smoke grenade, then leaned in close and nosed at it. That was it for Mr Whiskers! He reeled on his four paws, his tail lashing, then toppled over onto his side.
Artie peeked out again, the edge of the handkerchief clamped over his mouth and nose.
"He'll recover from that all right, I hope," Jim commented.
Artie waved the rest of the tendrils of smoke away before answering, "Yeah, he'll be fine. He's breathing, see?" The agent crawled out from under the giant handkerchief, surveyed it critically, then pulled out the lockpick and began using it to divide the cloth into four smaller squares.
While he was at work, above his head Jim was busy raiding the suit and dropped his gleanings onto the bed around Artie. Cufflinks, buttons, his own lockpick and collar knife, all rained down onto the bed. Artie divided the objects into four piles and bundled as many of them as he could into the squares of cloth.
"What about this?"
Artie looked up to see Jim holding a tear-gas bomb that was nearly as big as he was. "Yikes! Don't drop that!" Artie hollered.
"Oops!"
Artie dove for the pillow and burrowed under it, waiting for the boom.
No boom. He peeked out again to see Jim grinning down at him, the tear-gas bomb still safely in his grip. He returned it to a pocket of the giant suit, then pulled loose the ascot that went with the suit and turned it into a sling. Gently he used it to lower the tear-gas bomb to the bedspread.
"And what do you have in mind for that?" asked Artie.
Jim smiled enigmatically as he followed the bomb down to the bed, then released the rope from the clothing rack. "See that over there?" he said, now using the rope to let the bomb all the way down to bump gently onto the floor.
Artie followed Jim's eyes and spotted a large mouse hole in the wall facing them. "Yeah?"
Jim used the edge of the bedspread to slide down to the floor, then set out rolling the bomb into the mouse hole. "We might find a use for it."
Working quickly, they lowered the four parcels to the floor as well and carried them all across to the mouse hole. They then divided the rope in two and set about using it to turn the parcels into backpacks. When that was done, Artie took Jim's lockpick in one hand, the collar knife in the other. "Which do you want?" he asked.
Jim eyed them. "I'd prefer to have both. You already have a lockpick."
"Yeah, and very useful it will be on locks the size of my head! You know, really, right now we could just stick our hands up inside the locks to pick 'em."
"Provided we can get up high enough to reach the locks."
"True."
Jim made a decision. "All right. You keep my lockpick. It might not be practical as a pick, but it's bigger than yours and more useful at least."
"And you'll take the knife?" It was nearly as tall as Jim.
"Mm-hmm. Where'd we leave the ascot?"
Shortly afterwards both men were ready. Jim, with Artie's help, had turned the large ascot into an impromptu sheath for the collar knife, which was now tucked across his back under two of the four parcels; these had been rigged around his arms into a double backpack. Artie was wearing the other two parcels, and was still regarding the tear-gas bomb. "What are we going to do with you?" he murmured at it. "Hey, how about this, Jim? We could…"
The sound of a key turning in the lock interrupted them. Instantly the agents flattened themselves against either side of the opening of the mouse hole, then peered cautiously out.
The door opened and Dr Loveless strolled in, Antoinette just behind him. "Dinner is served, gentlemen!" the little doctor crowed happily. "No need for you to dress for dinner, however," he added with a giggle. "Especially considering you haven't any other outfits into which to change!" He turned and shared his merriment with Antoinette. If the agents weren't expected to change for dinner, the doctor was certainly dressed to the nines, and Antoinette even more so, in a fur-trimmed off-the-shoulder number in gold satin.
Loveless stretched up and flung open the roof of the dollhouse. "Come along now, gentlemen!" he called.
Antoinette, with her better vantage on the interior of the dollhouse, gasped. "Miguelito! They aren't there!"
"What?" He gestured impatiently for her to pick up the dollhouse and set it on the floor. Sure enough, it was empty. "What?" he said again. "But, but where…?" He glared around, and his eyes lit on the cat lying peacefully atop the bed. "Oh, you darn cat! You were supposed to be guarding those insufferable Secret Service men, darn you, Pussycat! You…!" He snatched up the cat, only to have it flop in his arms.
"A-antoinette, wh-what's wrong with Pussycat?" he exclaimed in shock. He thrust the animal into her arms, then peered at the bedspread. "Look! There's… there's some sort of…" He brushed gently at the cover. "…of debris here. Something very small was broken." He lifted a tiny shard of glass and delicately sniffed of it. "Gas! Knock-out gas!"
"Knock-out gas!" Antoinette echoed. "But how could that be?"
Loveless lifted his eyes and glowered at the suit hanging beyond the bed. "That's how!" he stormed. "His suit, with all those confounded gadgets Mr West always carries on him! Oh, I never should have let you talk me into hanging that suit up there for West to see how far the mighty had fallen!"
"Me? Miguelito, it was your idea to put that suit there, not mine!"
"Oh… Never mind!" He looked around, frowning. "If they aren't in the dollhouse anymore, they can't possibly have left this room, can they?" His eyes lit on the mouse hole. "Or can they?" He glanced at Antoinette. "How's the cat?"
Pussycat was stirring in the woman's arms and gave out a sleepy "Mrrow?"
"Good," Loveless said loudly, talking more to the mouse hole than to his companion. "Then our after-banquet entertainment isn't spoiled after all. It won't be quite the same, of course, but the games in the arena shall go forth — with the minor change that, instead of Pussycat meeting with Messieurs West and Gordon, she will have to content herself with facing the little princess, hmm?" Beaming, he reached over and petted the cat fondly. "I'm afraid it will be a heartbreakingly brief entertainment, of course. And what a pity that muscle-headed Chawtaw won't be present to witness how well his little sweetheart stands up to this ferocious beast!"
"How well," Antoinette laughed. "Or how poorly!"
"Exactly, my dear, exactly!"
As the merry pair chortled together, Jim turned a look toward Artie, and they conferred together briefly.
"Now, as for you, Mr West!" Loveless suddenly called out ringingly. He strode over to the mouse hole, taking a big black eight-ball from his pocket. "You're being a very naughty boy. But I do hope you enjoy playing billiards!" Loveless placed the eight-ball on the floor, aimed it, then gave it a hard shove into the mouse hole.
Straight at the tear-gas bomb still lying just inside the hole! Jim and Artie each gulped a hasty lungful of air and darted out of the way of the billiard ball. In it rolled and crack!
White gas billowed out of the broken bomb. Artie ran deeper into the twisting passageways within the wall, yanking his handkerchief from his pocket to protect his eyes from his own lachrymatory concoction. At the same time, even as Loveless and Antoinette shrieked and rushed from the room, Jim charged through the cloud of gas and caught hold of the hem of Antoinette's dress. Swiftly he climbed up a foot or two, then twitched the cloth around himself, hiding within the golden satin of her generous skirt.
…
Find Dr Loveless' lab, Jim had told Artie. Find the white powder that made them small, and try to find as well the antidote. There had to be one; Loveless was too proud to make something so devastating without also preparing its opposite number, Jim had said. And Artie concurred: Loveless the genius would be sure to have an antidote on hand both to wave it under Jim's nose and brag, as well as to be able to restore himself just in case of an accident.
And Artie would be well pleased to arrange for just such an accident.
But before he could find the doctor's lab, first Artie had to find his way out of these walls! He wandered along, coming upon one intersection after another. "Who built this place, anyway?" he muttered to himself. It was almost impossible to make sense of what sort of rooms these walls were enclosing. He rounded a corner and…
Oh.
"Spiders," he grumbled. "Why does it have to be spiders?" For a large spider web was blocking his way. He drew closer to it, studied it, then used Jim's lockpick to knock the strands loose from the wall all along one edge.
A hissing sound above his head drew his attention. A huge spider, furry, with bands of black and orange on its legs, was dropping down from the ceiling right at him!
End of Act Three Freeze Frame
(just like in the episode, except with Artie, not Jim)