Author's Notes

Hello again everybody! Wow, second installment of this published so soon! I'm doing pretty well with this, let's hope that I can keep it up! Well, upon rereading the author's notes of the last one I realized that I horrendously butchered the word "plagiarized". Please forgive me, I do run the spell checker, I do I do I do!

Oh! Real quick too, I've been informed by skyechan that the name "Sherringford" was a name given to Basil by another pastiche author since his first name was never given. Oops…--0 I'd seen Sherringford stamped on so many fanfics and stuff I kinda figured that it came from the book. Many apologies! Credit for the first name goes to Diane N. Tran. She picked a good name for him, I think!

See chapter one for the disclaimer.

Please enjoy! And I send many thanks to first-time readers and returning ones too ::big hugs::


"Basil of Baker Street, my good fellow."

The doctor stared at the other mouse in bewilderment, still unable to grasp the extreme proportions of his body until the detective gave a yank on a string inside his robes and a great burst of air exploded from the fabric. The robes sagged around a tall, lithe frame instantly, revealing a high white collar and green silk cravat. Obviously charades like that had become a common occurrence for the investigator because in a matter of seconds the costume had vanished into the dresser and he had splashed water on his face from a porcelain basin.

Olivia's eyes lightened upon spotting Basil, and she leapt out of the chair excitedly as Lillian got to her feet to greet the detective.

"Mr. Basil! I need your help, and—"

"All in good time," he interrupted, shrugging into his crimson smoking robe and carelessly tossing the dart that had held it back onto the target. The needle-sharp pin embedded itself with startling precision into the red-painted center and was promptly forgotten as Olivia protested and pleaded for him to listen to her. Lillian narrowed her eyes at the detective, offended by his callous rudeness as he sauntered by, running a paw through his light colored hair.

"But you don't understand, I'm in terrible trouble!"

"Mr. Basil, please, you should hear what she has to say, we—"

"If you'll excuse me, ladies."

"Now see here!" Dawson scowled and stepped forward, unable to believe that a clearly educated gentlemouse would treat a lady and a child with such discourtesy, even if their visit was less than conventional. His words fell on the same deaf ears as Lillian and Olivia's had, as Basil had raced back across the room to the chemistry table wearing a most maniacal grin. "These young ladies are in need of assistance! I think that you ought to listen—"

"Hold this please, Doctor," Basil said, handing the gun over to the older mouse as he searched among his notes and books for something.

"Of course. But, wait just a moment! How just did you know that I was a doctor?" Dawson asked Basil reclaimed the pistol and pushed a fresh bullet into the cartridge.

"A surgeon to be exact, just returned from military duty in Afghanistan. Am I right?"

"Why, yes!" he said with a chuckle. "Major David Q. Dawson. But how could you possibly—"

"It's quite simple really. You've sewn your torn cuff together with the Lombard stitch, which of course, only a surgeon uses." Basil said, patting the doctor on the cheek before gathering the plush round cushions from his red velvet chair and completely ignoring Dawson's irritation of having his imperfect clothing pointed out.

"And the thread is a unique form of kafka, easily distinguished by its—peculiar pungency—found only in Afghan provinces."

Lillian's lips parted in awe of the mouse's razor sharp keenness, suddenly feeling self conscious and wondering what sort of details Basil could deduce from her own physical appearance. Olivia looked up at her, clearly befuddled by the detective's elaborate vocabulary when he leaned over and whispered one of the more offensive details of Dawson's ripped cuff.

"Amazing!" Dawson exclaimed, genuinely impressed as Basil launched the pillows into his arms and spun the pistol's bullet chamber.

"Actually, it's elementary my dear Dawson."

Realizing that Basil was actually intending to fire the gun while he was still holding the cushions, Dawson's army-mouse training came back with a swift vengeance. He threw the pillows down into the green velvet chair and dove behind the red one with Lillian and Olivia. A second later the flat shook with the echoes of a pistol detonation and the room was taken by an explosive storm of feathers.

"Good God," Dawson murmured, clutching his heart.

"He's barking mad!" Lillian whispered and they nervously peeked out from behind the chair.

The gunshot had not gone unnoticed either, as the door leading to the kitchen was thrown open and the housemaid arrived to see what all the commotion was about.

"What in Heaven's name?" she cried, sputtering and coughing as she swallowed some of the smaller feathers as she came into the den. "Mr. Basil!" Rage and contempt for her horrid tenant flared in her expression as she advanced on Basil, shaking a reprimanding finger at him. Dawson, Lillian, and Olivia watched in astonishment as the detective froze in his throwing feathers about and looked over the chair. With his eyes wide and ears perked, his expression belonged to a terrified child that had just been caught doing something mischievous.

"How many times have I told you not to—"

"There, there, Mrs. Judson it's quite all right," he said, plastering a false looking smile on his face and smelling the warm air approvingly as he herded his landlady back towards the kitchen door. "Ah, I believe I smell some of those delightful cheese crumpets of yours. Why don't you fetch our guests some?"

Lillian's heart went out to the poor woman as she was pushed back into the kitchen. She was already at her nerve's end after spending five minutes in Basil's presence. She could only wonder what it was like to live with him. Obviously that hadn't been the first time he'd shot up her pillows, and indoors no less!

I wonder how many chairs he's ruined…

"Now! I know that bullet's here somewhere," Basil muttered, crawling along the feather covered floor around the ruined chair and raking his fingers through the carpet in search of the little steel pellet. Then suddenly, the babbling little girl appeared before him, holding the blackened cartridge and smiling innocently. "Thank-you, Miss," he said irritably, practically snatching the bullet from her paw.

"Flaversham. Olivia Flaversham," she replied sweetly.

"Eh, whatever," he said carelessly, returning to his laboratory table and dropping the bullet into a glass Petri dish and reaching for a second one from a small drawer behind a Bunsen burner.

"Yes, but you don't understand!"

"Shh!" Wherever did this girl come from? He thought to himself as he grabbed his microscope and held the bullet cartridges beneath the lenses, pressing the ends together to compare the lines. Excitement was swirling inside him like a storm, knowing that he was just seconds away from the final pieces of the puzzle he'd spent the better part of five years trying to solve. Yes, a perfect match! Just a few more identical grooves to check and—

No, no, no, no, no! One small indent was out of place! A mismatch. It couldn't be!

"Damn!"

Lillian, Olivia, and Dawson startled as a loud, anguished howl filled the flat. Basil's paws went to his head and raked through his hair, mussing it into tangles as he cursed, feeling the weight of the world crashing down upon him. Staring him in the face was two week failure of parading about like a Chinese hooligan in Mousedom's Cheapside struggling to obtain the very bullet that had just blown his theory clear to Timbuktu. Cold despair moved over him as he tossed the useless cartridges over his shoulder and trudged towards his favorite chair. Merciful heavens, where was that violin?

"Another dead end…he was within my grasp!"

Lillian turned to Dawson, raising her eyebrow and subtly pointed to the distraught mouse as a sorrowful tune filled the air. He shook his head, just as baffled as she was at the detective's bizarre and eccentric behavior. Olivia looked up at the doctor, who encouraged her to try again now that Basil wasn't racing around like a lunatic. Puffing her little chest out, the young mouseling marched up to Basil's chair, closely followed by Lillian.

"Now will you please listen to me? My Daddy's gone, and I'm all alone."

"Young lady, this is a most inopportune time," he replied dramatically and resumed his music, his ears drooping mournfully and his legs slung over the chair's arm. Infernal child, hadn't she been taught to never interrupt her elders, especially when there were far more important matters afoot! What was all this nonsense about loosing her father anyway? The Scottish were not known for wandering away from their kin. "Surely your mother knows where he is."

"I-I don't have a mother."

His hand slipped and the bow screeched across the strings as his back stiffened. To his profound horror the little girl's words struck a cord deep inside him that brought back a storm of childhood memories that he had long since buried in the depths of his mind. Basil looked down at her inquiringly, suddenly finding the child an octave less annoying…for a brief moment in time.

"See here, I simply have no time for lost fathers!" he exclaimed, remembering himself with a dark scowl before folding his arms and turning his nose away petulantly.

"I didn't loose him! He was taken by a bat," Olivia replied testily, putting her paws on her hips. She couldn't understand why Mr. Basil was simply refusing to listen to her! She hadn't been impolite to him in any way, and her Daddy had always said that politeness was the best way to address someone, especially when it was someone who had garnered public respect. But as soon as she told him about the frightening bat that had attacked her home and stolen her father, his expression changed and he suddenly seemed interested in what she had to say. So interested in fact, he leaned in closer to her.

"Did you say bat?"

"Yes…"

"Did he have a crippled wing?"

"I don't know, but he had a peg-leg!"

All traces of Basil's black mood vanished as he laughed triumphantly and jumped onto the arms of his easy chair. Lillian watched him, amazed at the drastic range of temperaments the famous sleuth had just displayed in the past five minutes.

"I say, do you know him?" Dawson asked, putting his paws on Olivia's shoulders supportively as Basil leapt onto the back of the chair and brandished his violin bow about as he spoke.

"Know him? That bat, one Fidgit by name, is in the employ of the very fiend who was the target of my experiment! The horror of my every waking moment! The nefarious Professor Ratigan!"

Lillian's lower lip caught in her teeth and she dropped her eyes to the floor as Basil pointed at the portrait photograph of a distinguished looking gentlerat on the mantle. She shuddered, remembering how incredibly different Ratigan's demeanor could be from the collected, smiling face in the picture.

"Ratigan?" Dawson asked, glancing at the photograph inquiringly as Basil vanished behind the chair. His passionate ravings about his archenemy were only emphasized more frighteningly by the rage of the lightning and rain thundering outside.

"He's a genius, Dawson! A genius twisted for evil… the Napoleon of crime!"

"As bad as all that, eh?" the doctor marveled, taking a second look at the picture. He had never heard of this dastardly crime-lord. In fact, it was difficult to believe he was the terrible fiend Basil described him to be, as his refined clothing and top hat were impeccably neat in the photograph.

"Worse! For years I've tried to capture him and I've come close, so very close! But each time he's narrowly evaded my grasp! There's not a corner of Mousedom safe while Ratigan's at large. There's no evil scheme he wouldn't concoct or depravity he wouldn't commit!"

He heaved a sigh, falling silent as he produced an elegant white ivory pipe from his smoking robe's pocket and opened a small, ornately carved box that sat on the little table beside his chair. Pinching a bit of tobacco, he tucked the dried herbs inside the chamber-bowl and struck a match to light it.

"Who knows what evil scheme that villain may be plotting at this very moment."

Mr. Basil and Ratigan are positively obsessed with each other…as if they're playing some sort of mind-game! "I have an inkling of what it could be," Lillian said quietly, folding her arms around her waist protectively.

Basil turned to her and eyed her sharply; breathing a contemplative puff of his pipe as he took a closer look at the young lady's appearance.

The hems of her dress are frayed and the fabric has lost much of its vibrancy. It's been packed away for a long period of time.

Her long brown hair, though damp from the rain, was frizzed and wavy with creases that signaled a daily use of hot irons and her blue shoes were heavily scuffed. Having completed his subtle inspection of her, Basil's gaze returned to her pretty face and found secrets and a restrained, but desperate plea for help in her honey-colored eyes.

Her shoes don't match her dress... women don't wear mismatched outfits unless they're terribly pressed for time and without a plan. Ring on her left hand, she's married but in some sort of trouble related to Ratigan, as she mentioned she knows something about Miss Flatterwutses' missing father. She came here alone, unescorted and at night so she's not concerned about the social etiquette of young ladies—she's broken a bigger rule before.

"You ran away from home with a fellow some time ago, but your plans didn't go accordingly, correct? Miss, ah…?"

"Dodie, my name is Lillian Dodie. Y-yes. I… two years ago I eloped to Mousedom with my fiancé, Thomas Kindle. We were captured by Professor Ratigan a day before the ceremony and taken to a dark ally. Thomas never told me that he owed somebody money, but… in any case, I signed a contract with the professor, trading three years of labor to help Thomas pay his debt.

"I've been working at a small bar in Cheapside since, while Thomas is forced to take part in Ratigan's crimes. I admit, it's unbearable at times but I'm terrified that Ratigan will murder Thomas if I fuss. But early this evening I overheard parts of a disturbing conversation and decided to take a chance to free myself and my fiancé."

Basil inhaled a breath of tobacco smoke thoughtfully. "Tell me what you heard then, please."

"I-It was two of Ratigan's men whispering at the bar. I don't know their names, but I heard them say that Fidgit had been sent to get the toymaker and by that time next week Ratigan would be in charge."

"Can you tell me anything more specific? Did they say what Ratigan was planning or where Ratigan is hiding?"

Lillian shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, that's all they said before they started watching the showgirls. I don't know myself where Ratigan lives. I've been brought to the professor before but both times I was blindfolded."

Taking care to keep his back turned, Basil allowed his eyebrow to lift suspiciously. What Miss Dodie was telling him hardly fit into Ratigan's past profiles. Since when had Ratigan become one for contracting his demonic bargains, and honoring them furthermore? In his mind he entertained the possibility that the young lady could have been sent by his rival as bait for a trap. After all, it was entirely too coincidental that he be visited by a young lady who knew Ratigan would kidnap a toymaker and the daughter of the alleged victim in the same evening. Or it was possible she was telling the truth—just not all of it.

No matter, there would be time to figure it out.

Author's Notes

DUN DUN DUN DUUUUNNN!!!! How did you guys like it? Just who the heck is Miss Lillian Dodie anyway? So many holes in her story…Basil's right to be a little wary, in my most humble opinion. In any case, many thanks to you, the reader, who have taken time out of your day to read my story. I send all my love and energy to you! 'Til next time.