Dawson rushed over to help Basil off the dirty cage floor. "Basil," Dawson said worriedly, "Are you alright?"

"'M fine," Basil muttered under his breath, waving Dawson off. He picked himself up and glared through the bars at the door through which Ratigan had just disappeared.

His mind was working a mile a minute. They needed to get out of here.

Relda was in mortal danger.

"Perhaps if we could pick the lock," Dawson suggested feebly, eying the padlock on the door.

Basil muttered under his breath. "Of course not, Doctor," he said, exasperated. "Look!"

Dawson squinted in the dim light. Sure enough, Ratigan had set a trap. It was hard to see when there were so many thugs in the room before, but through the crack in the door was a barely visible gun barrel pointing straight at them through the bars in the cage. Connecting to the gun's trigger was a barely-visible thread that was strung up through the top bars of the cage and down to the lock.

Basil rolled his eyes. "Ratigan rigged it," he explained, "so that only the actual key can open the padlock. If we pick it using, say, a hairclip, the edge of the tool will pull the thread and fire the gun at whomever is picking the lock." Basil looked around. "Doctor, do you have your knife?"

Dawsn blinked. "My what?"

Basil rolled his eyes, tapping his foot impatiently. "The knife, Dawson, your pocketknife. The one I told you to keep in your jacket pocket, always?"

Dawson nodded brightly, remembering Basil telling him that after their last case. "Good thinking, Basil," and felt his pockets. He frowned as he patted at his coat and pants. "Erm…Basil?" he asked nervously.

"What?"

"I…I seem to have forgotten it," Dawson said sheepishly.

Basil gaped. "You…you what?!"

Dawson shrugged apologetically. Basil quivered with fury, finally exploding into a loud, angry shout.

"YOU FORGOT YOUR POCKETKNIFE?!"

Dawson looked at the ground, scuffing his shoe against a mound of earth that was peeking up through the floor of the birdcage through a hole.

Basil paced the cage, furiously flapping his arms. "I told you to keep it always, just in case of situations like this, and now you forgot it?" He pulled at the roots of his hair. "And we can't pick the lock, and we can't cut the thread, and now we're stuck in here waiting for Relda to get eaten and us to die." Basil slumped to the ground in defeat.

A quiet sob was heard from the corner. Agatha Muenster was curled up in a little ball on the floor, rocking herself, silent tears streaming down her fur in salty droplets. The boy reached out and patted her on the back sympathetically.

"We're…we're doomed," Mrs. Muenster was whispering. "We're…we're doomed."

"Agatha," Mr. Muenster whispered sharply, "stop that. You're scaring the children." Sure enough, the little girl was clinging to her father, looking to be seconds away from tears as well.

"Come on, now, Basil, you're not helping anyone by acting like the world is over. I know you can think of something to get us out of here." Dawson whispered to Basil.

"Oh, Doctor, I don't think you seem to realize what a dire situation we are in," Basil said gravely.

"Come on, Basil, use your head! There must be something we can do!" Dawson pleaded.

Basil, defeated, turned his head over to avoid eye contact with the doctor. Suddenly, he saw something that he hadn't noticed before. The birdcage had rusted and was overall in pretty bad condition, leaving holes in the bottom of the cage. Basil leapt into a crouch, inspecting a rather large hole in the bottom of the cage. He reached out and took a bit of the dirt between his fingers, rubbing it through his fingertips.

"Moist, but not clay. Perfect for digging," Basil muttered to himself, getting an idea.

Michael Muenster, the little boy, had crawled over to the two. "Are you going to get us out of here?" He asked cautiously, looking wearily back at his huddled family.

Basil cast an appraising look over the small boy. "We might be able to," he murmured. "Are you quite good at digging?"

Michael blinked. "Mother and Father say it isn't proper for me to be digging in the mud."

"Well, we may have to bend the rules of propriety a bit," Basil muttered. "We'll need all the help we can get."

Mr. Muenster crawled over to them too. "I'll help you get us out," he murmured gruffly. "I'll do whatever you need me to do."

The four men started digging through the dirt while the little girl comforted her quietly hysterical mother in the corner. After a few minutes of furious digging and dirt flying everywhere, they had managed to make a small gap in the bottom of the cage that led to the outside.

"Perfect," Basil murmured proudly, his inner symphony orchestra striking up a rendition of his personal theme song. "Now we need someone to crawl through it, find the key, and come back."

"Me!" Michael volunteered, but Mrs. Muenster threw herself across the cage, picking him up in her protective steel grip.

"NO!" She cried.

"Agatha," Mr. Muenster tried feebly to reason with her, but she paid no attention.

"NO!" She repeated. "NO!"

"Very well, Mrs. Muenster," Basil said soothingly. "I'll do it. No worries."

Dawson looked up at Basil. "Are you quite sure?"

Basil nodded, crouching down and crawling easily through the small gap, coming up on the other side dirty but unscathed. If Dawson or Mr. Muenster had tried that, they would have gotten stuck for sure.

Basil opened his mouth to say something, most likely about going to find the key, but suddenly heard a loud scream come from upstairs.

"Relda!" Basil gasped, rushing for the door.

"Basil, wait!" Dawson cried, but it was no use. The slender detective was long gone.

Basil arrived at the large concert hall in time to see Relda shrieking as she was being tied up by a two large, ugly mice with bulging muscles and grimy faces. Ratigan and his minions were just leaving.

"I'll be right back, my dear!" Ratigan called unconcernedly. "I want some fine wine to sip while I watch you get eaten!" The crowd of ruffians chuckled as they swept out of the room.

"Let GO of me!" She yelled. "Let GO!"

One of the mice rolled his eyes and took a gag out of his pocket, trying to tie up her mouth with it. As soon as his fingers were within her reach, however, she lunged out and bit him. Hard.

"OW!" He cried. In retaliation for his sore fingers, he back-hand slapped her across the face.

This was too much for Basil. With a fierce battle cry, he charged forward and slugged the offending thug in the gut.

While Basil was slender and of average strength, he was educated in anatomy and knew precisely where a hit would create the most damage. The thug buckled in pain, clutching his badly bruised gut.

Basil didn't have too much time to savor the victory, because the mouse's buddy tackled him from behind, sending Basil to the ground with a loud, echoing thud. Basil felt all the air leak from his lungs as the giant mouse (Basil knew he couldn't have been more than 7 ounces, but it felt like a baby elephant was sitting on him).

"Get off of him!" Relda shouted, violently shoving herself against the mouse. Her weight wasn't enough to topple him, but it distracted the mouse enough for Basil to kick himself free and scramble to his feet.

The

"Hurry!" Basil said, "We have to get out of here!"

Relda seized his hand and they began to race out of the large room, past the fallen mice and into the next as Ratigan and his army of idiots entered back into the room.

"What was that?!" Ratigan demanded, his wine sloshing angrily in his goblet. "What happened?!" He saw his prisoners running for the door and crushed the goblet in his hand, wine-soaked shards of patterned glass tinkling poignantly to the floor.

"GET THEM!" Shouted Ratigan, pointing at his escaped prisoners.

The angry army of ruffians dashed after them.

"Hurry, hurry!" Basil panted. Relda was breathing hard too as they ran as fast as they could towards the exit. Suddenly, an arm found its way around Basil's neck and he felt himself being jerked back by an unseen attacker. Relda's shriek was cut short when she was grabbed and thrown to the floor. Through the crowd of attackers, Basil's hand lost its grip on Relda's. Feebly, he tried clumsily searching for it, but was yanked off the ground and hoisted up into the air and on somebody's back with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.

Ratigan stormed through the crowd, reaching into his cape and fumbling for something.

"RATIGAN!" Basil yelled through gritted teeth. "IF YOU DON'T LET US GO I'LL-"

His threat was cut short by Ratigan slapping him across the face with his glove. The momentary shock wore off rather quickly, as did the sting. Ratigan glowered at him.

"You've been a thorn in my side for too long, Basil of Baker Street," Ratigan spat.

He reached into his cloak and pulled out the silver bell.

Basil's eyes widened as an elegant flick of Ratigan's wrist made the bell sing out a single, silvery note.