He forced his mind to remember.
Alonso did not even have the chance to speak.
The cacophonous night had begun with a sound a simple as the single blare of a siren horn. From the little view of the outside he could see from behind the layers of sheer curtains, Alonso was able to discern spots of flashing lights cast against the glass.
In the same fashion as an automaton, Alonso rose from the chaise, feeling his courage beginning to flare inside of him. This, even though far from the presence of Cruella herself, was his chance to prove his loyalty to the only woman he felt certain he would love till the day his heart stopped beating.
The doorbell rang. Once. Twice.
By the third chime, Alonso placed his hand on the door knob. He breathed the longest inhale his lungs could fit before he twisted the knob and opened the door.
There, standing on the front steps, Alonso saw the end of the world as he had known it. Anita and Roger Dearly were standing arm in arm waiting; their hurried breathing forming clouds in front of their lips. Anita's pretty blue eyes were stained with tears. Standing as rigid as a statue in front of them was a police officer. Alonso searched his mind for the first words to break the silence. He remembered a lesson from his mother; in the face of all rudeness and adversity, courtesy was always the simplest reply.
"Good evening" Alonso managed to speak without stammer.
"Is Miss DeVil at home?" The officer said sternly. It had been the very same officer who had been standing across from Cruella DeVil's desk only hours before.
"No, I'm s-sorry sir, Madam has left for the evening-
"Alonso there is no time to waste! Do you realize what she is doing? Anita Dearly broke her arm from Roger. It had been the first time Alonso had set eyes on the man who had won over Anita Campbell Green from the clutches of Madam DeVil's tempting offer of notoriety. He was a calm, solid man of quiet resolution. Though he had yet to speak a word, Alonso could feel his indignation at the suffering of his wife acutely when Alonso looked him in the face.
"Mrs. Dearly, please-The officer attempted to keep control.
"No, no you don't realize what she's going to do!" Anita's voice began to rise with fever pitch. She pushed the shoulder of the officer to clear her path to Alonso. All at once, he was face to face with Anita.
"Where are they? Where is she hiding them?" Anita said firmly, the tone of her voice dropping to levels Alonso could barely recognize as being her own. Alonso stood motionless. The pain in her eyes grasped at his own conscience as if the guilt were on his shoulders alone. Alonso had to be silent. The apology was beginning to form on his lips but he couldn't. Even at his own reticence to allow such a monstrous act of cruelty against such innocent creatures as Dalmatian puppies, Alonso knew his silence, and only his silence, could be the act of loyalty he could bestow.
Without the satisfaction of a reply, Anita Dearly pushed Alonso against the door. The force of her strength shocked him; feeling the knob of the door handle crush against the base of his spine. From the force, the door had opened. Ignoring the sound of the calling officer Anita Dearly ran forward forcibly into the house. When Alonso turned around, she was standing in the foyer, twirling in her position as she gazed up to the top of the stairs. Before they could reached her, she ran without pause up the stairs. Alonso was frozen where he stood at the door. He realized that Cruella DeVil's fate was no longer in his control. Anita Dearly had stolen it from him from her own intuition.
He could hear Roger shouting for her. He could hear the policeman's hasty footsteps in pursuit. He could hear opening and slamming doors. Breaking from his paralysis, Alonso ran into the house and on instinct, ran towards Cruella DeVil's boudoir.
He had been too late.
Both doors had been swung open, and there standing in the middle of her boudoir staring down at the torn up pages of the Skinner's notebook was Anita Dearly. Alonso heard Roger and the officer stop in their pursuit behind him as they stared. She lifted the pieces into her hands; her eyes widening in shock. She had seen her own name on the paper. Anita took the broken piece within her fist and pressed it to her breast. Roger pushed Alonso aside and ran to his wife's side; she had begun to shake with impending tears. She broke into sobs, turning into Roger's arms as she cried onto his shoulders, the tremors seeming to shake her to the core.
Alonso's heart broke.
Yet despite this he could feel it. He could sense his own heart begging him to put the question before his own conscience; why. What was it that had hurt Lenora DeVille so deeply that only suffering on this deep, inhuman level could rectify her heart?
Before he could say a word, before he could even try to save the streak of vindictive actions from Anita Dearly to her mind by explaining himself the actions of Cruella DeVil's heart, the officer stepped forward and took the evidence from her hands. He spoke into a receiver. He issued an immediate warrant for the arrest of Cruella DeVil, and a team to report immediately to his location with a search warrant.
He wanted to shout out his apologies. He wanted to beg Anita to reconsider her punishment if in fact they could stop her in time. If she could be stopped, Alonso realized, everything could be explained. He realized that information was in his possession, and if in the time they took to stop her in her pursuit, he could explain everything to Anita Dearly, than, and only then, might she be spared from the isolation of prison.
"She's gone." He began to cry out. "She's left for Suffolk-I d-d-don't know what is there, but it m-must be important! I don't know what to do." Alonso said pitifully. He had been wrung dry of tears, battered in the course of a single night by the thrust and parry of every emotion his heart had ever known, that all of his intellect and cohesion had been drained from him. He couldn't betray Cruella DeVil by explaining what, in his own mind, he had known to be her motivation to the officers. If only he could speak to Anita alone he began to wish.
Still crying on the shoulders of Roger, Anita turned her face to look back at Alonso standing at the door.
Alonso looked into her eyes. He saw nothing left which could be reasoned with Anita's pain. Alonso knew at once nothing he could say could earn her forgiveness. Both had taken their actions, one against the other, and no interference on his neutral part could rectify what was to come.
Alonso had no idea how much more hurt his mind and body could endure. He watched helpless as officers invaded the doors of her boudoir, once the most exclusive and intimate of settings within the entirety of the mansion, and search her belongings with the ferocity of bloodhounds seeking out the scent of a convict. Her beautiful, treasured clothes and furs, molested with no sense of delicacy. Than in an action he never anticipated, one of the officers pulled out the magnificent tiger pelt by the head from a silver chest hidden in her closet.
"Sir, you had better come and see this." He said firmly. The two men convened. He could not hear what they had whispered to each other. Than nodding assuredly, gestured to the entrance of the chamber.
"Take this in as evidence. I want samples from Su-Linq, contact the Metropolitan Zoo at once."
Alonso's breath caught in his throat. What was there left? He asked himself. It was more than the theft of the Dearly's dogs that would now come down on the retribution of Cruella DeVil.
Lessons were hard to be learned on a woman like Cruella, Alonso thought to himself, perhaps it was a long overdue course of actions to break her of her criminal tendencies with a proper spell in prison.
Exhausted, Alonso admitted defeat.
Wandering through the house filled with officers, Alonso walked in silence to the front door and looked out at the expanse of cars filling her once vacant driveway. He stared out across the black horizon. Snowflakes were beginning to fall around him. He leaned against the doorway, watching the officer speaking with the Dearly's who huddled together. There were no sounds to him. He ignored them all. He saw the last two prosperous, maddening, delightful, entertaining, perplexing, taxing, and fulfilling years of his life flash before his eyes.
It was over.