Chapter Four
Lizz: Basil is taking Meg with him! But where are they going?
RAEB: (sarcastically) To post-war Iraq.
Emma: That doesn't even make sense.
RAEB: It was meant to be a joke. Why are you all so serious?
Emma: Testing... not SATs, but almost as bad...
I lay back on a crate, staring out at the sea. Water lapped against the hull of the ship, creating a soothing rhythm. Basil sat besides me, smoking his pipe. He had barely said a word since we left Baker Street.
"Basil?" I asked quietly.
He stared straight ahead, as if lost in his own thoughts.
"Basil, it's all right. You can talk to me."
He shook his head. "Not now."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Is it about Dawson and Mrs. Judson?" I asked, pushing myself up into a sitting position.
"Could you please be quiet Miss Sarentis?"
"Havers."
"What?"
I glared at him. "Would you snap out of it?"
He narrowed his eyes. "How would you feel if your partner had been critically wounded you failed to discover a danger to him in time? Both Dawson or Mrs. Judson could have ended up like Weldon and Cornell."
"I care about them too," I said. "I could have protected them if I had stayed, but I didn't. If I hadn't-"
"They might have been saved," he interrupted.
"You would have been killed!" I exclaimed.
"Meg, we have a very good chance of being killed right now," Basil said wearily. "Obviously Marcus Colhart doesn't want a living soul to know about his little plan. Like it or not, we've been turned into fugitives overnight."
I stared at my shoes dangling off the side of the crate, at a loss for words. So this was why Basil had made me come with him. "What about Dawson and Mrs. Judson?" I asked cautiously. "Couldn't they be in more danger now?"
Basil shook his head. "Not Mrs. Judson. And I don't believe that Colhart knows about Dawson's involvement in the case. He should be relatively safe in the hospital, if his injuries are not fatal."
We fell back into silence. I started to twist my wedding ring around my finger. "So what are we going to do now?"
He shrugged. "Well, the Duchess of Bachenstrauff's safety is in jeopardy now that Landon Colhart is dead."
"The Duchess of where?"
"Bachenstrauff. Her maiden name is Colhart."
"Oh," I said. "All right, so what do we do? Warn her?"
Basil scoffed. "She's had plenty of warning. What we need to do is find Marcus Colhart and stop him before he gets to her, or to us."
"Do we go into hiding?"
"As a matter of speaking," he replied.
"What do you mean?"
"You'll find out."
"You're so aggravating!" I exclaimed. "Why can't you ever give me a straight answer? You never told me that you knew about Mr. Liang and my arranged lessons, you lied and sent me over to America during the Matthew Childres case, and last night you didn't tell me where you were going and why. And I really don't see how it has ever helped any of us!"
Basil's face turned red as he shot me a dark look. "Madame, before I knew you I didn't have to worry about you or protect you from the very men I've been pitted against for years now."
"Then don't protect me! I can take care of myself."
"You're only nineteen."
"So?"
We had both stood up, facing each other, each clenching our fists, each waiting for the other to act first.
"You know, I can't believe that I've stayed at Baker Street with you for so long. You're pompous, arrogant, selfish, rude, and conceited!" I spat at him. "You think you're better than everyone else. Well guess what? You're not!"
His eyes flickered briefly, as if incited by a fire within. The spark extinguished itself before he could express the emotion. "I've only tried to help," he sighed. "But if it's all gone to waste, then so be it!" He turned on his heel and stormed away.
I stared at his retreating form, turning over his words in my mind: '...if it's all gone to waste, then so be it.' What had gone to waste?
I lay back and closed my eyes, letting the gentle rocking of the ship lull me to sleep.
"What do you mean 'you can't find them'?" Colhart yelled at a half-dozen men.
"Well, London's a big place," said a short mouse with a tattered ear and a dirty blue sweater.
"It's not that bloody big!" Colhart shrieked. "The detective knows about the plan; him and that girl. You'll either bring me their heads, or I'll have yours!"
"They're not in London, you know," said a smooth, amused voice from behind the group.
Colhart looked at the large figure in the doorway in shock. "Shit," he muttered. He then put on a false grin. "Professor. How good to see you," he said, trying with great effort to sound nonchalant.
Professor Ratigan stepped into the room. "Send them away," he said, motioning to the henchmen.
"You heard him," said Colhart to his men. They left the room muttering and shooting sideways glances at the criminal mastermind as they passed him.
"Now," Ratigan began when the door closed behind the last mouse, "you had the greatest mouse detective in all of Europe in your very grasp. What happened?"
"The stupid girl warned him, and..." he shrugged. "My men are all thick in the head to have missed their aim from that close."
"And now the detective and the girl are gone."
"For the moment."
"Well, that presents quite a problem for you," Ratigan smirked.
"I don't see you trying to help any," Colhart said sharply.
"But that's why I'm here, old boy," Ratigan said, beginning to circle Colhart. "Now, you know that to inherit all that money you need Basil dead."
"Yes," Colhart said slowly. "What's your point?"
Ratigan was behind Colhart. "What if," he said, "I told you exactly where to find Basil of Baker Street? What would your price be?"
Colhart held up his hands. "No, no. You either have him in that little hideout of yours or he's already dead. Well I'm not falling for it."
Ratigan smiled sadly. "It's your fortune," he said, walking past him and towards the door.
"Wait!" Colhart exclaimed. The rat turned around slowly as Colhart tried to wipe the eagerness off of his face. "Well," he said, trying to sound indifferent, "I would say that perhaps a few thousand pounds would be fair-"
"I'm not talking about money."
Colhart raised his eyebrows. "Then what the hell are you talking about?" he snapped.
A grin spread across Ratigan's face. "I want Basil and that girl. Alive."
Colhart laughed. "Alive? Oh sure, like Basil of Baker Street's going to let himself be taken alive."
Ratigan folded his arms and shrugged. "It's been done before."
"And what about the girl? She killed Xing Ryu!"
"Ryu was getting too ambitious. And I admire ambition in only one person: myself."
"Well, that doesn't help me if she decides to gut me too," Colhart muttered under his breath.
Ratigan sneered at him. "Are you afraid of a nineteen-year-old girl?"
The mouse forced himself to laugh. "Me? Afraid of a little girl? Hah!"
The Napoleon of Crime sighed impatiently. "What do you say to my proposition?"
Colhart pursed his lips, as if afraid of subconsciously saying the opposite of what he was thinking. Then he stuck out his hand. "It's a deal."
Ratigan kept his arms folded. The mouse slowly let his hand drop. "Right... But what if I don't catch them?"
A slow smile spread across the rat's face. "Well, you had better hope that that doesn't happen. Because it would be such a pity," he continued, "for the Seven Plagues to lose a skilled blackmailer. Fortunately for me I can always find a new one."
Colhart gulped.
Basil shook me awake. "We're almost there," he said quietly.
"Huh?" I looked up at the night sky. "What time is it?"
"Half past four." Basil opened his valise and began to rummage through it as I watched. Sensing this, he looked up at me. I quickly averted my eyes. He turned back to the valise and pulled out some clothes.
"What's this?" I said, lowering my voice.
"You wanted to know how we were going into hiding. This is it."
A young man and his elderly mother got on a train at Calais.
A pair of steely gray eyes watched them from behind his newspaper.
I watched the French countryside pass by as Basil slept next to me, the valise clutched in his hands much like a little girl clutches her doll.
Even Dawson would not recognize him in that gray dress and flowered hat. He had skillfully applied makeup and bits of false fur to make it look like he had wrinkles. I laughed a little, thinking how ridiculous he would look in that dress without the make-up.
I was glad Basil had fallen asleep; we had hardly spoken since our argument yesterday, and it was rather awkward between us when we did talk. This way I could reflect on the events of yesterday without Basil observing my every move.
I wondered how Dawson and Mrs. Judson ever managed to get along with Basil. As much as they appeared to be aggravated by his behavior, he never seemed to argue with them. True, he often kept information from them as well as me, but Dawson understood that Basil would eventually reveal his knowledge to the doctor in his own time. The detective treated me differently, as if he did not want me to know anything while he was on a case.
What did Basil think of me? That mystery was practically impossible for me to comprehend. Basil had been nicer to me as of late, especially since the Matthew Childres case. However, it was nearly two years since I first began to work for him as a maid, and eight months since I began to work for him and Dawson as a secretary, and I still felt like an outsider. Why was I still excluded from cases?
"Basil," I whispered to his sleeping form, "why do you keep me around if you don't want me with you in the first place?"
JWJ: I just knew you were going to incorporate Ratigan into this somehow.
Meg: What are you going to do about it? Call him up so he can threaten me again?
JWJ: Nah. He's on vacation in Hawaii.
Lizz: That really seems out of character for him...
Meg: (looking through mail) And so does this. JWJ, he sent you a postcard?
JWJ: (snatches card) Gimme that!
Lizz: Okay Meg, let's just leave...
