The Best-Laid Plans

by Vladicoff

Professor Ratigan listened to the pleasant symphony, the notes of which wafted up to his delicate ears from the cellars below. Lilting wails, staccato flogs, the chorus of screams that occasionally harmonised, the crescendo and decrescendo of the Machine. It was all so beautiful. London, in all its haunted glory, sprawled before his tower-top window, chimney stacks belching forth their vapours and lamp-lights twinkling through the fog. The Professor was at peace.

His moment of placid contemplation was fouly interrupted by a knock at his door.

'It had better be good - for your sake,' he shot back, not leaving his armchair by the fire. The door creaked open, then shut, and hesitant, pattering steps made their way to him.

'Radio reports, m'Laird.'

'If this is another memo on that beastly Remy, I'll be drinking wine from your skull come elevensies,' snarled Ratigan. 'I've no interest in the wreckage that damned frog is wreaking in Paris.'

'Not about Paris, Laird. Seems Remy's crossed the pond overnight.'

'Explain.'

'Seems 'e's made 'is way t' Amerika, laird Rat'gan. I beseech the professor, read this…'

Lloyd McAngus passed along the memo, which Ratigan pondered over before leaping to his feet.

'You fools, you idiots! This is not Remy! There is only one rodent who could have done this. I know his modus operandi - I know it very well…'

'My laird?'

'This cannot be the work of other than Stuart fucking Little. The buggering sod's gone out of hiding - he's broken the oath. He'll doom us all.'

'Prof'sor Ratigan - what do ye mean?'

'If I know that mouse - and I do - this little incident won't be the last. The question at hand is if he'll decide to stay in Amerika, or bring his rampage across the Atlantic and pay his old friends a visit. If there's even a small chance of the latter, then he must be stopped, at all costs.'

'But Sir, I thought ye liked this sorto thing. Mayhem an' murder, chaos an' killin'. Why do ye want to stop the sodding bastard? Just a moment ago ye said ye's was fine with what the frenchie Remy was up to.'

'Genocide is one thing, dear McAngus. Disrupting the careful balance-of-power we've worked so hard to build in Europe is quite another. I will not have the war reignited. Fetch me my carriage, I've a visit to make to Baker's Street.'

'Ye canny mean…'

'I do indeed.'

'But sirrah-'

'Fetch the carriage, or I'll burn you at a cross like this poor mayor here. Chop, chop!'

The fog was heavy and thickly-set by the time the mouse-carriage had wound its way to 221 B Baker's Street, current residence of the wondrous Basil, the great Mouse detective. (He had moved there from his previous home a little ways down the street, after his landlord - a certain S Holmes of 124 B Baker's Street - had thrown him out, due to the former's stealing of the latter's supply of cocaine).

'Basil, my dearest friend…' drawled Ratigan sarcastically at the peephole.

'Speak your business, Rat-igan,' spat Basil of Baker's Street. The Professor wrinkled his nose at his interlocutor's insinuations.

'I'm passing a note under the door, jolly boy. No funny business, I can assure you.'

Some moments passed tensely. There was the the sound of a firearm being put away.

'You can't be serious, Professor,' ventured the detective.

'Oh I am serious, dead serious.'

After another moments pause, Basil spoke: 'This is serious.'

'Yes, quite serious. Now will you be a dearest doll and let me in?' asked Ratigan, with the toothiest grin ever seen by rodent-kind. A series of locks were undone, each clanking louder than the last, and the door to the small but cosy apartment swung open.

'Just you, not your butler.'

'Oh very, very well. McAngus, here's a tuppence, go pay an orphan to punch themselves or something.'

'Aye aye, my laird.'

The room was cosy but cluttered. Basil contained his irritation as Ratigan sat himself on the armchair, and stoked the fire before sitting in the spindly guest-chair opposite his rival. The heaps of papers and newspapers and biscuit-crumbs were shoved aside, leaving room for the memo and some sheets of fresh stationary. Mrs Judson, whose shriek of horror at seeing the unexpected guest was pre-emptively shushed by the great detective, circled the table suspiciously, laying down fresh biscuits and serving brandy.

'The housekeeper,' suggested Ratigan 'Won't be sticking around much longer, I hope?'

'Well I never!' spoke up Mrs Judson, the usually patient eyes lighting up with a rarely-seen fire. 'You're not master in this house, no-how, you, you... you pool of bilge! I swear, by all the-'

'Do as he says, Mrs Judson,' said Basil, not looking at either of them. 'I'll see you in the morning.'

'I don't know what business you've gotten yourself into, Mr Basil, but I pray you're not making no mistake. Good night Mr Basil, professor.' And she was off.

For a while, neither spoke. The room was tense.

'This is serious,' spoke Basil, breaking the silence.

'I'm aware,' said Ratigan.

'Stuart fucking Little…' said Basil.

'Indeed,' rejoined Ratigan. 'Now tell, O great rodent detective - what will his next moves be?'

'So that's while you're here; I figured as much. Let me think…' and at that, Basil gathered about himself all his wits and spare sheets of paper, and started jotting things down in his odiously indecipherable scrawl. He got up and paced over to the receiver, telephoning his contacts at the shipyards and radio stations - comparing their reports to both his ever-expanding notes and the memo on the latest tragedy to befall the other side of the Atlantic.

'And you can vouch for the accuracy of this report?' he asked Professor Ratigan, pausing in mid-dial, the receiver in his other hand.

'Indubitably,' the latter responded. 'My servants know the price of mistakes. Felicia, you know.'

'Why yes, I do suppose I'm quite aware of her,' said Detective Basil, casting a disdainful look at his interlocutor, who met it with a broad smile.

Basil finished his calls, sat back down, and downed half a brandy-glass before immersing himself in his scribbling. After another quarter-hour of writing and pondering, he abruptly stood up - much to the surprise of Ratigan, who had been entertaining himself by stacking up crumbs of biscuit into elaborate shapes.

'The timing of the start of his rampage seems to have been random,' began the detective. 'However, the same cannot be said about its abrupt conclusion - not even twenty-four hours from the first killing to the final spectacle. That's not like him. Do you remember Dresden?'

'How could I forget that charnel house. I can still smell the flesh roasting…'

'That city took days to die. Stuart Little's always been erratic, but it's not like him to start as if embarking on another masterpiece, only to rush the denouement so abruptly. And the death count seems quite low by his standards, wouldn't you agree, professor?'

'Yes indeed, dearest Basil. Does this mean, then,' he ventured a hopeful tone. 'That this might not be the work of the infernal white mouse?'

'Alas, no. You know as well as I his techniques. There's no-one as efficient as him, or as particular in his cruelty. No, this killing began the way he had intended - but something caused him to change his plans very suddenly, on that exact day. Since no new developments have arisen in the second Yankee civil war, I can only conclude that the change was triggered by news of Remy's antics reaching him.'

'Which means…' gulped Professor Ratigan, fearing the worst.

'Which means he is on his way to France as we speak. But!' he raised his voice at Ratigan's look of despair. 'It hasn't been leaked to the press yet, but Amerika has cut off all air traffic to France. Displaying their usual grasp of geography, this ban has been accidentally extended to all of Europe.'

'This is disastrous,' exclaimed Ratigan. 'The Franco-Yank alliance was a cornerstone of the power-balance we built after the last rodent war. If it falls apart, well - well everything we've worked so hard for might shatter around us.'

'Have trust in Remy, professor. He may be a butcher, and the youngest amongst us, but he's no fool; we can assume that he's already set in motion plans to rectify our restored Concert of Europe. Although…' he trailed off. 'Any plans Remy might set in motion would certainly necessitate weakening his position, at least in the short term. He'll be vulnerable.'

'But how, if I may return to the threat at hand - how is Stuart Little to arrive, if the skies are denied him, and this demon presumably has not yet sprouted wings?'

'I was hoping you'd ask that - by boat. You see, the shipping lobby managed to have sea-borne traffic exempted from any embargo. And my sources inform me the fastest ships leaving from that area of Amerika are cruise vessels, and that the only France-bound ships to leave that morning are destined for Calais. That gives us…'

'A week, at most, to prepare ourselves,' concluded Ratigan.

'Precisely.'

'Then we'd best get moving, dear Basil boy.'

'Dr Dawson will remain in London to keep an eye on things. In your absence, some rodent even less scrupulous than you might attempt a power-grab and terrorise the town.'

'I'll be leaving Fidget and some of the less competent underlings behind. The rest of my followers, however, shall come with us - they are at your disposal. They may not understand, but I'll assure them that this threat dwarfs any London-town rivalry. When do we depart?'

'The next available ship leaves in five hours, from Dover. Meet me there in four, and bring everything you can spare.'

Basil showed Ratigan to the door, and they paused for a moment at the doorstep. The two archnemeses looked at each other. They spoke in unison.

'Stuart Little must die.'

To be continued.