When I entered the shop Weaselton was cleaning a magnificent decanter made of cut glass, but when the bell above the door announced my presence he nearly dropped it, so rapidly did his attention go to me. "The nursemaid, was it?" he said, and his tone was rough without any of his affected accent, "Lost your patient, did you?"
His laugh was jagged and there seemed to me an unnatural edge to it; it was not merely a false laugh, but the laugh of a mammal dangerously near the end of his wits when reason would be abandoned altogether. I wondered at what conversation could have shaken him so, and regretted not asking Molly how long ago Weaselton had taken his visitors. If he could still be so perturbed, hours later, it would suggest a most serious state of events indeed. I did not have the time to wallow in questions of what I could have done, and pushed the thought aside. "A most interesting choice of words," I said, ignoring his jibe at my profession and focusing on the important part of his words as I approached the counter, "For it is Wilde that I am looking for. You know where he is, do you not?"
"In a ditch, I hope," came his response, "Now leave."
My jaw tightened, but I forced myself to stop before acting rashly. Weaselton had given precisely the wrong answer to my question, but he had not claimed to know where Wilde was; certainly some of his antipathy towards the fox could have been transferred to me and he was simply being rude. For his sake, I hoped that he was merely attempting to get me to let him be. Weaselton returned to polishing the decanter, but when a moment had passed and I made neither made any motion to leave nor spoken again, he reached under his counter.
Weaselton came up with a shillelagh, the heavy end of which he hit against one open paw as he came around the counter. "Those ears of yours work, cottontail? Get on, then," he said, "Or I'll make your legs a matching set."
I was, to be perfectly honest, rather relieved at his choice of weapon. When Wilde and I had visited earlier, it had not been lost upon me that the weasel kept something concealed under his counter, and I had considered a shotgun as the absolute worst case. A shillelagh, however, was an entirely different matter, so long as I kept my distance, and I calmly drew my service revolver from my pocket and leveled it. "I am not leaving without answers," I said.
Weaselton stood a moment frozen before seeming to regain his composure. "You haven't got it in you," he sneered, "A rabbit hasn't the instincts to kill."
I stood my ground. "You're quite right," I said, not allowing my revolver to waver.
Weaselton's laugh sounded almost genuine, and I saw some of the tension leaving his shoulders. When he spoke again, he had regained his posh and oily manner of speaking. "You're not much at this business of dealing threats, are you?" he asked, "Leave now and my friends won't hear of this."
"You don't understand," I replied, "I won't shoot to kill, lest you make me act in self-defense, but that does not mean I'll leave unsatisfied."
Weaselton put down his shillelagh on the counter and leaned back against the counter. I supposed that he was trying to show me that he did not feel threatened, but I took a bit of pleasure to see that he did not allow his fingers to stray too far from his weapon. If he did not take my words seriously, that would be to his misfortune, not mine; if the fool thought to underestimate me simply because I was a bunny, I would gladly allow him to compound his mistakes. "Yes, it does," he said dismissively.
"Do you know how I'm different from the police and criminals you normally deal with?" I asked.
Weaselton started to make what I assumed would be a token protest that he was an honest businessmammal. "Don't insult my intelligence or waste my time," I cut him off firmly, "The difference is that, to them, you are a resource for many crimes. To me, your only value is your answer to a single question, and I care not a whit for what happens after this."
I was rewarded with the sight of the dawning realization upon Weaselton's face that I was entirely serious, and he did not interrupt again.
"I am a doctor, not a nurse, and I am an excellent shot. I can shoot to cripple and make sure you survive the wound to know the misery of a bad limb as I do."
As I spoke, I lifted my cane and gestured at my own crippled leg. I gave him a moment to consider my words, and then advanced the chamber of my revolver to put a live round under the hammer. The small click seemed to fill the room. "So I ask again: where is Wilde?"
Weaselton's eyes went wide. "I don't know," he cried, his previous defiance completely lost, "I don't know, you must believe me, I don't know."
The weasel collapsed to the floor, sniveling, and I was unsure of what to do next. I had not been lying when I said that I had no intent of killing him, but though my threat to cripple had been intimidating indeed I could not follow through on it. Even should I wish to carry it out, mammalian bodies were fragile indeed compared to bullets; I could no more guarantee that he would survive a shot than I could guarantee that a tossed guinea would land on its head. "Your visitors, then, what business did they have?" I asked.
The miserable weasel appeared confused at my question. "However did you—" he began, but when he saw that my revolver was still pointing at him, he cut his own question short.
"They were looking for Wilde," he said hastily, "Warned me off, they did, but I haven't heard so much as a rumor, I swear it."
In his haste to get the words out, I was not sure I had understood his meaning, and I asked, "What was it that they warned you off?"
Weaselton looked up at me, cringing. "Passing word about Wilde along to anyone but Mister—the boss himself, I mean, should I hear it. Which I haven't, to be sure. The boss has a score to settle, that one."
I frowned as I thought through what it meant, and Weaselton offered me a weak chuckle, apparently eager to fill the silence. "Whoever took Wilde is a dead mammal," he said, "Have no doubt of that."
"That does me little enough good, should Wilde himself be dead," I said, but I broke my revolver open and spun the cylinder until the empty chamber was once again under the hammer before putting it back in my pocket.
It was not a thought that I wished to dwell on, that Wilde's abductor really could have already killed him, but I thought that Weaselton was being honest enough. Certainly I thought he would reconsider before dismissing a bunny out of paw again, but I had not learned much from the errand. I could suppose that Weaselton's testimony implied that it truly was the mammal behind the theft of the gold who had abducted Wilde, rather than some other criminal, but that struck me as being of little help. I was, I confess, quite interested in what kind of score a mammal who could only be some sort of gang boss had with Wilde, but I did not have the time to waste poking at irrelevant details. "If I do not find Wilde, you really ought to reconsider your pledge of silence," I said, by way of a farewell, "Our next conversation shall be rather less pleasant, should you have kept something from me."
Although Weaselton did not speak, I saw that he understood where we stood quite well enough.
After I left Weaselton's shop, I made my way back to the intersection where my cab waited. my thoughts in turmoil. Although I tried to make my way through the other items that had been inside the paperboard box, my confrontation with the loathsome pawnbroker had left me quite unable to concentrate. Indeed, though I made a valiant effort to peruse the copy of the Annals of the New Yak Academy of Sciences, it was about the driest reading I had encountered outside of medical journals. My eyes kept losing their place in a densely written article on the amalgamation of ores as my thoughts continued to drift back to my encounter with the weasel. I was consumed with doubt, wondering if I had not pressed the weasel firmly enough and he had kept something from me. When I realized that I had read the same sentence three times without any comprehension in an article arguing that the author had demonstrated the existence of a fourth monobromphenol, and saw that the following article was a study of the lingual dentition of mollusks, I closed the journal. The horse pulling the hansom was making excellent time once again, and I thought on my next move as I watched out the window.
When the cab arrived at Barker Street, I thought that I had perhaps misunderstood young Molly's hand signals after all. Although I had taken her to mean that it would take her twenty-five minutes to assemble the urchins, I saw that she could have just as easily meant that she would have a group of that size. Indeed, outside the fence to my building was a motley assortment of no less than twenty-five young mammals, the oldest of which could not have been more than ten. They were similar only in the manner of their dress, which was uniformly the cast-offs of society, dirty and tattered. Sill, Wilde apparently thought quite highly of their skill, and considering that I thought it likely that the police were otherwise engaged with a bank riot, they would have to do. When I alighted from the carriage, the little crowd appeared to pay it little mind, talking among themselves in little cliques of three or four. Before I could call for their attention, a shrill whistle pierced the air, so loud and high-pitched that I nearly clapped my paws over my ears. The urchins and I alike turned to the source of the whistle, which was none other than Molly. Although I would guess her to be totally incapable of forming words, considering the grievous scar on her throat, she was apparently quite the expert at whistling, which she did with both paws in her mouth. Having caught the crowd's attention, she pointed me ought, and nearly in unison the young mammals turned and faced me, suddenly silent.
I had not anticipated nearly so large a crowd, but it was all the better for my purposes. "I understand Mr. Wilde has, from time to time, employed you at tasks," I began.
An affirmative murmur ran through the crowd. "He has—" I started, but I was suddenly cut off.
"Molly told us," a tiger cub spoke up, his arms crossed defiantly across his little chest.
Although he was likely one of the oldest urchins present, he still had the build of a youth. All the same, he looked at me, bold as brass. "What's the prize for finding Wilde, long ears?"
I could not say that I appreciated his tone or his words, but Molly had been clever enough to figure out the purpose for which I wanted the orphans and communicated it to them. I had no intention of wasting time to reiterate that which they already knew, so I replied, "A halfpenny for each of you, and a guinea to anyone who finds him."
The murmur that ran through the crowd after that was quite a bit louder than before, but when the tiger spoke up again, they all fell silent. He had turned to Molly, and asked "She good for her word, then?"
The ferret nodded vigorously, which was apparently all the assurance that they needed. With the exception of Molly herself and the tiger, all the urchins were off like shots, scattering in every direction. Once the others were off, and it was down to the two predators, myself, and my poor cab driver, who had once again taken his ease on the street, the tiger stalked towards me. I thought that my initial assessment of his age was likely correct, but even as a cub of ten he was already quite a bit taller than I was, to say nothing of the anxious ferret following in his wake. "Finn will hear of it, rabbit, if you don't keep your word," he said simply, and then he was also off before I could respond.
Molly looked quite relieved that the little ringleader had been civil enough, and I was grateful that she had cared enough to stay back. Before she could follow after the others, I called after her. "I could use your assistance for another errand," I said.
"And yours as well," I added, turning to the horse who had pulled my cab.
The horse had gotten back to his hooves, and looked down his long muzzle at me. "About the most peculiar bit of business I've ever been on," he said, "But if you still have the coin, I'm still your mammal."
Molly, of course, could not give me any kind of verbal response, but she nodded, smiling with apparent great enthusiasm. "Our next stop will be to the Rain-Forest District," I said, "To the Goredian company."
The horse waved a hoof dismissively. "I know every street in the city, ma'am," he said simply, "We can set off straight away; once in the District it's entirely downhill, so I've had quite enough of a rest."
"You can wait a few minutes more," I said, although I was quite pleased with his response, "I must change first."
Author's Notes: One thing I find interesting in the original movie is that Judy is willing to let Duke Weaselton be threatened with death in the form of being iced to get information out of him. While she's not doing it directly, what I've wondered is how far she would have let it go. Would she have let Mr. Big have him killed if he hadn't spilled his guts? I think the answer is no, myself. In this story, the threat to Weaselton is a bit more direct, but I don't think that it's out of character, especially considering that I have altered the characters somewhat. Still, as always, I appreciate any feedback.
A fourth monobromphenol is my (extremely) little joke; monobromphenol is an out-of-date term for what we now call a singly nitrated phenol. To the best understanding of modern chemistry, there are only three mono-nitrophenols, but obviously modern chemists have much more powerful tools to work with than did 19th century chemists. While I personally find old chemistry articles quite interesting, and the work of 19th century chemist incredible considering what they had to work with, that would probably be incredibly boring to read. Likewise, the other articles Hopps mentioned skimming are not exactly riveting, unless they're in your wheelhouse.