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“Your existence is not impossible. But it's also not very likely.”
Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 16 “The Phone Call”
Dawson did have to admit that he couldn’t really blame Basil for leaving him behind. In the detective’s defense, the doctor hadn’t been much of a help so far on the case – more of a hinderance, really – and without Olivia to keep an eye on, there wasn’t much he was good for. The fact that Basil had allowed him to tag along with this much of the case had been more than he was owed, considering he had only really been carried along on Olivia’s coattails.
Basil had been inspecting the list and muttering excitedly to himself while reaching for beakers of some sort of chemicals. Dawson hadn’t figured it would hurt for him to step back – just for a moment! – and get a cup of tea from Mrs. Judson to soothe his nerves. It had been a very stressful day so far, after all.
When he had come back, the other mouse was long gone, nothing left behind but a few quickly jotted notes and a solution in a beaker. Dawson couldn’t even see the peg-leg bat’s shopping list anywhere. “Oh bother,” he muttered.
Part of him just wanted to leave it at that. To pick up his day-old newspaper and return to hunting for semi-permanent lodging. Basil of Baker Street obviously worked better alone. He didn’t need a retired army doctor trailing after him cluttering up the scene. His paw hesitated over his hat and coat.
If he left now, there would be no way of knowing if the situation was ever resolved. If Olivia found her father. If Olivia was even safe. Basil was laser-focused on Ratigan, the missing father coming in a distant second to the tantalizing possibility of catching the criminal mastermind.
Dawson knew that the kidnapping of Olivia right in front of them had shaken the detective. He had to believe that Basil would do everything in his power to save Olivia. But if it came down to Olivia or Ratigan?
He rested his paw on his hat and sighed. There was no way his conscious would allow him to turn his back on Basil or Olivia. He was going to have to go after Basil.
Which led to his next problem. How was he – a moderately intelligent mouse trained in medicine who served at Her Majesty’s pleasure – supposed to fathom out the inner workings of the mind of a brilliant detective and determine where Basil was headed next?
An awful thought occurred to him then. An awful, terrible thought that might just be the only hope he had.
After all, who better than another brilliant detective?
--
The mousedom of London had lived for centuries under the noses of the humans for two reasons: no human ever looked down, and no mouse ever breathed a word of their world to the humans. The scary bedtime stories kits told each other over matchstick campfires were of mice who spoke to humans and found themselves locked in labs and dissected. Even the more mundane dangers of rat poison and house cats loomed large around every corner.
In all his years, Doctor David Q. Dawson had never been tempted – not once! – to break that rule.
But these were dire circumstances.
He climbed his way carefully through the walls, retracing the path they had taken to retrieve Toby. He cracked the door in the baseboard open and listened.
“You haven’t touched a thing on the tray, Mr. Holmes! Oh, I knew when the doctor moved out that you were going to starve, didn’t I say that.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Hudson.” The shadows on the wall showed a tall, thin man gently pushing a stout woman toward the door, serving tray in hand. “That will be all.”
“Should I bring up a pot of tea and some sandwiches for later?” she asked hopefully.
“No, don’t bother,” the man told her. “I’ll be leaving within the hour and out for the rest of the evening.”
“Well then, I’ll just be sure to bring a big breakfast tomorrow morning,” she promised. “Got to keep some meat on those bones!”
“Thank you,” the man said firmly and shut the door behind her. There was a sigh.
Dawson pushed the door open wider and stuck his head around to get a better view of the room. The tall, thin man was there. His trim clothes looked a little large on him, and the doctor could see why Mrs. Hudson was concerned. The man reached his hand out and stopped, his fingers inches from a pipe on the mantle. Then he gave a loud, frustrated sigh again and reached for the violin instead.
Unlike the sweet music Basil had played the night they met, this detective ran the bow haphazardly across the strings a few times, creating a jarring, discordant screech. Then he collapsed into his chair by the fire, the violin dangling from his fingers, bow discarded near his feet. His free hand drummed on the arm of the chair impatiently, almost vibrating in anticipation.
He likely wasn’t going to get a better chance than this. Dawson screwed up his courage and straightened his clothes. Then he walked out through the baseboard door and straight toward the human detective.
At the base of the chair, he paused. The violin alone was five times wider than he was. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to get too close. There was a second chair in front of the fire, though, turned in like a matched set. That would do. Dawson quickly scurried up the side of the second armchair, arranging himself on the arm facing the man.
The detective was still quiet, his eyes closed, his brow furrowed, as if in pain. The crackling of the fire was loud in the silence. The hand not holding the violin tapped out a staccato rhythm on the brocade surface.
Dawson stood up straight and cleared his throat. “Ahem!”
The man’s eyebrow twitched.
“Ahem!” He tried again. “Pardon me!”
Now the man’s eyes opened and he glanced quickly around the room. “Who’s there?” His voice was sharp.
“Over here,” Dawson called, apprehension swirling in his gut. But oh, it was much too late for that. “On the armchair.”
The detective zeroed in on him and Dawson could feel the keen grey eyes wash over him. “Interesting,” he murmured. “And here I thought Watson raiding my stash of cocaine meant I wouldn’t see visions of army doctor mice in my living room.”
Dawson blinked. “Good heavens, you’re just like him.” He laughed uncomfortably. “Basil could tell the same things at first glance too.”
“Basil?” The detective cocked his head.
“My friend. Well, sort of. It’s a long story. He’s a detective too, but he’s missing. I was hoping you could help me find him.” He held his breath.
“Intriguing.” The man’s gaze sharpened. “I have three-quarters of an hour. Tell me everything.”
--
It turned out that Sherlock Holmes also had an extensive chemistry set and a thorough collection of London maps. Based on the notes Dawson found on Basil’s desk and the clues he left behind in the beakers, Holmes was able to pinpoint a short section of the Thames waterfront just east of Chelsea that must be the location Basil had found.
“I’m tempted to come with you,” Holmes said, a gleam in his eye. “If for no other reason than to see how long the hallucination lasts, but I have a feeling I wouldn’t fit in whatever part of the sewer you end up in.”
From there, it – well, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible to find where Basil had gone: Ratigan’s secret lair. Only it turned out that Ratigan had been expecting the detective.
When Dawson burst in, Ratigan was gone, just a crooning farewell haunting the room as the record played. Basil, tied to a mousetrap, blank stare straight ahead. Olivia, off to the side, pounding futilely on the glass of the bottle she was trapped in.
“Basil!” Dawson cried.
“Dawson? Is that you?” Basil asked, turning his head and blinking in confusion, as if he, too, were hallucinating the doctor. “How did you get here?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. How do I get you out of here?” Dawson hurried to the detective’s side, his paws stopping short of touching any of the precariously balanced pieces of the spring-loaded mousetrap.
“Hmm?” Basil asked. He stared at Dawson for a minute, his gaze scanning over Dawson’s face, paws, and coat in much the same way as his human counterpart had earlier that evening. Basil’s eyes widened. “Doctor Dawson! You—”
“Hush!” Dawson urged him, his eyes flicking to Olivia. She had stopped banging on the glass, instead looking between Dawson and Basil with a puzzled look on her face. “It wasn’t a big deal, old chap.”
“Not a big—” Basil swallowed, eyes still wide. “Good god, doctor!”
Dawson waved that off impatiently. “What’s done is done. Now, how do we get you out of here?”
Basil gave Dawson another long look, but let it go. “Getting out of here. Hmm. Yes. One moment.” The mouse craned his head back and looked at the jumbled mess of tracks above his head. “Right.”
The room was suddenly silent, the record having finished playing. Dawson watched in horror as a metal ball began to roll down the track, gaining speed as it hurtled toward them.
“Now!” Basil cried and several things happened in quick succession. The mousetrap went off, followed by the revolver, crossbow, axe, and anvil, culminating in Basil grinning at a camera, one arm around Dawson, one arm cradling Olivia. “Smile, everyone!”
Dawson blinked, still trying to catch up with the events of the past few moments. “What just happened?”
“Never mind that! We haven’t a moment to lose. To Buckingham Palace!”
--
They were sipping their way through another glass of whisky – Holmes’ second, but Watson’s fourth – when he brought it up. John Clay was safely in Scotland Yard custody and the Case of the Red-Headed League (as Watson had already assured him it would be called) had been analyzed and put to rest.
“Watson,” said Holmes, staring at the arm of the doctor’s chair.
“Hmm?” Watson asked after a pause. “What is it, Holmes?” The good doctor was slouched comfortably in his chair, watching the whisky roll around the bottom of his glass while he visibly pondered if a fifth glass would be too much for the early hours of the morning.
“I had a…strange encounter earlier today,” the detective settled on after contemplating his wording for a moment.
Watson hummed thoughtfully. “Stranger than seeing Clay at the pawnbrokers or yelling at Merryweather?”
“Undeniably so.” He sipped his drink, the whisky and soda smooth on his tongue. “I had an unusual client while I was waiting for you, Jones, and Merryweather. A small mouse in a bowler hat.”
Watson nearly dropped his whisky. “A mouse, you say? I thought Toby was supposed to be keeping vermin out.”
“Toby wasn’t here,” Holmes explained. “The mice had borrowed him, only one of them was missing, so the doctor in the bowler hat had come to ask for my help to locate his friend.”
Watson set down his glass with a sharp thunk. “Are you feeling all right, Holmes?” he asked, concerned. “Any other hallucinations? Fever?” The doctor leaned out of his chair to examine Holmes’ face more closely, putting a hand on the detective’s forehead to gauge his temperature.
Holmes sighed fondly. “Quite all right there, doctor. No need to worry.”
Watson sat back in his chair. “Hmph. Well, I’ll take your word for it tonight, but I’ll be back in the morning to check your temperature properly,” he warned.
Holmes chuckled. “May all detectives be blessed with so diligent a physician.”
Down the stairs, through the walls, and tucked into the corner of the building, Basil grinned at his new flatmate, doctor, and co-conspirator and felt blessed indeed.
--
THE END