Chapter Text
It was quite the misadventure some time ago for Basil and myself. It had started so auspiciously as well! Basil and I had been on the trail of a counterfeiter urgently sought by Scotland Yard, and according to the information Basil had collected, we should find his centre of operations in a certain warehouse in Peckham. We would not, of course, apprehend or seek to interfere with their operations in any way. We would merely observe and report back to the Yard, who would then organise a suitable force to apprehend the miscreants.
Basil picked the lock with speed and accuracy, after which we let ourselves carefully into the darkened warehouse. What we did not expect was the click of a hammer and a revolver pointed at Basil point-blank. At that proximity, death was certain, and there was no chance of drawing my own weapon.
“Hold it right there, Mr. Basil,” said the mouse holding the gun. He was young, perhaps twenty years of age, and had not about him the mien of a hardened criminal. However, behind him stood a burly fellow, extremely tall and broad in the shoulders, who appeared to be in league with our young friend.
“Well, well,” said Basil, attempting to remain urbane. “Good evening.”
“Raise your hands,” said the young mouse. Having no other choice, we complied. “Fell for my trap, didn't you?” he said triumphantly. “I've been working for a long time to get you all to myself away from the peelers and the Yard. This is a score to be settled between you and me, Basil of Baker Street.”
“If this is a matter of vengeance,” said Basil, “then let my associate go. He has only recently started working with me and this does not concern him in any particular.” I blinked. We had worked together a good two years now. ‘Only recently’? What was all this about?
“Let him go?!” said the young mouse, “to run straight to the police and bring them here? I should think not.” He looked me up-and-down. “What’s he to you, anyway?”
“I am the mouse who's going to have your guts for garters if you so much as think of touching a hair on Basil's head,” I said, having had quite enough of these taunts.
“Empty threats,” the young mouse laughed out loud. “What fun! I see this one's got a little spirit. Where did you find him, Mr. Fine Detective?”
“Let him go,” Basil repeated. “He has nothing to do with whatever you have brought me here for.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” said the young mouse. “Now wouldn't you like to hear just why I brought you out here?”
Basil levelled him with a look. “This warehouse does not belong to you,” he said confidently. “However, despite your attempt at thuggery, I would not assume you are a gaolbird; you have not been in prison for a long time, perhaps ever. You are recently returned from Sussex, there perhaps to visit family. What I cannot deduce, however, is the reason you would bear a grudge against me, as I have not seen you before.”
Instead of appearing impressed or surprised, the young mouse merely laughed, the pistol in his hand never wavering. I knew this, for I was looking for a moment of indecision on his part in order to lunge for him. While the large mouse behind him no doubt posed a threat, I had no doubt that once the pistol was in my hand the balance would shift dramatically. If that occurred, then one of us could hold them at gunpoint while the other went for help. For a moment I wished that Toby were here; but after conveying us to this location he had returned to Baker Street and Basil had given him two hours in which to come back, at the end of which time he had assumed we would have concluded our business.
Basil was still speaking. “You do not wish to kill me, for if you had, the opportunity presented itself as soon as we walked into this ambush. So the question remains, what do you want to do with me?”
The young mouse's face darkened. “Well might you ask, Mr. Basil,” he said with great bitterness. “I don't suppose the theft of the Pickering jewels means anything to you?”
“Of course it does,” said Basil. “The case was about three years ago, if memory serves. It concerned a young mouse who broke into Lord Pickering's home one night. He beat a maidservant senseless, nearly killing her, shot the valet with a firearm he found on the premises, and then made good his escape with the contents of Lord Pickering’s safe.”
“That’s right,” the young mouse said, “and you led the police to the wrong mouse, Mr. Basil.”
“I did no such thing,” said Basil indignantly. “I traced the footprints and the evidence left at the scene of the crime, and from that and other evidence, managed to deduce the identity of the robber, though that robber donned a mask.”
“That’s as may be, Mister Basil,” the young mouse conceded, “but what you don't know is that the police got the wrong mouse. When they went to my house, I wasn't there; my brother was. They were looking for the owner of the footprints. My brother, though, guessed it was me who did the job, although I didn't tell him about my plans, and he told them that it was him who’d done the robbery.”
Basil gasped softly. “But… he would not have known the whereabouts of the jewels.”
“To cover up that he didn’t know, he said he’d sold ‘em. He kept it vague: said he’d sold ‘em to a mysterious mouse wearing a mask who’d been hiding in the shadows. Well, the peelers took him, threw him in gaol for a year, and as the law decrees for robbery with violence, whipped the pips off his shoulders. He was more dead than alive when they were done with him.” The young mouse passed an unsteady hand over his mouth. “When he got out, he moved out of London. Said he couldn’t face the city where this had been done to him. You destroyed my family, Mr. Basil.”
“He did not lead the police to the wrong mouse,” I said indignantly. “Your brother sacrificed himself for you. That is not Basil’s doing.”
“That’s as may be,” said the other mouse, “but I owe him a debt one way or another and Basil is going to get what's coming to him.”
“Please,” said Basil. “You can do what you will with me, but please let my associate go.” Perhaps he did not want the young mouse to know my name, since he usually refers to me by my name and title when addressing others.
The young mouse stared at us both for a minute, then gestured with the gun. “Off with those coats and waistcoats,” he commanded. I was not entirely comfortable with removing my coat, as all my lock-picks were in the pockets and my Webley in my belt, but it is foolish to act like a hero when confronted with a firearm in the hands of someone who, judging by his history, might have no qualms using it even if not fatally. In my practice, I have seen many gunshot wounds that were not intended to be fatal, but have proved so nonetheless.
With little choice in the matter, we both removed our coats and waistcoats, laying them on the warehouse floor, and stood before the young mouse in just our shirtsleeves. “Raise your hands, gentlemice. Now, Hogg, take the gun from our fine friend,” he commanded. The big mouse came and pulled the Webley from my belt, setting it on the floor next to the young mouse, whose weapon never wavered. “Now your shirts. Take those off too,” he commanded.
I saw Basil’s shoulders come up slightly. I knew he was sensitive about the scars left by Ratigan’s claws; besides, it was chilly in the cellar. “Is that really necessary?” I protested.
For answer, he brandished the gun at me. “How would you like a hole in that fat gut of yours?”
I set my jaw. I had been insulted enough. “Perhaps I should like it better than blindly obeying your commands,” I retorted.
“Why, you—Hogg,” the young mouse said, “Put this mug in his place.”
The big mouse started moving toward me. “No!” Basil burst out, darting between me and him. “We’ll – it’s just a shirt, Dawson, really.” He stripped off his shirt at once.
The big mouse, Hogg, looked from Dawson to Basil to the young mouse. “Right, not this time, Hogg,” his employer instructed. But my heart sank: this was a mistake. We had revealed a weakness. The thug was looking at us contemplatively.
When we had removed our shirts, he gestured. “Shoes as well.” This seemed odd to me, but perhaps he had a point. It would be more difficult to escape on the rain-slicked streets outside filled with puddles without a pair of sturdy shoes to aid in running.
“Over there,” gestured the young thug, pointing to a thick vertical oaken support set into the floor, presumably to support the roof, in the middle of the warehouse. We moved towards it and stood next to it, rather cold, waiting for further instructions. “Hogg,” he said to the big mouse beside him, “cuffs.” Hogg produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and the young mouse gestured with his head. “Toss them to him.” Hogg did, and Basil caught them smoothly out of the air. I had been watching the young mouse exceedingly closely throughout this operation, ready to move at a moment’s notice if his gaze followed the cuffs’ arc through the air, but disappointingly, he kept his eyes on us and his pistol trained on its target. “Now face that support and cuff your hands around it,” the young mouse instructed. Basil gritted his teeth, but with a firearm pointed at him there was really very little he could do but obey, clicking the cuff first around his right wrist, then his left. In short order he was standing facing the support with his hands fastened around it in a loose embrace.
“I remember that case,” said Basil, as if there had been no pause in the conversation. “You bludgeoned that poor maidservant nigh unto death.”
“She was in my way,” said the young thug flippantly. “Now, Basil’s pet—”
“The name is Doctor Dawson,” I snapped indignantly, head held high.
“Ooh! Basil has a pet doctor!” the young mouse jeered. “His very own pet physician!”
“Damn you!” Basil growled. I groaned inwardly. It would have been better for us to pretend that I was a client of some sort, or perhaps an apprentice, there to study his methods. But Basil, although his methods of deduction are admirable, will occasionally lose his temper, especially when he feels that some injustice is being committed.
The young thug gave an unsettling smirk. “Touchy, are we?” he sneered. “Good thing I brought spares. Hogg, give me the second pair of cuffs.”
The big mouse named Hogg threw the cuffs to him. Not taking his eyes or the gun off me for a moment, he let them land where they would on the floor. “Pick them up, Doctor,” he said with a slight jerk of the pistol. I bent over and picked up the cuffs. “Now cuff yourself around the same support, facing dear Mister Basil here.”
There was nothing for it but to obey. Soon my front paws were cuffed around the pole beneath Basil’s. We had been made to be the authors of our own helplessness. Satisfied that he had us where he wanted us, the young thug came closer, at last lowering the gun now that it was no longer needed. “This is a fine how d’you do,” he smirked. “Two years, Mister Basil, I’ve thought of nothing but getting my hands on you where I can learn you your place.”
Basil let out a breathy chuckle at that. “Stronger and wiser mice than you have threatened to put me in my place. None has succeeded yet.”
“Well, I think maybe I might,” said the young mouse. He strode to the corner of the warehouse, and from the shadows he produced a whip with knotted cords of braided leather, similar to the cat o’nine tails, except the cat does not have knots in its thongs. “My brother got twenty lashes,” he said to Basil. “It’s only fair that you get the same… and perhaps another ten in lieu of the year's imprisonment. After all, I can hardly keep you in here for a year, now can I?”
I watched the mouse run his paws over the thongs of the whip contemplatively, as his eyes roved over Basil’s back. The way we were situated, only I could see our captor. I endeavoured to keep my face impassive for Basil’s sake, so as to spare him any worry, but I did not know if I was succeeding, as I was starting to become consumed by my own nervous tension.
I held my breath as I watched the mouse draw back the whip and flick it over Basil’s back. Basil jumped at the contact, but the blow had not enough force to even sting. It had been a taunt, nothing more.
I realised that Basil had pressed himself closer to the support beam, his chest pressing into my arms. I could feel his heart beating where my arms touched his chest. “You are all right, Basil,” I whispered, clasping his arms with what remained free of my hands, trying to sound reassuring. “You are all right.” I would keep hold of him, no matter what happened, I would anchor him and comfort him and take care of him after… I felt my eyes sting. Basil was too good to be hurt thus. I hoped and prayed for some miracle that would spare him.
“O-of course, Dawson,” Basil said, shaking but trying to smile.
“How sweet,” the mouse said, flicking the whip again over Basil’s back. Once again, he wielded it without any power, but the taunting contact made Basil jump.
“Don’t just stand there, do something!” Basil snapped, trying to look over his shoulder.
“Basil,” I warned, throat tight.
“Fancy that, hurrying me up! Eager to learn your lesson, detective?” the mouse chuckled. “Although, judging by these scars…” Basil hissed as our captor drew the whip-handle over the scars that marred his back, the ones I had stitched together from the claws of that blackguard Ratigan. I ached to see Basil tensing and trying his hardest to squirm away from the unwelcome touch. “...I would say you don’t learn very well.”
“Yes, well, the rat that left those is dead,” Basil snapped, baring his teeth. Rather primitive, but I could hardly fault Basil for his fear right now. I could barely keep my own head, imagining the torture my dearest Basil would be forced to endure, and that I would be forced to witness.
“Oh, how frightening,” the mouse jeered, clearly amused. “I somehow doubt you put that rat in the ground yourself, detective. Probably sent the police after him, too.”
“Just get on with it,” Basil snarled. “I thought you said you could not keep me here for a year, but you seem to be doing just that.”
Instead of showing anger, our captor looked amused, scratching his chin contemplatively. “You know, Mr. Basil, I don’t think receiving a lashing would teach you any lessons. Clearly it doesn’t work. But…” He moved out of my field of vision. I had to exert firm control to refrain from turning my head to keep him within my line of sight. I did not need to, however: Basil’s wide eyes and the direction of his gaze told me that the mouse had come to a halt behind me.
The mouse smirked. “I think you should experience the pain I suffered. The pain of someone you care about being hurt because of your actions.”
Basil jerked and wrenched at his bonds, jostling me in the process. “I didn’t force you to steal, you cretin. Your own actions harmed your brother.”
CRACK.
It happened so quickly that I heard the snap of the whip before I felt the lash across my back. The pain was shocking, excruciating. I gasped and my knees buckled, but I kept my feet underneath me. “Stop!” Basil cried out. “This is between you and me! Leave him alone!”
I had barely caught my breath when another slash cracked down on me. “Ah!” This one made me cry out, coming on top of the first. Bolts of lightning seemed to sear my back. I dragged in deep, ragged breaths, feeling myself tremble and writhe involuntarily with the pain.
“No! Dawson!” Through my blurred vision, I could see Basil’s eyes, wild and frantic. “Dawson!” His voice was ragged with panic as he repeated my name over and over. He clutched at my hands. Desperate for an anchor against the pain, I clutched back. It helped. I slumped against the post, panting rapidly.
“How many did I say you deserved, detective?” the mouse said. I could hear amusement in his voice.
“Stop, stop, please stop,” Basil pleaded, already shaking. I could feel his tremors through his hands. “If I have wronged you, punish me. Dawson has done nothing to you.”
“Oh, that’s funny,” our captor says drolly, “my brother didn’t do anything to you, either, but here we are.”
“You deplorable, degenerate—”
CRACK!
The pain was searing, and I could not hold back a shout. But the scream of “NO!” that echoed through the warehouse was not mine, but my friend’s. My hands clutched tighter at Basil’s, shaking too, and I leaned my upper body against the post in a frantic attempt to stay upright. My heart was thundering and my head was spinning, and through it all, I held onto Basil’s hands. I gasped raggedly and vertigo assailed me, and I could feel my limbs twitching involuntarily. There was nothing but the agony and the anchor of Basil’s soothing touch.
“What was that, detective?” the mouse asked tauntingly. “I’m what?”
“A vile creature,” said Basil, shaking from stem to stern. I could feel his hands trembling as they covered my own. "Dawson," he choked out, barely able to speak. "Oh, Dawson…" He was silently sobbing.
I could scarce lift my head to see the expression on Basil’s face, but I was a stranger to the sheer loathing in his tone as he spoke to our captor. Through the pain, the spasms, and the thundering of my heart, I was suffused with the most wonderful, the sweetest relief that it would be I and not Basil who took this punishment. The miracle I had prayed for so fervently had come to pass. Basil was slighter than I, with a delicate constitution: he could not endure as well as I could. I was more robustly built, well-protected by layers of fur and fat to mitigate the damage caused by the blows. Thirty lashes would doubtless do considerable damage even to my strong constitution; but Basil had less protection, and, as our degenerate captor had pointed out, his poor back was scored with scars. If he were to suffer a whipping, his scar tissue would be agony, and who was to say that the blood loss and the terrible shock might not prove fatal for someone as slight as Basil? No, no, this was far the most preferable outcome short of both of us being rescued. I took a deep breath and resolved to stay strong.
I heard the swish of the whip being drawn back. “Stop!” Basil cried out. “You cannot hurt him again, you contemptible, low—”
“Careful there, Basil,” the mouse taunted, “you might just hurt my feelings.”
CRACK!
Basil screamed hoarsely as though he were the one being struck. I cried out as agony knifed through my head and crackled through to my fingertips. “Dawson, oh Dawson,” Basil cried, sobbing. “Dawson. I am here. I am with you.” His hands squeezed my useless ones, soothing me as I panted and gasped, trying not to groan. “Dawson, oh my dear Dawson, oh gods.” He pressed as close to the pole as possible, nuzzling his snout into my shoulder, his front pressed against mine. The tender touch warmed me through the relentless searing in my back, and I leaned into it, clinging desperately to the sensation like a lifeline as I twisted helplessly in my bonds. “I am with you, Dawson,” he whispered lovingly. The love in his voice was like a filament of light in the depths of my pain, and I clung to his sweet whispers. “I am here, Dawson, I am here, dear fellow. You are not alone.”
“How touching.”
CRACK!
“No!” Basil screamed over the report of the lash. “No, please! Enough!” I managed to keep from crying out this time, but I could not stifle a heartfelt groan, nor stop myself from writhing or the tears of pain from welling. Poor Basil cried out to hear me groan. “My dear Dawson, my dear boy, hold on, I am here, I am here.” Basil clutched at my hands, holding on tight. Then his cuffed hands fumbled for my face, and he nuzzled in as closely as he could, pressing his cheek against mine. I closed my eyes, desperate for the comfort of his touch. For a moment, the sensation of his whiskers brushing my own soothed the excruciating agony in my back. “Oh, Dawson.” His voice hitched and I could feel his tears staining my own cheeks. “Stop, please stop! Please, please, I beg of you!” he cried out to our captor.
“How amusing. Only a few lashes and already you are reduced to begging. I was right to punish your pet here.”
Still weeping, Basil raised his head. “He is worth a thousand of you!” His voice was raw. “How dare you, you villainous, loathsome—”
CRACK!
For a moment, it was unendurable; but in that moment, already my army training started to overtake me, my mind decoupling from my body in an attempt to distance myself from the pain. The searing agony, Basil’s touch and soothing words, the wooden pole, all faded and grew distant. My sight dimmed, and I could no longer discern my surroundings, even with the certainty that my eyes were open.
Through my trance, I could hear Basil and the mouse engage in what amounted to little more than persiflage. Our captor was insistent on administering punishment, and I for my part was happy to oblige if it meant Basil would remain unharmed. I am glad, the thoughts drifted through my mind without my volition. Let it continue thus. Let me take it. Please let him be spared. Their words droned on, and I felt some obligation to listen, but my senses were dulled. It was all I could do to keep my legs underneath me.
The next four lashes came more slowly, with more time between them. Each one nearly knocked me off my feet, my knees buckling with each stroke. My senses still dulled, I heard more than felt them, although my back still blazed with a faraway pain. Oddly enough, a strong hold was steadying my drooping head. I blinked myself back to the present in an attempt to find its source. As my faculties returned, I perceived that Basil’s forepaws, restrained close to me, were holding and supporting my head. One of his hands was cushioning my brow, protecting it from the hard wood as I involuntarily struck my forehead against the pole; the other gently clasped the back of my neck. “—awson, Dawson, old boy, I’m here,” I could hear Basil whispering frantically through his tears. “Don’t worry, my dear Dawson. I’m here. I am here with you. I shall liberate us somehow.”
“That’s ten, detective,” the mouse said jovially. “Now, because I can be a somewhat reasonable mouse, I’ll give you an opportunity to save your friend here. Something I never got, mind you, but I am not heartless.”
“You’re a contemptible creature,” Basil snarled, his voice hitching. “Not even the worms would eat your flesh.”
“Oh that’s almost poetic,” the mouse smirked, clearly amused rather than offended. I understood that: Basil was in no position for his words to be more than schoolmouse taunts. “But this is simple, detective. You answer my question and I shan’t lay another lash on your friend; you will serve the rest. Agreed?”
“No,” I groaned. “No…!” It must be myself, not him, but I had no strength to form words. But I knew urgently that I must be the one to take the punishment. Basil’s more delicate constitution would not survive twenty, not under a whip wielded by a crazed mouse with little to no training on how not to kill with the lash. Many a mouse assumes that wielding a whip is as easy as picking the thing up, but it requires training to be used as an instrument of punishment. Otherwise, it becomes a tool of execution.
“How gallant of your friend,” the mouse said teasingly.
“He is a better mouse than you shall ever be,” Basil grated.
“Will you answer my question, detective, or will you let your companion serve the rest of your punishment?”
“I’ll answer anything,” said Basil.
“No,” I managed a weak cry. I wanted to say more, but my voice would not obey. Why would it not obey? Piercing pains ran through my body. I tried to speak, but nothing at all came out.
“Hush now, Dawson,” Basil murmured to me with breathtaking tenderness, his hands once again caressing and soothing me. His tone changed entirely as he said to our captor, “Ask your blasted question.”
The mouse paused. Then he asked clearly, “What’s my name?”
Basil drew in a sharp breath, but said nothing. Relief suffused me. Basil was clearly ignorant of this fellow’s name, thank goodness. My dearest friend’s slight, scarred back would be spared this punishment. I allowed myself to slump further against the post, my terror that Basil would die under the whip allayed for the moment.
The silence dragged on. Basil’s panic was palpable. Poor mouse, this would leave him distraught. Still, I was grateful. There was no need for Basil to suffer, and I could cope. I was trained to cope. I was a soldier after all.
“Rodentkind’s greatest detective, unable to answer such a simple question?” the mouse taunted. “Or maybe you’re too good to remember the names of the people whose lives you destroyed. How very superior.”
Basil snarled. “Why should I commit the name of a criminal to memory?”
“My brother wasn’t a criminal,” the mouse retorted. “Do you know his name?”
Basil said nothing. My poor dear Basil. He dealt with innumerable persons every day, not only mice but other creatures of endless variety. It would strain the memory of even someone with Basil’s supermurine intellect, and more than likely he had not concerned himself with the name of a mouse who had almost killed two innocent bystanders. “Now, now, I am not completely heartless,” the mouse continued. “Hogg here is not only here to provide brawn. You see, he used to be a guard at Newgate. He was dismissed,” the mouse goes on lightly, “for being a little too rough with the inmates. Isn’t that right, Hogg?”
“Yeh,” the burly mouse replied. I shuddered at the thought. Inmates were, and still are, known to suffer terribly from ill-treatment in prisons; it is something we have frequently campaigned to end. For a guard to be dismissed for being too rough with inmates, he must have been doing something that beggared belief.
“Here.” There was a slight swish which might be the whip changing hands. “I can’t promise that Hogg will be more lenient, but he is in fact trained to keep you alive. Isn’t that a kindness on the part of the guards? Letting you live after making you wish you were dead.”
I was in two minds about Hogg taking over. While I was grateful that I would not be killed by an amateur’s hand, there was no question but that a professional, while he might not kill me, would flense the flesh off my back in neat strips. I had seen it happen before.
For all that, the warning helped me prepare myself. “Don’t panic, Basil,” I whispered to my companion. “I shall enter a trance—”
“What?” Basil asked, loud enough for our captors to hear. “What do you mean?”
“I can endure it, but I shall not be present,” I whispered. “Have no fear.”
“Dawson, what are you—”
“I am trained to distance myself—”
“We don’t have all day, Hogg. Let’s get this done before the night watchmice make their rounds,” the mouse said. “Think you can get twenty in before then?”
“It’ll be tight, but yeah,” Hogg said.
“No, please! I implore you! I will do anything!” Basil screamed, as abject as I had ever heard him. But I was already calling upon my training. This would be over soon. I took a deep breath and retreated into my mind.