THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE: THE CASE OF THE OUTWITTED DETECTIVE

Chapter V:  "Absolute Pin"

REVISED EDITION
Dramatised by Diane N. Tran


My friend, a master of disguises, did not merely change his costume, but his manner, his expression, his very soul, seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed.  The stage lost a fine actor, as science lost an acute reasoner, when Basil of Baker Street became a specialist in crime.

It was the following morning when the detective badgered me away from my breakfast to attire in an ill-fitted costume, then affixed me at his vanity, irritably humming an aria, as he slapped on cold cream and powder upon my face.

"Voilà!" cried he, triumphantly, before dropping a flat-brimmed hat atop and jostling me out of the seat, then he began to paint himself up with grease and gum.

Gazing upon my reflection within the glass with astonishment, he had sculpted my face with his deft hands by waxing down my moustache as if it never existed and gluing down scruffy side-whiskers, which curved down to my chin, with brows to match, into the guise of an elderly school-master.

My friend soon spun around his chair and I tried to control my amusement at his appearance.  He, too, affixed grey side-whiskers upon his cheeks, bristled up his eyebrows, with a pair of wire speckles on the brim of his nose, summing it all as a comical-looking Nonconformist clergyman.

"How come I can't wear those?" asked I, pointing to his crooked false teeth.

"I leek teese teefs," grinned he, with a whistling lisp between his crooked dentures.  "Now, Dawson, you understand everything I explained?"

"Of course, I have everything in my pockets."

"Then let us commence with our bit of intrigue."

It was a quarter past twelve when we left Baker Street through the back door.  As he hurried underneath the solitary plane tree, which graced the yard behind our house, he gave a most searching glance to right and left and, at every subsequent street corner, he took the utmost pains to assure that we were not followed.  Our route was certainly a singular one.  Basil's knowledge of the by-ways of London was extraordinary and, on this occasion, he passed rapidly through a network of mews and stables, the very existence of which I had never known, with an assured step.  It was not long when we stood before a numbered line of bright, dun-coloured houses.

Without hesitation, Basil pounded at one of the doors and there stood our prey in the aperture.  He had a huge frame, his head almost brushed the crossbar of the doorway and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to side, with his deep-set, bile-shot eyes under a pair of thick spectacles and the high, thin fleshless nose, below a huge, grizzled moustache, gave him an appearance of a fearsome bird.

"Mr. Stephan-Goddard, sir?" said Basil, who instantly fell into the role of a sweet and frail cleric.

The door slammed.

We glanced at each with the same puzzled expression.  Basil pounded the door again and it opened.

"My name is Reverend Ersatz and this is Dr. Doppler."

"A pleasure, sir," added I, with a thick Scottish accent.  "I've heard a great deal about you."

The door slammed again.

"If we could have a moment with you," Basil hollered, closely affront the door, "I could explain our mission?"

Silence.

"We are raising a subscription list, sir," he continued, loudly, "for a children's charity hospital!  You are a prominent resident here and we thought you might like to donate for our noble cause!"

"Aye, it's a fine cause, sir!" I shouted.  "I'm offering my educational services three days a week, and the Reverend here is donating his services, too!  Do think of the children, sir, whom are intricate our great future!"

Again, silence.

"All your neighbors have contributed to the cause, sir!  We just came from Baker Street, two of the residents there are most generous!  Sir?  Sir...?!"

The door opened and Stephan-Goddard demanded, disdainfully:  "Which residents of Baker Street?"

"Mr. Basil and a Dr. Dawson," I answered.  "They gave us cheques of five guineas each."

Stephan-Goddard clenched his fists as a frown crossed his face.  "They gave you ten guineas, did they?"

"Oh, yes," Basil continued, grinning with his false teeth.  "Very kind and generous gentlemen, Mr. Basil and the Doctor."

"We were proposing to name a ward in the hospital after them," I added, with a defiant nod.

Stephan-Goddard's lips curled disdainfully.  "Is this list of subscribers going to be published in the paper?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, sir.  The Globe, Pall Mall, Star, Echo—.”

"I'll give you twenty guineas!"

We both heaved a gasp and stared in a mock amazement.

"Oh, thank you, sir!" awed I, smiling my utmost in persiflage.  "Most magnanimous of you, sir!"

"Come into the study, gentlemen," snorted he, with a pretentious air.

As we followed his massive figure into the lion's den of a study, I could not help but move clumsily around the bric-à-brac, for the small room was garishly filled to the brim with Grecian Apollos and Renaissance Adonises. The walls hung the decadent portraits of a martyred St. Sebastian, his body, bound and bare, mutilated by multiple arrows, and a garlanded Emperor Elagabalus attempting to drown his bacchanal with a shower of rose petals, accompanied by a marble pair of the Trojan warriors Achilles and Patroclus at war that sat upon an orate table, alongside a helmeted bust of Alexander of Macedon.

"I'd offer you a seat, but you two shan't be here long."

"Oh, that's quite fine, sir," Basil twisted a smile at him.  "Thank you."

Our quarry sat at his opulent secretarial desk, his back to us.  As he unlocked his massive roll-top and retrieved his cheque-book, Basil raised his two fingers in the signal and I reached into my pockets for my hidden items, moving quietly behind him, with my arm poised.

"Gentlemen, whom do I make this cheque payable to?"

Before an answer was forthcoming, I was upon Stephan-Goddard, having poured the chloroform from a small vial into my handkerchief.  He struggled for a moment, his huge frame rising from the chair, lifting me effortlessly from the ground and dragging me with him, frantically kicking the empty air with my feet, but Basil held him steady with his hands.  Soon, his shoulders slumped forward and the entire body, with me atop of him, went limp and tottered flat to the floor with a clamorous thud, as the chloroform took effect.

"Very neat, Doctor," said Basil, a grin crossing his face.

The detective seemed to take no notice, as I checked his pulse.  He merely stepped over the unconscious figure and busied himself searching the drawers and compartments of the desk for the item in question.  He chuckled victoriously, his eyes gleaming with an almost maniacal zeal, as his long fingers lifted the ornate box from its hiding place.  It was decorated with tarnished filigree of a dull, discoloured metal, depicting a Hellenistic pastoral of twisting ivy and figures of warrior soldiers.  Then Basil's thumb slid to the latch and went to open the lid.  But I regained my feet and swiftly shut it, slapping his hand away.

"Don't open it!" hissed I.  "We promised we wouldn't!"

"But I just wish to make sure that—!"

However, Basil's reply was cut short by another voice that spoke from somewhere in the room:

"To make sure what was there, Basil of Baker Street?"

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