The Case of the Black Arrow-Chapter 5

Content Warning: This chapter contains sensitive topics that are mentioned but not outright depicted, but for the sake of my readers' well-being, I am putting a warning here. Please tread carefully if you're triggered by things like child abuse, murder, and attempted murder.

The wait for Sister Bernadette’s letter telling us more about The Black Arrow, or rather, Miss Artemis Fletcher, was agonizing, especially for Basil. For the first week, he was more agitated than he normally was, and became so snappish that I, not wanting to be on the receiving end of his short temper, took to avoiding him. It was quite a stroke of convenience that I had a string of house calls during that time, otherwise being in Basil’s company would have been unbearable.

The weather gradually became warmer as summer rolled around, bringing with it slightly more sunshine and longer days, though this did nothing to alleviate the tension in our home. The anniversary of Ratigan’s demise occurred the following week. I didn’t notice until I realized Basil had not come out of his room all day and I checked the date on that day’s newspaper. I went upstairs to check if he was all right, but he did not answer his bedroom door when I knocked. I decided the best thing to do was to just leave him be, and go about my business until he came out of his melancholy on his own.

In the interim, the newspapers were filled with articles about The Black Arrow. Some were speculations about who the man was (oh, if they only knew!), but most were about recent incidents of Miss Fletcher bringing down more criminals. It seemed the events at the printery did nothing to deter the woman from her cause. I was still reeling from the revelation that the person who had London in a tizzy, the person who brought people who hurt children to justice with such violent efficiency was, in fact, a woman. In hindsight, it made sense. The Greek goddess for which I was sure Miss Fletcher was named was a protector of children, which explained why all her victims were victimizers of children. The rage she brought upon those men was certainly reminiscent of a Greek god. When I expressed my surprise to Basil (before his mood had deteriorated) that a woman could be filled with so much rage, he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Rage? Of course women have that”. There was one positive outcome of Miss Fletcher’s presence in London: criminal activity of all kinds had decreased immensely. People were too afraid of encountering The Black Arrow to risk committing a crime. Not that I agreed with Miss Fletcher’s methods, but she was making the good folk of London feel safer, and to me, that did count for something.

Pine visited from time to time, every few days or so, to keep us up to date on new evidence The Black Arrow left and to ask us about any breakthroughs. Strangely, Basil failed to divulge Miss Fletcher’s identity, only telling Pine that we were following a lead and would tell him if anything came of it. When I asked Basil about it, he told me (rather impatiently) that if Pine knew who The Black Arrow was, he wouldn’t be able to do anything with that information, so what was the point in telling him until we ourselves knew more? Instead of arguing that Pine was part of this investigation too and had a right to know what we had discovered, I stormed off to my room, asking Mrs. Judson to bring me a pot of a tea when she had a moment. Later that night, Basil knocked on my door wanting to talk. He apologized for his behavior over the last two weeks, telling me that what Miss Fletcher had said about him had gotten under his fur, and he knew she was right. I did my best to comfort him, telling him that while he had his faults, and he had many, he was a good mouse who worked tirelessly in pursuit of justice. The words of a dangerous vigilante shouldn't affect him so. Basil’s reply was a simple thank you, and he took his leave of my room. His mood went back to a more pleasant level after that.

Finally, at the end of the month, marking just over three weeks of waiting and wondering, we received a large envelope from Sister Bernadette with the afternoon post . Basil opened it eagerly with all the vigor of an excited child on Christmas. Once the letter was out, Basil flipped through the sheets, as there were many, and his expression turned perplexed.

“What is it, Basil?” I questioned.

“Dawson, there are two letters here. One is from Sister Bernadette, obviously, and the other,” his eyes darted down to the bottom of the letter before widening ever so slightly, “is from Miss Fletcher’s adoptive father, Professor Fletcher”.

He quickly skimmed through Sister Bernadette’s letter before handing it off to me and reading Professor Fletcher’s. I have to say, both letters gave us quite the insight into Miss Fletcher’s life, shedding new light on who she was as a young girl. I have included the contents of both letters below. Sister Bernadette’s is first, followed by Professor Fletcher’s:

Dear Detective Basil,

I pray this letter finds you well. I must admit I was surprised when I received your telegram, but I knew Ursula was the mouse you were looking for the moment I read the description. We discovered her on October 21, 1875. An English protestant like yourself most likely doesn’t know, but this is the feast day of Saint Ursula, who is a patron saint of orphans. It seemed appropriate, so that is what we named her. That girl had the devil in her from the start. Far too clever for her own good, and just as disobedient; so much so that if I or the other sisters managed to get her to listen to a command we considered it a miracle from the Lord. We tried to instill good Catholic values in Ursula and mold her into a prim and proper young lady, just as we do with all the girls who come through our doors, but she would have none of it. Boys come through this orphanage as well, and Ursula would frequently attack the ones who teased her and the other children, especially the younger ones. She never wanted to wear dresses, never wanted to sit still and be quiet, never had an interest in modesty or grace or any feminine qualities. Her favorite pass time was skipping her lessons, donning trousers and shirts meant for boys, and whiling away the hours in the Baltimore city library reading books about subjects no young lady has any business knowing about, like science and law. Any attempts to alter her behavior were in vain, including regular beatings, but any punishment we doled out upon her only seemed to make her more determined to rebel. This continued up until the day she was adopted. Imagine our surprise when Professor Fletcher and his wife, Edith, a well-to-do couple, came in from one of the universities looking to adopt, and chose Ursula of all people. We warned them that she was a difficult child, and told them that there were plenty of better behaved children they could make part of their family, but they saw something in Ursula that we here at the orphanage did not, so they took her home that day. That was in March of 1888. We never heard from her again after that.

I am afraid that I must admit, if Ursula is in trouble with the law, I am not the least bit surprised. May the Lord forgive me for thinking ill of another. That girl always had a blatant disregard for how society operates, and this came as no shock to any of us here at St. Vincent’s. I do find it odd that she is in trouble overseas, as I have no idea what business she would have in a place as far away as London. That is why I contacted Professor Fletcher. I told him about your telegram asking for information about Ursula. He informed me that she had changed her name to Artemis during the adoption process, and that he would compose his own letter to you right away. I’m hoping that both my letter and his give you what you need and that you can locate Ursula (or whatever she’s calling herself now). The sooner you can get that girl away from polite society, the better.

May God be with you in this endeavor. I pray you succeed with all haste.

In Christ,
Sister Bernadette

oOo

Detective,

My name is Professor James Fletcher, and I teach Ancient Civilizations at Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore. I am writing this letter to you at the request of Sister Bernadette of St. Vincent’s Infant Asylum. It comes as quite a shock that a detective in London is interested in my daughter and wants to know more about her, as Sister Bernadette informed me when she showed up at my living quarters to show me your telegram. Truth be told, I’m not sure where to start. You weren’t specific in your telegram. I suppose the beginning would be best.

My wife, Edith, and I adopted our daughter, Artemis, on March 7, 1888. Why did we adopt? Well, you see, Edith and I are an interspecies couple: I am an Eastern woodrat and she an Eastern chipmunk, and so it is impossible for us to have biological children of our own. We had been married for some time, and enjoyed our time spent as “just us”, but it was always our dream to be parents one day. When we walked into St. Vincent’s, and all the children were presented to us, Artemis (or perhaps I should refer to her as Ursula, since that was still her name at that point) stood out from the rest. She was the only black mouse there, and taller than most of the other children. But what really caught my attention were her eyes, not just because of their unusual color, but because of the way she was looking at my wife and I: so intensely curious, like if she stared at us long enough she could discover our deepest secrets. I knew I had to speak to her, so I walked up to her and introduced myself. She seemed interested in my profession, and surprised me by asking who I felt was in the right during the Trojan War in Greek mythology. Can you believe that? Most of the students I teach don’t even think to ponder such a thing! And this twelve-year-old girl is asking my opinion on the matter. I told her both sides had valid points in their reasoning, and if it had been clear on right versus wrong, there wouldn’t have been a war to begin with. She smiled and said I was right. It was strange. There I was, presented with a group of children to pick out which one I wanted to raise with my wife, and this child had made me feel like I had just passed some sort of test. It was then that I knew she was the child for us. Edith had her doubts. She thought something about Ursula was off-putting, but didn’t know in what way, but I had already made up my mind. Have you ever met someone, and just knew in your heart that they were meant to be in your life? That was how I felt about Ursula, and I told Sister Bernadette that I wanted to fill out the paperwork immediately. While doing so, there is a section to put the child’s new name, and Ursula asked if she could change her first name as well as her last. I asked why, and she said she never felt like an Ursula and never cared for the name all that much. So I asked what name she wanted. After thinking about it for a few moments, she said she had been reading a lot about Greek mythology and her favorite Olympian was Artemis. I agreed, so her name was changed from Ursula St. Vincent to Artemis Fletcher, though the former she kept as a middle name at Edith’s suggestion. We took her back home with us to our apartment at Notre Dame that same day.

Before the adoption process was underway, Sister Bernadette tried to sway us from adopting Artie, warning us that she was some sort of unbreakable devil child, but I can tell you that she thrived in our care. I don’t think there could have been a better environment for my daughter than a university. Despite the social limitations placed upon her because of her sex, Artie managed to charm several professors into not only allowing her to attend their lectures, but also to participate in them, effectively demonstrating her superior intelligence to those around her. Needless to say, she wasn’t very popular with the attending students, who felt her place was not in their classroom, but any attempts to intimidate or discourage her were unsuccessful. Artie has never had a problem defending herself in any capacity. She’s a driven woman, and once she decides that she wants something, there is no stopping her. Some might say that, as her father, I should have snuffed out this behavior in her, but I disagree. I feel that my role as a parent is to foster and nurture my child’s passions, and teach her right from wrong, not suffocate everything that makes her special.  Artie is bright, witty, perceptive, clever, and kind. Her mother and I genuinely like the person that she is, and we don’t think she needs to change.

That isn’t to say that things were perfect in our household. My daughter has many positive qualities, but she has her fair share of shortcomings: she’s stubborn, sarcastic, impatient, cunning, combative, short-tempered. I could go on. Discipling her proved difficult. Corporal punishment didn’t work (we only tried it once. I could write a whole letter about that incident on its own. For brevity, I will tell you there is still a dent in our living room wall that Edith cringes at whenever she sees it). After much trial and error, we found that the most successful method of correcting her behavior was to get to the root of the problem, logically explain why her actions were wrong, and lay out a reasonable course of action for her to follow should the circumstances present themselves again. An example I can give is during her mid-teens, she kept getting into fights with the students. She’d come home with black eyes and bloody noses all the time. We tried taking privileges away from her and restricting when she could go out, but the fighting didn’t stop. In exasperation, I asked her why she couldn’t just walk away, and, hesitatingly, she admitted that some of my students had been bad-mouthing mine and Edith’s marriage, about how unnatural it was. Artemis had been defending us. Touched as we were, causing harm to others was unacceptable. We told her that it was natural to be angry when someone you love is insulted by someone who doesn’t understand, but if a student or faculty or anyone said anything offensive about our family again, to come to us, and we would take care of it. Artemis didn’t get into another fight for a long time after that.

Alas, Artie’s fighting days weren’t at a complete end. On the day of her 18th birthday in 1893, Edith and I were summoned to the dean’s office. To our utter horror, we found out that Artie had gotten into a fight with the dean’s son, Henry Duvall, and roughed him up quite badly. She’d broken his nose, dislocated his shoulder, and knocked out three of his teeth. Artie hadn’t come away uninjured; the left side of her face was a swollen, bloody mess. Neither of them spoke a word about what happened. The dean, of course, was furious, and demanded that Artie be “dealt with” or I would be “dealt with”, tenure be damned. We dragged our daughter back to our apartment and demanded to know what happened. The story she told us was that she had been leaving one of Professor Doppler’s astronomy lectures, when Henry unexpectedly pulled her into an empty classroom. Something you need to understand before I go further is that Artemis and Henry are about the same age, and Henry has been infatuated with my daughter since the day he met her. Artie was uninterested, caring more for her education than her relationships. But, it seemed, Henry would take her rejection no longer, and tried to strong-arm her into courting him. When she again refused him, he attacked her, resulting in the injuries to her face. She insisted that what she did to him was in self defense. I questioned how she even learned to do that in the first place, and she said that she befriended the Japanese History professor, a Japanese dormouse named Ren Saito, and he had agreed to teach her jujitsu, a martial art in which he had extensive training. Artie said she thought it would be a better outlet for her anger than fighting other people. I have to say, if there was ever a time I was glad my daughter knew how to fight, it was then, but there was still the matter of the dean, who we knew wouldn’t punish his own son for the incident. We were quite lost on what to do.

The answer came the next morning while Artie was reading the newspaper. There was an ad requesting a governess for three young girls located in Glasgow, Scotland. Their father, Lord Baron Brody McGregor, was looking for a highly educated woman to look after his daughters, and Artie felt like it was a perfect solution for our troubles. Many people are surprised to learn this, but Artie is excellent with children. She always seems to know how to handle them, and they adore her. They practically flock to her. Artie spent many a day looking after the younger children of the university’s professors when she wasn’t studying. I suspect that’s partly how she convinced them to allow her in their lectures. But, really, Glasgow? It seemed so far away. But Artie pointed out that there weren’t any alternatives available to us, and she didn’t want me paying for her mistake. Edith and I discussed it, and we came to the conclusion maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Artie would be “dealt with” in a way that would satisfy the dean, and Artie would get to travel and experience something new. My wife and I also hoped that this would make Artie mature a bit and teach her some responsibility. So, we told Artie she could go. She just smiled and said good, because the newspaper she’d shown us was an old one. She had sent a resume weeks ago and had already received an acceptance letter. Honestly, Edith and I weren’t surprised.

She left early November of 1893. At first we received regular letters from her. Things were going well. Lord McGregor’s daughters liked Artie, and she in turn was quite fond of them. She liked the baron, his wife, and the other staff members well enough, but mentioned everyone in the house acted strangely. She assumed it was a cultural difference. Two years into her employment, we stopped hearing from her. We tried sending letters, but they were all returned. It’s been over three years since Artie’s last letter, and Edith and I feared the worst, until Sister Bernadette showed up, though, truthfully, I can’t say your telegram eased our fears.

Detective Basil, I am entreating you as a father scared for his daughter, if Artemis is in trouble, I am begging you to do whatever you can to help her. I love my daughter more than anything in this world, and I don’t want anything bad happening to her. She may not be my flesh and blood, but there are some bonds that go deeper than that. Even if she is the instigator in whatever you’re investigating, there is reason and logic and purpose behind everything she does, and I ask that you bear that in mind when dealing with her. If and when you find her, please alert me. It has been so long since we heard from her, and would put my mind at ease to know that she is in safe hands.

I hope that what I have written here helps you, and that you find my daughter as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Prof. James Fletcher

oOo

Both Basil and I sat in silence long after we finished reading the letters to mull over their contents. It was clear that something catastrophic must have happened in Glasgow if Miss Fletcher was here in London brutalizing criminals instead of in Scotland taking care of three little girls.

“Dawson, do you know who Lord McGregor was?” Basil asked.

My friend’s use of the past tense brought my thoughts back to the present, “Was? I’m afraid I can’t say that I do”.

“I didn’t think so. You were serving in Afghanistan when it happened and probably never heard about it”.

“Heard about what, Basil? Stop speaking so cryptically,” I chided.

Basil was holding Professor Fletcher’s letter, gazing at it contemplatively, “Brody McGregor was an influential person in the Scottish nobility,” he looked up to meet my eyes, “he’s dead, Dawson, and so is his family”.

My mouth fell open in shock, “Wh--what? How?”

“An apparent murder-suicide. It happened at the time Professor Fletcher says he stopped hearing from his daughter. I’m afraid I don’t know too much about it. The news coverage of the incident was superficial at best. But to hear the vigilante we have been after was once employed by the baron is interesting indeed”.

“Basil,” I said, greatly disturbed by this information, “you don’t think Miss Fletcher is responsible for their deaths, do you?”

My friend stroked his chin in thought, “I don’t think so, Doctor. I think if she had, she would have disappeared, never to be heard from again. But she’s dedicating herself to defending children from those who want to hurt them. That doesn’t make sense if she killed a whole family”.

“Atoning out of remorse, perhaps?” I suggested.

Basil hummed in thought, “No. A person may feel remorse if they kill one person, but someone who goes through the effort of killing an entire family isn’t the type to feel remorseful about it. Something else is going on here”.

“What do you suggest we do next?”

“Wait here,” Basil said, standing up from the armchair and walking over to the coat tree, “it just so happens that I know someone in the Glasgow police force. I’m going to send him a telegram. See if he knows anything”. He threw on his coat and Inverness, and was out the door before I could protest.

I could only hope a reply reached us in a more timely fashion than Sister Bernadette’s.

Mercifully, we heard back from Basil’s police friend a few days later. He’d sent us a package containing official police statements and, surprisingly, a journal penned by Miss Fletcher herself detailing her time in Lord McGregor’s employ. I decided to go through the journal, leaving Basil to enthusiastically dive into the police documents, eager to get to the root of the mystery.

The truth, we discovered, was so much more horrific than we ever thought possible.

Miss Fletcher did indeed leave for Glasgow on November 3, 1893, and arrived sometime in mid-December. The girls she was hired to look after, Regina, Katherine, and Joanna, took to her immediately, and to Miss Fletcher, the feeling was mutual. The three sisters were bright, sweet, and well-behaved, but Miss Fletcher noticed they were quite skittish around their father and the butler, and very reserved around their mother, Lady Baroness Agnes McGregor. Everyone else on the staff, she observed, acted a little odd. They weren’t particularly welcoming or friendly, and many of them were very sneaky and secretive. When Miss Fletcher asked about it, she was told not to worry about it. She came to the conclusion that’s just how Scots are.

This went on for months, and the girls kept getting more and more withdrawn and depressed. Then, eight months into her stay, she discovered why everyone was acting the way they were. I dare not say it too plainly here, only that Miss Fletcher found out that Lord McGregor was abusing his daughters in the worst way possible, and allowing the butler to join in. She made the discovery after accidentally walking in on the two mice with Katherine, the middle daughter. Miss Fletcher confronted the baroness, desperate to know how a mother could abide her husband doing that to her children. The baroness, a timid woman of weak fortitude, feigned ignorance and continued to do nothing. Miss Fletcher’s journal entries at this point are sad and despairing. She wasn’t in a good position to do much of anything; removing the girls from the home at that time wasn’t a viable option, and neither was confronting the baron. Miss Fletcher resolved to gather as much evidence as she could, and document any incidences in hopes of being able to turn everything over to the authorities. In the meantime, she vowed to make the girls’ lives as pleasant as possible, a feat not easily accomplished, but it seemed she managed as best she could, and it was something the children appreciated. They showed their gratitude in the form of the necklace that was found at the printery. The girls had given it to Miss Fletcher as a birthday gift. It was something she deeply treasured, and served to motivate her further to get the children out of the household.

It took over a year to get everything she wanted into place. She’d collected a sufficient amount of evidence to go to the police; she’d convinced the baroness to leave with the children. They picked a day to enact their plan. That morning, however, Miss Fletcher came upon a disturbing and traumatizing sight. The McGregors lived in a human house, much the way Basil and I do, and it was inhabited by a cat, and armed with mousetraps. Everyone in the McGregor household knew not to go near either of those things. The morning Miss Fletcher was going to abscond with the girls and their mother, she found them missing from their rooms. Fearing the worst, Miss Fletcher ventured to the human part of the house where she discovered the baroness snapped in a mousetrap near the entryway. She alerted one of the staff members to call the police, and went further into the house, staying in the shadows to hide from the humans, cautiously making her way to where she knew the cat normally sleeps. As she suspected, the scene that met her when she found the feline was a grisly one indeed. There in the cat’s quarters were the mangled remains of the three little girls. To say that Miss Fletcher was traumatized and devastated would be a vast understatement.

The last entry in Miss Fletcher’s journal was written the day of the funeral for the baroness and the children. I have included it below:

Gina, Kathy, and Jo, along with Lady McGregor, were laid to rest today at the Necropolis. I couldn’t begin to tell you who attended, or what the weather was like, or even at what plots their graves are located. Too deep was my grief. This event has affected me more profoundly than anything in my life up to now, and I don’t think anything will ever drown out the cacophony of this loss. I truly believe that something within me withered and died along with my girls, and is now buried with them. May God forgive me for not being able to save them.

It only got worse when Basil handed me the police documents. According to the statements, Lord McGregor summoned Miss Fletcher to his study the evening after the funeral. He admitted to Miss Fletcher that it was he who killed his family. Lady McGregor had come to him the night before her death and revealed the plan to leave, telling him that he would never be able to hurt their daughters ever again. Fearing for his reputation, he enacted his own plan to dispose of them and make it look like an accident. Consumed with rage over Miss Fletcher’s part in what had transpired, he set in motion the final part of his plan to dispatch her. He produced a gun, and a struggle ensued between them. As they fought for control of the gun, it went off, mortally wounding Lord McGregor, leaving Miss Fletcher with a literal smoking gun in her hand. The police had to be called again, and to clear her name of any wrongdoing, Miss Fletcher explained what happened and presented the evidence she had collected about Lord McGregor’s illicit activities with his daughters. The police didn’t believe her at first, but the evidence was overwhelming. A few brave staff members, free of Lord McGregor’s intimidating influence, confirmed Miss Fletcher’s story, and so she wasn’t charged with any crime.

I didn’t have the heart to read what was left of the report.

Basil was still reading through Miss Fletcher’s journal (there was more of it than there was of the police reports), so while I waited for him to finish, I went into the kitchen and asked Mrs. Judson to put the kettle on. A good, hot cup of tea was just what we needed to soothe our frazzled nerves.

“You know, Basil, when we first started this case, I never thought things would turn out this way,” I said when I returned to my armchair.

“Nor did I, Doctor,” replied Basil. To an untrained ear, his tone would have sounded neutral, but I knew better. My friend may have attempted to maintain some level of emotional detachment when investigating a case, but there are some atrocities in this world that one can’t help but be affected by, and this affected Basil. I could see it in the rigid way he was sitting, and how there was no longer a manic gleam in his eyes. There was a sadness in him, just as there was in me.

“What I still don’t understand is why Miss Fletcher is in London,” I mused. “After what she endured, you would think she would have gone home”.

Basil’s gaze met mine, studying me for a moment before flicking his eyes to the police documents on the little side table next to my chair, and then meeting mine once again, “She’s after the butler,” he said simply.

“The butler? I thought they would have arrested him, considering his part in everything”.

Sighing, Basil said, “If you’d finished reading the report, you’d know that he absconded between Lord McGregor getting shot and the police arriving”.

I scowled at my friend and picked up the report. Of course, the last bit I had skipped over outlined the butler’s escape. Looking at his name, I narrowed my eyes.

“Dougal Campbell? Why does that name sound familiar?”

“His name and information were on the wall in Miss Fletcher’s hideout, remember? It said she suspected him of trafficking, but I think she’s following him to dole out revenge,” he rested his chin in his hand, and a look of deep contemplation passed over his face. It must have been a testament to our time spent together, because I immediately knew where his train of thought was going.

“You think Miss Fletcher intentionally shot the baron”.

“She had every reason to,” Basil asserted, “Lord McGregor killed his wife and daughters; they were people Miss Fletcher clearly cared deeply for. Add to that, we have testimonials from those who raised her that she had fight in her from a young age that she channeled into defending others. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to believe that in her grief and rage, she was capable of murder. You must admit, Dawson, the notion is more plausible than the gun happening to accidentally go off”.

“There’s no way to know for sure, though,” I pointed out. “Any proof is long gone by now, and I doubt Miss Fletcher would be willing to tell us what really happened, assuming we can find her again, that is”.

“Yes. That will be a trick, won’t it? She knows we’re looking for her now, and will be more cautious to avoid being found. But fear not, Dawson! If we could locate her once, we can do it again,” Basil looked down at the journal in his lap and then over at the police reports on my side table, “Come, Dawson, let’s get these things packed up. They belong with the Glasgow police, and I’m sure they’ll want their evidence back posthaste”.

Basil walked over to the bureau and procured an empty parcel from one of the drawers. As he came back to his chair, he stopped suddenly in his tracks looking most perplexed.

“Did you hear that?” he asked, turning his head toward the door.

I had no idea what he was talking about, having heard nothing, and told him so. “It’s probably nothing”.

My friend did not seem convinced. He mumbled, “I’m certain I heard--” and then I heard it too. Voices, or rather, laughter, villainous and gruff, and what sounded like scuffling outside.

In a flash, Basil dashed for the door. I quickly rose to follow him, fearing what the blackguards would do if he confronted them by himself.

I had reached the steps that lead to the door when I heard Basil shout, “Dawson! Get out here at once!”

The stricken tone of his voice made me move double-time out the door and onto the open sidewalk. It was nearly dark, and no humans were about to notice our presence. I found Basil kneeling beside the prone form of a mouse. My heart skipped a beat when I realized who it was. Black clothes and black fur. It wasn’t difficult to identify Miss Fletcher as the one lying unconscious in front of our flat. The soft glow of the streetlamp failed to provide enough light for me to get a proper look, but I could see that her right cheek was swollen, and the fur on her face and neck was wet with what I could only assume was blood.

“Those scoundrels must have beaten her and then carried her here. But why?” Basil wondered angrily while I checked Miss Fletcher for further injuries. In the dim light, my hand found a wet tear in her jumper below her ribcage, and I could only make a small groan of worry when my hand came back drenched in an alarming amount of Miss Fletcher’s blood.

“Nevermind why!” I shouted at Basil. “Help me get her inside. Now!” In that moment I was no longer Doctor David Dawson; I was Major David Q. Dawson, doctor in the queen’s sixty-sixth regiment, and there would be negative repercussions for Miss Fletcher if I didn’t treat her immediately.

Together, Basil and I lifted Miss Fletcher carefully, trying not to jostle her too much as we carried back inside.

Poor child, I thought as I looked at her battered face. What on earth happened to you?