Basil and the Library Ghost
Page 4
Rupert leaped forward, trying to smother the flames with his jacket. But he succeeded only in setting one of the sleeves ablaze.
“We need water!” someone exclaimed.
There was a hubbub of shouts and rushing around as everyone tried to find something to douse the flames. I found myself knocked nearly off my feet by Clive as he stampeded past in search of help.
As I leaned briefly against a bookshelf, catching my breath after the shove, a faint voice tickled my ears: “Behind the desk,” it said.
I blinked, wondering if the shove had affected my mind and caused me to hallucinate.
Then it came again, more urgently this time: “Behind the desk!”
I pushed myself upright and rushed toward the librarian’s desk. When I skidded around it, I gasped.
“Over here!” I shouted. “There’s a big bucket of water—help me lift it!”
I grabbed the mop that was standing in the bucket and tossed it aside. By then, Cyril had arrived to help. The two of us hoisted the heavy bucket and carried it over to the fire. It was spreading fast, and for a moment I despaired, fearing we were too late. But Cyril was counting down—“Three, two, one, go!”—and I did my part, helping him splash the contents of the bucket over the burning books.
There was a great sizzling and hissing, and black smoke burst upward as the water doused the flames. A few books were still burning at the edges, but we were able to grab those, toss them onto the floor, and stomp out the rest of the fire.
“Whew!” Cedric exclaimed, mopping his brow. “That was close.”
Rupert nodded and looked around. “With all these books and wooden shelves, the whole library could’ve gone up in flames before long!”
“The whole campus!” Clive pointed out. “What was to stop it from spreading?”
“It’s lucky we were here,” someone else called out.
Cyril snorted. “If we hadn’t been here, the fire wouldn’t have started,” he pointed out.
“Maybe not now,” the natural sciences professor countered. “But anything could’ve set off that phosphorus. As Cedric mentioned, it’s terribly unstable.”
“Yes.” Rupert nodded grimly. “Which is why we’d agreed not to use it in our prank, tempting as it might have been.” He looked around. “None of us went back on that, did we?”
“Not me!” Clive exclaimed, while Cedric and Cyril added their own assurances that they hadn’t been the purveyors of the pawprints.
“Then where did those prints come from?” someone wondered.
I shrugged. “Perhaps Basil has a theory for…” I allowed my words to trail off as I glanced around and saw no sign of my friend. “Basil?”
14 TRACKING BASIL
THE OTHERS STARTED LOOKING AROUND too. “Where’d Basil go?” Rupert asked.
“Perhaps he’s out looking for more help,” someone suggested.
I frowned. “It’s not like Basil to go missing when trouble is afoot,” I said. “If he’s gone, he must have had an urgent reason to leave.”
“But what could be more urgent than a fire?” Cyril wondered.
I glanced around, then smiled. “Aha!” I exclaimed, pointing at a set of wet pawprints leading toward the door. “If we follow those, I suspect we’ll find out.”
Rupert smiled. “Well done, Dawson.”
“I haven’t been the best friend and constant companion of the world’s greatest detective all these years for nothing.” I grinned, but it faded quickly as I returned to wondering where Basil had gone. “Now let’s follow them!”
I took the lead, keeping my gaze on the wet pawprints on the clean wooden floor. They led through the archway, across the front room, and out the door. Outside, it was darker and a bit harder to see, but I was able to follow the prints as they turned and headed down the walkway.
And soon it wasn’t necessary to follow the pawprints any longer, as I spotted the mouse who’d left them. Basil was just ahead, outside the museum’s front doors—locked in paw-to-paw combat with two other mice!
I gasped as I recognized both of Basil’s adversaries, each of them surprising in a different way. For one of them was Alfie, who had seemed so friendly, meek, and mild but who was now punching at Basil like a wild thing.
And the second… was Professor Ratigan!
Basil’s old nemesis let out a shout as he saw us coming. “Quickly, away!” he yelled at Alfie. “Hurry!”
Basil glanced around and saw us too. “Help me stop them!” he cried to us. “They’re trying to steal the treasures!”
I gasped as I looked where he was pointing and saw boxes, bags, and crates set upon a hand truck. “Quickly!” I yelled to the others as I sprinted forward.
Alfie gave Basil one last shove, then darted away and grabbed a bag stuffed with what appeared to be ancient tapestries. Then he took off down the walkway.
“Not so fast!” cried Clive, who had been an excellent amateur hurdler in our university days. Apparently, he hadn’t lost all of his speed, for he soon caught up to and tackled Alfie, who went down with a grunt, the tapestries spilling out onto the ground.
“Guard the valuables!” someone shouted. “Don’t let them make off with anything else!”
Several of our friends gathered around the handcart. Basil strode toward Ratigan, who now stood sneering nearby.
“You might as well give yourself up, Ratigan,” Basil said. “There’s no way you can elude all of us.”
Ratigan looked around at us. Then he smirked. “Are you sure about that, Basil?” he said.
Quick as a wink, he pulled something out of his cloak. I gasped when I saw what it was—a pair of white phosphorus matches!
“You!” I cried. “Basil, Ratigan must have left those prints in the library.”
“Keep up, Dawson,” Basil said grimly. “Ratigan, don’t you dare—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. Ratigan scraped the matches against each other. As they burst into flames, he tossed one at the pile of valuables—and the other straight at Basil!
There was a moment of frenzy as most of our group stomped out the fire before it could set any of the valuables alight. Meanwhile, Rupert, Cyril, and I rushed to Basil, helping him rip off his jacket and stomp out the flame that was already turning the fine tweed fabric to ash.
“Never mind my coat!” Basil cried. “Stop him—stop Ratigan!”
But by then it was already too late. Ratigan was gone—and though we immediately launched a search, he was nowhere to be found on campus.
15 HURRAH, HURRAH!
LATER, WE ALL GATHERED BACK in the Faculty Club to finish our meal and discuss the night’s adventures. Basil explained that he’d suspected young Alfie all along of being up to no good.
“But how?” I exclaimed as I helped myself to a bit of crumbly Greek Feta. “He seemed so nice on the train.”
“Indeed.” Basil nodded. “But he showed a bit too much interest in Ratigan’s escape, not to mention knowledge of my own sleuthing exploits.”
Rupert chuckled. “You must be used to that by now, Basil,” he said. “Many mice the world over follow your exploits with all the raptness with which they might read a favorite novel by Mr. Dickens or Mr. Thackeray.”
“Perhaps so.” A shadow of a smile crossed Basil’s face. “Nevertheless, it seemed odd that a poor church mouse would have such immediate knowledge of certain details about Ratigan’s escape from prison only hours earlier… unless that mouse was actually Ratigan’s accomplice!”
I gasped, remembering the newspaper headline: RATIGAN AND ACCOMPLICE ESCAPE NEWGATE PRISON. I also recalled Alfie telling us that it had taken the guards several hours to notice the escape. He’d claimed to have overheard that information at the train station—but now it seemed that had been a lie to cover his slip of the tongue. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but then again, I wasn’t a world-famous detective—merely the best friend of one.
“Did you really guess that so quickly, Basil?” I asked.
“Perhaps not,” Basil replied. “But as I said, I had my suspicions that the lad was up to something. Especially when he mentioned the great fortune and coincidence of not one but two museum guards having so recently quit, vacating the job just when he appeared to ask for it.”
“You mean Ratigan was behind that?” Cyril asked.
Basil nodded. “I expect when we track down the original guards, we’ll find that they were bribed or threatened into quitting.”
“That way Ratigan could install his accomplice, Alfie, in the job so it would be easier to figure out a way to abscond with the treasures,” I said. “Brilliant reasoning, Basil!”
“But it must have confounded him when he learned from young Alfie that you were so close on the scene, Basil,” Rupert added.
“I expect so.” Basil shrugged with his usual lack of false modesty. “That must be why he didn’t strike more immediately.”
Clive shook his head. “Even so, it was a risk for him to attempt that heist with you around.”
“Yes, I’m surprised he didn’t simply wait until you’d departed back to London,” Cedric said.
“I expect he planned to do exactly that.” Basil speared a chunk of cheddar from the platter in the center of the table, examining it thoughtfully. “That’s why I decided to bring things to a head—by whispering to young Alfie about our plans for this evening, including my plan to lead everyone to the library from our dinner.”
I gasped again, this time recalling the way Basil had stopped to whisper something into Alfie’s ear on our way to dinner. At the time, I’d been resentful toward my friend for keeping secrets. But now I realized he’d had a plan in mind all along!
“So in that way, you let Alfie—and thus Ratigan—know exactly where you would be, and when,” I said. “They would have been hidden inside the museum, waiting to see us march past on our way to the library. Knowing we would be busy for the next few minutes at least, they would then take advantage of the perfect moment for their heist.…”
“Which I planned to interrupt.” Basil grimaced. “However, I failed to take into account Ratigan’s extra insurance plan—to plant those phosphorescent prints, keeping us busy saving the library from fiery destruction.”
Clive looked up from his soup. “Alfie was sneering about that when we were dragging him off to the constable,” he said. “He said Ratigan was proud of that trick, since he thought we’d all gone ghost-crazy—including Basil. He seemed to relish the idea of making Basil look foolish with his phony phosphorescent pawprints.”
I smiled fondly at my old friend. “Not much chance of that,” I commented. “Basil was one step ahead of the rest of us—as always.”
“Hear! Hear!” Rupert raised his glass, and the others did likewise, toasting Basil’s cleverness and diligence.
Cedric chuckled. “We should have known you’d never fall for our ghostly escapades, Basil.”
“Indeed you should have,” Basil replied. “I know better than to believe in silly tales good only for scaring small children.”
I hesitated, wondering if I should mention the faint voice that had guided me toward the librarian’s desk during the fire. No other mouse had been close enough to whisper in my ear. Besides that, none of our group had any way of knowing about that hidden bucket of water. So who had really sent me to fetch it—thus saving the library?
A sudden image flashed through my mind—a scholarly looking older mouse, spectacles sliding down his nose and books tucked beneath one stout arm. Just like the portrait of Whiskers the Wise on the library wall. I shivered, thinking back to that whispery voice, that strangely chilly breeze tickling my fur. Could it be…?
Meanwhile, Basil didn’t seem as pleased as he might have been by the accolades. “One thing didn’t go according to plan,” he said. “Ratigan remains at large.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll take care of that soon enough.” Rupert reached for another cracker. “At least you’ve thwarted his current criminal plans.”
I nodded. “He’s sure to make a mistake soon enough—criminals always do. Isn’t that what you always tell me, Basil?”
He allowed that it was, indeed, a common comment from him. “It’s one of the principles I learned from Mr. Holmes,” he added. “And you’re right, of course. I’ll make sure Ratigan ends up where he belongs—back in prison with Alfie!”
“That’s right,” Rupert said. “In the meantime, the library and the museum exhibit are saved.…”
“The ghost mystery is solved…,” Cyril continued.
I smiled. “And it’s time to relax and celebrate a fine reunion—and an even finer dinner—with a very fine group of mice!”
This time we all lifted our glasses, with Basil leading us in a chorus of “Hurrah, Ratcliffe! Hurrah, hurrah!”
More from this Series
Basil of Baker Street
Book 1
Basil and the Cave of…
Book 2
Basil in Mexico
Book 3
Basil in the Wild West
Book 4
Basil and the Lost…
Book 5
Basil and the Big Cheese…
Book 6
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eve Titus (1908–2002) was the author of many children’s books, including those about the French cheesetasting mouse Anatole. Born and raised in New York City, she lived in Mexico, California, and Italy. A professional concert pianist, her two great loves were writing and music. Of Basil of Baker Street, Adrian M. Conan Doyle, son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote to the author, “May I offer you my heart-felt congratulations. It is simply a wonderful creation, and I can assure you that my father would have reveled in every page.” The book was also made into a Disney movie, The Great Mouse Detective, in 1986. Numerous Sherlockian collectors prize the Basil mysteries, which include Basil of Baker Street, Basil and the Cave of Cats (originally published as Basil and the Pygmy Cats), Basil in Mexico, Basil in the Wild West, and Basil and the Lost Colony.
Cathy Hapka has written many books for young readers. She lives on a small farm in Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.
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Basil’s adventures!
Basil of Baker Street
Basil and the Cave of Cats
Basil in Mexico
Basil in the Wild West
Basil and the Lost Colony
Basil and the Big Cheese Cook-Off
Basil and the Royal Dare
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin hardcover edition May 2020
Text copyright © 2020 by Estate of Eve Titus
Illustrations copyright © 2020 by David Mottram
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hapka, Cathy, author. | Mottram, Dave, illustrator. | Titus, Eve, creator.
Title: Basil and the library ghost / created by Eve Titus ; written by Cathy Hapka ; illustrated by David Mottram.
Description: First Aladdin hardcover/paperback edition. | New York : Aladdin Books, 2020. | Series: The great mouse detective ; book 8 | Audience: Ages 6 to 9. | Audience: Grades 2-3. | Summary: When Basil of Baker Street and Dr. Dawson reunite with old friends, the C for Cheese Gang, at Oxford, they investigate rumors that Ratcliffe College’s library is haunted.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026966 (print) | LCCN 2019026967 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534418653 (paperback) | ISBN 9781534418660 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534418677 (eBook)
Subjects: CYAC: Mice—Fiction. | Ghosts—Fiction. | Libraries—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.H1996 Basl 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.H1996 (eBook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026966
LC eBook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026967