Beware the Little White Rabbit

by Various

  “Drink me,” she muttered to herself. “Not without a full chemical analysis – this bottle could contain anything.” She didn’t think her uncle would try to poison her, not deliberately, but then she couldn’t be sure the bottle was intended for her in the first place, and her uncle was notoriously absentminded.

  Why, only last week he had carefully carried a box to where the three girls had been listlessly waiting for a rare summer storm to play itself out. Lorina had her nose buried in some romantic novel or other, Edith stared out of the rain-splattered windows, and Alice tried to get her head around the latest publication by a certain Mr. Charles Darwin.

  Edith had spotted the professor first. “What’s that, Uncle?” she called out excitedly, eager for some new toy.

  “It’s my cat,” he said.

  “Cheshire is in the box?” Lorina looked put out by the very thought of anything that might be considered animal cruelty.

  Nobody could quite remember why her uncle’s cat was called Cheshire, and as his explanation changed every time he told it, the girls suspected even he had forgotten.

  “No, no,” their uncle said, “a photograph of Cheshire is in the box.”

  “Why not take it out, then?” Edith suggested.

  He scratched his head. “It’s not that the photograph is in the box. The photograph is the box. I’ve invented a new photographic technique, which needs neither lens nor shutter. It captures all of the light, you see, which means that when you use it, you can look at whichever bit of the cat you wanted to view the most, perfectly in focus. Gather round, children.”

  The three girls clustered around the box as it was gently laid on a cushion. “Well, open it then,” Lorina said, impatient.

  Their uncle shook his head. “That would let the captured light out. What we’re going to do is to make small holes in the cardboard that you can look through. Hmm. Alice, my dear, could you close the curtains and the door for a moment?”

  Alice quickly did so and flopped back to the floor in the semi-dark. Her uncle handed each of them a thumbtack. “Now, as soon as you have made your hole, put your eye to it quickly, and tell me what you can see.”

  Edith squealed with delight. “I’ve got his tail!”

  Lorina gave her youngest sister a scowl. “Stop shaking the box,” and then, “I think…I think I have Cheshire’s front paws, but it’s getting darker.”

  Alice didn’t say anything, as she gazed on Cheshire’s head, the torn ears and bright eyes fading slowly, until all she could see was the cat’s whiskers and the slightly agape mouth, looking like a little grin.

  Of course Cheshire always looked like he was grinning, and drooling for that matter. He wasn’t a young cat, not anymore. And now that she thought about it, those bright eyes had looked somewhat alarmed.

  “Uncle?” she said.

  “Yes, Alice?”

  “Where is Cheshire?”

  And her uncle suddenly stood, spilling the now empty box to the floor, and exclaimed “Oh my!” before rushing from the room.

  So yes, if a bottle had been left lying around by a man who could forget he had his own cat held tightly in a cage so that it didn’t move while he was taking its photograph, then there was no trusting the contents. She pocketed the little bottle for later analysis and removed a hairpin, with which she made short work of the simple three-tumbler lock. The miniature door clicked open, and she lowered her head to peer through.

  It looked an awfully tight fit. She thought about searching for an uncle-sized entrance instead, which there must surely be, because even if she could squeeze through, it was a certainty that her uncle could not. But some sense told her time was of the essence.

  She wormed her way into the space beyond, wriggling her shoulders when they threatened to get stuck, all the while being careful to make sure the bottle in her pocket wasn’t crushed beneath her.

  Panting again and looking even more disheveled than she had after her ride in her uncle’s elevator, she found herself behind a heavy curtain. Edging it a little to the side, she looked out onto the main space of her uncle’s workshop. Benches cluttered with gears and pistons and pipes, a small furnace in one corner for welding work, books and papers scattered around – the usual mess.

  No, it was even messier than usual; there were delicate precision instruments spilled to the floor and ancient books with their spines cruelly bent and split. Now, that was unusual.

  She was about to brush past the drapes, when she was suddenly aware that someone, or something, was watching her. She drew a breath and carefully looked around again. There! Her uncle’s eyes were staring wide in her direction, and beneath them, a thin mask – no, not a mask, a gag – over his mouth. He was bound to a chair with heavy ropes and wire, his eyes frantically jerking toward the far end of the workshop. Alice nodded her head in silent acknowledgement of the warning. She let the curtain slide back, leaving just a gap, as she heard a frustrated rattling. A tall man dressed in a sharp black jacket and with goggles pushed up over his equally dark hair strode briskly forward.

  He stood before the bound figure of her uncle, his engineer’s gear brooch whirring as if mimicking his anger. “Professor Dodgson,” the man snapped, “I’m growing impatient. Where is it?”

  Her uncle raised his chin and stared defiantly at his interlocutor, who reached out and savagely yanked the gag down.

  “That’s…better,” her uncle croaked. “No reason for unpleasantness. Perhaps, young sir, you could explain once again what it is you are looking for?”

  “This!” the trespasser thundered, waving a sheaf of papers. “But a working version. You must have one, otherwise you would not have bothered to patent your device.”

  Her uncle licked his lips. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mister Jefferson. I’m not in the habit of patenting any of my designs; the fun is in the making of them, not in tired reproductions or in dreary commercial applications.”

  “The patent is yours.”

  “It is not,” Charles calmly replied.

  “It is!” the engineer insisted. “Oh, it might be via a proxy, a clumsy subterfuge to mask the true applicant, but the registered address leads back here.”

  For a moment her uncle’s eyes flicked in Alice’s direction, and she raised her hand to cover her mouth. It was not, of course, her uncle’s patent that this Mr. Jefferson was so determined to find.

  It was hers.

  “So, one last time. Where is it, Professor?”

  Her uncle emitted a short laugh, which turned into a cough before sputtering into an uncomfortable silence. “Now, really,” he said, testily, “I’m still not at all sure what you mean. And even if I did, I can’t help you tied up like this. You’ve seen how much of a muddle my workshop is in. A tad more perhaps, since your uninvited arrival, but even I struggle to find what I’m looking for sometimes.”

  “Hah. Do you think me such a fool? I’m fully aware of your little booby traps, your pitiful defenses, like that oh-so-obvious Drink Me bottle. What was that by the way? Cyanide? No, no, not your style, old man. You lack the necessary resolve to take such drastic actions. A potent sleeping draught, perhaps?”

  “Ginger ale,” mumbled the professor, lowering his head for an embarrassed moment.

  Jefferson’s scowl darkened further. “And still you try to play me for an idiot. You will rue your obstinacy. You could have joined me a year ago when first I came to you. I would never have thought to kill the goose that laid such golden eggs. But as it is, I’ll gladly settle for this one device, as soon as you have told me how it really works.”

  “Perhaps…if you showed me the schematics again? My memory is not what it once was,” Charles said. “What was it you said the patent was for?”

  “You try my patience, old man. You think I would not resort to extreme measures to get what I want? Very well.” He yanked the gag back into place. “I shall now search your office. Perhaps, if I do not find it there, you will have come to your senses by the time I return. I d
o hope so, for your sake.” The tall man strode from the room, swiping at a set of gear wheels as he went, spilling them noisily to the floor.

  Alice waited until she could hear him in the other room before darting forward to her trussed uncle. She freed the gag first, but when she reached to tackle the ropes that bound him to the chair he quickly whispered, “No, Alice.”

  “But Uncle, I must untie you – ”

  Professor Charles Dodgson shook his head. “You may not have enough time. This fellow has a gun and might, I think, even stoop so low as to use you against me. I cannot risk you falling into his hands. You must seek help, tell your parents, contact the police. Now, quick my dear, replace the gag and go.”

  Alice did as she was told, but only retreated as far as her hiding place behind the curtains. She crouched there, trembling. She was terribly afraid. Of this man who threatened her uncle so casually, and for her two sisters innocently playing croquet on the lawns above. This tall engineer was more than a match for her father, the dean of Christ Church College. By the time she could contact the local constabulary, all manner of terrible things might already have occurred.

  Most of all, of course, she was afraid it was all her fault.

  She looked around the disorderly workshop, at the drawers of fine cogs, springs, and levers, desperate for inspiration. Hookah pipes and looking glasses and all manner of tools, both small and large, cluttered the walls. Nearby one whole desk was given over to what, in the dim light and with a robust imagination, looked vaguely like a tea party, complete with the frayed frames of a number of automatons.

  At one end of the table sat a frankly scary Hatter. By his side, a March Hare, who looked like an early prototype for the white rabbit. And a cutaway of a teapot contained a clockwork dormouse. At the other end of the table were the oversized magnets her uncle had used to levitate a cake that sang happy birthday and lit its own candles. They weren’t normal magnets though, were they? They were powerful electromagnets, controllable with a switch, and that table wasn’t a normal table either; it was a massive bank of batteries full of lead and mercury.

  Surely there was something that could be used as a weapon.

  But what sort of a weapon could a twelve-year-old girl use? And against a fully-grown and very determined man?

  Nor did she have anything on her, except the Drink Me bottle, which only contained ginger ale and a key.

  Still, it was a key, and this fellow was looking for a secret.

  And every secret needs a clue. So why not give him one?

  Alice darted out and placed the bottle on top of the large metal dish that formed the lower plate of the magnet and then darted back to safety, just as the engineer re-entered, his features contorted into black and ominous fury.

  As he approached her bound uncle, Alice let out a soft sob.

  And then, when that went unheeded, a rather louder one.

  The engineer spun round, a clunky-looking revolver instantly in his hand. But metal, obviously metal, Alice noted. A lot of it.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded.

  And ignoring her uncle’s frantic gestures with his eyes and his wild bushy eyebrows, Alice stepped out from behind the curtain, looking miserable and lost and awfully young.

  “Please, sir…” she said. “Please don’t hurt my uncle, sir. I know where he keeps the key to his safe.”

  Jefferson grinned an evil grin. “Well, at least one member of the Dodgson family has some sense. Tell me quickly, girl, where is this key?”

  She pointed a trembling finger at the Drink Me bottle on the other end of the desk. “In…in there.”

  For a moment, the engineer looked at her with suspicion. Alice did not have to pretend the terror she felt. The bottle had been outside before, and now here it was, on a plate on a workbench. Would he smell a rat? But then, what harm could a little girl pose?

  He took a quick pace forward and seized the bottle.

  And Alice turned and kicked at the switch hidden by the drape over the mad tea party table.

  She really hadn’t expected such a dramatic effect. Though, if she’d thought about it, she’d have remembered the device had been designed to levitate a cake that had been baked by her two sisters. No wonder the magnets were strong.

  The engineer gulped with surprise as he was gently lifted into the air and then accelerated upwards. She looked up to the ceiling where he lay spread-eagle against the upper magnet, one hand bloodied by the smashed Drink Me bottle, the other trapped and mangled by the heavy metal gun, the rest of him held firmly in place by his engineer’s brooch, the buckle on his belt, and by his sensible, steel-capped boots.

  Alice cut her uncle’s ropes, freeing him as two constables burst into the room. The older of the two shook his head in sad acknowledgement of the wickedness of the world. “Ah…Professor Dodgson, Alice, glad to see you’re both safe. We had reports of an intruder. We tried to tell young Lorina that she was probably just imagining things, but she was awfully insistent. Wouldn’t let us leave until we’d checked everywhere.” The constable pursed his lips. “Seems she was right.” He nodded at the engineer stuck to the ceiling. “Is that your doing, Professor?”

  The professor gently squeezed his niece’s shoulder. “Yes, I’m afraid it is. Shall I release him?”

  “Probably best if you do. Harry, stand by just in case there’s any fight left in him.”

  But there wasn’t, not while he was pinned to the ceiling, and certainly not after he’d fallen the eight feet back onto the solid floor of her uncle’s workshop. The policemen led him away, tipping their hats at the presumed hero of the day.

  “Sorry about that, my dear,” her uncle said, once they were alone, “but sometimes it’s best not to appear too amazing. And you certainly are, and were, that. Now, please, could you hand me that patent the disreputable Mr. Jefferson was so interested in?”

  Alice gathered the scattered pages, her heart still pounding as her uncle sat wearily back onto his chair, brushing the cut ropes aside.

  He held the patent in his still-trembling hands and sighed. “Oh, Alice, my dear clever little girl. I think, alas, I may have to give up inventing altogether.” He shook his head sadly from side to side. “With each new creation I make, each innovation, I see how it could be used not for man, but against him. It is fortunate indeed that your ingenious design, as specified, has a rather obvious flaw. A flaw, which for the sake of all of us, I’d be most relieved if you weren’t to try to correct.”

  Alice bristled at that. “Flawed? No, I’m sure I didn’t…” She caught her uncle’s indulgent expression and frowned. “And it’s not as if your mechanical devices are without their faults, Uncle.”

  “No, of course not,” he agreed. “But I’m guessing you mean the rabbit. I pushed it past its original programming, made it do things other than what it was designed to do. It is hardly surprising if it malfunctioned. Indeed it is a small and thankful miracle that it succeeded in at least alerting you to my plight.”

  Alice sat there for a second, remembering the pitiful sight of the steam rabbit surrounded by its own workings. “Uncle, what was it programmed to do?”

  “Exactly what it appears to do, my dear. A reminder of my appointments, an annoying interruption to prevent me from being, as I am so deplorably often, late.” He smiled and shrugged. “It’s my alarm clock.”

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  Also by Jackie Horsfall: For the Love of Strangers

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