The Empty Birdcage

The door was wide open, the cage had been situated at the window, as so many pet birds were in nineteenth century London. Why shouldn't they be admired from the outside as well as in? This little bird though, had been a special one, a new one, brand new.
Alden Maddox was not only furious, he was also frightened. The formula he had discovered through all his tiring weeks traipsing down stinking dark alleys, days of listening to lunatics in Bedlam, those uncomfortable and inclandestine visits to the opium dens in China-town, had actually worked.
All that leg work had finally born fruit, and he had just proved the pudding, when the blasted pudding itself, the transformation he had achieved, had flown the coop, or in this case, the birdcage.
He had asked his new neighbor, the pretty little Jemima Saunders for tea that very afternoon, and had been delighted when, after administering just a few drops of the potion in her drink, she had turned into the loveliest tiny pink bird.
She, as a bird, had fluttered to the cake stand and Alden had quickly snatched her up and popped her into the ready cage. He glanced furtively at Jemima's governess, who was acting as chaperone, as she snored happily in the corner. That had needed nothing more than a drop of every day laudanum, but quite what he would tell the woman when she woke and her charge was gone, he hadn't figured...yet.
He needed to go and find the little thing, before she dropped like a stone out of the sky when she became human again. Alden didn't know how long the spell, (oh, how that word jarred his scientific soul) would last without topping up the potion. The loss of the girl would not be great, but if she survived and spoke of him? What an inconvenient pickle he would be in. This afternoon was certainly not going to plan.
Alden stood at the little table he had had placed in front of the picture window for their high tea, he absentmindedly slurped some of his own, now tepid, drink, while he mussed his already tousled blonde hair with the other, think he told himself, you have to think! but useful thoughts would not come, the only course of action he could think of was to yell out the window,
   "You have ten minutes Jemima!" That of course, woke the governess. She lifted her head which had slumped onto her chest with an unladylike snort, and wiped her mouth which had been open and drooling a little. Alden composed his features into a mask of anxiety, "I'm sorry to wake you Markem, but Jemima has run off."
   "What Sir, did you do?" Asked the governess rising to her full height of five feet.
   "Nothing," said Alden, the picture of gentlemanly concern, "I was just showing her my canary, and it escaped somehow, it flew at her and she became frightened." Alden was thinking on his feet, it seemed an acceptable story.
   "Nonsense" said the Governess gathering up her ... and her reticule, "that would never frighten my girl."
   "Then why did she dash away?" asked Alden, the soul of kind anxiety.
   "She must have run out to find the poor thing, Jemima loves animals." Markem, the governess, looked at Alden with poorly disguised contempt. "Don't just stand there like a st..." then remembering her place, Markem quickly changed what she was going to say, "like a statue sir, let's go find her" before adding darkly, "you have no idea who you're meddling with." And then the stout governess shot out of the room and the house with a surprising burst of speed. Alden, following, barely had time to grab his coat, his hat, and his cane. He mused briefly on the ominous words imparted by the governess, before his mind was taken over by the immediacy of the chase.