Doctor Who: Black Orchid (10 page)

‘Help me, James!
Help me
!’

The footman made up his mind that this was no upper class game. His employer’s fiancée needed assistance whatever consequence intervention by a servant might have. He put down the ice bucket and ran to the stairs. The Pierrot pushed Ann from him and turned on the footman with a guttural cry. The servant’s move had effectively rescued Ann and the man was inhibited by an innate servility from going further and laying hands on the sacred person of a guest in the house.

The hesitation gave the Pierrot an advantage. He pounced upon the footman and whirled him about to lock an arm round the unfortunate man’s neck. Ann looked on in horror as the servant’s mouth gaped and his eyes bulged.

She rushed at the Pierrot, striking at the hidden face with tight fists but was held back by the unoccupied arm. She heard a bright snap and watched the footman collapse from the knees and roll from the stairs to the floor. Ann opened her mouth but what was born as a scream died as a sigh, as shock robbed her of consciousness. She dropped in a heap on the stair treads. The Pierrot stooped to her, advancing massive covered hands.

The Doctor felt inside the dead man’s jacket and found an inner pocket from which he took a small leather wallet and an opened envelope that obviously contained a letter. The envelope was addressed to Mr Raymond Digby, Poste Restante, Bicester, but the wallet held no corroboration of identity, merely a ten shilling note and three postage stamps.

The Doctor withdrew the letter from the envelope. Its contents were short. It was from an address in London, began
Dear Son
and was signed
your affectionate Mum
. She told him how much she had enjoyed his visit last Sunday and hoped he was well, not working too hard, and continued to be happy in his new job - whatever it was -

though she hoped and prayed he was doing nothing wrong, nothing bad. The Doctor replaced the wallet and letter, rose to his feet and closed the cupboard door. Judging by the degree of rigor mortis the man had been dead at least twelve hours. Once again fate had directed the Doctor’s steps towards mysterious violence and deadly danger; but fate couldn’t be relied upon to direct his steps from this secret labyrinth.

The Doctor moved quickly to the cupboard at the other end of the corridor. The room in which he’d hidden from Lady Cranleigh and the Indian had clearly been the dead man’s temporary home; the white coat that hung there was similar to the one on the dead man. The two bedrooms, the bathroom and the room in the tower were a secret suite but there had to be some access to the main house. He would start in the dead man’s room and seek a clue there. He opened the door and entered the cupboard to the predictable squeal. The panel in front of him hissed to one side and he stepped through into the other corridor.

‘Doctor!’

Lady Cranleigh and the Indian stood half way down the corridor outside the dead man’s door. The Indian stepped forward.

‘It’s all right, Dittar, the Doctor is a guest.’

The Indian stopped but his deep, black eyes remained fixed on the Doctor as if sensing danger. Lady Cranleigh drew level with him, her beautiful face coping with a tense smile.

‘Doctor, this is Dittar Latoni, a friend from Venezula.’

‘How do you do?’ the Doctor nodded.

‘Sir,’ responded Latoni with a watchful respect.

Somehow the Doctor knew he wouldn’t be asked to explain his presence in this secret part of the house. It wasn’t just that questions were bad form; Lady Cranleigh had about her an air of controlled calm as if intent on accepting this intrusion as a perfectly normal course of events.

‘I’m afraid I got lost,’ admitted the Doctor.

‘Yes,’ Lady Cranleigh returned evenly.

‘There was a door... a secret panel... open in my room. I went through it thinking there was someone there, and it closed behind me. I couldn’t open it again so I felt about a bit in the dark and came out in a corridor through there...

but I couldn’t find a way out of that either... except through to here.’

‘I’m sorry, Doctor. Six bedrooms and two of the reception rooms have access to this area.’

‘A larger than average priest hole.’

‘The Cranleighs of the time were devout. The priesthood came here from all over the country. And then, after that, the Royalists. King Charles and Prince Rupert both stayed here.’

‘Really?’ The Doctor sensed that the information was prompted less by family pride than by the need to preserve a passivity which Lady Cranleigh didn’t feel. He also sensed that if he confessed to his earlier explorations he would cause acute embarrassment, but there was this dead body. ‘And still in use,’ he went on probingly.

‘Oh, yes,’ admitted Lady Cranleigh freely, ‘the servants are here now.’ The Doctor had no choice but to admit what he’d seen and there was very little he could do to cushion the awfulness of his discovery. He spoke as gently as he could.

‘I’m very much afraid that in trying to find the way back to my room I found something very shocking.’ He was watching Lady Cranleigh carefully and saw how little the proud mask slipped; the merest tremor on the mouth, the barely perceptible change of light in the eyes.

‘Oh, Doctor?’

‘Have you a servant called Digby?’

‘Yes,’ replied Lady Cranleigh, in a voice little above a whisper.

‘I’m afraid he’s dead - and I think he was murdered.

He’s been put in a cupboard in the next corridor.’ The Doctor pointed in the direction of the panel that had closed behind him and watched the two exchange a look.

He marvelled at the chiselled calm of the woman’s face but was deeply disturbed that neither she nor the Indian seemed surprised by his statement.

He stood aside to let Lady Cranleigh approach the panel. Her hand found the activating spring without hesitation and the back of the cupboard slid to one side.

Lady Cranleigh stepped into the squealing gap and the Doctor allowed the Indian to go next. As he followed them into the corridor he decided to explore further the lack of surprise at the servant’s sudden death. He had it in mind to wait and see if either might already know where the body was hidden. He was answered when Lady Cranleigh turned and looked back at him enquiringly.

‘The one at the end... facing us.’

Lady Cranleigh accepted the information unflinchingly and walked with determination to the cupboard at the end of the corridor. ‘Lady!’ said the Indian urgently as she reached it, but she wasn’t to be deflected from tugging open the door.

Lady Cranleigh looked down at the twisted body of the young man just long enough to effect recognition and then turned away. She made a small gesture with the right hand which the Indian interpreted as a request to close the cupboard door.

The Doctor studied the noble face intently. The eyes were far away in a remote sorrow. There was no mistaking the total lack of surprise at the death or at the discovery of it, but there was also no mistaking the deep compassion she felt. ‘Poor fellow,’ she whispered. ‘The poor fellow.’

The Doctor shifted his gaze to the Indian. This South American native, with the grotesque lower lip, couldn’t be more out of place in this stately English home but it was plain he lived here; the Portugese gramophone record in the other secret bedroom pointed to that. Portugese was a rarity in a country whose language was assumed to be the
lingua franca
of half the world but to the natives of large areas of the South American continent Portugese was a second language, a centuries old legacy from its colonists.

What was the man doing here? In ordinary circumstances the Doctor would have little trouble in finding out but here, in this house and at this time, he was denied the direct question; good manners inhibited his insatiable curiosity as firmly as steel chains.

‘Doctor?’ His train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt by Lady Cranleigh. He turned to look at her and found himself under a strange scrutiny from the formerly sorrowful eyes which now held only suspicion. ‘How did you know his name?’

The Doctor was suddenly unsettled by what looked remarkably like an accusation. Surely he wasn’t suspected of having some hand in this deed? He needed time to think.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You said that Digby was dead when you found him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Know him?’

‘From before, I mean.’

‘No.’

‘Then how did you know his name?’

‘There’s a letter in an inside pocket.’

‘A letter?’

‘Yes. I assumed it was addressed to him.’ The Doctor had become aware of a sudden change in the woman’s controlled demeanour. The eyes glittered with a new alertness. ‘Did you read the letter?’

The Doctor hesitated. It was true that his curiosity had got the better of him but why should she think he might have read the letter? And, even more important, why was she surrendering to a vulgar curiosity that was quite out of character for her, if not for him? Even as he hesitated he saw her alertness turn to something akin to panic. He decided on an answer that told the whole truth so far as he knew it.

‘Yes. I did.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose it was to confirm the letter was his.’

‘And was it?’

The Doctor considered the tight muscles in her face.

This woman was very frightened. ‘I think so.’

‘You think so?’

The Doctor knew there was no question in Lady Cranleigh’s mind about the identity of the dead man. She had admitted to knowledge of Digby and she had seen the body. Clearly the name and the corpse were not contradictory. What Lady Cranleigh wanted to know was the content of that letter. ‘Why don’t you look for yourself?’ he asked. The woman’s fear gave way to disdain.

She turned away as if, suddenly, the Doctor was beneath contempt.

‘How could you possibly suggest such a thing?’ she said.

‘It would be most improper. Such things must be left to the police.’

The Doctor was rebuked but he had it in his heart to help this troubled woman. His instinct told him that she knew more than she was prepared to admit but also that she must be innocent of any complicity in murder. He found himself saying, ‘There’s nothing in the letter that would help the police.’

‘Help them?’

‘To explain why he died. It’s a letter from his mother.

Quite short. Saying how nice it was to see him again.

That’s all.’ He forebore to say that the mother was curious about the nature of her son’s job and was anxious lest it be something unlawful. He forebore to say that the whole tone of the letter implied that Digby’s employment was a close secret. He saw some of the anxiety drain from Lady Cranleigh’s face but left behind were suspicious shadows and haunted eyes. He had seldom felt more uncomfortable.

The haunted eyes searched his.

‘I’m deeply sorry, Doctor, that you’ve had this dreadful experience.’

‘No less dreadful for you, Lady Cranleigh.’

‘But you are a
guest
in this house.’ Lady Cranleigh couldn’t be more regal than the queen she was dressed to resemble had been when she suggested that the breadless of Paris eat cake. ‘I would be most grateful if you would help me keep this unpleasantness from my other guests. I wouldn’t want to upset them.’

In the circumstances the request was reasonable enough but the Doctor couldn’t drag himself away from the thought that he was being suborned to keep secret the discovery of the crime, and that was not to be tolerated. A certain relaxation of strain had not extended to Lady Cranleigh’s alertness. She read the Doctor’s thoughts.

‘It’s pointless involving them until the police decide otherwise,’ she explained.

Lady Cranleigh’s inclusion of the law in seeking to protect her guests from unpleasantness mollified the Doctor. ‘You can rely on my discretion, Lady Cranleigh,’

he said.

‘You’re very kind, Doctor.’

The Doctor looked down at his borrowed dressing gown. He suddenly felt vulnerable in his deshabillé next to the exotic Indian and the elegant French queen and he was anxious to spare his hostess any further embarrassment. ‘If I may ask someone to point me in the direction of my room...’

Lady Cranleigh’s whole tone and manner briskened. ‘Of course. We’re just behind it.’ Her turn to the panelled wall was stopped by a sudden thought. ‘And, Doctor, I’d be most grateful if you would... how shall I say... keep up appearances.’

‘You mean... carry on in costume.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Of course. I’m quite taken by the idea.’

‘Thank you.’

Lady Cranleigh turned again to the panelling and put out a hand. At first the Doctor thought the slight noise from behind the woodwork was made by the mechanism that opened the panel but he then saw that lady Cranleigh’s hand had stopped short of the wall as she, too, had heard the noise. The Doctor was conscious of a slight movement from the Indian and when he turned to the man found himself being looked at with a watchful passivity. There was someone... something... behind that wall, in that sullen black cavity the Doctor had tried so hard to escape from.

The face Lady Cranleigh turned on the Doctor was calm and once more under her firm control. Even her tone was light. ‘But no. I can’t ask you to endure that again. And it’s difficult to find the switch to your room panel. There’s a more comfortable way. If you’ll follow me, Doctor.’ She moved regally to the far end of the corridor and again dipped her towering white wig into the confines of the cupboard linking the corridors. Once through she turned and said something in Portugese. She spoke so quietly and rapidly that the Doctor, whose knowledge of the language was hardly profound, failed to understand what was plainly an order. The Indian said nothing but retreated into the cupboard and the panel closed behind him.

The Doctor followed Lady Cranleigh to the foot of the steps that led to the room in the tower. She stopped by the newel and the Doctor learned why his thorough search of the walls for a way out of the secret area had gone unrewarded. Lady Cranleigh tugged at a carved acorn on the post and a panel in the wall opposite growled quietly open.