Doctor Who: Black Orchid (16 page)

Nyssa shared the front of the Morris-Cowley with Sergeant Markham, something on which the worthy police officer had insisted, while crammed together in the back were the Doctor, Tegan and Adric. Adric looked at the Doctor who was plunged so deep in thought that it defied interruption. The young Alzarian turned to Tegan. ‘What’s an accessory?’

Tegan thought before she answered. ‘Someone who shares in a crime.’

‘And we’re that?’

‘We are now. Yes.’

‘What do they do to murderers?’

Tegan thought again, remembering they were in the England of 1925. ‘Hang them,’ she said gloomily, adding,

‘But not you. You’re under age.’

‘What will they do to me, then?’

‘Shut you up until you’re twenty-one, and then hang you.’

Adric’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘But that’s barbaric!’

‘Yes,’ agreed Tegan. ‘And if you happened to be ill you’d be nursed back to health and then hanged.’

‘But that’s illogical!’

‘Think yourself lucky! If we’d got here a hundred years earlier we’d be packed off to my country.’

‘What for?’

‘Hard labour and not a lot to eat.’

‘Then we’ve got to do something about this.’

Tegan looked at the Doctor who sat between them, apparently unaware of the conversation. He’s at it again, she thought, he’s gone conveniently into hiding.

‘Doctor!’

The Doctor was lost in another world, the secret world of Cranleigh Hall and the occupied annexe. Tegan had the temerity to nudge him in the ribs, a display of disrespect which appeared to go unnoticed but which had the desired effect of dragging him back into a world which included imminent incarceration in Upper Cranleigh police station.

‘Doctor?’

‘What is it?’

‘I think Adric has a good point,’ said Tegan from a great height.

‘What’s that?’

‘He thinks we’ve got to do something about this.’

‘Very good thinking!’ said the Doctor equably. ‘That’s just what we’re doing.’

‘I was under the distinct impression that we’re on our way to the lock-up.’

‘To have this whole business investigated.’ He watched Tegan heave a heavy sigh, close her eyes and purse her lips.

‘What’s the alternative?’

Tegan opened her eyes, looked to see that the Sergeant’s interest wasn’t on them via the rear mirror and hissed, ‘Get to the TARDIS and get out of here.’

The Doctor turned to Tegan, his eyes large with innocence and said blandly, ‘We can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘It would be cowardly.’

‘Cowardly?’

‘There are people in trouble here.’

‘Yes! Us!’

‘No, at Cranleigh Hall. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you, like Lady Cranleigh?’

‘What’s Lady Cranleigh got to do with it?’

The Doctor smiled widely at the short-tempered Tegan: the smile that she had come to know meant even deeper immersion in an already deadly dangerous enterprise.

‘Lady Cranleigh’s bent on hiding something,’ he said. ‘And I’m bent on finding out what she’s bent on hiding.’

‘You’re just bent,’ Tegan muttered to herself.

‘But you, too, have a point,’ said the Doctor, by way of compensation for committing his companions to a personal danger. Although he’d rejected the idea of flight in the TARDIS his feud with Lady Cranleigh had put from his mind the use of the TARDIS to establish his identity. He leaned forward. ‘Sergeant Markham?’

‘Yes, sir?’ This was England where the malefactor was considered innocent until proven guilty and, therefore, not deprived of status or title. Besides, the miscreant had had the goodness to address him by name.

‘Would you be good enough to stop at the station?’

‘We shall be stopping at the station, sir.’

‘I mean the railway station.’

The portly police sergeant was aware of his cerebral limitations. His wife was never slow to point out that if he’d had any brains he’d be an inspector by now, but he resented the assumption from the back seat that he was stupid enough to aid and abet dangerous criminals in a bid for liberty.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Not without the authority of the Chief Constable, sir.

I’d have to ask, Sir Robert.’

‘Then ask him.’

‘He’s in the car in front, sir,’ said the Sergeant stolidly.

‘Then give him a toot on your horn.’

‘Can’t do that, sir.’

‘Why not?’

‘Not my place to, sir.’

‘That presents no problem,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’ll do it for you. Adric, you’re nearest.’ Adric needed no further encouragement. He leaned over the policeman’s shoulder, grasped the rubber bulb of the horn and tweaked it twice.

Clusters of roosting birds flew, frightened, out of the overhanging trees. The Sergeant slapped indignantly at Adric’s hand. ‘Don’t do that!’

The Doctor glanced ahead at the unhesitant Rolls and countermanded the order with a nodding head and a stabbing index finger. Braving the slapping hand Adric pounced on the horn again. Sir Robert looked back at the following police car and bent forward to talk to Tanner.

The Rolls slowed to a stop.

Tegan wanted to hug the Doctor but contented herself with clapping her hands in silent applause. The Morris-Cowley pulled up behind the Rolls and the Doctor leapt out with the Sergeant in frantic, rolling pursuit. Drawing level with Sir Robert the Doctor looked back penitently at the perspiring policeman. ‘Thank you very much for your co-operation, Sergeant,’ he said disarmingly. The officer of the law fell back, relieved and exonerated.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Sir Robert.

‘He wants to stop at Cranleigh Halt, Sir Robert,’ replied the Sergeant.

‘Why?’ demanded the Chief Constable with bleak suspicion.

‘I’d like to show you my credentials,’ said the Doctor.

‘Credentials?’

‘I’d like to offer you proof of my identity.’

‘At Cranleigh Halt? At a railway station?’

‘My time-machine is there.’

Ah, that was it! H. G. Wells again.
The Time-Machine,
The Man Who Could Work Miracles, The War Of The Worlds.

All that rubbish! That futuristic nonsense! Sir Robert looked at the Doctor’s flushed and open face. It was less and less the face of a murderer, but what about that of a madman? It could be said in some quarters that this fellow played cricket like a madman. He’d beaten Percy Fender’s record. That had been sheer genius. And hadn’t he read somewhere that genius and madness went hand in hand?

‘Please,’ went on the Doctor. ‘It’s not out of your way, is it?’

‘No.’

‘Then please!’

Sir Robert made up his mind. He looked back at Sergeant Markham and opened the door of the car. ‘All right, Sergeant, you carry on. The Doctor will ride with me.’

The Sergeant saluted and made himself scarce, glad to be rid of the responsibility. Sir Robert watched the Doctor closely as he joined him in the back of the Rolls: the wide, wide smile and the manic eyes. Yes, he would do well to humour the man and to have him nearer to hand.

Both cars pulled into the forecourt of Cranleigh Halt railway station. The Doctor’s companions spilled from the Morris-Cowley and shot to the Rolls like iron filings sucked to a magnet. Sir Robert descended from the regally elevated back seat followed by the Doctor who looked urbanely at the cluster of eager faces anxious for the comforting cocoon of the TARDIS. The corpulent Markham panted up to Sir Robert awaiting orders, but it was the Doctor who spoke: ‘You lot don’t need to come.

You stay here with the Sergeant.’

‘Don’t need to...’ Tegan’s words trailed to nothing from a gaping mouth.

‘No,’ went on the Doctor. ‘I just want to show Sir Robert, that’s all. You’ll only be in the way.’

‘In the way?’ echoed Adric.

‘Yes,’ insisted the Doctor, nursing a swelling feeling that time was of the essence. ‘You stay here with the Sergeant.’

The Doctor had to consider that any explanation of the TARDIS in the year 1925 would be very heavy going. To begin with, the systems of quantum mechanics and relativity had been officially accepted only a matter of five years earlier and were certainly not generally known. He was by no means certain that he could persuade the intellectually sheltered Sir Robert that the TARDIS was not the work of an apprentice sorcerer but the predictably superstitious reaction of Sergeant Markham must certainly influence the Chief Constable and time was running out.

He eyed the truculent faces of his companions. ‘You three stay here with the Sergeant.’ He turned to Sir Robert. ‘It’s on the platform.’

‘What is?’

‘What I have to show you.’

Tegan irately watched the Doctor lead Sir Robert through the wicket gate to the platform and marched purposefully after them. Adric and Nyssa held back not because they were more apprehensive of the Doctor’s wrath than Tegan but because they had more faith that he knew what he was doing. Unlike Tegan they shared galactic experience with the Doctor: a sort of metaphysical mother’s milk.

The Doctor stared incredulously at an empty platform and then hurriedly looked about him. The TARDIS was nowhere to be seen.

‘Well?’ prompted Sir Robert.

‘It’s gone,’ said the Doctor hollowly.

‘What has?’

‘What I was going to show you.’

‘Oh!’ fumed Tegan and stamped her foot. The bemused Doctor allowed himself to be led back to the Rolls and gently prodded into it. Sir Robert instructed the young constable to abandon his seat by the chauffeur and join him in the back with Hathaway and the Doctor. This madman was, after all, accused of a crime of violence. It was only sensible to take proper precautions. There was safety in numbers.

Dittar Latoni mounted to the landing outside the door of the tower room and listened carefully for a moment before inserting the key in the lock. He opened the door quietly, with watchful eyes on the bed and its still unconscious occupant. He closed and locked the door behind him, pocketed the key, and advanced on the bed. He stared down for a moment at the gruesome, sleeping face, its excesses now masked in shadow, and then sat on the bed.

‘Ah, my friend, my good friend,’ he whispered. ‘How I wish we were back on the river together... the long river which is the only lasting peace.’

Latoni rose from the bed and looked at the barred twilight window. The moon would not be full again tonight. The danger was past. He moved to the desk and switched on the lamp throwing new shadows across the sleeping creature. He sat at the desk and opened his book.

The eye in the face on the bed opened slowly and focussed in the light from the lamp on the reading Indian.

‘And knowing all this, you let Robert take them away?’

The dowager Marchioness of Cranleigh avoided looking at her son. She sat in the darkening drawing room, her face turned from his angry voice, watching the servants clear the terrace of evidence of the abandoned fancy dress ball.

‘Mother, that’s downright wicked!’

Lady Cranleigh’s back stiffened at the accusation.

‘You’ve no right to use that word,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a question of moral obligation.’

‘There’s nothing moral about it. This man... this Doctor whoever he is... is innocent, and so are his friends.’

‘It’s because he’s innocent he won’t suffer. I’m surprised you can’t see that.’

‘Won’t suffer? With all the evidence piled against him...

and with him living in this fantasy world of his? He won’t stand a chance, and you know it.’

‘I know that in this country a man can’t be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone.’

Cranleigh moved away from his mother, pacing the room agitatedly and trying to keep his voice from rising.

‘Not on circumstantial evidence alone, but without an alternative suspect there can’t be any benefit of doubt, don’t you see?’

‘No, I don’t see. What I do see is that we have our duty to perform.’

‘Duty! Mother, we can’t go on like this. We mustn’t.’

‘Mustn’t!’ Lady Cranleigh’s tone was dangerous.

‘Mustn’t! What about Ann? Have you thought of her?’

Lady Cranleigh didn’t answer at once. She turned to look at her son long and hard. ‘How can you possibly ask me that?’

‘But I
do
ask that! What will happen to her when she finds out?’

‘She won’t find out.’

‘But she must! Mother, two murders have been committed, the male nurse and James. That’s got to come out.’

‘No. Robert will see that it doesn’t.’

The statement stopped Cranleigh in his tracks. He looked at his mother in wonderment. Could she be holding something back? Had she some special knowledge of this whole miserable affair that had been withheld from him?

‘Robert will? How?’

‘I will speak to him.’

‘Speak to him?’ Cranleigh was aghast. ‘Mother, Robert is a public servant. He can’t ignore two murders.’

‘Accidents.’

‘Call it what you like, two men have died.’

‘Charles, we’re not without influence or friends in the county. When Robert hears of our suffering he will know where his duty lies.’

Cranleigh was silent for a moment. He turned away to the windows and watched the servants at work on the terrace. ‘And what of Ann’s suffering?’ he asked quietly.

‘Ann will not know.’

‘Ann must be told.’

‘
No!
’

Cranleigh turned from the window to look at his mother. He moved with slow deliberation to sit on the sofa next to her. When he spoke his voice was little above a whisper. ‘Mother, if we don’t tell Ann... and she finds out...

she’ll never forgive us. You know that, don’t you?’

Lady Cranleigh was silent, looking sightlessly at the ever-lengthening shadows on the lawns beyond the terrace until the doors from the hall clicked open and a small voice from behind her said, ‘Charles, please don’t leave me alone.’

‘Ann!’ Cranleigh rose and went to her, gathering her into the room and securing the doors behind her. ‘Ann, there’s something you’ve got to know.’

Lady Cranleigh stood to her full height. ‘No, Charles, no!’

‘Yes, mother!’

The constable on duty at the reception counter looked up as the station door opened. With good reason he didn’t immediately recognise the grandiose gentleman from the eighteenth century who entered ahead of four other strangely assorted characters and Sergeant Markham.