Doctor Who: Black Orchid (17 page)

‘Right!’ rapped Sir Robert. ‘Let’s get on with it!’

‘Yes, Sir Robert,’ responded the Sergeant. ‘Cummings, the charge book!’

Constable Cummings fumbled for the charge book beneath the counter top and took professional stock of the four unfamiliar, mournful faces before him. From the way these felons were dressed they had been apprenhended for being up to no good at Cranleigh Hall. He opened the book and began laboriously to pen the heading,
Drunk And
Disorderly
, speaking as he wrote. ‘Did you see it, Sarge?’

‘Did I see what?’

‘That thing in the yard.’

‘What thing?’

‘Well, it says it’s a police box, but it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before.’

The Doctor closed his eyes and heaved a great sigh of relief. The news even brought something resembling smiles to the unhappy faces of his companions. Constable Cummings droned on as he dredged a way across the page with his pen.

‘No, of course. You were over Chiddleton way. It was on the eastbound platform at the Halt. Nobody knows how it got there. And it’s as heavy as lead. Had to call the Army in over at Crowshott. And we can’t get into it. No key’ll unlock it.’

‘This one will,’ said the Doctor and dipped into a pocket to produce the key of the TARDIS which he held up delicately between finger and thumb. ‘With your permission, Sir Robert, this is what I wanted to show you.

Perhaps you’ll lead the way, Sergeant.’

Markham looked at Sir Robert who answered him with a nod of affirmation and the Sergeant led the way through the station to the yard at the back. There stood the TARDIS: faded, battered, woebegone, but totally reassuring. The Doctor stepped briskly forward, used the key and moved aside with a courtly gesture, inviting Sir Robert to enter. The Chief Constable disappeared into the TARDIS and the Doctor turned to Markham. ‘You next, Sergeant.’

‘There won’t be any room,’ complained the portly policeman.

‘You
are
in for a surprise,’ cooed Tegan with a great beam of undiluted pleasure.

9

The sky beyond the barred window was darker now and the trees full of roosting rooks.

With infinite caution and imperceptible movement the creature on the bed, its wide eye fixed on Latoni, had moved itself onto its side. The Indian, deep in his book, was unsuspecting of the inch by inch progress of the creature easing its legs from the bed to the floor, the infinitesimal sound covered by the not so distant birds saluting the coming of night.

As Latoni turned a page the creature stood stock-still and waited for the Indian to become absorbed once more before continuing the forward creep with atavistic stealth.

Nearer and nearer crept the creature, led by the ardent concentration in the single inflamed eye that burned red in the light of the lamp. One monstrous hand was now slowly extending, leading the arm to a position that would place it swiftly under the chin of the victim, dragging back the head.

Latoni turned another page but, this time, the creature did not pause. With creative cunning it used the sound and the movement to cover the remaining distance with the speed of a striking snake. Latoni was dragged choking from the chair and clawing at the nerveless arm that denied breath to his bursting lungs. His frenetic use of heels and elbows to free himself from the merciless grip robbed him of what oxygen remained. In his last seconds of consciousness the Indian groped for the key in his pocket and flung his weight to one side, toppling both himself and his assailant to the floor. Before the world became black his fingers found a space between the floor boards into which he stuffed the key.

Sir Robert Muir, Lord Lieutenant of the county and its Chief Constable, was at a complete loss. So much so that he had but half listened to the Doctor’s learned explanation of another ‘dimension’ and the mnemonic Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. He looked round the control room of the TARDIS in extended awe at the incredible space and the unimaginable materials, reminding himself continually that this couldn’t be a dream because the experience was shared with that dolt Markham whose gaping eyes and open mouth were beginning to get on his nerves. Couldn’t the man’s mentality grasp an abstract context? Hadn’t he listened to the Doctor? What was that line from the play he’d done at Eton... ?
... there are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio...
etcetera... etcetera...

He looked round at the happily smiling faces of the Doctor’s companions. If these ... children ... could accept the extraordinary, surely that well-fed, middle-aged policeman could come to terms with it. He’d shut that silly open mouth in the name of the county constabulary.

‘Unbelievable!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Unbelievable!’

‘Would you like to see the Cloisters?’ asked Nyssa.

‘Cloisters!’

‘Through this way,’ indicated Nyssa.

‘Well, come on, Markham!’ said Sir Robert testily.

The mangled hands ran yet again over Latoni’s inert body, seeking the key to the door the creature knew the Indian to possess. Grunting with frustration, the creature abandoned the insensible body of its custodian and began to ransack the desk, pulling out all the drawers and scattering their contents about the room.

The inflamed eye focussed on a box of matches, considering it at length. Then the crippled hands began a sustained attack on the books, sweeping the contents of the well-stocked shelves to the floor and ripping out the pages for them to be crumpled to tinder and thrust against the bottom of the door. This was joined by a great pile of splayed volumes before the fettered fingers fumbled to separate a match from the box to take tenuous hold of it.

The match flared and the flame was touched to the crushed paper at the base of the door. Within seconds the dust-dry material was fiercely alight.

Ann Talbot sat staring into a void, experiencing a numbness that was as intolerable as the shock and pain that had preceded it. What she had been told beggared belief. She had been thrust into a nightmare world inconceivable and incomprehensible to those whose social conscience had been formed in the calm climate of accepted standards of civilised behaviour. Her whole body began to tremble violently and uncontrollably. Lady Cranleigh moved in quickly and sat beside her on the sofa.

‘Don’t touch me!’ Ann managed to mumble. ‘Don’t even come near me!’

Lady Cranleigh turned to look at her son, the hurt eyes fixed in accusation. Cranleigh returned the look unflinchingly. ‘She had to be told, mother,’ he said quietly.

He went down on one knee before the shaking girl who shrank from him as if from defilement. ‘Ann, my dear,’ he went on gently. ‘I had to tell you, I had to. It would have been wicked for you to have found out in any other way.’

‘Wicked?’ the girl whispered. And then: ‘All this time.

All this time.’

‘I’m truly terribly sorry,’ said Cranleigh, ‘that it had to come to this. We acted for the best, mother and me. And up until today it was for the best. You must believe that.

When you’ve had time to think you’ll come to believe it.’

‘Time to think,’ echoed the stricken girl.

Cranleigh rose to his feet and crossed to the doors. ‘And now I’m going to telephone the police.’ Lady Cranleigh got up quickly. ‘No, mother! Nothing you can say is going to stop me. Nothing! And I’m convinced that when people know the truth they will understand. They will see that no one can be blamed for all this.’

Tegan and Adric watched the Doctor busy at the control console.

‘All right,’ Tegan said. ‘Where to now?’

‘Cranleigh Hall,’ answered the Doctor.

‘We’re not going back there!’ protested Adric.

‘Yes,’ confirmed the Doctor.

‘Why?’ asked Tegan.

‘Let’s call it unfinished business.’

‘If you ask me, we’re the business. And if we go back there we’ll certainly be finished.’

‘But I’m not asking you,’ said the Doctor pointedly.

Nyssa came back from the relative regions of the TARDIS followed by the two concussed representatives of the county constabulary.

‘Well,’ said Sir Robert mechanically. And again, ‘Well!’

Tegan and Nyssa exchanged a mischievous smirk. The Chief Constable joined the Doctor and cast a confused eye over the complex circuitry of the control console. ‘This is all going to look very complicated in my report.’

‘Adric will give you a hand,’ said the Doctor blithely.

‘He’s the physicist among us.’

Sir Robert looked askance at the youth who was still, he suspected, simply saturated behind the ears. Entrust a child to a senior officer’s report? ‘And now,’ continued the Doctor, ‘now that I’ve shown you my credentials, so to speak. I’d like you to accompany me back to Cranleigh Hall.’

‘Back to the Hall?’

‘With a rather more open mind,’ admonished the Doctor gently.

Sir Robert considered this carefully. This Doctor-whoever-he-was clearly enjoyed great power and was possessed of prodigious intellect for all his eccentricity and the apparent magic of his H. G. Wells machine. It was also clear that he had considerable integrity suggesting, as he was, that he be returned to the scene of the crime of which he was suspected. The man was either innocent or a master criminal. He turned to the muddled Markham. ‘Hear that, Sergeant? An open mind.’

As if in answer, two dull thuds reverberated through the TARDIS, the second following quickly on the first. The Doctor knew the sound instantly for what it was and activated the scanner. The screen showed a perplexed Police Constable Cummings who tapped again on the door of the TARDIS and bleated, ‘Anybody about?’

Sir Robert and Sergeant Markham were again transfixed with amazement at yet another demonstration of a technology far beyond their comprehension. The Doctor smote the red knob on the console and called, ‘Come in!’

Cummings entered the TARDIS tentatively, expecting to have to stand shoulder to shoulder with other occupants in the dark. He squinted in superstitious terror at what he beheld and squeaked, ‘Strike me pink!’ His stupefaction wandered from the general to the particular, to the six human beings lost in the vastness of the police box interior.

‘Pull yourself together, Cummings!’ said Markham importantly. ‘What is it?’

‘A c-c-c-’ stuttered the goggle-eyed policeman.

‘Come on, man!’ ordered the superior Sergeant.

‘A c-call from Lord C-Cranleigh, Sarge. Up at the Hall.

There’s another body been found. A servant called Digby.

And he wants to see Sir Robert. Lord Cranleigh, I mean...

wants to see Sir Robert.’

The Doctor and the Chief Constable looked at each other, the latter already framing a mental apology. ‘The body in the cupboard?’ he asked.

‘Without a doubt,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Which is why I’d like to return with you. I think you’ll find that someone took advantage of my temporary absence from my room and borrowed my fancy dress costume. Certain things were then performed in it for which I’ve been blamed.’

Even Sir Robert Muir’s many critics couldn’t accuse him of not taking things in his stride. On this occasion he strode for the door of the TARDIS. ‘Come along, then, Doctor,’ he said.

The Doctor held up a hand. ‘If you’ve no objection to accompanying me, Sir Robert,’ he said, ‘I can get you there much quicker.’ Sir Robert’s recent experience, albeit confused, gave him no reason for contradicting the claim.

‘Very well,’ he said.

The Doctor eased the dumbfounded police constable to the door. ‘Please, Mr Cummings, if you don’t mind.’

The chair crashed through the glass of the barred window and the creature craned upwards to gulp in the smoke-free air. Grunting in relief it looked back towards the blazing door and held up the seat of the chair in an ineffectual attempt to shield itself from the intense heat. Holding the chair in front of it the creature advanced towards the door and stooped to lay hold of Latoni. It dragged the Indian away from the creeping flames towards the bed from which it tugged a blanket to baffle the smoke. The creature rushed back to the chair, lifted it high and began to pound at the burning door to the accompaniment of clicking, guttural cries.

At the third blow the smouldering door began to shatter and, very soon, was sufficiently breached for the creature to escape. The rush of air from the landing thinned the smoke in the room but further fed the flames. The creature threw aside the chair and turned to scoop up Latoni. As one, they smashed through the door to the landing beyond and stumbled down the steps to the corridor of the secret annexe.

When Cranleigh came back from the study Ann was still where he’d left her, hunched on the sofa, withdrawn, remote from Lady Cranleigh who was at the windows looking out on the empty lawns in the frowning twilight.

‘The police are on their way,’ he said. He looked at his mother’s unresponsive back for a moment. ‘I’ll meet them if you’d like to go and change.’

His mother turned to face him. ‘I’ve never flinched from my duty,’ she said quietly, ‘and I shall not now.’

Anger suddenly lighted Ann’s dull eyes. She struggled to her feet incensed by the older woman’s obvious pride in the unspeakable horror to which she’d just confessed. ‘How could you!’ she cried. ‘Oh, how could you!’ She ran to the doors, wrenched them open and fled across the hall.

She didn’t see the creature limping down the stairs supporting the unconscious Latoni on his shoulders but Cranleigh, in pursuit of her, did. The creature stopped before it reached the foot of the stairs and Cranleigh faced it, half crouching, as if waiting for a wild animal to spring.

‘All right, old chap,’ he breathed. ‘All right.’

The TARDIS materialised on the main driveway of Cranleigh Hall not fifty yards from the entrance. The Doctor was the first to emerge followed closely by Sir Robert and the others. Ann ran blindly from the Hall and raced down the driveway towards the TARDIS and its passengers. Seeing her distress, Sir Robert took her instantly into his arms.

Sensing danger, the Doctor hurried on to the Hall, followed by his companions and the labouring Markham.