TEXT:  
  A quick Easter present to you, from 
  THE SHAKAAR CELL 
  because resistance is NOT futile. 
   
  In addition to our monthly releases, we thought it would be nice to give everyone a little 
  Easter egg. It's another Doctor Who novel and a truly bizarre one at that: The Doctor, Ace 
  and Benny join up with Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to battle a Lovecraftian evil. 
  Some of the Shakaar Cell adore this one, others loathe it,  but none can deny that Andy 
  Lane did a superb job of presenting familiar characters, exposing the grim side of Victorian 
  London and digging up amazing bits of history. 
  
  ALL-CONSUMING FIRE 
  by Andy Lane 
   
  To: Chris Amies, Tina Anghelatos, Ian Atkins, Molly Brown, Mr Fandango, Craig Hinton, 
  Liz Holliday, Ben Jeapes, Rebecca Levene, Andrew Martin, Jim Mortimore, Amanda 
  Murray, Mike Nicholson, David Owen, Justin Richards, Gus Smith, Helen Stirling, Charles 
  Stross and James Wallis. If you don't like it, you know who to blame. 
   
  First published in Great Britain in 1994 by Doctor Who Books an imprint of Virgin 
  Publishing Ltd 332 Ladbroke Grove London W10 5AH 
  Copyright (c) Andy Lane 1994 
  'Doctor Who' series copyright (c) British Broadcasting Corporation 1994 
  ISBN 0 426 20415 8 
  Cover illustration by Jeff Cummins 
  Internal illustrations by Mike Nicholson 
  Typeset by Intype, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, 
  Reading, Berks 
  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or 
  otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior 
  written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and 
  without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent 
  purchaser. 
   
  
  'May I marry Holmes?' 
  Cable of enquiry from dramatist/actor William Gillette to Arthur Conan Doyle during writing 
  of Gillette's Sherlock Holmes play. 
   
  'You may marry or murder or do what you like with him.' 
  Doyle's reply. 
   
   
   
   
  Prologue 
   
  March 1843 - Jabalhabad, India 
   
   
  'Boy! I say, boy! Two more burra pegs, chelo!' 
   
  The man in the British Army uniform waved an imperious hand as the turbaned servant 
  glided silently from the veranda. 
   
  The old man in the cane chair beside him cackled gently. 'Most kind of you, hmm?' he 
  said, and glanced over to where his granddaughter was attempting to capture the distant 
  mountains in water-colour. The setting sun was behind the bungalow, casting a deep 
  shadow over the patchy doob grass but catching the snowy peaks in a net of scarlet and 
  purple. 
   
  She glanced up and caught his gaze. 
   
  'Grandfather?' 
   
  'Nothing, child.' 
   
  The soldier batted at a cloud of insects with his pith helmet. The motion caused a fresh 
  rash of sweat to break out across his forehead. He mopped half-heartedly at it. 
   
  'Deuced if I know how you cope in this heat,' he muttered. 
   
  'Oh, I've been in hotter places than this, my boy,' said the old man. 
   
  'There's nowhere on Earth hotter than India during the dry season. If there was, I'd have 
  been posted to it.' 
   
  'Perhaps you're right,' the old man agreed. He looked over towards a group of three 
  people - a man and two women - who were sitting and taking tea upon the lawn in the 
  shade of a large parasol. There was something familiar about the man, but he couldn't 
  quite place him. 
  
   
  The servant appeared from the shadows of the bungalow with two double whiskies on a 
  tray. The ice had already melted. A mosquito was struggling weakly in the old man's glass. 
   
  'Now, where was I?' the soldier asked, frowning slightly. 
   
  'You were telling me about a rather strange temple up in the hills.' 
   
  'So I was,' the soldier replied, faintly surprised. 'A rum tale, and no mistake. Let's see what 
  you make of it, what?' 
   
  The old man said nothing, but glanced again at the trio happily chatting near his 
  granddaughter. The women were young, but the man . . . 
   
  He managed to catch the man's eye. A look passed between them, and the old man 
  shivered. 
   
  'Are you all right?' the soldier asked. 
   
  'Hmm? I think somebody just walked over my graves.' 
   
  'If you're feeling a bit under the weather, you'd better see the medic. Corporal Forbes is 
  rife around here.' 
   
  'Corporal Forbes?' the old man asked. 
   
  'Cholera Morbus. Cholera, you know.' 
   
  'I wouldn't worry about that,' the old man said. 'Please, go on.' 
   
  'Right-ho. As I said earlier, the palace was a sight to be seen...' 
   
   
   
  'So this is where it all started?' Bernice said politely. 
   
  'Indeed,' the Doctor replied, and took a sip of tea. 'And we've seen where it ends. If I 
  hadn't listened to Siger's tale on that veranda.. .' 
   
  'Yeah, we know,' Ace said dismissively. She fiddled with her frilly dress. Bernice could tell 
  that she felt uncomfortable in something that wasn't bullet-proof and laser-resistant. 
  'Ultimate evil, and all that guff, It's a bit hard to swallow, Professor. If you hadn't stopped it, 
  somebody else would have done. I've seen the future, remember? The future of all this. I 
  was born in it.' 
   
  
  'Time's a funny thing,' the Doctor mused, gazing with a strange expression at the girl who 
  was painting the watercolour landscape. 'Didn't the business with the Monk and his pet 
  chronovore illustrate precisely that point? The lives of every planet, every person and 
  every proton are like trickles of water running down a window. Their courses may look 
  fixed, but if you disturb them early on then they can trickle into another path entirely' 
   
  Ace summed up her viewpoint in one succinct word. 
   
  Before the Doctor's temper boiled over, Bernice said, 'So, do I take it that the old man 
  sitting over there is you?' 
   
  'In a sense.' 
   
  'In what sort of sense, precisely?' 
   
  'In a rather imprecise sense.' 
   
  'He doesn't look very much like you.' 
   
  'I was five hundred years younger then,' the Doctor said gloomily. 'You may not believe it, 
  but age has mellowed me.' 
   
  Ace snorted. 
   
  'You should write your autobiography,' she said. 'Confessions of a Roving Time Lord. 
  You'd sell a billion.' 
   
  'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'that reminds me...' 
   
  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. 
   
  'A present for you both,' he said. 
   
  Bernice took the book from his outstretched hand. 
   
  'All-Consuming Fire,' she read, grinning. 'Being a Reprint From the Reminiscences of 
  Doctor John Watson As Edited by Arthur Conan Doyle.' 
   
  She rifled through the pages. 
   
  'This is weird, seeing them called Holmes and Watson.' 
   
  'That's how history remembers them. That's how Arthur protected their identities.' 
   
  'Arthur?' Ace looked interested. 'Mate of yours, this Doyle character?' 
   
  
  The Doctor looked away. 
   
  'Oh, our paths crossed, longer ago that I care to remember. Arthur Conan Doyle and 
  Rudyard Kipling. Do you like Kipling?' 
   
  'I don't know,' Ace replied with a cheeky grin, 'I've never kippled.' 
   
  Bernice, who had been flicking through the book looking for her first appearance, laughed 
  suddenly. 
   
  'What is it?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'You, after that creature fell on you,' she giggled. 'I still remember the look on your face.' 
   
  The Doctor frowned, and gazed at the faded pink stains on his linen jacket. 
   
  'I'll never get these blood-stains out,' he murmured. 
   
  Bernice hardly heard him. She had flipped back to the start of the book and was already 
  reading the first few words. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 1 
   
  In which Holmes and Watson return from holiday and an illustrious client commissions 
  their services 
   
   
  A reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson M.D. 
   
   
  As I flick through the thirty-five volumes of my diary I find records of the many bizarre 
  cases that my friend Sherlock Holmes and I were engaged in over the years. In the 
  volume for eighteen eighty four, to take an example, I see the repulsive story of the red 
  leech and the tale of the terrible death of Crosby the banker. Again, in the tome devoted to 
  eighteen eighty six my eye is caught by the singular affair of the aluminium crutch and its 
  connection with an attempt upon the life of our dear sovereign: a story for which the world 
  is singularly unprepared. It is, however, the year eighteen eighty seven which occupies no 
  less that three volumes of my diary. Following the tragic curtailment of my marriage to 
  Constance Adams of California I was again living under the same roof as Holmes. I still 
  maintained a small practice in Paddington, but my work was undemanding - so much so 
  that I had turned my hand to writing an account of my meeting with Holmes for private 
  publication - and I always managed to make myself available on those occasions when 
  Holmes requested my presence (I cannot, in all honesty, say help) on a case. 
   
  
  All through the spring and summer of that year the brass knocker on the door of 221b 
  Baker Street seemed never to be still, and our carpet was almost worn away by the 
  constant stream of visitors. Twice Mrs Hudson threatened to withdraw from her role as 
  provider of light refreshments to Holmes's clients. The unceasing round of snatched sleep 
  and snatched meals caused Holmes's naturally gaunt features to become so emaciated 
  that I became worried for his health. Eventually I managed to persuade him that he 
  deserved a holiday. Typically of Holmes, he chose to spend it in Vienna researching his 
  theory that many of Mozart's symphonies were plagiarized from obscure works by Orlando 
  Lassus. To mollify me, for he had no interest in bodily comfort himself, he arranged for us 
  to travel in some considerable style. The cost, he claimed, was of no concern, for he had 
  recently been generously remunerated by Lord Rotherfield for proving to the satisfaction 
  of the various Court circulars and scandal sheets that Lady Rotherfield was not a female 
  impersonator. Whilst he delved into archives and, much to the dismay of the maids, buried 
  his hotel suite in mounds of dusty paper, I admired the architecture, the ladies and the 
  horseflesh at the famous Riding Academy. Finally, completely restored to health and 
  happiness, we returned to England on the Orient Express. I should have known that our 
  luck could not last for ever. The shadow of the Library of Saint John the Beheaded lay 
  over us, even as we pulled out of Vienna. 
   
  Holmes and I were in the habit of taking dinner with Colonel Warburton and his charming 
  wife Gloria. Returning from an extended holiday, they were heading for Marseilles to pick 
  up the ship to India, where the Colonel was the Resident in the native state of Jabalhabad. 
  Warburton had been with my old regiment, the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Our paths 
  had never crossed before, as he had arrived after my transfer to the Berkshires during the 
  Second Afghan War. My subsequent wounding and invalidity precluded any chance 
  meeting. He was a beefy, florid man with a greying moustache and piercing blue eyes. His 
  wife was a dainty creature, as fragile as a porcelain miniature, but they were obviously 
  devoted to one another despite their differences. 
   
  We first became aware of something amiss in the dining carriage. Holmes was in an 
  unusually expansive mood, that night, entertaining us with anecdotes of his long and 
  varied life as we dined on an excellent fillet of beef washed down with a surprisingly 
  mediocre Medoc. Having heard Holmes's stories before, I spent some time admiring the 
  carriage we sat in. The ornate ceiling, mahogany panelling and embossed leather seats 
  put me in mind of the finest London clubs, although the paintings (by Schwind and 
  Delacroix, Holmes had assured me) were not to my taste. Give me Landseer's Monarch of 
  the Glen any day. 
   
  Eventually my gaze shifted to the window, and to the snow-bound Austrian landscape 
  which flashed past too quickly to identify any features. There was a full moon in the sky, 
  and occasionally clouds scudded across its face like dirty rags carried by the wind. 
  Moonlight glinted on the metal of a set of rail tracks which ran parallel to ours. I was about 
  to turn my attention back to the table when a movement caught my eye. I craned my neck, 
  and saw that a second train was racing along behind us, moving at such a pace that it 
  would overtake us within moments. I watched, fascinated, as it pulled alongside. Against 
  the fiery glow from the engine I could see the silhouette of the stoker shovelling like a 
  
  clockwork figure in the cabin. As the train overtook us I was amazed to discover that it 
  consisted of only one carriage. If anything it was even more ornate than ours from the 
  outside; a gleaming white shape with scarlet velvet drapes drawn across the windows and 
  a golden crest on its flank. Who owned it? What was it doing there? I turned to ask 
  Holmes, but he was engaged in deep conversation and I could not find it in my heart to 
  interrupt. By the time I turned my face back to the window the mystery train had almost 
  passed us. 
   
  Holmes was now waxing lyrical about violins, explaining to the Colonel and his wife the 
  difference between an Amati and a Stradivarius. I thanked God that Holmes's own violin 
  lay back in Baker Street. When the mood took him Holmes could play like an angel, but 
  more often than not his raucous meanderings put the cats to shame. Whilst we waited for 
  our third course I glanced over Holmes's shoulder. Apart from the four of us around the 
  dinner table there were two other travellers travelling first class, but only the Reverend 
  Hawkins was present in the dining car. Baden-Powell, a self-proclaimed expert on 
  butterflies whose tan and manner indicated military service, was absent. I looked again at 
  the Reverend Hawkins. Something about him bothered me, but I could not say what. 
   
  'You see, but you do not understand,' said Holmes, interrupting my train of thought. 
   
  'I beg your pardon?' 
   
  'Our clerical fellow traveller is an agent for the British Government.' 
   
  'Good Lord, Holmes. Are you sure?' 
   
  Colonel and Mrs Warburton were listening intently. I suddenly became aware that the train 
  was slowing but I found myself, as always, fascinated by Holmes's display of his talents. 
   
  'The Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits have provided spies of all nations with a 
  golden ribbon across Europe. It would be unusual were they not to take advantage of it. 
  When I see an English clergyman travelling first class my suspicions are raised; when I 
  notice that the knees of his trousers do not shine, my suspicions positively levitate.' 
   
  'Knees?' asked Warburton. 
   
  'Shine?' murmured his wife. 
   
  'You do not see the connection?' Holmes asked. 'Forgive me, I thought it was obvious. 
  The Reverend Hawkins may pray, but not I suspect for his immortal soul, and certainly not 
  in the conventional position. You may also note the callous on the index finger of his right 
  hand, indicating a familiarity with firearms of which the Archbishop of Canterbury would 
  strongly disapprove.' 
   
  The train was just crawling along now, but Holmes continued. 
   
  
  'The man is obviously an undercover agent of some sort. The assertion that he works for 
  our dear Queen rather than one of her foreign relatives is, I will admit, a shot in the dark. 
  However, given his calm manner I would suggest that he is returning from an assignment 
  rather than travelling to one.' 
   
  'But how did you know . . .?' 
   
  'That you were watching him? If I catch you staring fixedly over my shoulder it doesn't take 
  much to know that you aren't keeping an eye on an empty table. You were watching one 
  of our fellow travellers.' 
   
  The train had been brought to a stop now. Glancing out of the window I saw what I had 
  expected; the white train with the gold crest was stationary on the other track. 
   
  'But,' I protested, gathering my wits, 'Hawkins entered after us, and your back has been to 
  him all the time. How did you know it wasn't Mr Baden-Powell who had entered?' 
   
  'Simplicity itself; When the serveur brought in the soup, he was carrying five dishes. 
  Someone had obviously entered behind me. It must have been either Baden-Powell or 
  Hawkins, since they are the only other first class travellers.' He leaned back and steepled 
  his fingers upon the tablecloth. The candle on the table cast a hawk-like shadow behind 
  him. 'When we received the soup, we began immediately. There was a gap of almost 
  forty-five seconds before I heard the clink of a spoon on a dish behind us. Conclusion: the 
  Reverend Hawkins had been saying grace.' Holmes smiled. 'Either that or Mr Baden-
  Powell had been straining the soup for botanical specimens. I chose the most probable 
  alternative.' 
   
  'Bravo!' said the Colonel. His wife applauded daintily. 
   
  'As usual, Holmes,' I said, a touch acerbically, 'you make it appear so simple.' 
   
  Before Holmes could reply the imposing figure of the chef de train appeared at our table. 
  Bending low, he murmured something into my friend's ear. Holmes stood, and turned to 
  the Colonel and his wife. 
   
  'I'm afraid that I will have to leave you for a moment,' he announced, and turning to me he 
  said, 'Watson, perhaps you would like to accompany me.' 
   
  Together we made our way from the dining carriage to the smoking salon. Baden-Powell 
  was slumped in a heavy leather fauteuil with a sketchbook in his hands. As the chef de 
  train led us past I noticed that the naturalist was painstakingly filling in patterns on a 
  butterfly's wing. 
   
  Beyond the smoking salon, stairs had been lowered to the snowy ground. The white train 
  lay twenty feet away. Footsteps led from that train to ours and back again. There was a 
  chill in the air, but no worse than the bite of an April morning in London. 
  
   
  The chef de train halted and turned to us. 
   
  'Gentlemen,' he began, his breath steaming in front of his face. 'In the history of the 
  Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits this has happened not once before. Not once. 
  We have been...' he searched for the right words, '...flagged down!' 
   
  'By whom?' Holmes inquired softly. 
   
  'By one whom I may not disobey,' the chef said, crossing himself briefly. 'Your presence is 
  requested. We will wait for ten minutes. The schedule will allow no more.' With that he 
  turned on his heel and strode back inside the salon. 
   
  'You saw it pass us by earlier?' Holmes asked, indicating the distant carriage. I nodded. 
  'That crest is familiar,' he continued. 'I have seen it before, on a letter or a document of 
  some kind.' He shook his head. 'There is, of course, only one way to find out. Are you 
  game?' 
   
  'I would consider it a privilege,' I replied. 
   
  We set out together across the snow-laden ground towards the white train. 
   
  The snow crunched underfoot. I could feel the cold begin to bite at the tips of my fingers. 
  Behind us I could hear an increasing number of voices from the second-class 
  compartments demanding to know of the chef de train what was causing the delay. I could 
  not make out his answer. 
   
  Within moments we were approaching the train. 
   
  'Are you armed?' Holmes asked. 
   
  'No,' I replied. 'I had not anticipated the need. Are you?' 
   
  'My hair-trigger pistol is back in my valise.' 
   
  As we reached the steps leading up to the lone carriage a door opened above us. Back-lit 
  by the light spilling from the carriage, a spindly, cloaked figure cast its shadow over us. I 
  could make out nothing apart from the unnatural smoothness of its head. It gestured us 
  inside, then retreated. 
   
  Holmes and I looked at each other, then Holmes climbed the steps. Casting a longing 
  glance back at the Orient Express, I did likewise. 
   
  The bright light blinded me momentarily as we entered the carriage. Shielding my eyes, I 
  managed to make out three figures before us. One was seated in an ornately carved chair 
  in the centre of the otherwise empty space. The others stood behind. As my eyes grew 
  
  accustomed to the glare I began to make out more. The carriage was lined in white silk, 
  with the scarlet velvet curtains across the windows standing out like splashes of blood. 
  Three massive gas-lit chandeliers hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly. The carpet was 
  deep and red. 
   
  The figures standing behind the chair were tall and thin. Both wore long black robes with 
  scarlet scarves draped across their shoulders, scarlet sashes around their waists and 
  scarlet skullcaps half-covering what sparse hair they had. Each had a face that seemed to 
  be made up of vertical lines. Neither showed any expression. 
   
  The man in the chair, swamped by his white robes, was the least impressive thing in the 
  carriage. Thin and greyhaired, he might have been a banker or a grocer. His tiny white 
  skullcap looked as if it could fall from his head at any moment. 
  Holmes walked to the centre of the carriage and stood before the man in the chair. I 
  expected one of them to say something, and so I was completely unprepared when 
  Holmes knelt upon one knee. The man extended his hand, upon which I saw a massive 
  gold ring. Holmes's face tightened for a moment, then he knelt and kissed the ring. 
   
  I was hit by a sudden crashing realization, and so when Holmes turned his head and said, 
  'Watson, may I introduce His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII,' I was at least half prepared. I 
  bowed from where I stood. One of the men who flanked the Pope frowned and opened his 
  mouth as if to rebuke me, but the Pope raised his hand. The other man spoke in excellent 
  English. 
   
  'His Holiness understands that Doctor Watson shares the majority of his countrymen's 
  antagonism towards the Holy See. There is no transgression.' 
  Holmes stood and took two steps backwards to join me. 
   
  'We are grateful, your Holiness,' he murmured. There was a undertone of sarcasm in his 
  words. 
   
  The man spoke again. 
   
  'I am Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla, and this,' he gestured to his mirror image on the other side of 
  the chair, 'is Cardinal Tosca. His Holiness wishes to express his regret for disrupting your 
  journey.' 
   
  'His Holiness has no need to apologize for anything,' Holmes said. 'I have served the Holy 
  Father from a distance before, although I had never expected to meet him in person.' 
   
  'His Holiness was most pleased with your discreet recovery of the Vatican cameos,' Ruffo-
  Scilla continued smoothly. 'Your actions prevented a scandal, and justified his Holiness's 
  faith in you.' 
   
  'I did wonder how I had come to the Vatican's attention,' Holmes said carefully. 'After all, 
  given Mr Gladstone's belated acknowledgement of the annexation of all papal lands by 
  
  King Victor Emmanuel II, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Apostolic Delegation from 
  British territory, I had assumed that his Holiness would use the extensive resources of the 
  Vatican rather than resort to a British detective who regards himself as an atheist and 
  whose fame,' and he spread his hands modestly, 'barely extends beyond the borders of a 
  country currently regarded as non grata.' 
   
  His Holiness Pope Leo XIII smiled gently. 
   
  'His Holiness has followed your career with interest,' Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla said. 'There are 
  certain things that a free agent can do that members of the Sacred College cannot. His 
  Holiness believes, however, that such business should be "kept within the family", 
  whenever possible and, despite your own regrettable lapse in faith, your family have 
  served the Holy See faithfully before.' 
   
  Holmes nodded and turned to me. 
   
  'I remember Sherringford writing to tell me,' he murmured, 'that one of our distant 
  ancestors had been Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces of his Holiness the Pope. I 
  had never credited the story until now.' 
   
  I was amazed, not so much at what had been said, but at Holmes's uncharacteristic 
  revelations concerning his family. After all, it had been five years before he revealed to me 
  that he possessed a brother. I made a note to ask who Sherringford was when we got 
  back to London. 
   
  His Holiness raised a hand, still smiling enigmatically. 
   
  'Time is short,' Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla said. 'Your train will be leaving shortly. His Holiness 
  wishes to retain your professional services. You may demand any recompense that you 
  wish.' 
   
  'My fees are on a fixed scale,' Holmes said severely, 'except in those cases where I remit 
  them altogether. The problem is everything. Pray explain what you wish of me.' 
   
  His Holiness twisted his ring around his finger and looked thoughtful. 
   
  'Have you heard of the Library of Saint John the Beheaded?' Ruffo-Scilla, asked. 
   
  I saw Holmes's fingers twitch. Had we been back in Baker Street I knew he would have 
  been demanding: 'Watson, pass my index for the letter L down from the shell Oh, and 
  whilst you are at it, you may as well recover J and B as well.' Now, however, I could hear 
  the chagrin in his voice as he admitted, 'The name is familiar, but I am afraid I cannot 
  place it.' 
   
  'I would not expect you to,' the Cardinal said calmly. 'The Library does not advertise its 
  presence. It is a repository for books which have been, or are, or may be, banned - either 
  
  by us or by some other . . . authority. Books so extreme and unusual that we cannot even 
  acknowledge that we are interested in them, for fear of exciting general opinion. Books 
  that, some say, should never have been written. However' - he spread his hands wide in 
  an unofficial benediction - 'we are reasonable men. We allow selected scholars and 
  researchers to examine these books in the hope that they may shed a little light into the 
  darker corners of God's creation for us. Because England is the centre of the rational 
  world, and has always seemed to us to be more stable than many other countries, the 
  Library is based in London. The present . . . discommodation . . . between our countries 
  has, paradoxically, made things easier. The greater the perceived gap between the 
  Library and the Church, the better.' 
   
  'Suppression of knowledge by the Church,' Holmes said bitterly. 'Why am I unsurprised?' 
   
  I cleared my throat. His Holiness looked up at me and smiled. 
   
  'I find myself confused,' I said. 'What sort of books are we talking about?' 
   
  'One of the three unexpurgated versions of the Malleus Maleficarum is in the Library' the 
  Cardinal replied from the Supreme Pontiff's side, 'the other two being held in the Vatican 
  Library. The only complete transcript of Galileo Galilei's trial resides there, along with 
  shelves of books on the Chinese Si Fan society and its leader, Doctor Fu Manchu - a man 
  whom we in the Vatican believe to be as huge a menace to civilization as you believe 
  anarchism to be. Five lost plays by Aristophanes. The only known copy of the Basra 
  Fragment of the lost Dictionary of the Khazars, along with the proof of Fermat's Last 
  Theorem. And,' he smiled, 'a copy of notes made by Doctor Watson and picturesquely 
  entitled The Affair of the Politician, The Lighthouse and the Trained Cormorant, the 
  publication of which was, I believe, suppressed at the highest levels.' 
   
  I took a step forward, ready to remonstrate with the Cardinal. Holmes raised a hand to 
  stop me but His Holiness the Pope coughed, attracting my attention. The small man in the 
  loose-fitting white robe who was believed by many to be God's mouthpiece on Earth 
  looked full into my eyes for the first time, and I was so struck by the calm and wise 
  intelligence that shone like a beacon in his gaze that I stood with my mouth hanging open 
  until Holmes interjected, 'This is all very interesting, but I'm afraid we have a train to catch. 
  Perhaps you could get to the point.' 
   
  'The Library was been robbed,' Ruffo-Scilla, said quietly. 'In the thousand years that the 
  Library has existed, such a thing has never happened. Wars, fires, disasters . . . these 
  things have been as the beating of a moth's wing to the Library. And yet now, after all 
  those long years, books are missing.' 
   
  Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla seemed genuinely upset, although I could not see why. Admittedly, 
  the theft of historical relics was unfortunate, but the Cardinal was making it seem like a 
  world catastrophe. I had seen enough looting in Afghanistan and in India to show me that 
  nothing lasts forever. 
   
  
  Holmes cut to the nub of the issue. 
   
  'Do you have any idea who the thief might be?' he said. 
   
  'None.' 
   
  'When was the theft discovered?' 
   
  ''Two days ago, when a member of the Library asked to see one of the books.' 
   
  'The news came through rapidly.' 
   
  'We have our methods.' 
   
  'I shall have to visit the scene of the crime, of course, although the evidence will almost 
  certainly have been cleaned away by now.' 
   
  The Cardinal smiled. 'Cleaners are not allowed in the Library,' he said. 'Some of the 
  documents are so old that a careless touch would crumble them to dust.' 
   
  'The police have not been informed?' 
   
  His Holiness frowned. For the first time Cardinal Tosca spoke from the other side of the 
  Papal Throne. His voice was sibilant, his accent pronounced. 
   
  'The authorities must not be made aware of the Library,' he hissed. 'The whole point about 
  conspiracies is that they have been suppressed by those in power.' 
   
  Outside a train whistle hooted mournfully. 
   
  'I believe that is our train,' Holmes said. 'I shall take your case, but I will require the 
  location of this mysterious Library, and a letter of introduction to its custodian.' 
   
  Ruffo-Scilla reached into his robes and pulled out a sheaf of documents, which he passed 
  to Holmes. 
   
  'His Holiness would like to extend his gratitude,' the Cardinal said. Holmes, uncomfortable 
  with the display of subservience but too experienced in the ways of the world to object, 
  knelt to kiss the ring on the Pope's outstretched hand again, and this time I did the same. 
  Leo XIII leaned forward and made the sign of the cross above Holmes's forehead, and 
  then above mine. 
   
  'In nomine Patris; et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,' the Pope murmured, 'Amen. God be with you, 
  gentlemen.' 
   
  We left the carriage together. 
  
   
  'A rum business, what?' I said as we walked back across our footprints. The night had 
  turned colder in the few minutes we had been inside. 
   
  'Returning overdue books to the library,' Holmes snapped. 'It's a bit beneath my dignity. 
  And I have no great love for the Catholic Church. Our family was brought up in the faith, 
  but my brothers and I were too aware of the inconsistencies and irrationalities inherent in 
  the Bible to make good communicants.' 
   
  Brothers? I thought, but just then the Orient Express began to pull slowly away from us, 
  and we had to sprint the last few yards or face a long walk home. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 2 
   
  In which Holmes and Watson visit the Library and Mr Jitter threatens to take a hand. 
   
   
  'Cab!' 
   
  Holmes's strident cry rang out across the late afternoon hurly-burly outside Victoria 
  Station. I added a single blast from my cab-whistle for good measure. A growler that had 
  seen better days detached itself from the throng of vehicles and clattered towards us. 
   
  It was good to be back in London. The metropolis was labouring under a warm and muggy 
  spell and despite the high, if not putrid, aroma of horse dung and refuse that greeted us as 
  we left the station, I felt my spirits soar. 
   
  As Holmes and I sank gratefully back into the upholstered seats and the cabbie hoisted 
  our considerable baggage on to the four-wheeler's roof, Holmes turned to me and said, 
  'You have been strangely quiet since our meeting with his Holiness last night' 
   
  Indeed, we both had. After we had clambered back on to the Orient Express, Holmes had 
  refused to be drawn on the matter. We had retired to our cabins with no more than a few 
  words passing between us. We awoke in Paris, and spent most of the day so occupied in 
  getting ourselves to the present point with the minimum inconvenience and our luggage 
  intact that no opportunities for serious conversation had presented themselves. Even on 
  the journey from Dover to London, Holmes had buried himself into the pages of the Daily 
  Chronicle, eschewing the headlines for the agony columns. 
   
  In passing, I should say that, despite his frequent claims to care 'not a whit' which party 
  was in power, I could not help but notice that on the day that the Daily Telegraph switched 
  its editorial allegiance from the Liberal camp to the Unionist persuasion, Holmes had given 
  up reading it in favour of the newly published Chronicle. 
   
  
  'You,' I ventured, 'have been remarkably reticent on the subject as well.' 
   
  We jolted into motion. The ornate facade of the Grosvenor Hotel passed us by, followed 
  moments later by the Metropolitan line Underground station ticket office. 
   
  'That is no more than anyone who knew my foibles would expect,' Holmes responded. 
   
  I glanced across at Holmes, suspecting some jibe. His eyes were closed and his mouth 
  curved into a slight smile. 
   
  'However,' he added, 'since you are known as a clubbable sort of fellow, your silence is 
  more surprising than mine.' 
   
  The growler's speed increased as it moved from the muddy area outside the station to the 
  asphalted wooden blocks of Victoria Street. Within a few minutes we were rounding 
  Parliament Square and trotting up Whitehall. 
   
  Holmes glanced at his watch. 
   
  'Mycroft will be clearing his desk at this very moment,' he said, 'in preparation for his usual 
  walk to the Diogenes Club. As I may have remarked before, the daily rotation of my 
  brother between his lodgings in Pall Mall, his office here in Westminster and his club is as 
  unvarying as the motion of the stars.' 
   
  'If you must know,' I said, 'I have misgivings concerning this case.' 
   
  'I confess,' he replied, 'that the more I think about it, the less I like it. I suspect there are 
  deep undercurrents here of which we have not been made aware.' He brightened up. 'Still, 
  it is a capital mistake to theorize in the absence of the facts, and the case does hold 
  certain interesting features.' 
   
  We took Trafalgar Square at a fast clip, and were heading up the newly built Charing 
  Cross Road when Holmes said, 'How do you fancy a little run out tomorrow, old chap?' 
   
  His casual tone did not fool me. 
   
  'To the Library of Saint John the Beheaded?' 
   
  'I'll make a detective out of you yet,' he chuckled. 
   
  As we turned into Oxford Street we found ourselves behind a slow-moving bus - one of 
  the dark green Atlas type -whose horses could not be raised from an idle canter. The 
  press of traffic made it impossible for our own driver to overtake. 
   
  'These streets are becoming more crowded by the day,' Holmes remarked. 'There is only 
  so much traffic the capital can take without grinding to a complete halt.' 
  
   
  It was twenty minutes later that we arrived at our lodgings in Baker Street. Mrs Hudson, 
  our landlady, had been alerted by telegram to our impending arrival. Despite a sprained 
  ankle which had occurred during our absence, and which my locum had treated, she had 
  a large dinner awaiting us. At last I was home and comfortable again. 
   
  I descended the next morning to find Holmes slumped in his armchair in the same position 
  he had been in when I retired. He was still wearing his mouse-coloured dressing-gown. 
   
  'Have you slept, Holmes?' 
   
  'Sleep is for tortoises.' A huge pile of newspapers was spread around him and he was 
  clipping out articles and pasting them into his files, 'I have a deal of catching up to do. Mrs 
  Hudson had been saving these for me every day. This,' he said, waving a copy of the 
  Globe, 'is the nervous system of the city, Watson! The agony columns, the small 
  advertisements, the snippets of news concerning lost parakeets and accidents involving 
  brewers' drays... I can predict half the crimes in London for the next six months by keeping 
  abreast of these sorts of minutiae and trivia!' 
   
  Whilst I breakfasted on scrambled eggs, bacon and kedgeree, all washed down with cups 
  of strong, sweet tea, Holmes busied himself amongst his cuttings. I took the opportunity to 
  look around the room - made fresh to me by a few days' absence. It struck me suddenly 
  how bohemian our abode must have looked to the casual visitor - of which we had more 
  than our fair share, given Holmes's vocation. The general arrangement of chairs and 
  tables was, it must be said, unremarkable. The three windows looked down onto Baker 
  Street, and provided ample light. The furniture was comfortable. A spirit case and 
  gasogene in one comer were a welcome sign of refreshment, and a curtained recess in 
  another provided privacy, should it be needed. No, it was the details that gave us away. 
  The initials 'VR', which Holmes had patriotically inscribed in the wall adjoining his bedroom 
  using a small-calibre revolver were, perhaps, the most obvious feature. Next to them his 
  unanswered correspondence, affixed to the mantlepiece with a jack-knife, was a minor 
  detail and the Persian slipper full of tobacco a mere frippery. 
   
  How did I put up with the man? More importantly, how did Mrs Hudson put up with him? 
   
  The answer to that was simple. Mrs Hudson's affection for Holmes was that same feeling 
  that one would show for a precocious but wayward child. She had taken him under her 
  wing, and Holmes, the great observer, never realized the extent to which she mothered 
  him. The fact that the rent which - and I frankly admit this - he paid for both of us could 
  have already bought the house many times over did not influence her in the slightest, I 
  feel sure. 
   
  I glanced over at the side of the room which, by mutual agreement, was 'mine'. A few 
  scattered volumes of short stories, a copy of Gray's Anatomy, a framed portrait of General 
  Gordon and an unframed one of Henry Ward Beecher . . . these were my possessions. 
  Not for the first time, I compared my life to that of my friend, and I found myself wanting. 
  
   
  'I have been researching the Library of St John the Beheaded whilst you lay asleep,' 
  Holmes announced, apropos of nothing. 'I have been able to find no reference to it 
  anywhere, save some guarded comments in an obscure theological journal published 
  almost a century ago. It appears to derive from the Venetian Church of S. Giovanni 
  Decollato, or S. Zan DegolA as the locals call it. According to the documentation we were 
  provided with by his Holiness-' he tapped a sheaf of vellum beside him which, I noticed, 
  was already stained with marmalade ' it is located in Holborn, in the notorious area known 
  as the St Giles Rookery, A nasty neighbourhood it is too; a veritable rabbit-warren of 
  alleys, cellars, tunnels, slums and stairwells. The police dare not go near it, save in 
  teams.' He frowned slightly. 'I tracked down Lady Fantersham there, you may recall, when 
  she was kidnapping girls for the white slave trade.' 
   
  'An unexpected location for a library. I would have expected something isolated and 
  heavily guarded. A manor house, perhaps, in some remote corner of England.' 
   
  'I suspect that the location is not accidental. Given the value that we know must attach 
  itself to such a collection, what better place to hide it than amongst thieves and rogues?' 
   
  'Ah,' I cried. 'The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe! The best place to hide an 
  incriminating letter is in a letter rack!' 
   
  'Poe is an American drunk and his fictional detective Dupin a fortunate blunderer,' Holmes 
  snapped, and threw off his dressing gown to reveal impeccable morning attire. 
  'Surely,' I said, 'if we are descending into the lair of the criminal classes, a disguise of 
  some sort. .' 
   
  'No need: He reached .for his top hat. 'The one reference I have been able to find to the 
  Library of St John the Beheaded implied that some form of immunity from harm was 
  extended to its patrons.' 
   
  'Holmes, that was a hundred years ago!' 
   
  'Then we had better hope it is still accurate.' 
   
  Within a few minutes we were in a hansom heading for Holborn. Within sight of Newgate 
  Prison, empty now but still a name to strike terror into the heart, we turned off into a series 
  of narrow alleys, whose steep sides restricted the sky to a narrow, overcast strip and 
  provided plentiful shadows for lurking muggers. 
   
  'Can't go no farther, Guv,' said the cabbie after a while. 
   
  I was not sure whether he was referring to the narrowness of the alleys or the danger of 
  lingering. Holmes paid him off whilst I gazed around, convinced we were being watched. 
   
  
  'The St Giles Rookery' Holmes murmured as the two wheeler clattered away to wider and 
  safer thoroughfares. 'A portmanteau term born of St Giles's Church and the rook, a 
  burglar's jemmy. Keep your eyes peeled and your hand on your revolver.' 
   
  'How did you...' 
   
  'Your topcoat hangs heavy on the right-hand side. No doubt the crows will have noticed.' 
   
  'Crows?' 
   
  'The look-outs, Watson. Five of them. You had not noticed?' He gave an exclamation and 
  moved off. I followed, wishing I were somewhere else. 
   
  The alleys seemed to crowd in on us as we walked. The cobbles were more like sharp 
  stones embedded in mud. Glassless windows and doorless doorways led to sparsely 
  furnished rooms and stairwells with broken treads. Undernourished dogs paced us from a 
  distance. Sneering men in grimy, collarless shirts watched us from doorways. Hollow-eyed 
  women glanced quickly up at us from sinks and tables, only to look away if we met their 
  gaze. Children ran in gangs, playing with shards of wood and frayed string, staring at us 
  with hard, old eyes. The stench was appalling - worse than the fetid odour of gangrene 
  and trenchfoot which was my overriding memory of Afghanistan. 
   
  'The dregs of London make their abode here, Watson,' Holmes warned, sotto voce. 'I 
  would be surprised if there's a man or woman with an honest occupation within a mile of 
  this spot.' His voice was bitter. 'The criminal underclasses do not call themselves the 
  Family for nothing. They live ten to a room and teach their children to become dips and 
  mutchers in their wake, and who can blame them? Those politicians who decry anarchy 
  and socialism as dangerous foreign nonsense should look to their own backyards first. 
  There is no law here; it is nature, red in tooth and claw.' 
   
  'Dips and mutchers?' I asked. 
   
  'Pickpockets and thieves who rob drunks,' he said. 'Really, Watson, your education is 
  remarkably lacking in some areas.' 
   
  A pair of grimy ragamuffins ran past us. I was about to reach out and ruffle the hair on one 
  of them - a small, blonde girl - when Holmes stopped me. 
   
  'Tosh-fakers,' he explained. 
   
  'I'm sorry?' I pulled my hand back. 
   
  'Urchins whose dubious profession it is to search the sewer mouths of the Thames, 
  casting amongst the excrement for valuable trifles which have been lost down privies and 
  drains.' 
   
  
  'How can a child endure this way of life?' I exclaimed. 
   
  'They survive,' he said. 
   
  Holmes seemed to have memorized the route, for he led me unhesitatingly through turn 
  after turn. Within moments we were moving through what seemed to be a crowd of 
  scarecrows who eyed us with envy and hatred, but we carried a bubble of privacy with us 
  that pushed the crowd away before us and closed it again in our wake. As Holmes had 
  said, we were protected. I could not have retraced even a fraction of our path, for every 
  street and every face bore the same marks of hardship and violence. 
   
  'Does anything strike you as strange?' Holmes muttered after a while. 
   
  'Nothing in particular,' I replied. 
   
  'Hmmm. I would be prepared to swear that this rookery is less crowded than the last time I 
  passed this way. Many of the male inhabitants appear to be absent.' 
   
  'Less crowded?' I couldn't see how any more people could be crammed into the area. 
   
  'Relatively speaking,' he added, and walked on. 
   
  I noticed after a while that, as well as the dogs, a gaggle of stooped and grey-haired 
  women were following us. 
   
  'We appear to be the object of some attention,' I murmured to my friend. 
   
  'Not us,' he said, 'the dogs.' 
   
  Indeed, now he mentioned it, I noticed that the women were carefully watching what the 
  dogs did. When one of the hounds took it into his head to . . . delicacy forbids me to be 
  specific . . . perform a natural function, then one of the grey-haired hags would 
  immediately rush forward and scoop the resulting ordure into a canvas sack. 
   
  'Collected for the tanneries south of the Thames,' Holmes said in answer to the question 
  which I could not bring myself to utter. 'Too old to steal, they eke out a living this way' 
   
  'Holmes, all this . . . this degradation . . . and within five minutes walk of Simpson's Tavern 
  and Divan in the Strand.' 
   
  'Yes,' he said. 'Obscene, is it not?' He looked around. 'We have arrived.' 
   
  The doorway was no different to others we had passed; empty, with the timbers of the 
  doorframe rotted and mossy. Inside there was darkness. 
   
  Holmes led the way. 
  
   
  I had expected shadows, rats and creaking floorboards. What I found was a black curtain 
  that parted to reveal a carpeted corridor lined with damask. Oil lamps provided a warm 
  yellow light. The ceiling was adorned with alabaster carvings. The contrast with the 
  poverty outside was almost unbelievable. I could well have believed myself to be in a 
  house in Cheyne Walk, having dreamed the journey here. 
  An emaciated attendant dressed in black silk robes came forward to greet us. 
   
  'Gentlemen,' he said in a voice so low it verged on the indistinguishable. 'Do you have an 
  appointment?' 
   
  Holmes handed his card to the man, who looked at it in disdain. 
   
  'If you have no appointment, then I regret . . : He trailed off politely. 
   
  'Perhaps a letter of introduction?' Holmes suggested. 
   
  The man inclined his head. 
   
  'That would, of course, depend on...' 
   
  Holmes handed over the vellum sheet sealed with the papal crest. 
   
  The man frowned. 
   
  'Yes, sir,' he finally intoned. 'I believe that will be sufficient.' 
   
  Holmes looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. 
   
  'Perhaps you would care to sign the visitors book,' the man continued, moving away. 'We 
  do not allow documents to be removed from the premises, but you are at liberty to 
  examine any that you wish whilst you are here. What is your area of interest?' 
   
  'Stolen books,' Holmes said succinctly. 
   
  'We have a small section on bibliographic theft, sir, including a treatise which casts an 
  intriguing new light upon the fire which consumed the library at Alexandria in the sixth 
  century.' 
   
  We both stared at him. 
   
  'My little joke,' he said quietly. 'Please follow me.' 
   
  We followed him to a little nook, where we both signed an ancient tome as thick as a large 
  loaf and were issued with small slips of card with our names on them. He then led the way 
  along the corridor and up two flights of stairs which groaned under the weight of the books 
  
  piled upon them. His robes made no sound as he walked, and in the silence I was aware 
  of the swish that our morning clothes made. Three rooms led off each landing, so thickly 
  lined with laden shelves that the walls themselves were not visible. I glanced in one of 
  them and saw a small man sitting at a desk and reading a book. His face was morose, an 
  impression aided by his heavy eyebrows, and he looked as if he had selected his clothes 
  in the dark from a wardrobe of remnants from the Eastcheap markets. His lightweight linen 
  jacket was inappropriate for the time of year, the time of day and the occasion; his white 
  trousers were baggy; his embroidered silk waistcoat belonged to another ensemble 
  entirely. A paisley cravat was loosely knotted at his throat, and a battered fedora was 
  crammed upon his head. 
   
  'Excuse me,' I said, and made as if to leave. 
   
  'Were you looking for anything in particular?' he asked. 
   
  'I'm not sure'. 
   
  He smiled cheerfully. 
   
  'I hope you find it,' he said. 'I myself am in search of universal peace, an end to strife and 
  unlimited custard for all, but I have a feeling I'm looking in the wrong place.' 
   
  'Might I ask what you are reading?' 
   
  He held the book up so that I could see the title: Adventures Amongst the Abominable 
  Snowmen by Redvers Fenn-Cooper. As a child I had doted on the adventures of the 
  famous explorer. I remember the sense of loss I had experienced when reading about his 
  disappearance, a decade or more ago. 
   
  'Are you interested in his work?' I asked. 
   
  'I'm searching for the man,' he replied. 
   
  'He vanished, did he not? Are you intending to set out on an expedition to look for him?' 
   
  'Oh I know where he is. I meant it metaphorically.' 
   
  'I see.' I began to withdraw. 'I hope that you find him.' 
   
  'Most kind,' his voice rang out as I ran to catch up with Holmes and our guide. 
   
  We turned left and walked for a few yards, passing another two such rooms, descended 
  another flight of stairs and turned back on ourselves. We followed this curiously winding 
  path in silence for some ten minutes or more, passing innumerable rooms, each 
  containing innumerable books, folders and pamphlets. By the end of it, I estimated that we 
  were in a cellar area a hundred yards or so deeper into the building and had passed more 
  
  books than were in the possession of the British Library. In all that time, I had seen 
  nobody but the small man with the lunatic grin. 
   
  As we turned a sharp corner and descended a ramp to a lower level, I heard a noise 
  behind me. Turning, I caught sight of a robed and hooded figure, reminiscent of a monk, 
  hobbling across the corridor behind me. It stopped at an ornately carved door and 
  produced a small key. Before opening the door, the figure paused and glanced at me. I 
  could not distinguish any features within the shadow of the hood. Conscious that I was 
  staring, I turned and walked on. 
   
  After a few more minutes walk, our guide gestured for us to enter a room of bare, 
  undecorated walls. A second man, also swathed in black robes, also thin, rose to greet us 
  from behind a bare desk. 
   
  'Gentlemen,' he whispered. 'Are you looking for anything in particular?' 
   
  I looked around for our guide, but he had vanished. 
   
  'I have been retained,' said Holmes, moving forward, 'by Pope Leo XIII to investigate the 
  theft of certain documents from this library. My time is short, and I would request your co-
  operation.' 
   
  'Of course,' the man whispered. 'My name is Ambrose, Jehosephat Ambrose. I am the 
  Head Librarian of the Library of Saint John the Beheaded. Whatever questions you have, 
  please ask them.' 
   
  'Which documents are missing?' my friend snapped. 
   
  'Three books from our alternative zoology and phantasmagorical anthropology section. 
  Here are the titles.' He held out a sheet of paper. 
   
  'You were expecting us?' 
   
  'I was expecting someone.' 
   
  'What, pray tell,' I interjected, 'is "alternative zoology"?' 
   
  'The study of fabulous beasts,' Ambrose answered. 'Dragons and deamons, griffins and 
  chimerae. You may have heard rumours concerning a sea creature which inhabits Loch 
  Ness, near Inverness in Scotland. We have a number of manuscripts describing its habits 
  and its physiognomy. You may also remember the discovery of the fossilized bones of 
  what might be termed "primeval monsters" at Charing Cross some ten years ago, now. 
  Again, we have quite a selection of books on that subject, going right back to the Bible.' 
   
  'The Bible?' I said, scandalized. 
   
  
  ' "There were giants in the Earth in those days",' Ambrose quoted. 
   
  'And these books were kept where?' Holmes said tersely, trying to get the conversation 
  back on the right track. 
   
  'In a room, not far from here.' 
   
  'And your security procedures?' 
   
  'Nobody is allowed to remove books from the library.' 
   
  'So I am informed. I am not concerned with what people are allowed to do, but with what 
  they are forbidden to do.' 
   
  Ambrose had the grace to look discomfited. 
   
  'You will have noticed,' he began, 'that we have an arrangement with the local criminal 
  fraternity. More precisely, two of the local gang leaders, or "scurfs" as the argot has it, 
  guarantee the safety and integrity of the Library in return for financial recompense.' 
   
  'And how exactly do they operate?' 
   
  'Very simply. There is only one way out of the Library - the doorway through which you 
  entered. At no other point do its bounds come near the outside world; apart from that door 
  we are completely sealed in. Every visitor and every member of staff who leaves is 
  searched by the skilled pickpockets, or "fine wirers", of each gang. If anybody is caught 
  attempting to remove a book - and they will be caught - their hands are cut off. It's a very 
  simple deterrent!' 
   
  'Bribery?' Holmes suggested. 
   
  Ambrose shook his head. 'It was obvious to the original creators of the Library that any 
  one set of guards could be suborned by bribery or threats. Since time immemorial we 
  have used two tribes, or gangs, who are in competition. Each watches the other, you see? 
  Each would like nothing more than to catch the other one out, and so we avoid placing too 
  much reliance on any one person or group of people.' 
   
  'An equitable arrangement,'Holmes said brusquely. 'Do these gang leaders have names?' 
   
  'They are known by the colourful sobriquets of Mr Jitter and Mack "The Knife" Yeovil' 
   
  'I know of them. Men without any notion of decency or morals: thieves and killers whose 
  catalogues of crimes are exceeded only by their hatred of each other. I have often 
  suspected them of being linked to the Moriarty gang.' 
   
  Ambrose smiled. 
  
   
  'That rivalry assures our security,' he said. 'Each man would take great pleasure in 
  catching the other one out, or discovering a theft that the other had overlooked.' 
   
  'What about ventilation?' I asked. 'Could somebody gain access through ventilation 
  ducts?' 
   
  'There is no ventilation.' 
   
  'But the air . . . it's fresh.' 
   
  Ambrose smiled. 'The Library has been designed to provide a natural channel for the 
  transit of air from the doorway, around the many corridors and rooms, and out of the same 
  doorway whilst still maintaining a constant temperature and humidity. Effectively, and 
  without wanting to appear melodramatic, the Library breathes, just as you or I.' 
   
  'Very interesting, I am sure,' said Holmes, who could be very blinkered when he chose to 
  be. 'But how soon would the theft have been discovered?' 
   
  'We had just completed a full inventory of the Library's stock a month back when an old 
  and respected visitor asked to see the very books that were stolen. Thus we were able to 
  narrow the time of the theft down considerably.' 
   
  'Most fortuitous,' Holmes said dryly. 'I will need the names and addresses of all visitors to 
  the Library, starting a month before the theft.' 
   
  'Already prepared.' He held out another sheet of paper. Holmes took it and scanned the 
  list. His eyes widened in surprise at one of the names. He cast a covert glance at me, and 
  read on. 
   
  'This W C. Minor. . ' he said a few moments later. 'The name is familiar to me.' 
   
  'Ah' Ambrose said, and trailed off. 'You have hit upon one of our more unusual members. 
  Dr Minor is the only man who is allowed to read our books outside the library.' 
   
  'I believed you to say that nobody was allowed to remove books.' 
   
  'He does not remove them. We send them to him.' 
   
  'And why is that?' Holmes snapped. 
   
  'He is aiding in the compilation of a dictionary to rival that of Dr Johnson, one that will 
  contain every word in the English language. Our archives of arcane documents are 
  invaluable to his researches.' 
   
  'And why can he not consult them here?' 
  
   
  Ambrose blinked. 
   
  'Because he is confined within the hospital for the criminally insane at Broadmoor.' 
   
  'Of course!' Holmes cried. 'I thought I knew the name. He shot an innocent man under the 
  delusion that he was being pursued by Irishmen. I was briefly involved in the case. I 
  presume that you have recovered all of the books that you sent him?' 
   
  'Of course.' 
   
  'Then, assuming that he is still in captivity, we can provisionally rule him out as a suspect. 
  This last one on the list interests me, however,' he said thoughtfully. 'You have him listed 
  only as "The Doctor", and you give no address.' 
   
  'That is how he styles himself,' Ambrose said, and smiled reminiscently. 'The Doctor has 
  been a visitor here since before my father's time. I believe his ticket was first issued . . . 
  oh, let me see . . . five hundred years ago.' 
   
  'Not to him personally, I hope,' Holmes said. 
   
  'I would not have thought so,' Ambrose said, offended. 'Many families treat their visitors' 
  tickets as family heirlooms, passing them down from generation to generation. Strangely 
  enough, it was he who asked to see the missing books, and sparked off this business.' 
   
  I could see my friend's eyebrows lift slightly at this. 
   
  'I would like to see the room from which the thefts occurred,' he said. Ambrose nodded, 
  levered himself from behind his desk and gestured for us to follow him out of the room. He 
  led us another merry dance; switching back and forth along corridors, climbing stairs and 
  descending 
  ramps until I felt quite dizzy and had no idea where we were or even upon which floor. 
  Eventually we stopped by a room, no different from the myriad others we had passed. 
   
  'Alternative zoology and phantasmagorical anthropology,' he announced. 
   
  I stood on the threshold as Holmes leapt into action. I had seen my friend's methods put 
  into effect before, and so I was not surprised when he dropped to the floor and began to 
  crawl around the room like some huge, dun-coloured beetle. 
   
  'You must be terribly well read,' I said to Ambrose in an attempt to make small talk. He 
  looked strangely at me. 
   
  'We do not read any of the documents here,' he said. 
   
  'What, not at all?' 
  
   
  'No, sir. We have all taken a vow for the sake of our own safety.' 
   
  'Why on Earth would you want to do that?' 
   
  'Too much knowledge can drive a man mad,' he said strangely, and would not be drawn 
  further. 
   
  Using a small pair of scissors, Holmes took clippings from the ornate carpet and placed 
  them into a series of envelopes. Eventually he tired of the floor, and turned his attention to 
  the book-lined walls. He began by moving rapidly along them with his hands clasped 
  behind his back, sniffing at the spines. He then took out his magnifying glass and spent 
  ten minutes examining the spine of one book in particular in almost infinite detail. It was 
  when he reached out a bony finger to remove the book from the shelf that Ambrose's 
  expression changed from polite disdain to shock. 
   
  'Sir!' he exclaimed, and leapt forward. Using a pair of vellum-swathed tongs which he 
  removed from a pocket in his robes, he carefully prised the book from its perch. Holding it 
  in one hand, he removed a pair of dove-grey gloves from a hidden pocket of his robes and 
  presented them to Holmes. 
   
  'How remiss of me,' Ambrose said. 
   
  Holmes flicked through the volume in a cursory manner and replaced it on the shelf. 
   
  'Ludwig Prinn's De Vermiis Mysteries, German black letter edition, sixteenth century. A 
  remarkably good copy.' He turned towards the door. 'I have seen enough,' he announced. 
  'I would inspect the rest of the Library.' 
   
  It took Holmes three hours to cover the entire extent of the Library of St John the 
  Beheaded, during which time Mr Ambrose and I finished most of a bottle of sweet sherry, 
  and I flicked through various volumes of morally suspect theology. Eventually he returned, 
  downcast. 
   
  'He was right,' Holmes muttered. 'No concealed exits, no trapdoors, no skylights. I did, 
  however, come across one locked room, which our host informed me was for members to 
  entertain visitors in, should they so wish.' 
   
  'At the head of a ramp?' 
   
  'Indeed. You noticed it?' 
   
  'I saw a figure entering the room, covered from head to foot in robes of the type that 
  monks wear. He walked strangely, as if he was deformed in some way.' 
   
  
  'Hmm. Well, I suppose that the Library does cater to Catholic tastes.' He smiled briefly. 'It 
  may interest you to learn that I confirmed our host's statement to the effect that there is 
  only one way in or out. I would suggest that we now avail ourselves of it.' 
   
  Ambrose escorted us to the egress. 
   
  'Good luck, gentlemen,' he said. We turned, blinking in the sudden sunlight, to thank him, 
  but he had vanished into the gloom. 
   
  ''Scuse us, gents,' said a voice from the alley. Standing in front of us was an oafish figure 
  wearing stained trousers, a shirt with neither cuffs nor collar and a trilby whose band had 
  almost become detached from its crown. 'Rules is rules,' he said and stepped forward, 
  revealing a smaller, rat-faced man behind him. I prepared to remonstrate with him, whilst 
  reaching in what I hoped was a surreptitious manner for the gun in my pocket, but Holmes 
  put his hand on my arm. 
   
  The search,' he reminded me. 
   
  The oaf stepped forward and ran his hands down the outside and inside of my topcoat, 
  barely brushing my waistcoat. 
   
  'Five guineas in loose change and a Webley revolver,' he grinned, stepping away. I could 
  smell the rank odour of his breath: stale ale, rancid meat and dental decay. He moved to 
  Holmes and repeated the procedure whilst Ratface - presumably a member of the rival 
  gang - frisked me as well. 
   
  'What's this?' The ruffian searching Holmes smiled a vicious, tight little smile. His hand 
  came away holding a book. Rat-face looked downcast, and my heart sank. It was the book 
  that Holmes had been looking at in the Library. How could he have been so stupid? 
   
  'Well, it's been a time since a cove like you tried to smug the Library there, and you a 
  peach, or so's they say.'  A knife as big as my forearm appeared in his hand as if by 
  magic. 'You take me for a queer diver, did you? In for a chivvin' then, aint'cha?' 
   
  I made a grab for my gun, but my arms were suddenly pinioned by Rat-face, who was 
  surprisingly strong for a man of his size. The knife man raised his blade to the level of 
  Holmes's eyes. My friend was calm, but I could see him looking from side to side, 
  searching for some means of escape. 
  'Hold 'is 'ands up where's 'e can see 'em for the last time,' said the knife man. 
   
  'Let him be,' commanded a deep, authoritative voice. The knife man stepped back, 
  contrite, his blade vanishing into thin air. The hands holding Holmes and I also 
  disappeared. 
   
  A owner of the voice stepped into sight from beyond the edge of my vision. He was small, 
  with oiled hair and a long frock coat that had seen better days, but which was still better 
  
  than any other clothing I had seen in the area. His face was deeply pocked and his nose 
  was almost eaten away by syphilis. 
   
  'Testing my security, were you?' he said. His eyes didn't seem to connect with ours; his 
  gaze drifted across us like smoke. 'Can't say I blame you. You'll be the jack from up West, 
  then? Mr Sherlock Holmes?' 
   
  Holmes nodded. 
   
  'Well, Mr Holmes, you tell them that wants to know that Mr Jitter's turf is as tight as a 
  drum, and always has been. You hear that? Always has been.' He looked away, down the 
  street. 'I've already taken steps to check out my men here, me and Mack Yeovil between 
  us. I'll be watching out for you, and you watch out for me, hear? I want to know who's 
  been doing me over. Consider yourself hired.' 
   
  'Mr Yeovil's not gonna like this,' Rat-face whined. 
   
  'I'll sort out Yeovil's hash,' Jitter snarled. 'Mack and I are together on this. We've both been 
  made monkeys of, an' we want to know who to see about it.' 
   
  Holmes glanced at me, then stepped forward to face Jitter. 
   
  'I will find the thief,' he said. 'Depend upon it.' 
   
  He extended his hand towards Jitter. The man looked down at it, and then, as quick as a 
  striking snake, he grabbed the hand and raised it up in front of Holmes's face. 
   
  'You can keep this,' he snarled. 'Consider it to be payment in advance.' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 3 
   
  In which the Doctor is evasive and Watson cannot stand the heat. 
   
   
  We decided to eat luncheon at Kean's Chop House, only a short walk away from the 
  Rookery. Every step I took away from those rat-infested tenements made the sky seem 
  bluer and my heart lighter. And yet, as we passed the elaborate frontages of the buildings 
  which lined Holborn, I knew that a part of my mind would always remember the decay that 
  lay behind the ornate facade: the skull beneath the skin. 
   
  I tried to discuss our adventure with Holmes as we walked, but he did not want to be 
  drawn. 
   
  
  'Holmes,' I asked eventually, 'what on Earth did you think you were playing at, stealing that 
  book from the Library?' 
   
  Holmes made no reply. A waiter brought menus to our table, but I was intent upon getting 
  a straight answer from Holmes. 
   
  'Although the cellar here is generally acceptable, I believe that a frothing pint of porter 
  would grace a good English chop better than any wine. What do you say?' 
   
  His face was hidden behind the menu. I was convinced that he was deliberately avoiding 
  the issue. 
   
  'I have seen you do some pretty hare-brained things in your time, Holmes, but that really 
  does take the biscuit!' 
   
  'Wilma Norman-Neruda is playing at the St James's Hall this evening, Watson. Chopin, 
  followed by dinner at Simpsons: what better way to spend an evening?' 
   
  'Holmes! For God's sake, man, have the decency to answer a straight question when it is 
  put to you!' 
   
  Holmes lowered the menu and met my eyes. His face was pale. 
   
  'Forgive me, Watson. I had not meant that little contretemps to go as far as it did. I needed 
  to test the Library's security. The story about its efficacy was just that - a story - until I 
  could test its veracity. I have always found it to be a capital mistake to theorize until one 
  has access to the facts.' He looked away, to the window onto the street. 'There was no 
  danger. I had five different means of escape from his gang of ruffians worked out.' 
   
  I would have been more reassured had the menu not been trembling slightly in his hands. 
   
  The conversation moved to different topics - old cases, the recent death of the well known 
  grande horizontale Cora Pearl in Paris, Holmes's research into the effect of employment 
  on the shape of the ear, and whether or not I should abandon my medical practice. We left 
  the restaurant happier than we had arrived. 
   
  Urchins were turning somersaults amongst the wheels of carts, buses and cabs as we 
  made our way home. The golden light of late afternoon made the stonework of Oxford 
  Street glow. The squalor of St Giles was fading away like a bad dream. 
   
  As we scaled the steps to our rooms, our page-boy rushed up to the foot of the stairs 
  bearing a silver platter. 
   
  'You got a visitor, Mr 'Olmes,' he announced, all puffed up in his new blue uniform. 'E's up 
  in your rooms, and 'e's a strange one!' 
   
  
  'Thank you, Billy,' Holmes said kindly as he took the card from the tray. He tossed a coin 
  to the child, who had to drop the tray to catch it. The clatter as it bounced on the floor 
  bought Mrs Hudson limping out from her lair. Holmes and I beat a hasty retreat upstairs. 
   
  'Interesting.' Holmes passed the card across to me as we reached the landing. 'See what 
  you make of it, Watson.' 
   
  Printed in a gothic script, it read: The Doctor; underneath, in the corner, was the word: 
  Travelling. 
   
  Rather flippant, I thought. I flexed it between my fingers. Good quality, judging by the 
  rigidity of the stock. 
   
  'Not a gypsy,' I ventured, 'despite the obvious connection with the word "traveller". A man 
  of some means.' I sniffed. 'Recently printed, I'll warrant. The smell of fresh ink is quite 
  pronounced.' 
   
  'Bravo, Watson.' 
   
  'Have I missed anything of importance?' 
   
  He smiled, rather cruelly, I thought. 
   
  'Practically everything, dear chap. Despite the fact that the ink is still fresh there are no 
  traces of it on the back of the card, as there would be had it been stacked with the rest of 
  a recently printed batch. This would suggest that it was printed singly: presumably for us. 
  The logical conclusion would be that this person is attempting to disguise his true identity, 
  although -' and Holmes frowned ' - the choice of nom-de-plume and the lack of address 
  seem to suggest that he wishes us to come to that conclusion.' He frowned, then shook 
  his head and continued. 'The slight but noticeable rounding of the card further indicates 
  that it has been kept in a pocket, rather than a wallet. I would suggest a waistcoat pocket: 
  trousers would have left it too rounded and a coat not rounded enough. And, most 
  important of all, remember that "The Doctor" was one of the names on the lift of visitors to 
  the Library of St John the Beheaded that we were given this morning.' 
   
  'The list that you did not wish me to see.' 
   
  Holmes looked away, discomfited, and said nothing. He took the card from my hand and 
  walked into our sitting room. 
   
  The Doctor was standing in the window alcove. In his hands he held one of Holmes's files: 
  the volume marked "T". I recognized him at once as the man I had conversed with in the 
  Library, the one who had babbled of custard and metaphors. 
   
  
  'I will trouble you to put down that file,' Holmes snapped. Within two strides he was 
  towering over the Doctor and removing the offending object from his hands. 'It ill behoves 
  a visitor to rifle through private papers unasked.' 
   
  'It wasn't Spink, you know.' 
   
  'What?' 
   
  'I couldn't help reading the details of one of your cases. The terrible murder of the 
  Atkinson brothers in Trincomalee. Spink was innocent.' 
   
  I noticed that the word "terrible" rolled off his tongue with relish. There was the hint of an 
  accent in his voice that I could not place. 
   
  'The man robbed the world of justice by taking his own life.' Holmes strode across the 
  room and replaced the volume. 'The case was simple; the solution obvious.' 
   
  'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'but did you take into account the significant delay in the onset of 
  rigor mortis in tropical climates? It's all in that file.' 
   
  Holmes's face suffused with fury. I thought he was going to throw our visitor bodily through 
  the window, so great was his rage, until a strange thing happened. A look passed across 
  Holmes's face: a look of sudden realization and, even worse, shock. 
   
  'I. . ' he started to say, and trailed off into silence. His gaze travelled across the little man, 
  and I had learned enough about reading expressions to tell that he was attempting to 
  descry some detail about our visitor: his work, his character, his manner. 
   
  'I see from your appearance that you . . ' Holmes trailed off into silence; puzzled. 'Your 
  cuffs suggest . .' 
   
  Again, he halted. He frowned. I could see that he was at a loss. 'That soil on your gaiter, I 
  do not recognize it,' he said finally. 
   
  The Doctor grabbed at his foot and pulled it up to eye level. 
   
  'Ah,' he said, 'a slurry of clay and dust from Menaxus. Now there's a place to go for a 
  show.' 
   
  'Menaxus? I am not familiar with the name: it must be a small village. Greek, I would 
  venture.' 
   
  The Doctor tilted his head back and smiled a toothy grin. 
   
  'Menaxus is close to the Rippearean cluster.' 
   
  
  'And the spatulate appearance of your right forefinger. It is similar to that seen in typists, 
  but I would have expected an indentation across your right thumb from the space bar.' 
   
  The Doctor peered at the offending digit as if he had just found it on his dinner plate. 
   
  'Ah, he said, relieved, and jabbed at the air with the finger. 'Too much prodding of large, 
  metal creatures.' 
   
  Holmes and I looked across at each other. The man was obviously deranged. 
   
  'I see that you dabble in chemistry' the Doctor said, walking across to the deal-topped 
  table where Holmes kept his retorts and flasks. 
   
  'I am presently researching into coal-tar derivatives,' Holmes replied, drawing himself up 
  stiffly. 'Now, may I ask what your business is with us?' 
   
  'Take precautions if you ever manage to distil coronic acid,' the Doctor muttered, picked 
  up three flasks filled with liquid and juggling with them. 'It's a nasty substance. Very nasty 
  indeed.' 
   
  'I would be obliged if you would...' 
   
  'Yes, I know. You would be obliged if I put down these flasks. Oh, very well.' 
   
  He placed them back on the table and turned to Holmes. 
   
  'I have no business with you,' he said, finally answering Holmes's question. 'But you have 
  business with me.' 
   
  The Doctor threw himself into Holmes's armchair and grinned up at us. Holmes opened 
  his mouth to make a cutting reply, but a knock at the door interrupted him. We turned as 
  Mrs Hudson limped into the room with a tray bearing cups, saucers, plates, cakes and a 
  teapot. 
   
  'I took the liberty of ordering tea,' the Doctor said, grinning up ingenuously at Mrs Hudson. 
  'Your landlady is a treasure.' 
   
  Mrs Hudson pampered the Doctor as if he were the vicar come to call: pouring his tea, 
  sweetening it and cutting him a slice of Madeira cake. Holmes and I looked on, aghast. 
  Her usual attitude to our visitors ranged from disinterest to barely veiled contempt. Despite 
  my recent lunch the sight of the Doctor gobbling down the cake made my stomach rumble. 
  I sat in my usual chair, cut myself a slice and poured a cup of tea. Holmes remained, 
  raging impotently, on his feet. 
   
  'Now,' the Doctor babbled on after three slices and two cups had gone the way of all 
  things. 'Where were we? Ah yes, the robbery at the Library of St John the Beheaded. I 
  
  presume you will have questioned Mr Ambrose, and received from him a list of recent 
  visitors to the Library. My name will be on that list. I suspect that I want to know who took 
  those books just as much as you do, and that's why I am here, to pool resources, share 
  information, spread panic and sow the seeds of defeat in the fields of our enemies. Now I 
  realize that I am just as much a suspect as anybody else on that list -' he suddenly 
  frowned and looked away ' - a position I find myself adopting with monotonous regularity -' 
  he smiled sunnily and looked back at us again ' - but I don't see why that can't be just as 
  much the basis for a long and fruitful relationship as mutual trust. Now, any questions?' 
   
  Holmes held up the Doctor's card. 
   
  'You give no address.' 
   
  'Ah.' The Doctor stood. 'I travel.' 
   
  'No fixed abode,' said Holmes, towering over the diminutive figure. 
   
  'Oh, I have a fixed abode.' The Doctor plucked the card from Holmes's hand and slipped it 
  into his waistcoat. 'But it travels. "Not bound to swear allegiance to any master, wherever 
  the wind takes me I travel as a visitor": 
   
  'I do not appreciate flippancy,' Holmes snapped. 
   
  'I always try to mix a little foolishness with my serious plans,' the Doctor replied, gazing up 
  into Holmes's face. 'It's lovely to be silly at the right moment. But, if it makes you feel any 
  better, I am currently lodging in Hampstead.' 
   
  'With whom?' 
   
  'Professor Litefoot. You may know of him.' 
   
  At this juncture I interjected, 'Not Professor George Litefoot, the eminent pathologist?' 
   
  'The very same!' 
   
  Holmes was not to be put off so easily. 
   
  'And what exactly are you a Doctor of?' he growled. 
   
  'Metaphysico-theologico-cosmologo-nigology!' announced the Doctor triumphantly. 
   
  Holmes pursed his lips and strode to the window. 
   
  'Facile quotations from Voltaire will not help your case,' he barked. 'If you remain unwilling 
  to provide a straight answer then I can only surmise that you are unwilling to co-operate 
  with our investigations.' 
  
   
  'Oh very well.' The little man pouted, and stared down at his gaiters. 'If it helps, I took a 
  medical degree in Edinburgh in eighteen seventy.' 
   
  'What a coincidence!' I exclaimed. 'I studied for my Bachelor's degree and my 
  baccalaureate at the University of Edinburgh from that very year onwards! I must say,' and 
  I studied his features more closely, 'that I do not remember you.' 
   
  The Doctor shifted uneasily in Holmes's armchair. 
   
  'I can't say I'm surprised. I looked different then.' 
   
  I stroked my moustache and looked ruefully down at my figure: stockier now than it had 
  been seventeen years ago. 
   
  'So did I,' I admitted. 
   
  'This is getting us nowhere,' Holmes pronounced, staring out of the window. 'Be so good 
  as to tell me what your researchers were at the Library, Doctor.' 
   
  'India.' 
   
  'More specifically.' 
   
  'Hindu mythology:' 
   
  'More specifically still.' 
   
  'Legends concerning the rakshassi.' 
   
  'Rakshassi?' I asked. 
   
  'Demons from the pantheon of the Indian subcontinent,' Holmes replied tersely. 
   
  'Usually associated with the worship of Kali,' the Doctor added. 'Kali being the Indian 
  goddess of death and destruction.' 
   
  'I thought you had been in India, Watson,' Holmes asked. 
   
  'I passed through ten years ago on my way to Afghanistan,' I replied, 'but I confess I took 
  little interest in the heathen ceremonies of the natives.' 
   
  The Doctor glanced over at me, and there was something dark and unpleasant in his 
  eyes. 
   
  'God's in his heaven and all's right in the world,' he sneered. 
  
   
  I drew myself up to respond to the gibe, but Holmes interrupted, saying, 'And the books 
  that were stolen: they were all associated with this subject?' 
   
  'As you well know.' 
   
  As I watched the clash of wills between the two men I could not help but recall the words 
  that I had written about Holmes some six years before, soon after the occasion of our first 
  meeting. I had been drawing up a list of his interests in an attempt to more closely 
  understand his character. I had jotted down, in no particular order, that he was well up on 
  poisons generally, that he could tell at a glance different soils from each other, that his 
  knowledge of anatomy was accurate but limited, that his knowledge of sensational crime 
  and criminal law was immense and that he was an expert boxer, singlestick player and 
  swordsman, but that he knew nothing of astronomy, philosophy or literature. At this point I 
  had thrown the list away, crying: 'If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by 
  reconciling all these accomplishments . . .!' I could see something of the same thought 
  process concerning the Doctor going through Holmes's mind. 
   
  'Perhaps we might be better employed,' the Doctor said finally, breaking both Holmes's 
  and my train of thought, 'in examining the list of other visitors to the Library. Accepting that 
  I am naturally a suspect, we should question the others as soon as possible. May I see 
  the list?' 
   
  Holmes turned away to gaze out of the window onto the Baker Street bustle below. 
   
  'I retain an accurate memory of the names,' he said, 'and there is, therefore, no necessity 
  to examine the list. Your own name appears, of course, Doctor, as does that of a Mrs Kate 
  Prendersly of Whitefields Lodge in Deptford, an inmate of Broadmoor named Minor, a 
  certain Baron Maupertuis, his manservant, Surd...' 
   
  'How do you know he is the Baron's manservant, Holmes?' I interjected. 
   
  'The address is the same, Watson,' Holmes said, pityingly. 'And since he is only referred 
  to by a surname, without any qualifier, the conclusion is obvious.' 
   
  'Any other names?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'A Professor Challenger, whose address is given as "care of the Royal Society".' 
   
  'And?' The Doctor's expression was carefully neutral. 
   
  Holmes's voice was level as he replied: 'No other names appear on the list.' 
   
  'Are you sure, Mr Holmes?' 
   
  'Do you accuse me of dishonesty, Sir?' 
  
   
  'How should I presume?' the Doctor murmured. 
   
  'Perhaps,' I ventured, sensing the sudden hostility between Holmes and the Doctor, but 
  not understanding its cause, 'we should visit these people. Talk to them. Ascertain their 
  reasons for visiting the Library. Perhaps some pertinent fact might emerge of which we 
  are at present unaware.' 
   
  'A capital idea,' the Doctor said, leaping to his feet and rubbing his hands together 
  gleefully. 'I'll start with Professor Challenger, Doctor Watson can tackle Miss Prendersly 
  and you, Mr Holmes...' He was still smiling, but his eyes glinted coldly. '. . . You can 
  choose your own suspects.' 
   
  'Since you yourself are still a suspect,' Holmes retorted, 'might I suggest that you 
  accompany Watson to Deptford.' 
   
  'Very well.' The Doctor made for the door, picking a multicoloured umbrella from the 
  umbrella stand as he did so. 'I'll hail a cab.' 
   
   
  He vanished from our rooms and scampered down the stairs. 
   
  'A rum character,' I observed. 
   
  'There is more to that man than meets the eye,' Holmes said. 'He may seem to be at times 
  almost ridiculous, almost the fool, but he has a shrewd brain. Watch him, Watson. Don't let 
  him out of your sight. I want to know everything he says and everything he does.' 
   
  'But why on Earth do you want to associate him with this investigation?' 
   
  'I suspect that he will be associated with it whether we want him to be or not. At least this 
  way we get to keep a close eye on him.' 
   
  I moved to take my walking stick from the coat rack, and exclaimed, 'Not raining outside, is 
  it Holmes?' 
   
  'Not for days,' he replied. 'Why?' 
   
  'There's some water in the bottom of the coat rack.' 
   
  He bent to examine it, and came up rubbing his fingers together. 
   
  'Not water, Watson, but oil.' 
   
  'Oil?' I reiterated stupidly. 
   
  
  'Indeed. Most singular.' He wiped his hands on his jacket. 'You had better not keep the 
  Doctor waiting.' 
   
  'And what of you, Holmes? What are your plans?' 
   
  'I shall endeavour to meet up with Mr Jitter's opposite number,' he said, 'Mack Yeovil and I 
  have crossed swords before, and so I think some form of disguise is called for.' 
   
  I discovered the Doctor sitting at the bottom of our stairs and conversing with our page-
  boy in a casual manner that I felt was unsuited to dealings with a servant. I curtly bade 
  him accompany me, and whistled down a hansom almost immediately. As the cab trotted 
  off he planted his umbrella on the floor, rested his forearms upon its handle and frowned. 
  A melancholic expression shadowed his features, and I found myself wondering who he 
  was and where he came from. 
   
  'Gallifrey,' he muttered. 
   
  'I'm sorry?' 
   
  'You were wondering where I came from.' 
   
  'That's astounding. How did you know?' 
   
  'Elementary.' 
   
  'Gallifrey . . . that sounds Irish.' 
   
  He looked sideways at me and said nothing. 
   
  The cab clattered through London, with us sitting inside in silence. I watched with 
  confused feelings the loungers, shop girls, street-sweepers and dollymoppers who 
  thronged the streets. It was so easy to see them as a backdrop: a featureless, 
  characterless crowd of extras, called on stage as we came near and sent back to their 
  dressing rooms as we passed. Most of Holmes's cases were conducted amongst people 
  of our own class or above; it was rare, especially since Holmes's reputation had spread 
  and my medical practice in Paddington had become established, that we mixed with 
  people below our station. And yet the events of that morning were still clear enough in my 
  mind that I knew these people must have lives, homes, families, desires and hates that I 
  never usually gave any consideration to. The aegis of the British Empire stretched across 
  many foreign lands, but it occurred to me for the first time that the division between rich 
  and poor in London matched anything to be found in Bangalore or Calcutta. 
   
  ' "The poor always ye have with you",' the Doctor quoted in a doom-laden voice, and then 
  sighed. 'Wherever I go, certain universal truths always hold. There is always evil, and 
  there are always those with and those without.' 
   
  
  We were passing across the balustraded expanse of London Bridge now. The Doctor's 
  words set me thinking about the course my life had taken. When I made the decision to be 
  a surgeon I had wanted to relieve human suffering: a noble enough aim, I suppose, if a 
  trifle naive. I joined the army for the same reason, but the Afghan War cured me of my 
  youthful innocence. I quickly realized that human suffering was largely due to humans, 
  and the meagre amount of relief I could give was like trying to bale out the ocean with a 
  teaspoon. During the eight hours or so that the battle of Maiwand lasted almost two 
  hundred of us had been wounded, and almost a thousand killed. I had contracted enteric 
  fever, was invalided out, and drifted to London: depressed over the scale of misery, horror 
  and ignorance I had encountered and powerless to do anything about it. I had fallen in 
  with Holmes, but what had I achieved since our chance meeting and my decision to 
  chronicle some of his adventures? We had returned various stolen sets of jewels to their 
  rightful owners and averted a handful of scandals in high society. What was the point? 
  How did this square with my youthful aims? 
   
  My mood when we drew up at our destination was not light. 
   
  Whitefields Lodge was a large, square house set in its own grounds and girt around with a 
  low stone wall. It made quite a contrast to the regular run of houses in the locality; squat, 
  dark terraces, snaking downhill to the Thames and relieved only by the tawdry glare of 
  public houses on every corner. Raucous dockers' songs drifted through the late afternoon. 
   
  As we paid off the driver and crossed the road, I became aware that somebody was 
  watching us. My instincts developed on the Afghan front and finely honed through years of 
  working with Holmes - were jangling. I glanced around, trying not to attract attention. 
   
  'The shadow on the wall, to the left of the dilapidated house,' the Doctor hissed. 
   
  'You sensed it too?' 
   
  'Of course.' 
   
  All I could see in the lee of the wall was a jumble of upright sticks, bamboo I believed, and 
  a sack of some kind; the detritus of some child's game, perhaps. The sticks had been 
  arranged as a support, holding the sack some five or six feet above the ground. The sack 
  swayed gently in the breeze. It looked as if it might be half full of water. If there was a 
  human form hiding somewhere in the shadows behind that bizarre sculpture I could not 
  say. I turned to move on. but at the sight of the Doctor's blazing eyes I stumbled and 
  stopped. His gaze was fixed on that same patch of shadows. I turned to look. 
   
  The sticks and the sack were gone. 
   
  'Good Lord!' I exclaimed. 
   
  'No,' the Doctor whispered. 'Not a very good one at all.' 
   
  
  He shivered, and drew his coat tighter about his body. 
   
  'On with the motley,' he murmured, smiling hesitantly at me, then strode up to the front 
  door as if he owned the place and rapped upon the door with the head of his umbrella. A 
  maid left us in a room full of books whilst she took our cards in to her mistress. We sat, 
  side by side, on an antimacassared sofa until Mrs Kate Prendersly swept into the room. 
   
  'Gentlemen,' she said softly, 'what can I do for you?' 
   
  We stood. I cannot speak for the Doctor, but for myself I was overawed. In an experience 
  of women that encompasses many nations and three separate continents, I cannot recall 
  seeing so striking a woman. Her hair was auburn and piled high in tresses. Her eyes were 
  a smoky purple, matching the warm tones of her voice. She was dressed in a long blue 
  skirt, with a peacock jacket over a frilly white blouse. I felt envious of Mr Prendersly, 
  wherever he was. 
   
  'We ah, that is  -' 
   
  'May .I say,' the Doctor .interrupted, raising his hat, 'what a great pleasure it is to meet 
  you. This house is lovely, and so close to the river as well. I love rivers, don't you? I do 
  believe there's a pie-and-eel shop nearby Fred's, or is it Frank's? - no matter, in which I 
  spent many a happy day in my youth, or perhaps somebody else's youth. Do you read a 
  lot? I only ask because you have a great deal of books scattered around. Law books, 
  aren't they? Are you studying?' 
   
  'Yes,' she said, and I could tell that she was struggling to suppress some deep emotion. 
  'For my husband's sake.' 
   
  'And your husband is dead?' 
   
  'Yes, how did you know?' 
   
  'The footprints outside. We have been the first men to walk from the gate to the door in 
  some time.' 
   
  I reached across to pat her hand. She was really a most attractive woman. 
   
  'Patrick was killed in. . .' she sobbed, and took a tiny lace handkerchief from her sleeve '. . 
  . the most terrible manner. He had been in London on business . . . he was the captain of 
  a lighter, you see, and he had to go to Admiralty House . . . something to do with his 
  licence . . . and he was making his way back through Trafalgar Square, and..' 
   
  She broke down in tears, dabbing at her eyes with the lace. I could fill in the rest of the 
  story myself. The Trafalgar Square riots were still a fresh scar in the mind of every decent 
  Englishman. The summer had been completely rainless. Sewage, instead of being 
  washed away, had been left to rot in the streets. The heat had aggravated the unsanitary 
  
  conditions. Squalor bred disaffection, disaffection turned to unrest, and unrest led to riots. 
  Trafalgar Square had seen the worse: a mob of drunken and enraged loungers who 
  destroyed property in a wild orgy of wanton behaviour. General Sir Charles Warren, 
  Commissioner for Police in the Metropolitan Area, had taken it into his incompetent head 
  to order a sabre-charge by the Life Guards. The riot became a rout, but at the cost of 
  men's lives. It had been a black day for British justice. 
   
  'My dear woman,' I murmured, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. 
   
  'He was just passing through...' she wailed. 'He wasn't even involved! But he was wearing 
  his uniform, and they mistook him for a policeman...' 
   
  'You said that you were studying for his sake? Is this studying connected to the Library of 
  St John the Beheaded, in Holborn?' 
   
  She looked up at the Doctor, so surprised that she forgot she was crying. 
   
  'Yes, but how . . .?' 
   
  'There has been some trouble,' I said. 'Nothing that should bother you, but we need to talk 
  to all the people who have visited the Library recently.' 
   
  'I was there last week: She looked more closely at the Doctor. 'In fact, I do believe that you 
  were as well.' 
   
  She glanced over at me. A thrill ran through my nerves, a feeling similar to the 
  descriptions written by those who have received shocks from electrical equipment. 
   
  'I am sure I would have remembered your face, Dr Watson, had you been there,' she said, 
  and lowered her gaze. 
   
  'If you don't mind me asking,' I said, 'for what reason were you at the Library?' 
   
  'My husband was in fear of his life, even before he left for London that day,' she said 
  simply. 'He . . . ah!' She raised a hand to her heaving bosom. 'Excuse me, gentlemen, a 
  touch of heartburn, I fear.' 
   
  'I am a doctor,' I said quickly. 'Perhaps . . .?' 
   
  'I am sure it will pass,' she said, and smiled slightly. 'But thank you for your kind offer. My 
  husband, as I said, was in fear for his life. He talked of some plan that he had stumbled 
  on, something hideous and important, but no matter how I pleaded, he would not tell me. 
  'Best not to know,' he said. She sighed. 'I believe that he was killed because of his 
  knowledge. I believe that he was lured to Trafalgar Square and, under cover of the riot, he 
  was murdered.' 
   
  
  Her plain statement caused shivers to run up and down my spine. 
   
  'And the Library?' the Doctor prompted. 
   
  'I said that Alexander would not talk of his discovery. That is not quite true. He would have 
  nightmares, and during them he would murmur words which were strange to me. When I 
  was sorting through his possessions following . . . following the riots, I discovered a 
  membership card for the Library of St John the Beheaded. Such a macabre name. I had 
  never heard of it, but scribbled on the back were some of the words I had heard him cry 
  out. I presumed that he had been attempting to research them, and so I habituated it too.' 
   
  'And did you find anything?' I asked. 
   
  'No,' she said, and frowned, clutching again at her chest. Her face was redder than it had 
  been when we entered. I ran through lists of symptoms in my mind, but I could make no 
  specific determination without examining her more closely. 
   
  'Those words, do you remember them?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'I'm not sure that I can,' she said. 'The librarian kept the card. They were more like groans 
  than words.' 
   
  The Doctor was insistent. 'Perhaps you could try to recall them for me.' 
   
  She screwed her face up, and started to speak. Subsequent events have seared those 
  words on my memory, and I reproduce them here as first I heard them. 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay,' she croaked in a hideous parody of speech. 'Naghaa, naghai-ghai! Shoggog 
  fathaghn!' 
   
  A cold chill seemed to seep through my bones. 
   
  'Thank you,' said the Doctor. His face was sombre. 
   
  'The Library was a strange place,' she said, seemingly having to force the words out. 'And 
  the approach to it was simply horrendous. Fortunately, having been around sailors for 
  most of my life, and after what happened to poor Patrick, I always take precautions when I 
  go out. I also found a number of guns amongst his possessions, and they make a most 
  effective deterrent.' 
   
  A thin sheen of perspiration had appeared upon her brow. I was about to tactfully suggest 
  that she should take to her bed whilst I attended her when the Doctor spoke. 
   
  'Have you ever seen anything out of the ordinary happen at the Library?' 
   
  
  'Oddly enough, I once saw a man eating books,' she said, with an effort. 'I was sitting at a 
  table, checking the index of a large and rather fragile volume for any mention of the words 
  in Patrick's nightmares, when a noise attracted my attention. I looked across to where a 
  half-closed door hid a small side room. The gas-lamp in the room cast the shadow of a 
  man over to the wall by the door, where I could see it. He was grotesquely large and 
  rough of feature, if his silhouette was anything to go by. As I watched, he raised a book in 
  his hand, looked at it for a long moment, and then seemed to eat it whole! When he 
  lowered his hand, the book was gone. And it was not a small book.' 
   
  I had forgotten that my hand still rested upon hers, until a faint tremor alerted me to the 
  fact that she was shaking. 
   
  'Mrs Prendersly' I said, 'I really think. .' 
   
  Before I could finish my sentence, Mrs Prendersly half-rose and opened her mouth. A 
  tremendous gout of yellow flame leapt from it, singeing the Doctor's hair. He leaped 
  backwards. Mrs Prendersly's eyes widened in agony and shock. Flames were licking 
  around her mouth and bursting from the crown of her head. I could not move. The Doctor 
  whipped off his coat and attempted to smother the fire, but the heat drove him away. I 
  spotted a gasogene on the sideboard and ran to grab it, but when I turned back her body 
  was a blazing mass of orange and red. I directed the jet of water upon the conflagration, 
  but it was no use. I could still make out her face, that beautiful face, blistering and running 
  like wax. Her arms were flapping about, dragging flames with them like a bat's wings. A 
  heavy orange smoke filled the room and a roaring sound filled my ears. Somewhere in the 
  background I could hear the maid screaming. Mrs Prendersly's face was just a Hallowe'en 
  mask now, a hollowed-out pumpkin filled with fire. She crumpled to the carpet, her legs 
  and arms like burned branches. Her chest exploded outwards in a ball of flame, leaving 
  charred ribs sticking from a pile of ashes. The ruin of her head flared for a few moments 
  longer, and then the fire vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. My hands, my face, my 
  clothes: all were greasy and black. The Doctor's face was shocked and there were blisters 
  on his hands. I could see a rough circle of soot on the ceiling, directly over the charred 
  mass that used to be Mrs Kate Prendersly. 
   
  And projecting from the remains, at the ends of those blackened, stick-like limbs, her 
  hands and feet were almost untouched by the fire. Light gleamed from the gold of her 
  wedding ring. 
   
  I turned away, and I am not ashamed to say that it was the stench of cooked flesh that 
  caused me to be violently ill. 
   
   
   
  Interlude 
   
   
  AF235/2/3/12 
  
  V-ON, BRD-ABLE, WPU = 231.2 
  VERBAL INPUT, SAVE AND COMPRESS 
  MILITARY LOG FILE EPSILON 
  CODE GREEN FIVE 
  ENABLE 
   
  Rocky slope of a mountain, looking down. Plain spread out for some miles. No cover to 
  speak of. 
   
  Some kind of experiment's going on. It must be important, 'cos every time they do it, they 
  post sentries. Lot of singing, then a big sheet of some dark material appears.  Could be 
  some kind of transmat portal. Could be a lot of things. 
   
  Bit of a flap a few days back. One of the large three-legged rat-things that infest the 
  foothills wandered into the area. The sentries tried to get it, but ended up panicking it. I 
  saw it run for the dark sheet. It vanished, like I thought it might. That's why I shooed it in 
  that direction. 
   
  The sentries aren't native to this area, that's the interesting thing. They all came over from 
  beyond the mountains I'm going to try and follow them back when they pack up shop. 
   
  This planet is about as strange as they come. The icecap covers the entire surface, and is 
  supported by the tops of the mountain ranges. Everything lives under the ice. The light 
  from what I guess is the sun is weak, and the ice spreads it out so it looks like half the sky 
  is glowing. It's like living inside a table-tennis ball. There are small creatures that actually 
  live upside down on the interior of the ice shield. They're like big helium balloons on 
  skates. No intelligence to speak of. A well-aimed arrow can puncture their skin and bring 
  them down into your arms Roasted slowly over a fire, they taste of chocolate. 
   
  I used to like chocolate. 
   
  I used to like a lot of things. 
   
  Oh, hell. 
   
  DISABLE. 
  2331/34/FF PIP. 
   
   
   
   
  Chapter 4 
   
  In which the Doctor pours oil on troubled waters and Holmes goes to the dogs. 
   
   
  
  'It's a rum business, and no mistake,' Inspector MacDonald sighed, running a hand 
  through his lank blond hair. 
   
  We were sitting in the Tank: a private bar located in the basement of Scotland Yard. It was 
  a dismal place, enlivened only by sketches of criminals tom from the Newgate Calendar 
  and attached to the wall. Despite its unwelcoming appearance it was full to bursting. Three 
  years ago the Irish Republican Brotherhood had bombed the nearby CID offices, 
  demolishing a public house and injuring a number of policemen. Sordid the Tank may 
  have been, but at least it was safe. 
   
  MacDonald, the Doctor and I sat at a small table beside a damp brick wall. I recognized 
  one or two other occupants of the Tank from Holmes's dealings with Scotland Yard: 
  Inspectors Lestrade and Abberline were grumbling over their pints by the bar, Walter Dew 
  was arguing with the barman, and a sharp-faced sergeant named Cribb, whom I knew 
  Holmes had a great deal of respect for, nursed a small whisky at a nearby table. I thought 
  I could smell food, but nobody seemed to be eating. 
   
  'And what's "rum" about it?' the Doctor murmured, sipping at a sarsaparilla. 
   
  'I'm sure that Mr Sherlock Holmes would have a word or two on the subject,' MacDonald 
  said, 'but I confess myself puzzled. Inspector Bradstreet called the Yard in on the 
  suspicion of murder, but I'll be blessed if I can see how such a crime could have been 
  engineered.' 
   
  'Bradstreet,' I snapped, 'is an imbecile!' 
   
  "There's some that would agree with you there,' Mac replied. 'He's been shuffled from 
  pillar to post these past few years, for nobody wants to work with him. He started off at 
  Bow Street, then transferred to B Division, and then on to M, where you met him today. 
  Word is he's in line for the Yard.' 
   
  'But he can't possibly suspect -' 
   
  'A woman goes up in flames in a room with no fireplace, and you two are the only 
  witnesses. And neither she nor either of you were smoking. You can see how it looks. 
  What other explanation is there?' 
   
  'But surely you believe us?' I asked him. Mac sighed and reached for his pint of mild and 
  bitter. 
   
  'You have to understand my position, Doctor Watson, Doctor . . .' 
   
  He looked questioningly at the Doctor, who stared back with basilisk-like impassivity. 
   
  'Er . . . yes, Doctor,' he continued. 'You're technically under arrest, both of you. By rights I 
  should have you locked up.' 
  
   
  'But . . .?' the Doctor said unblinkingly. 
   
  'But Sherlock Holmes has pulled my fat out of the fire too many times for me to throw his 
  friends in choky. Whatever happened to that woman wasn't your fault. I know that.' He 
  gazed unhappily into his drink. 'Persuading Bradstreet might tax my skills, though. He's of 
  the old school, like Lestrade over there: if you can't find the right man, lock the wrong one 
  up. Keeps the arrest figures looking good.' He grimaced. 'You know what Bradstreet said 
  to me once? "There's two types of people in the world, son: those who have been arrested 
  and those who haven't been found out yet". That man's more of a danger to the Yard than 
  anything anarchists or the Irish might do. If I could only think of another explanation for 
  Mrs Prendersly's death, I might be able to convince Bradstreet of your innocence.' 
   
  'Have you ever read Dickens?' the Doctor queried. 
   
  'Dickens?' Mac was puzzled. 'Well, I picked up a couple of bound sets of the weeklies in 
  one of the second-hand shops along the Strand for the wife.' 
   
  'Then you may have come across his novel Bleak House.' 
   
  Mac's face proclaimed that he had not, but I realized what the Doctor was getting at. 
   
  'Of course!' I exclaimed, 'the death of Krook!' 
   
  The Doctor beamed at me, as if I was a backward child who had suddenly managed to 
  grasp a complicated mathematical theorem. Mac just scratched his head. 
   
  'During the course of the novel,' I amplified for his benefit, 'the aptly named Krook is found 
  burned to death in his room, supposedly as a celestial judgement on his sins.' 
   
  'I can't use a work of sensational fiction as evidence,' MacDonald protested. 
   
  'Mr Dickens was merely reporting a well know phenomenon,' the Doctor said calmly. 
  'Known generally, I believe, as spontaneous human combustion.' 
   
  'Nonsense!' My cry turned several heads around the room. After the hush was filled again 
  by the babble of a myriad conversations, I continued. 'Spontaneous human combustion is 
  a fallacy, an old wives' tale dusted off to explain any unusual death involving fire. It has no 
  rational explanation, and therefore it does not exist.' 
   
  I sat back in my seat, thinking how proud Holmes would have been of me. 
   
  'I presume that you have read Carpenter's Principles of General and Comparative 
  Physiology?' the Doctor asked with a slight smile. 
   
  'Yes,' I mumbled. 'Forty years old, but still a very useful book.' 
  
   
  'And one which admits to the existence of cases where men and women have burst into 
  flame for no obvious reason. No doubt you have also had reason to consult Beck and 
  Beck's Elements of Medical Jurisprudence in the course of your adventures with Mr 
  Holmes?' 
   
  'Well . . . yes.' 
   
  The Doctor's voice was gentle, but remorseless. I could not help but contrast his style of 
  debate with that of Holmes, whose superior attitude and scathing criticisms frequently 
  cowed me into submission. Mac watched our verbal duel, entranced. 
   
  'Those eminent gentlemen also believed in spontaneous human combustion. You may 
  even have read an article on the subject in the Bulletin de la Societe Medico-Legal de 
  France last year.' 
   
  'I do know that Casper's Handbook of the Practice of Forensic Medicine well and truly 
  trounced the idea.' 
   
  'Did it?' The Doctor took a sip of his sarsaparilla. 'And how did Casper explain the bizarre 
  fate of Nicole Millet, a landlord's wife whose charred body was found on Whit Monday in 
  1725 in Rheims in an armchair that did not have a single burn upon it? Or that of Grace 
  Pett, a fisherman's wife who burned to a cinder on the ninth of April 1744 in Ipswich, near 
  a paper screen that was not even singed?' 
   
  Mac's eyes were starting from their sockets, and I was dimly aware that nearby 
  conversations were dying away as the habitués of the Tank became aware of our morbid 
  conversation. 
   
  'By 1763,' the Doctor continued, 'enough people had died that Jonas Dupont of Germany 
  published a book on the subject entitled De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis. You 
  yourself, Doctor, may have come across a report in the 1835 issue of the Transactions of 
  the Medical Society of Tennessee concerning a Mr James Hamilton, who was out walking 
  one day when a flame burst like a lighted gas-jet from his leg. Mr Hamilton was lucky 
  enough to be able to extinguish the flame, but the Countess von Gorlitz was not so 
  fortunate. You might have read about her in the edition of The Times dated 18 April 1850, 
  Inspector. She burned to a cinder on the other side of a curtain to her husband without 
  him noticing a thing. Doctor Watson, of course, would be familiar with the more detailed 
  reports of her death carried by The Lancet and The London Medical Gazette.' 
   
  Silence had descended across the entire room. The Doctor's voice - hushed, and yet 
  penetrating - commanded the attention of the assembled multitude. My mouth was dry, 
  and I drained my tankard of porter in a single gulp. I took a deep breath and wiped my 
  moustache. The smell of roast beef somewhere in the vicinity made me acutely and 
  incongruousfy aware of how long it had been since I had eaten. 
   
  
  'And what of Mrs Rooney, whose cremated corpse was discovered in a friend's living room 
  on Christmas Eve 1885 - less than two years ago, gentlemen - in Seneca, Illinois, along 
  with the body of her husband, who had slept through her death but died of asphyxiation 
  from the smoke. There were no signs of fire in the room, save for the burnt floorboards 
  beneath her and a slight scorching to a tablecloth, and nothing remained of her but a 
  blackened skull, part of a vertebra, a foot and a mound of ashes.' 
   
  The Doctor's voice rolled around the final syllables as if he were pronouncing the crack of 
  doom itself. The bar was silent, its inhabitants frozen with drinks half-way to their mouths, 
  or cigars dropping glowing ash upon their waistcoats, spellbound by the Doctor's 
  recitation. I felt the cold hand of terror clutch at my heart: such things should not be, not in 
  Victoria's England, not in a rational scientific world. They belonged to an older, darker age. 
   
  'Another drink, anyone?' said the Doctor brightly. 'I appear to have finished my 
  sarsaparilla.' 
   
  As conversations sprung up again across the room and the Doctor made for the bar, 
  Mac's eyes met mine. 
   
  'Well; I'm convinced,' he said. 'And I've got enough evidence to silence Bradstreet. He's a 
  superstitious man, and much afeared of the medical profession. If I can quote references 
  at him the way your friend here did to us, there'll be no case to answer.' 
   
  The Doctor returned with a pint for each of us and another sarsaparilla for himself. 
   
  'What is the matter, Doctor?' I asked, noting his frown. 
   
  'Don't drink anything,' he whispered. 'I think somebody is trying to poison us!' 
   
  'Great Scott!' I cried. Inspector MacDonald lowered the glass from which he was about to 
  sip. 
   
  'What makes you think that?' he asked carefully. 
   
  'I caught a whiff of the porter as the barman pulled the pints,' the Doctor hissed, his gaze 
  darting around the room. 'There's strychnine in it! We may already have ingested a lethal 
  dose from the last round.' 
   
  MacDonald laughed, and dug me in the ribs with his elbow. I could not help smiling. 
   
  'You're obviously new to city ways, Doctor,' he said. 'You'll find strychnine in most London 
  beers. Gives it a bit of body.' 
   
  The Doctor gulped, and took a sip of his sarsaparilla. 
   
  'I trust that soft drinks are safe,' he said. 
  
   
  The conversation moved into other channels as we drank, and we parted as dusk fell. The 
  Doctor and I decided to walk back to Baker Street together, the evening being so pleasant 
  and our spirits buoyed up with drink. As we strolled, I leaning upon my stick, he swinging 
  his umbrella, he gave me a running commentary on the buildings that we passed, 
  illuminating minor corners of history with a sharp, incisive wit that made the city come alive 
  in a way that I had never experienced before. He spoke with such conviction of times past 
  that I could almost see him there, conversing with Samuel Pepys or Isaac Newton as he 
  did with me that night. I, in turn, regaled the Doctor with tales of the cases in which 
  Holmes and I had become involved, including some which were so sensitive or so bizarre 
  that I could never allow them to be published. The affair of the painted pit pony, for 
  instance, piqued the Doctor's interest, as did the strange case of Isadore Persano, the well 
  known duellist, who was found, stark staring mad, holding a matchbox which contained a 
  worm unknown to science. The Doctor asked about unsolved cases and I found myself 
  describing one of Holmes's rare failures which I have occasionally thought of writing up 
  under the title The Affair of the Walking Ventriloquist's Dummy. Looking back on it now, I 
  have the feeling that the Doctor knew more about the case than I then believed. I have 
  since discovered that nothing about the Doctor is beyond question. 
   
  We found ourselves walking around the edge of the Serpentine as Big Ben struck eight. 
  The wind had risen, the water was choppy and the darkness hid the far side of the lake 
  from us, so that we might have been standing on the edge of some huge ocean. I 
  remembered how, two years beforehand, Lestrade had unsuccessfully dragged the lake 
  for Hatty Doran's body during the case that is listed in my notes under the title The Affair 
  of the Noble Bachelor, and I shivered at the memory. 
   
  'Lord St Simon deserved his fate,' the Doctor murmured. 
   
  I nodded sagely, then stopped in surprise. 
   
  'How do you know that?' I asked him. 
   
  The Doctor stopped and turned to face me. His face was shadowed by his hat, but I could 
  swear that he was smiling at me. 
   
  'I read it in The Strand Magazine.' 
   
  'I do not see how,' I replied stiffly, 'for the details have never been published, to my 
  knowledge.' 
   
  'Then perhaps I deduced it from the way you stared at the water, and from the expression 
  upon your face.' 
   
  I was about to remonstrate with him for this impossible explanation, and then I 
  remembered some of the deductions which Sherlock Holmes had made, based only upon 
  the scantiest clues, and I held my tongue. 
  
   
  The Doctor gazed out over the Serpentine. Across the other side of the lake, someone 
  had lit a fire. The tiny orange glow put me in mind of the moment when Mrs Prendersly 
  had opened her mouth to reveal a hellish tongue of flame. I tried to remember how 
  beautiful she had been, how entranced I had felt, but all I could see was flesh charred 
  black, like an overcooked side of beef The aroma of roasting meat rose once again to my 
  nostrils: with revulsion I realized that it was the smell of Mrs Prendersley's cooked body 
  which had somehow become impregnated into my clothing, like the odour of a strong 
  cigar, and I felt my gorge rise. I pulled my hip flask out of my pocket and swallowed a 
  burning mouthful of brandy. Gradually my stomach relaxed. Beads of sweat stood out on 
  my forehead, and I felt hot and weak. 
   
  'I cannot accept it,' I muttered finally. 'I am a physician. There must be some cause for Mrs 
  Prendersley's death.' 
   
  'You find yourself paddling in the shallows of mystery, unaware of the currents, oblivious 
  to the nearby depths. As Shakespeare so nearly put it: there are more things in heaven 
  and earth, Watson, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' 
   
  'Nonsense,' I blustered unconvincingly. 'The world is rational. Everything has a cause, a 
  reason. All that remains is to discover it.' 
   
  The Doctor said nothing, but raised his arms over his head so that his umbrella was 
  pointing at the tumultuous clouds overhead. A fresh gust of wind stirred the ripples of the 
  jittering lake to greater heights. He chanted something in the teeth of the wind, hurling the 
  words into the skies. Slowly he lowered his arms towards the water. I moved back, 
  suddenly aware that I was alone with a madman and that my revolver was in the drawer of 
  my desk back in Baker Street. 
   
  The tip of the Doctor's umbrella touched the water, and the waves vanished in a circle 
  around it, some twenty feet across. Where there had been a storm in miniature upon the 
  face of the Serpentine, a spreading area of the lake lay placid and still. I stared, 
  astounded, at the transformation. 
   
  'I don't believe it!' 
   
  The Doctor turned towards me. 
   
  'There is a reason for everything,' he said. 'But not necessarily an obvious one. I will see 
  you tomorrow.' 
   
  And with that he walked off, into the dark. I gazed after him for a few moments, then back 
  at the lake, where feathery ripples were just beginning to stir its surface. A gust of wind 
  caught my hat and almost snatched it from my head. 
   
  
  The fire which had been lit across the far side of the lake glowed with an inviting warmth. I 
  was tired and cold, mystified and hungry, and I wanted to be home. I flapped my arms a 
  few times to get my circulation moving, then turned to leave. 
   
  A spindly figure scurried in front of the fire. 
   
  A sudden shudder ran through me, but it wasn't due to the cold. That shape . . . Although I 
  had seen it but briefly, there had been something unnatural about it, something thin and 
  febrile, and urgent. I listened intently, but apart from the rustle of leaves and the 
  occasional cry of a goose, I heard nothing. 
   
  Eventually, feeling rather foolish, I walked off towards the nearest gate, and a hansom to 
  take me home. 
   
   
   
  '. . . And I cannot tell you how unsettling it was to see the lake go from a state resembling 
  the English Channel in winter to one like my shaving bowl in the morning!' 
   
  Holmes glanced across reprovingly from the other side of the table. We had just polished 
  off a brace of woodcock with all the trimmings, accompanied by an appealing little 
  Montrachet and followed by a spotted dick with custard. I was replete and content, and 
  had spent most of the meal regaling Holmes with the events of the day. 
   
  Holmes had eaten well. He varied between times of immense gluttony and periods when 
  he would pick at his food like a bird, but today, to the great pleasure of Mrs Hudson, he 
  ate all that she placed before him with relish. He had kept up a constant.string of 
  questions concerning my tale - descriptions of Mrs Prendersly's room, her clothes, the 
  weather, any unusual sights or sounds in the room - but I could tell that he was no nearer 
  an explanation of her death than I was. 
   
  'That,' he said tersely, 'is perhaps the simplest element of this entire case.' 
   
  'Nonsense, Holmes. The man is a magician. He has powers beyond human imagining. I 
  would not be surprised...' and I lowered my voice, as if the Doctor could hear me from 
  wherever he had gone for the night, '. . . if he was responsible for that poor woman's fate. 
  Who knows what powers he might have?' 
   
  'No more than any other mortal.' 
   
  Holmes retrieved his slipper from the fireplace. Whilst Mrs Hudson cleared the plates 
  away and retired, he removed tobacco from it and packed it into his old black clay pipe, 
  the unsavoury companion of his deepest meditations. I poured myself a glass of port to 
  round the meal off. 
  'You have mistaken the superficial for the deep,' he explained, applying a match to the 
  bowl and sucking deeply. 'Ah, that is better. This death is a nasty business, quite a four-
  
  pipe problem. No, the matter of the lake is easily solved. You have all the information in 
  your hands, Watson. You are starting from a position where you do not believe it is 
  possible, then trying to explain it. I, however, assume that it is perfectly possible, then 
  attempt to use whatever clues I have to cast light upon the means.' 
   
  'I'm not sure I follow.' 
   
  'Let us start from the facts. The lake calmed. What can have that effect upon disturbed 
  water?' 
   
  'Why . . . nothing, surely. Nothing but witchcraft.' 
   
  'I have told you before, Watson, there is nothing in this world but that which we make 
  ourselves. Have you never heard of the phrase, "pouring oil on troubled waters"?' 
   
  'Why, yes. I had always taken it for a figure of speech.' 
   
  'One with a basis in truth. Oil can indeed calm waves, if of the correct consistency. It 
  reduces the surface tension of the water, decreasing its ability to form peaks and troughs.' 
  He sucked noisily upon the pipe. 'I would commend you to a study of the classics, Watson, 
  especially Bede's Ecclesiastical History of AD 731, in which he relates how St Aidan gave 
  a vial of oil to a priest who was about to undertake a sea voyage, saying: "Remember to 
  throw into the sea the oil which I give you, when straight-away the winds will abate, and a 
  calm and smiling sea will accompany you throughout your voyage". A veritable miracle, for 
  those unaware of the trick.' 
   
  'But the Doctor . . .?' 
   
  'His umbrella was hollow, and contained a reservoir of oil. The raising of hands and the 
  chanting were designed partly for atmosphere and partly to distract your attention whilst 
  he used some form of release mechanism to liberate the oil. Benjamin Franklin, the 
  American inventor and politician, used to carry out the same trick, I am reliably informed, 
  and for the same reason: to impress credulous observers with his powers.' 
   
  'But Holmes,' I protested, 'this is all pure speculation.' 
   
  'Not so, Watson. Remember the pool of oil in our coat rack earlier, when the Doctor 
  removed his umbrella? A leak, I think you will find.' 
   
  He smiled triumphantly, then frowned as his mind recalled other matters. 
   
  'If only the death of Mrs Prendersly were as amenable to reason.' 
   
  'Did you have any success with your own expedition?' I ventured. 
   
  
  'A certain amount,' he replied, moving from the table to his favourite chair, close to the fire. 
  'After checking that Doctor Minor was still safely ensconced within the high walls of 
  Broadmoor, I had decided to take a look at Mack "The Knife" Yeovil, one of the men who 
  supposedly hold the security of the Library in their hands and who, incidentally, are 
  involved in much of the pickpocketing, extortion, prostitution and gaming between here 
  and Whitechapel. An odd choice by the Vatican, one might say' 
   
  I settled back in my chair whilst Holmes described, in dry and humourless terms, a picture 
  of the dregs of society upon which Dickens could have dined out for years. Despite his 
  jibes at my nascent literary hobby, Holmes had no ability at story-telling. Thus, for the 
  sake of my readers, I have refrained from repeating Holmes's words as he spoke them: 
  rather, I have taken the broad flow of events and woven them into a more pleasing 
  narrative. This, then, is what he told me. 
   
  The smell of roasting chestnuts and excited animals hung like a miasma over the Hackney 
  marshes. Holmes, disguised in fake whiskers, shabby moleskin trousers, a check shirt and 
  a leather jerkin, moved through the crowd with a sullen expression on his face and a cloth 
  cap pulled down over his eyes. He had been working his way gradually inward from the 
  fringes of the throng for some time: moving slowly so as not to excite suspicion and 
  keeping his ears alert for any conversations which might prove of interest. 
   
  It had taken no great stretch of his abilities to determine the location of Yeovil. The entire 
  underworld had been buzzing for months with word of the bare-knuckle fight to end them 
  all. The location had only been decided at the last moment, in order to deny the police the 
  chance of stopping it, but all anybody had to do on the day was to ask in any pub or 
  bawdy house, and they would be told. 'Ackney's the place. Go to 'Ackney. Everybody'll be 
  there.' 
   
  Everybody, in this instance, would certainly mean the man who headed one of the biggest 
  and most dangerous gangs in London. Hackney was traditionally on Yeovil's patch, 
  although the word over the past few days was that Mr Jitter was also going to be there, 
  and that some rough justice would be meted out to a couple of unfortunates who had 
  transgressed the brutal and unwritten code of the underworld. Holmes had a shrewd idea 
  who those people might be. 
   
  A train from Liverpool Street had deposited Holmes within walking distance of the fight, 
  and the steady stream of people heading into the low bushes and sparse grassland of the 
  marshes was sign enough that he was in the right area. He slouched along, hands in 
  pockets, watching, without appearing to, for Yeovil or Jitter. 
   
  The crowd was large, almost exclusively male, and so threateningly brutal that Holmes 
  realized why they didn't fear the police, now that they had settled. A team preparing the 
  ground could be moved on, a convoy of vehicles bearing the stalls, the sideshows and the 
  bare-knuckle fighters could be stopped, but a few thousand drunken and belligerent louts 
  were a law unto themselves. The 
  police, quite sensibly in Holmes's opinion, were keeping well out of it. 
  
   
  Holmes took a cup of warm gin for a ha'penny at a stall, contriving to slop most of it on the 
  ground as he quaffed. The drink gave him an opportunity to look around. Every few 
  hundred yards, groups of men were gathered around a fenced-off area of ground in which 
  dogs or metal-spurred cocks were fighting in a flurry of action and noise. The men at the 
  back were stretching and craning their necks: the men at the front were shouting and 
  cheering. All over, money was changing hands. 
   
  Far in the distance, on a slight hillock, four poles had been stuck into the ground and 
  linked by ropes. Already a crowd of several hundred had gathered around the ring, 
  although it would be several hours yet before the fight started. The cock-fights, the 
  dogfights and some bareknuckle bouts were intended to whet the appetite for the major 
  attraction which, according to custom, was to occur about an hour before sundown. Two 
  groups of caravans parked a few hundred yards away from the ring probably held the 
  fighters. 
   
  Holmes moved nearer one of the fenced-off areas, elbowing and swearing his way 
  through the crowd. If the gang leaders were anywhere, it would be where large crowds 
  were passing large amounts of money, and this crowd looked larger than most. 
   
  'Ere luv, fancy some fun for a tanner?' 
   
  A haggard woman with a painted smile, a tattered dress and no teeth tugged at his arm. 
  He shoved her away with a curse, and slipped through the crowd until his chest was 
  pressed against a row of wooden staves which had been plunged into the ground to form 
  a barrier with no gaps. Brutal men with long poles, sharpened to killing points, were 
  spaced around the perimeter of the arena. 
   
  Something more than an ordinary dog-fight was planned for here, that much was obvious. 
   
  The ground was soaked with blood already, and scraps of flesh and fur littered the area. A 
  number of bouts had obviously already been fought. The crowd near Holmes suddenly 
  parted and a man clambered into the arena holding a crate. Bewhiskered and better 
  dressed than the rest of the crowd, although not by much, he climbed up on top of the 
  crate and gazed around challengingly. 
   
  'All right, then,' he shouted, 'you all knows why you're 'ere. I got a little something for you 
  which'll make everything else in this stinking field look like a flea circus! You've never seen 
  anything like it, gents, I can promise you that. Straight from Sumatra, it is, and it killed two 
  sailors on the way over an' all. A dark and fearsome beast the like of which has not been 
  seen on these shores afore. We got the Natural 'Istory Museum offrin' us money for it, we 
  got the Zoological Gardens offrin' us money for it, we got so many offers you wouldn't 
  believe to take this evil creature off our hands, but we saved it for you this very afternoon, 
  gentlemen. For the first time in this or any other country, see the foreign beast take on 
  three British bulldogs! Place your bets, gents, place your bets.' 
   
  
  'Come on, let the dog see the rabbit then,' a rough voice yelled out from the crowd. 
   
  'You want a look?' the master of ceremonies said. 'All right then.' He jumped off his crate 
  and moved to one side of the arena, where the staves were interrupted by a solid gate. 
  Throwing the crate back on the ground, he used it to clamber back over the staves, and 
  pulled it up after him. 
   
  'Ready?' he yelled to the men with the sharpened poles. They nodded. He lent over the 
  gate, flicked the catch and quickly pulled himself back to safety. 
   
  For a long Moment, nothing happened. The crowd held their breath. The men with the 
  poles leaned over the fence, tension evident in their faces. 
   
  The gate slowly opened as something pushed against it from the other side. 
   
  A greyish-green form slunk into the arena. It was about the size of a great dane - some 
  five or six feet from nose to tail - but thicker-set and built closer to the ground. Its head 
  was flat and pointed, its ears lay furled along the side of its head. A ruff of coarse black fur 
  extended from its neck along its spine to where a thick tail flicked restlessly, but otherwise 
  it appeared to be covered with rough scales. Pure red eyes, with no distinction between 
  pupil, iris or cornea, took in everything around it - the crowd, the fence, the men with the 
  poles - and it snarled its defiance. Two enlarged incisors at the front of its mouth gleamed 
  with spittle. 
   
  As if the creature was not strange enough, it only had one rear leg. For a moment Holmes 
  assumed that it had lost the limb in some other bout, but then he saw how thickly muscled 
  the remaining one was, how it sat centrally beneath the creature's pelvis, and how nimbly 
  the creature pivoted on its rear leg and scampered around the ring. It had obviously been 
  born that way. Holmes had seen nothing like it. 
   
  'It's some bastard offspring of a rat!' yelled a wag in the crowd. 
   
  'A rat like you've never seen before and will never seen again,' the master of ceremonies 
  yelled back. 'A giant rat, caught in the depths of Sumatra, the most vicious and dangerous 
  beast you ever set your peepers on.' 
   
  As the crowd jostled for a better look, Holmes tried to place it. The resemblance to a 
  rodent was obvious, despite the massive rear leg and the scales, but certainly not rattus 
  rattus or rattus norvegicus. Holmes had read of rhizomys sumatrensis, the great Sumatran 
  bamboo rat, but this bizarre monstrosity bore little relationship to the descriptions. It 
  looked to Holmes more like some tripodal lizard. He watched as it made a deceptively 
  casual scuttle for the nearest section of fence, culminating in a short leap powered by that 
  massive rear limb. The crowd jumped back as one, all except for Holmes and one of the 
  men with the poles, who lashed at the beast with the sharpened end. It twisted in mid-air 
  and landed gracelessly on the blood-soaked ground. The level gaze and low hiss with 
  which it favoured the man seemed to promise much for later. He blanched, and wiped his 
  
  brow. Holmes leaned closer, watching the way the creature moved. Judging by the 
  matting of the fur around its neck, the apparent softness of its scaled but almost human 
  hands and the casual manner with which it treated the crowd, Holmes judged that it had 
  seen the inside of a circus tent or a travelling exhibition more recently than it had seen 
  Sumatra. The thought made Holmes's blood run slightly colder. What next: tiger fights in 
  Hyde Park? Panther races across Tower Bridge? 
  Everybody in the crowd bar Holmes was placing bets, and the odds heavily favoured the 
  creature. Holmes wasn't so sure. Its lack of scars and the nervousness with which it 
  sniffed the blood which had been spilled during the earlier dog-against-dog bouts 
  indicated that it was a newcomer to this sport. The dogs, of course, were not. 
   
  The ringmaster was watching carefully from the sidelines, and as the betting began to tail 
  off he raised a grimy handkerchief. 
   
  'Gents, are you ready?' 
   
  A howl went up from the crowd. The creature grew agitated, as if it knew what was about 
  to happen. 
  The ringmaster dropped his handkerchief. 
   
  Three squat, scarred bulldogs raced through the gate. Quick hands immediately fastened 
  it behind them. The creature whirled at the noise of their yapping, jumping backwards in 
  surprise, and snarling. The crowd leaned over the barrier, screaming encouragement. The 
  first bulldog saw its prey and flung itself straight across the arena. A sudden presentiment, 
  perhaps the first whiff of an unfamiliar scent, or a close look at the giant beast, brought it 
  up suddenly. Too late: the beast's claws raked deep gouges across the bulldog's nose. 
  Gushing blood, it shied away. The crowd cheered. 
   
  The other two bulldogs, more careful than their companion, circled in opposite directions 
  around the arena. The beast switched its attention back and forth between them, 
  retreating all the time until it was against the staves. A shower of chestnuts from the crowd 
  above distracted its attention: the dog to its right took a chance and dived in to clamp its 
  jaws on the beast's huge rear leg. The creature slashed back with claws extended, but the 
  dog had dived out of range. The beast tried to follow, but the third dog nipped in from 
  behind and fastened razor-sharp teeth on its rump. The beast whirled around the arena, 
  trying to get its teeth or its claws into the maddening distraction behind it, but the bulldog 
  was out of reach, and hung grimly on. 
   
  The second dog launched itself through the air and sunk itself into the creature's throat. 
  Fresh blood gushed across the arena and sprayed the faces of the crowd. Shouts, 
  screams and obscenities filled the air. Faces contorted in a feral rage, eyes glittered in 
  blind, mad lust. 
   
  The creature rolled over onto its back and scrabbled with its back leg, trying to dislodge 
  the dog that had anchored itself firmly on its throat. Deep gashes appeared across the 
  dog's stomach, but still it held on. The third dog relinquished its grip and sunk its teeth 
  
  firmly into the creature's stomach. The first dog, still streaming blood from its muzzle, took 
  the chance to run in and out, and nipping at the beast's exposed groin. 
   
  Blood gushed across the creature as its claws found an artery within the second dog's 
  stomach. The dog's grip weakened on the beast's throat, and a shake of the beast's head 
  flung it against the side of the arena. It fell to the ground, panting rapidly, its guts 
  protruding from a gaping slash in its stomach. 
   
  The creature was weakening. It attempted to turn over and shield its vulnerable 
  underbelly, but before it could climb to its feet, one dog darted round to attack its face 
  whilst the other burrowed beneath it to continue work on the stomach. 
   
  The creature lasted another few minutes, but the fight was already over. 
   
  The bout ended with the creature and one of the dogs dead, another dog with wounds to 
  its face, a third howling in maddened triumph, and a few men considerably richer at the 
  expense of a large number of others. 
   
  Holmes had spent much of the time scanning the faces of the crowd, searching for Yeovil, 
  but with no success. As the bout finished, and he could move away without attracting 
  attention, he caught sight of a familiar pocked face. Jitter! 
  Holmes followed at a distance, noting how Jitter was surrounded by a knot of hard-faced 
  punishers carrying the spiked cudgels known as 'holy water sprinklers'. They were 
  heading for the roped-off area that Holmes had spotted earlier. A lone figure awaited them 
  in the centre of the ring, standing beside a wooden block: a squat man with long, wispy 
  hair and enormous sideburns. He was dressed in a long poacher's coat and a shabby 
  broadbrimmed hat, and Holmes had seen him before. It was Mack Yeovil. 
   
  Jitter ducked under the ropes and stood on the other side of the block. The two men - the 
  most ruthless of London's many criminal gang leaders - barely acknowledged each other. 
   
  Holmes drifted closer to join the growing curious crowd. 
   
  'There's somethin' that needs to be sorted out,' Yeovil snapped in a gritty voice, 'an' it 
  needs to be sorted out in public. It's not often Mr Jitter here and I are together. More often 
  than not, we're at each other's throats.' 
   
  There was a murmur of assent from the crowd. 
   
  'There's a job we both do together,' Jitter added. 'We guard something. It don't matter 
  what it is, but the point is, something's gone missing from it, and it's made us look bad. We 
  - ' 
   
  'We've made it clear what the punishment is,' Yeovil interrupted. 'Our lads, the ones doin' 
  the guardin', they didn't spot the scummy gonoph. Or p'rhaps one of them was paid to look 
  the other way. That's what we're goin' to find out.' 
  
  He gestured and two men were pushed through the ropes into the ring. Each one was 
  held firmly by a large punisher. 
   
  'Now you know the form,' Jitter said to the men. Despite the calmness of his voice, they 
  were white and shaking. 'You was the ones on duty outside the place during the week 
  when the swag was nicked. Either you was both stupid, and let the gonoph get through, or 
  you took an alderman or two to look the other way. Now I'll make it easy for you. The man 
  who admits taking some other bugger's shilling, I'll let him take his chances in the ring with 
  one of Yeovil's bludgers. If you don't talk . .' He glanced over at Yeovil, who had pulled a 
  huge cleaver from his coat. '. . . Then Mack the Knife will be relieving you of your hands.' 
   
  The first cowering figure - a runtish teenager with wispy red hair - was pushed forward by 
  one of the punishers. His right hand was forced down onto the block. 
  Yeovil smiled down at him. 
   
  'Did you break faith with the family, Frank?' 
   
  'No, Mr Yeovil,' Frank squealed. 'I swear, I searched everyone who came out. Nobody was 
  carrying anything. I swear it on my dear Mother's grave!' 
   
  'Remember boy,' Yeovil said gently, 'if you admit it, I'll let you fight like a man. If you 
  don't...' 
   
  Frank was crying now. 
   
  'I swear, Mr Yeovil...' 
   
  The cleaver flashed in the sun and buried itself in the block. Frank screamed. A fine spray 
  of blood misted the air. His hand clutched convulsively at the wooden surface, dragging 
  itself an inch or two away from the cleaver. 
   
  The crowd roared its approval. 
   
  'Take him away and see to him,' Jitter commanded. One of the punishers clamped a dirty 
  handkerchief over the stump and dragged him off to, Holmes presumed, where the shady 
  doctors who serviced the bare-knuckle fights would be waiting. 
   
  The second man, a small-time cracksman named Froome who had crossed Holmes's path 
  before, was led to the block. His face was waxy: his eyes were almost starting from his 
  face. 
   
  'You know the score, Alf' said Jitter, standing at Yeovil's elbow. 'Tell us who paid you off.' 
   
  Froome seemed to be fascinated by the blood trickling from the blade of the cleaver. 
   
  'Tell us, Alf,' Jitter prompted. 
  
   
  'I been a good family man,' Froome whispered. 'You ain't 'ad cause to complain, Mr Jitter. I 
  always been faithful to you. I ain't taken no money, an' I don't know nothin' 'bout any books 
  bein' stolen.' 
   
  He seemed to take courage from his words. Drawing himself up, he said, 'An' that's the 
  truth.' 
   
  The cleaver moved so fast that it had severed Froome's hand before anybody saw it 
  move. Froome didn't even seem to feel it: he raised his arm triumphantly to the crowd, and 
  it was only when he saw the blood jetting from the stump that his eyes rolled up in his 
  head and he fell to the floor. He was carried off, with a grimy handkerchief acting as a 
  makeshift tourniquet. 
   
  'That's the end of it,' Jitter shouted to the crowd. 'Let that be a lesson to anybody who 
  thinks about crossing either of us.' 
   
  Holmes had seen enough. He was about to make his way to the fringes of the crowd when 
  he felt a sudden stir close to his chest. He lashed back with his boot, and felt it connect 
  with a satisfying crunch. A cry rang out behind him and a hand whipped out from his coat. 
  He grabbed at it and turned. A small man, whose hair stuck out at all angles from his face 
  like a fretful porcupine, was hopping up and down and cursing. He was clutching a shilling 
  all the money that Holmes had left. 
   
  'Give easy!' the pickpocket cried. 'You dropped it. I was only puttin' it back!' 
   
  'Ger'cha!' Holmes growled, trying to stay in character, and shoved the pickpocket away. 
  The smaller man staggered back into a large, spade-bearded fellow, whose tattoos 
  covered every exposed portion of his skin. He, in turn, cuffed the pickpocket into the back 
  of a rat-faced man wearing a dilapidated top hat, who whirled and thumped the bearded 
  lout between the eyes. 
   
  The crowd, excited by the sight of blood, was like a tinderbox, and this was the spark it 
  had been waiting for. Within seconds a fight had started. 
   
  Holmes, aware of the fragility of his position, attempted to extricate himself from the 
  widening scrap. It was no use. He managed to fight his way to the fringes of the crowd, his 
  knowledge of baritsu proving less effective than a good underarm punch to the groin, but a 
  flailing hand caught his cheek just as he thought he was clear. He felt a tearing sensation 
  as something ripped. 
  His false whiskers. 
   
  'E's wearing a sham 'tash!' somebody shouted. 
   
  'E must be a rozzer!' someone else cried. 
   
  
  Holmes looked around. The fight was frozen, with everybody looking at him. The rat-faced 
  man was drawing a thin flensing knife. 
   
  'Hold him,' the man said. 'If he's a rozzer we'll find out what he's doing here, then we'll cut 
  out his lights.' 
   
  Holmes could see several outcomes, most of them unpleasant. He briefly debated yelling 
  out to Mr Jitter for help, but the man was unpredictable at the best of times and might not 
  wish to acknowledge his connection with Holmes. Instead, he elbowed the nearest men 
  aside and raced away. The crowd had thinned somewhat, and Holmes found he could 
  easily avoid or outdistance his pursuers. His heart pounded. The stalls and the scenery 
  blurred as he ran. The sounds of the chase diminished behind him. 
   
  'Set the dogs on him!' yelled a distant voice. 
   
  A great shout went up behind him, and, with a cold heart, Holmes could just make out the 
  baying of the bulldogs. He increased his pace. His heart pounded in time with his legs. 
  Hackney Downs station shimmered remotely in the distance, like a memory of childhood. 
  Sweat trickled into his eyes, burning and blurring his vision. He shook his head, spraying 
  the water away, but failed to see a tree root which emerged from the ground like an old, 
  gnarled worm, and stumbled. 
  Behind him: a rapid pattering. 
   
  He turned and faced approaching nemesis. 
   
  The lead bulldog was less than fifty yards away, well ahead of the pursuing crowd. Its 
  companion, the one with the scarred nose, was not far behind. He took a deep breath, and 
  waited. 
   
  The first dog approached in a blood-dappled blur and launched itself without hesitation at 
  his throat. He braced himself, and caught its forelegs in mid-air. Its teeth gnashed widly a 
  few scant inches away from his face. Foam spattered across his eyes. He jerked the dog's 
  legs apart. The dog shrieked as both shoulder joints dislocated with a terrible ripping 
  sound. Holmes threw the carcass away as the second dog skidded to a halt before him. 
  He started to back slowly away. Knowing that if he turned his back, the dog would fasten 
  itself upon his calf muscles, he picked up a stone and threw it with unerring accuracy at 
  the dog's mutilated nose. It howled, and retreated. 
   
  The crowd was only a few hundred yards away, and most of them were carrying staves 
  ripped from the arena fence. 
   
  Holmes a deep breath, and ran. 
   
  'And that's how I come to be sitting here this evening,' Holmes said lightly. 'It was 
  exceedingly fortunate that the train was just pulling out of the station as I ran on to the 
  platform. I ensconced myself safely in first class and waved at the hunters as they poured 
  
  onto the platform. Apart from a slight contretemps with a guard who challenged me for 
  sitting in a first class compartment with a third class ticket, the journey home was most 
  pleasant.' 
   
  He took a contented puff at his pipe. 
   
  'Still, if there's one thing that today's escapade taught me, it's that the guards on the 
  Library door were not paid to look the other way. We must look elsewhere for an 
  explanation for the theft, Watson.' 
   
  'But Holmes...' 
   
  'And I wish I knew what that creature fighting the dogs was. I have the strangest feeling 
  that this case might hinge upon that knowledge.' 
   
  I trailed off into an amazed silence. No matter how long I lived, I would never get Holmes's 
  measure. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 5 
   
  In which Holmes and Watson receive a summons they cannot ignore, and are vouchsafed 
  some secrets. 
   
   
  Following our exchange of tales, Holmes and I spent the rest of the evening quietly. 
  Following a marvellous dinner of Coronation Chicken prepared by Mrs Hudson's fair 
  hands, we shared a bottle of port whilst Holmes smoked his old clay pipe and I savoured 
  one or two of the many different types of cigars which he kept as reference material 
  should he discover cigar ash at the scene of a crime. Later, whilst he hunted through his 
  files for references to Indian religions, I caught up on my notes of the affair which - in 
  memory of Mrs Prendersly - I had tentatively entitled The Case of the All-Consuming Fire. 
  My account of our first meeting had received some favourable attention after my friend 
  and colleague Arthur Conan Doyle took my notes, changed our names and address to 
  protect us from undue publicity and had them published privately under the title A Study in 
  Scarlet. Indeed, Doyle and I had recently been paid the sum of twenty-five pounds to allow 
  its reproduction in the forthcoming Beeton's Christmas Annual. I was of a mind to pass my 
  notes of another of Holmes's cases to Doyle, and thought that this might prove a suitable 
  choice. 
   
  I retired early, leaving Holmes almost invisible amongst a cloud of smoke that smelled as 
  if he was burning leaves instead of Ships' Number One Shag. As I prepared for bed, my 
  mind kept throwing up images of Mrs Prendersly's blazing hair and her blistering face: a 
  zoetrope of imagination which prevented me from sleeping for many hours. Downstairs, I 
  
  could hear the rustle of paper and the occasional exclamation as Holmes worked through 
  the night. 
   
  In the absence of slumber, I spent some time considering the qualities of my fellow lodger 
  and friend. He had the most amazing constitution of any man I had met. He could stay 
  awake for days on end without displaying any sign of deprivation, and then sleep 
  continuously for an entire weekend. He could also go for days without eating, then gorge 
  himself mercilessly upon anything that came to hand. He treated his body as a tugboat 
  captain treats his vessel: as something that should be fuelled and overhauled to keep it 
  functional, but which deserved no special care or respect, and which could be replaced at 
  any time. As a doctor I knew that he was mistaken, and as his friend I had told him so on 
  numerous occasions. His abuse of tobacco and . . . stronger substances . . . were, I felt, a 
  sign that his body was rebelling against the strain he imposed upon it. I warned him of the 
  risks he ran to his physical and mental health, but he ignored me. 
   
  My last thought before sleep claimed me was that there was one thing, at least, that the 
  Great Detective could not discover, and that was the state of his own health. 
   
  I dreamed, that night, but I do not care to recall those night terrors now, except to say that 
  the enigmatic figure of the Doctor scurried through all of them. Mostly he was dressed in 
  the same outlandish costume that I had already seen him wearing: once or twice, 
  however, with the peculiar logic of dreams, he was dressed in an Inverness travelling cape 
  and a flapped travelling cap. 
  I awoke to find bright sunlight streaming through my window, the sound of costermongers 
  and flower sellers drifting in from the street outside, and the reviving smell of fresh coffee 
  wafting up from where breakfast awaited me. 
   
  Holmes was still sitting where I had left him. His Persian slipper lay, empty but for a few 
  strands of tobacco, by his side. Plugs and dottles from his pipe littered the floor. 
   
   
  Mrs Hudson was pottering around the table in strained silence, removing the cold items 
  and replacing them with fresh ones, ready for when Holmes deigned to eat. I had seen the 
  process before, and knew that sometimes four or five breakfasts went past before Holmes 
  took notice. 
   
  I smiled at Mrs Hudson and bade her good morning. She scowled and limped out. Her 
  ankle seemed to be on the mend, I observed. 
   
  'You appear to have incurred the wrath of our landlady, old chap,' I said jocularly. 'If you're 
  not careful, we may soon be looking for new lodgings.' 
   
  'Hmm?' Holmes glanced up from the sheaf of notes which he was reading. 'I noticed no 
  change in her demeanour.' 
   
  
  Remembering my thoughts from the previous night, I added human emotion to the list of 
  things that Holmes could sometimes singularly fail to detect. 
   
  Holmes joined me at the table as I began to make serious inroads into the scrambled 
  eggs. He ate with one hand and shuffled through the pile of newspapers with the other. 
   
  Eventually he abandoned the last broadsheet and set himself to polishing off the bacon. 
   
  'You didn't sleep last night,' I observed. 
   
  'Well done,' he congratulated me without looking up. 'I see that my example has not been 
  completely wasted on you.' 
   
  I persevered. 
   
  'If you're not hospitalized before the end of the year, I shall eat my hat! You have 
  completely reversed all of the benefits of our Viennese holiday. The human body was not 
  meant to be driven the way you are driving it.' 
   
  'I sense hidden reefs beneath the seemingly placid surface of this case. I needed time to 
  think.' 
   
  'And have you come to any conclusions?' 
   
  'Some,' he mused, reaching for the toast. 'But a fresh mind is always welcome. Perhaps 
  you would care to summarize the salient features, Watson.' 
   
  I was familiar with Holmes's little game, whereby he would ask my opinion on a case, only 
  to completely demolish it with his razor-sharp wits. I always played along with him. Holmes 
  needed his little victories and they cost me nothing, save a moment of bruised pride. To 
  give me time to think, I pushed the saucer of jam across the table to him. He shook his 
  head. 
   
  'Thank you, but no,' he said, with the little twitch of his cheek that passed for a polite smile. 
  'I am not partial to jam, or indeed to any preserve made with sugar.' 
   
  'Why is that?' I asked. 
   
  'When I was a child, I recall being told by our cook that sugar cane was purified by being 
  put into vats where it would be mixed with bullock's blood and heated up. I have since 
  discovered that the albumin in the blood carries the impurities to the surface, where they 
  are skimmed off. Knowledge of the chemistry does not, however, enable me to overcome 
  my childhood revulsion. I was a sensitive child, as you may already have appreciated.' He 
  smiled apologetically. 'I cannot imagine what prompted Mrs Hudson to buy any jam. I have 
  made her aware of my taste on many occasions.' 
   
  
  Poor Mrs Hudson, I thought, and applied some to my own slice of toast. 
   
  'A theft has occurred from a hidden library in Holborn,' I said finally, 'a library controlled by 
  the higher echelons of the Catholic Church and containing documents felt to be 
  subversive to the natural order.' 
   
  'One remembers Galileo, and wonders,' Holmes murmured. 
   
  'Or rather, an alleged theft. We have no independent evidence.' 
   
  I had the pleasure of watching Holmes's face brighten momentarily. 
   
  'A fine distinction,' he admitted, 'but a proper one.' 
   
  'We have been provided with a list of those visitors to the library who have attended since 
  the last time the books were seen. They are our suspects, since any one of them may 
  have committed the theft. However, all visitors are searched upon exit, by two separate 
  and rival gangs of ruffians, and we saw ourselves how thorough the search is. Your own 
  experience at the dogfight bears out the fact that there is no love lost between Mr Jitter's 
  gang and Mack "the Knife" Yeovil's mob. The chances of collusion are slight. Each gang 
  seeks to catch the other out.' 
   
  'Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? as Juvenal so rightly remarked.' Holmes refilled both of 
  our cups with steaming coffee. 'His Holiness the Pope seems to have come up with an 
  ideal solution. I detect the twisted logic of the Jesuits.' 
   
  'We have questioned two of our suspects, the Doctor and Mrs Prendersly. The one is 
  evasive, but seems strangely honest. The other is....' 
   
  The coffee suddenly tasted rank. Holmes glanced across at me sympathetically. 
   
  'Bear up, old chap,' he said quietly. 'If any human agency is behind the lady's death, we 
  will find them.' 
   
  Despite the sunshine I felt as if a dark, chill shadow was hovering over us. 
   
  'As God is my witness,' I whispered, 'the lady was struck down by a supernatural fire. I see 
  no other answer.' 
   
  'This agency stands foursquare upon the ground,' Holmes rebuked me. 'I will have no 
  truck with the forces of Satan. Human nature is dark enough, without a vast panoply of 
  demons as well. All problems can be reduced to a set of mathematical relationships, and 
  all mathematical relationships can be solved. The supernatural is not amenable to logic: 
  therefore it does not exist.' He sipped at his coffee. 'I have been corresponding with a 
  young man named Russell upon the subject, a philosopher at Cambridge. He believes 
  that he is on the verge of codifying all of mathematics into a simple set of axioms. I have 
  
  told him that he is taking the first step towards summing up all human endeavour as an 
  equation. Once that is done, everything can be predicted.' 
   
  I could not help but shudder at the idea. 
   
  'What a sterile outlook,' I exclaimed. 
   
  'Not at all,' Holmes replied easily. 'Would you not like to be able to predict exactly which 
  horse will win the Grand National next year?' 
   
  'Not,' I said tartly, 'if everybody else in the country could do likewise.' 
   
  Holmes suppressed a smile. I realized that he had been baiting me. 
   
  'Alas, ratiocinative logic has some way to go yet. For instance, your summary, whilst 
  admirable in many respects, fails to address the important questions. For instance, why 
  were the documents stolen?' 
   
  I braced myself for a roasting. 
   
  'For their intrinsic value. A collector might pay highly for them.' 
   
  'Unlikely.' Holmes leaned back and stared at the ceiling. 'If we take as our premise that 
  one of the people on our list committed the theft, then we can rule out the possibility that 
  they wished to add the volume to their own collections.' 
   
  'Why so?' 
   
  'Because their names are not known to any of the bookshop merchants or auctioneers 
  whom I have questioned.' 
   
  'One of them could be a secret bibliophile. The list is not exclusive, surely? Or they could 
  be working on behalf of another person.' 
   
  'Remember the type of documents that went missing. Alternative zoology and 
  phantasmagorical anthropology. Now we know from what the librarian, Mr Ambrose, told 
  us that there are items in the library worth many times more to a serious collector. The 
  unexpurgated Malleus Maleficarum for instance - the infamous Witches Hammer of the 
  Catholic Church - or Aristophanes's lost first play The Banqueters. I myself saw a folio that 
  appeared to be Shakespeare's reputedly lost play Love's Labours Wonne. I know men 
  who would sell entire countries to get their hands on that one item alone. No, I think we 
  can rule out collectors.' 
   
  'Then perhaps they were stolen for the information they contained,' I said. 
   
  'Perhaps, but why steal them? Why not copy the information down?' 
  
   
  Ah. 
   
  'Indeed!' 
   
  Holmes suddenly slapped his palms down onto the table, rattling the crockery and 
  knocking the jam spoon out of its saucer so that it splattered the tablecloth and my shirt. 
   
  'I would venture,' he continued, oblivious to my scowl, 'that the books were removed not 
  for the information they contained, but to prevent anybody else from reading them.' 
   
  'Really Holmes!' I was remonstrating with him over the jam, but he took it to mean I 
  disagreed with his theory, and pursed his lips together in annoyance. 
   
  'It is perfectly plain. We know that the Doctor was recently consulting books on Indian 
  legends. Suddenly, the documents are stolen. The perpetrator of the crime was obviously 
  attempting to prevent the Doctor reading them.' 
   
  I wiped at my shirt with a napkin. 
   
  'It's a bit shaky, Holmes,' I said. 
   
  'Not at all. It is the only theory which fits the facts.' 
   
  I was not convinced. 
   
  'Does that mean that we can remove the Doctor from our list of suspects?' I asked. 
   
  'Yes...' Holmes was uncertain. 'He is obviously mixed up in it somehow, and yet . . .'His 
  expression was troubled. 'I am loath to believe that he is the villain.' 
   
  The napkin was merely helping to spread the jam across my shirt front, and I had just 
  decided to return to my chamber and change when the door opened and Billy, our page, 
  walked in. 
   
  'Telegram for you, Mr 'Olmes,' he shouted. 
   
  Holmes took the proffered slip. The lad scarpered off without a backward glance. Holmes 
  smiled. 
  'A bright spark, that one. He'll bear watching.' 
   
  He slipped the envelope open and read the contents intently. 
   
  'A summons, Watson!' 
   
  He handed the slip over. 
  
   
  'Come at once', I read. 
   
  'Who on Earth can it be?' I asked. 
   
  'No mystery there,' Holmes replied. 'The identity of the sender is unquestionable.' 
   
  This time Holmes was going too far. 
   
  'How can you possibly know who it is?' I yelped. 'There is no name, no address, and the 
  communication is neither handwritten nor torn letter by letter from a newspaper, so you 
  are unable to deduce anything from the construction. Furthermore, the message is too 
  short to contain any hidden message or code. You are bluffing, Holmes. I've caught you 
  out!' 
   
  I sat back triumphantly. 
   
  'Who do you know that could send such a terse message and expect it to be obeyed?' 
  Holmes asked me, reaching for his frock coat. 
   
  'Oh: I was crestfallen. 
   
  'Exactly,' Holmes replied. 'My brother Mycroft. Come along, Watson. Best bib and tucker.' 
   
  'But . . .!' I glanced down ruefully at my stained shirtfront. 
   
  'No time! Come on!' 
   
  I followed. 
   
  As the hansom headed towards Pall Mall, and the Diogenes Club, I recalled everything 
  that I knew about Holmes's mysterious brother. I had first met the man upon the occasion 
  that Holmes aided one of Mycroft's fellow lodgers - the plucky Greek interpreter Melas. 
  Mycroft's mental powers exceeded Holmes's, but his gross obesity and his extreme 
  laziness precluded any movement except that between bedchamber, office and dinner 
  table. Holmes had originally told me that his brother audited the books in some 
  Government department. He had unbuttoned enough since then to confide that Mycroft's 
  position was more shadowy and far more influential than he had previously led me to 
  believe. Certainly in my brief conversation with the man I had been amazed by his breadth 
  of knowledge concerning world affairs and his profound insights into the secret pivots 
  upon which they turned. How often had I read in the newspapers of some revolution in a 
  distant country, or a war between two foreign states, only to remember that Mycroft had 
  mentioned them casually in passing months before they happened? 
   
  We alighted from the hansom in front of the imposing facade of the Diogenes Club - the 
  last refuge of the most unclubbable men in England. In a moment of refreshing candour, 
  
  Holmes had once told me that he would not belong to any club that would have him as a 
  member. The Diogenes was his exception. Not a word was to be spoken inside its walls, 
  save in the distant, sound-proof, Visitors' Room. No social interaction of any kind was 
  permitted. Even to glance for longer than a few seconds at a fellow member was a black-
  ball offence. There were men - members of the aristocracy, indeed - who maintained 
  rooms at the Diogenes, ate in its restaurant, and had not passed out of its portals or 
  spoken to another living soul for a decade or more. The Diogenes was so private that I 
  had heard of men who had died whilst slumped in its massive leather chairs, and their 
  deaths not noticed until they began to decay. 
   
  Holmes led the way inside. I was immediately struck by the vast silence, so profound that 
  it seemed like a physical presence. The entrance hall, from which a marble staircase 
  swept up into the club proper, smelled of beeswax polish and age. A bewigged footman 
  led us up and along a corridor that was so deeply carpeted I could only just make out the 
  tops of my shoes. I could hear nothing, save the swish of our clothes and a deep, regular 
  thump that I eventually realized was my heartbeat. 
  We came to a doorway fully twice my height and flanked by twin statues of cherubs. They 
  were armed with little stone bows. A strange choice for the Diogenes, I reflected, believing 
  them to be representations of Eros, until I saw the malevolent scowls upon their faces and 
  the eagerness with which they held their weapons. 
   
  The footman indicated to us that we should enter. Years of non-verbal communication had 
  honed his skills to the point where he could mime, with superb economy of gesture, quite 
  complicated messages. I read in his movements that we were expected, that our host was 
  already waiting for us, and that refreshment would be provided. I also read that our 
  presence was only tolerated on our host's personal recommendation, and that we would 
  be expected to behave with complete adherence to the baroque rules of the Diogenes 
  Club. 
   
  I almost thanked him, but bit my tongue just in time. 
   
  Mycroft Holmes was standing by the window when we entered. He almost completely 
  blocked the light from it. I had remembered him as fat, fatter than anybody I had ever met, 
  but I had not remembered the poise with which he carried himself. He moved as if the 
  weight meant nothing to him. 
   
  'Doctor Watson,' he said in his surprisingly deep voice as he walked towards us, 'I hope 
  that your landlady's sprained ankle has not prevented you from breakfasting well?' 
   
  'No, thank you,' I answered automatically, then paused. 'But how . . .?' 
   
  He waved a massive spade-like hand. 
   
  'A mere bagatelle. I would not bother you with the details.' 
   
  I gazed at Holmes, who smiled slightly, and shrugged. 
  
   
  'Holmes has told you of her injury?' I ventured. 
   
  Mycroft sighed theatrically, as if bored by the necessity to explain his thoughts. 
   
  'Oh, very well. You have a jam stain upon your shirt, but my brother has abhorred jam 
  since childhood and will not have it in the house. The estimable Mrs Hudson would not, I 
  am sure, have purchased it herself. Ergo, she is temporarily unable or unwilling to shop 
  daily for food: a chore which, I presume, is being undertaken by a scullery maid or page-
  boy less familiar with Sherlock's tastes. An illness would almost certainly have resulted in 
  her taking to her bed, but your clothes are otherwise cleaned and brushed to a high 
  standard, suggesting that she is still taking an active part in household chores. I therefore 
  diagnose a minor injury. The ankle was a stab in the dark, I admit, but...' and he 
  shuddered slightly, like a trifle on a plate, '. . . given the seventeen precipitous steps one 
  has to ascend in order to reach your front door, not an unreasonable one, I warrant.' He 
  frowned over at his brother. 'Perhaps you would care to save your landlady the trouble of 
  washing Watson's shirt by doing it yourself, since you so obviously caused the stain in the 
  first place.' 
   
  Now it was Holmes's turn to look puzzled. The frown suddenly cleared, and he turned to 
  me. 
  'The angle of the stain,' he said, as if explaining to me rather than to himself. 'Had a drop 
  of jam fallen from your toast, it would have resulted in a tear-drop shaped blotch. In fact it 
  is almost circular, indicating that the jam arrived horizontally.' 
   
  'I should have changed,' I said, embarrassed at the constant reference to my state of 
  dress, 'but. . .' 
   
  'My brother rushed you out of the house,' Mycroft continued. 'When we were children he 
  used to do the same with me: always wanting me to accompany him as he rushed around 
  the garden, examining worms, looking at leaves and turning over stones. I said to him, 
  "Sherlock, if I want to examine a worm, I can do it just as well from the comfort of an 
  armchair, if you will do me the courtesy of bringing it here. Better still, I can reach out my 
  arm and pull down a book which will tell me everything I could ever wish to know about 
  worms".' 
   
  He looked over at his brother, and smiled. Beneath the fat which adorned his face and fell 
  in folds to his collar, I could see the outlines of the same bone structure that showed so 
  well in Holmes's features. 
   
  Holmes smiled back, rather fondly, I thought. 
   
  'I remember telling you, "It's the context that's important, Mycroft",' Holmes said, good-
  humouredly, "'not the worm": 
   
  Mycroft swung round on his brother like battleship preparing a broadside. 
  
   
  'And I said, "A worm is a worm is a worm, Sherlock, no matter where you find it." Unlike a 
  Pope, who is quite different in Austria to the Vatican.' 
   
  A heavy pause fell across the room, broken by the arrival of the footman with a tray 
  containing a teapot and several fine china cups. 
  'You cannot possibly have deduced that we have met the Pope,' I said, when the footman 
  had left. The brothers were locked in an eye-to-eye battle of wills. Knowing the natural 
  truculence of the Holmes family, I could see that it could go on all day, if I did not interrupt. 
   
  'Quite right,' Holmes said. 'Somebody has brought Mycroft a juicy fat worm.' 
   
  'You are meddling in affairs of state,' Mycroft said. 
   
  'You have no right to interfere,' Holmes snapped. 'I have been retained in a private 
  capacity.' 
   
  'That is equivalent to saying that the amorous predilections of Prince Edward, Duke of 
  Clarence and Avondale are his own concern!' Mycroft crossed to the window again, so 
  that the light was behind him, throwing his vast shadow across the room. 'The monarchy 
  and the state are the same. They cannot be separated. The same holds true for the Pope 
  and the Vatican. Did you not wonder why the Supreme Pontiff travelled half-way across 
  Europe in secret to consult you? Did it not occur to you that the commission, simple 
  though it may have seemed, might have implications which could rock Europe? Help 
  yourself to tea, by the way.' 
   
  I did so, wondering what the amorous predilections of Prince Edward, Duke of Clarence 
  and Avondale actually were. 
   
  'Balderdash!' Holmes threw himself into an armchair. 'The Foreign Office is merely 
  annoyed because the Pope came to me rather than to it.' 
   
  'The Foreign Office be damned!' Mycroft exploded. 'They couldn't find a cow in a field. The 
  Queen is annoyed because his Eminence Pope Leo XIII didn't come to her!' 
  'So,' Holmes whispered, 'as I suspected.' 
   
  Mycroft shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. 'Yes,' he said, 'as you suspected.' 
   
  'The Diogenes?' 
   
  'Of course.' 
   
  'Please,' I interrupted, 'if it is not too much trouble, can somebody explain to me what you 
  are talking about?' 
   
  
  Mycroft glanced at Holmes, who nodded slightly. I felt as if I had been given some sort of 
  endorsement. 
   
  'Please do not discuss what you are about to hear outside these walls,' Mycroft began. 'I 
  am telling you this only to ensure that my brother is aware of the truth of my position, 
  rather than his own deductions, and because I am aware, following your commissions for 
  the Royal Families of Scandinavia, Russia and Holland, of your honesty and integrity.' 
   
  I nodded, feeling rather proud of the faith he put in me. 
   
  'As you may know, there are certain people attached to the Foreign Office who make it 
  their business to find out other peoples' business. One might call them a kind of secret 
  service.' 
   
  I thought back to the Orient Express, and the Reverend Hawkins. How mysterious are the 
  wheels of power. 
   
  'Many countries have them, Doctor Watson. Germany has agents in England even as we 
  speak, as does Russia. We have had our own agents abroad for nigh on four hundred 
  years, now. We operate under a rather severe handicap, however. We are a decent race.' 
  He snorted. 'The average Englishman thinks that there is something rather sordid and 
  dishonourable about spying, and that pretty much ties our hands as to how effective we 
  can be.' 
   
  'There is something sordid about it,' I exclaimed. 'The whole idea is . . . well, just not 
  cricket!' 
   
  'The Germans don't play cricket,' he said, scowling. 'And neither do the Russians. 
  Unfortunately, the Foreign Office do. They run the whole thing like an Eton game. You've 
  never seen such a group of ineffective stuffed shirts. When Thomas Beach, one of their 
  best agents, infiltrated the Irish Republican Brotherhood and reported that the Fenians 
  had entered into diplomatic relations 
  with the Czar of all the Russias, and that they had actually built a submersible boat with 
  which to attack Royal Navy vessels, what did they do? Nothing! Her Majesty was furious 
  when she found out!' 
   
  'Her Majesty?' 
   
  'Our Sovereign is a shrewd woman, Doctor Watson, and should not be underestimated. 
  She is not blind to the domineering ambitions of Czar Nickolas I and Kaiser Wilhelm II, 
  and she is also perfectly well aware that the Fenians pose a greater threat to the stability 
  of the monarchy than the Anarchists.' He hesitated briefly, wondering, perhaps, how much 
  to say. 'Her Majesty has for some time been distrustful of what her prime ministers have 
  been telling her. She never had much respect for poor Gladstone. "He speaks to me as if I 
  were a public meeting," she once told me, and has publicly questioned whether he is fit to 
  lead her country. I must say,' Mycroft added parenthetically, 'that I share her views. Not 
  
  five years ago the Prime Minister proposed to the Cabinet that a Flotilla of the Royal Navy 
  be sent to look for Atlantis!' He frowned. 'Where was I? Yes, some years ago Her Majesty 
  decided to set up what, for want of a better word, might be called her own "intelligence 
  organization". She, or rather, her advisors,' and Mycroft modestly cast his gaze 
  downwards at this point, 'knew that it could not be funded from public money, lest the 
  public protest at a secret organization in their midst. Approaches were made to the oldest 
  and wealthiest families in the land. A cover was sought: an establishment above reproach 
  through which this tiny band of patriots could operate.' 
   
  'And the Diogenes . . .?' I was aghast. 
   
  '...Is that establishment. Like an iceberg, Doctor Watson, nine-tenths of what goes on here 
  is beneath the surface.' 
   
  'I had already deduced most of your story' Holmes said from the far side of the room. He 
  had poured himself a cup of tea and was sprawled in his armchair. 'Indeed, I have been 
  following your successes with some interest. It would seem that, wherever trouble exists in 
  the world, a member of the Diogenes Club is not far away. I notice, in fact, that the ill-fated 
  last voyage of the Fenians' submarine vessel coincided with the honeymoon in New 
  Jersey of one Charles Beauregard, whom I have seen dining here on numerous 
  occasions.' 
   
  'Very perceptive, Sherlock,' Mycroft said, clapping his hands together gently. 'Very 
  perceptive. Now, I have been frank with you. Perhaps you could return the compliment.' 
   
  Holmes stared at his brother for a long moment. 
   
  'Perhaps we can trade information,' he said finally. 'Certain pieces of the puzzle still elude 
  me.' 
  He steepled his hands together, lay back in his chair until his gaze was directed at the 
  ceiling and sketched the bare bones of the matter for his brother. When he had finished 
  and Mycroft had asked a few incisive questions, Holmes reached into his jacket and 
  extracted the list of Library patrons which Mr Jehosephat Ambrose had provided us with. 
   
  Mycroft's eyes scanned the list, stopping at one particular name. He glanced up and 
  locked gazes with Holmes. They shared a long moment of unspoken communion. 
   
  'An instructive list,' Mycroft said finally, returning it to Holmes. Even I could spot the ironic 
  understatement in his voice - a tone directed, I was sure, at his brother. 'You have 
  questioned both the Doctor and Mrs Prendersly, but only Mrs Prendersly is dead. If we 
  take as our assumption that she was indeed murdered, it would follow that she possessed 
  information that the Doctor did not, and was killed in case she might pass the information 
  on. It would also follow that Professor Challenger is not our man.' 
   
  'How so?' Holmes challenged. 
   
  
  'Because he set sail for South America last week on one of his scientific expeditions.' 
   
  'He could be working as part of a gang,' I said. 
   
  'Unlikely,' Holmes snapped. 'Remember William of Occam's suggestion that one should 
  not multiply logical entities without reason. No, for the moment we will assume that our 
  man is working alone.' 
   
  'Is your Doctor a tall chap with a shock of white hair and a penchant for velvet smoking 
  jackets?' Mycroft asked. 
   
  'No,' I said, mystified. 'Why?' 
   
  'There's a chap who I see down in the reading room sometimes, calls himself the Doctor. 
  Thought it might be one and the same. This one's a bit of a wag: brings newspapers into 
  the Club dated some ten or twenty years hence and reads them as if he'd never seen 
  them before. Got some of the members quite worried, I can tell you.' 
   
  'Apart from the coincidence in names,' Holmes said, leaning forward and fixing his brother 
  with a hard stare, 'is there any reason why he should be the same Doctor?' 
   
  'Well spotted, Sherlock. I do have a reason. You see, a good half of the people on this list 
  are members of the Diogenes!' 
   
  Holmes stood bolt upright, and I must admit that I was taken aback. The entry 
  requirements for the Diogenes were notoriously stringent. To find that many of our 
  suspects were regularly gathered together under one roof . . . 
   
  'Who?' Holmes asked succinctly. 
   
  'If we ignore the Doctor, then Challenger, Baron Maupertuis and. .' 
   
  Mycroft trailed off. Holmes nodded. I felt completely left out. There was a name on the list 
  that was being kept from me. 
   
  Mycroft Holmes pulled a discreet velvet cord, and within seconds a footman had entered 
  the room. Mycroft murmured a few words, and the man left. 
   
  'I have asked Baron Maupertuis to join us, if he is on the premises,' Mycroft informed us. 
  'What sort of a man is he?' Holmes asked. 
   
  'A strange sort,' Mycroft replied. 'Rich - exceptionally so - and a bit of a recluse. He is of 
  Dutch extraction, and owns the Netherlands-Sumatra Company, but has recently become 
  a naturalized British subject. Seems to be trying to be more British than the British: friends 
  with the Prince of Wales, goes to Ascot, you know the form. We suspect that he is mixed 
  up in some shady business deals, which is why we encouraged him to join the Diogenes.' 
  
   
  'Because you wanted his help?' 
   
  'Don't be clever, Sherlock. We wanted to keep an eye on him.' 
   
  As we waited, Mycroft poured me a glass of heavy, sweet sherry, and made small talk 
  about the weather. He was not very good at it and I was glad when the door reopened. 
   
  The man who walked into the room was tall, excessively so, and thin to the point of 
  emaciation. His face was bloodless and completely without expression - so immobile, in 
  fact, that it could have been carved in bone. His hair was long, ash-blond and brushed 
  straight back: the irises of his eyes were so pale as to be almost invisible, so that his 
  pupils were black pinpricks floating on a white void. His morning attire was impeccable. He 
  did not offer to shake hands. 
   
  'Mycroft,' he said finally. His voice was like the wind in dry reeds. 'I trust that this is 
  important. I have another appointment.' 
   
  'I wished you to meet my brother, Sherlock,' Mycroft said. I could tell that even he, the 
  imperturbable Holmes, was put out. 
   
  Maupertuis's gaze settled on Holmes and he nodded slightly. Although his expression did 
  not change by one iota, something new had been added to the atmosphere of that room, 
  an indefinable but ominous cloud. 
   
  'Charmed,' Holmes said, sniffing slightly. 'I was saying to my brother only a moment ago 
  that we both belong to the same library.' 
   
  Maupertuis said nothing. 
   
  'A library in Holborn,' Holmes continued. 
   
  No reaction. 
   
  'I don't remember ever seeing you there. Do you go often?' 
   
  Maupertuis reached a skeletal hand into his waistcoat pocket and retrieved an ornate gold 
  hunter, which he consulted. I noticed that the rest of his body did not appear to move at 
  all. He swivelled slightly so that he was looking at Mycroft. 
   
  'Time presses,' he whispered. 'You understand.' 
   
  He turned to go, and as he did so, his gaze swept across me like the beam of a 
  lighthouse. I felt as if insects were crawling across my skin. The feeling lasted but a 
  moment, and then he was gone. 
  'He did not blink,' Holmes said finally. 'Most instructive.' 
  
   
  'A rum character,' Mycroft said. There was a fine beading of perspiration across his 
  forehead. he took out a handkerchief and mopped it abstractedly across his face. 'I've 
  never got his measure.' 
   
  'I wonder whether his appointment was real or feigned,' I said. 'It occurred to me that he 
  might have wished to avoid further questioning, and invented a spurious excuse to leave.' 
   
  Holmes crossed to the window. 
   
  'We may be able to tell something by the way he . . . ah! Yes, there he is now, climbing 
  into a hansom.' 
   
  Holmes suddenly leaned forward, like a pointer dog on the trail of a stag. 'Hello, what's 
  this!' 
   
  Mycroft and I moved to join Holmes. Mycroft, being nearer, got to his brother's side first, 
  effectively blocking my view. 
   
  'Most instructive,' Mycroft murmured. 
   
  'You noticed?' Holmes. said. 
   
  'Of course.' 
   
  'What's happening?' I bleated. 
   
  Mycroft moved aside and I squeezed past him to gaze along Pall Mall at a swaying two-
  wheeler with a baronial crest upon its side. 
   
  'I see nothing,' I said. 
   
  'You see nothing now,' Holmes corrected. 'The hansom was listing sideways before 
  Maupertuis entered. His weight evened the suspension out.' 
   
  'I don't . . . Ah! I see! You suspect that the hansom was already occupied?' 
   
  'I suspect nothing,' Holmes replied. 'I know. The science of deduction allows no room for 
  suspicions. A fact is either true or it is not true. Did you not notice how Maupertuis was in 
  a hurry to leave us for another engagement? I would suggest to you that he was due for 
  an assignation with another person. The coach is obviously his, judging by the crest, and 
  contains the person with whom he is meeting.' 
   
  It would be instructive to know the identity of the other man,' Mycroft said ruminantly. 
  'Save that he is elderly and does not often visit London, I can tell nothing about him.' 
   
  
  'He is of above average height,' Holmes added. 
   
  'Or thinner than the norm,' Mycroft riposted. Both brothers smiled. I was at a loss. I wanted 
  to ask them how they could tell all this from the tilt of a hansom cab, but the answer would 
  only make me feel a fool for not being able to tell myself. 
   
  Just then the hansom described a wide half-circle and began to trot towards the Diogenes 
  again. As it passed, I craned my neck in an attempt to see its occupants. Holmes and his 
  brother had moved back into the room, and so I was the only one to see the silhouette of a 
  hooded and robed figure sitting next to the Baron - the same figure that I had seen in the 
  Library of St John the Beheaded. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 6 
   
  In which Holmes and Watson make a subterranean voyage and a footman is fired. 
   
   
  'I need to see that man,' Holmes snapped after I had imparted the news to him. 'It may be 
  that there is nothing suspicious in this meeting - after all, we already know that the Baron 
  is a member of the Library. Never the less, a hooded man is a suspicious figure of almost 
  gothic proportions. Where will Maupertuis be heading now?' 
   
  'Sherlock, I'm not even my brother's keeper, let alone that of a foreign nobleman. Come, 
  we will ask the doorman.' 
   
  Moving quickly for a man of his build, Mycroft led the way out of the Visitor's Room, along 
  hushed corridors and down the wide marble staircase to the foyer of the Diogenes Club. 
  Whilst we waited by the main desk, he beckoned the doorman to the steps just outside the 
  door and flung questions at him. As he gestured to us to join him outside the club doors, I 
  saw him slip the man a shilling. 
  'Jessup here says that the passenger was in shadow, but he heard the Baron tell the 
  driver to head for an address in Euston.' 
   
  'Then we must get there before him.' Holmes looked around for a cab, but there were 
  none to be seen. 
   
  'He has a good few minutes start,' Mycroft said. 'By the time you get there, they will have 
  entered the house, and you may never see the other passenger. Unless...' 
   
  'Unless what?' 
   
  Instead of answering, Mycroft led us both back inside the confines of the Diogenes and 
  through the reading room - a large, oak-lined study in whose deep leather armchairs sat a 
  cross-section of the most important, the most unconventional and the most unpleasant 
  
  men in the Empire. Skirting around the back of an armchair, I found myself looking at a 
  familiar face. 
   
  The Doctor. 
   
  He was standing in front of the armchair. Its occupant was reading a copy of the Times. 
  From my position behind him I could see that he was attempting to finish some kind of 
  word puzzle - a grid composed of black and white squares into which he was inserting 
  words. He had one set of spaces left to fill, and from the look of him he had been stuck for 
  some time. 
   
  The Doctor was busy writing something on a piece of paper. Seeing me, he put a finger to 
  his lips. I looked down at the man in the chair. His hair was white and he was wearing a 
  black velvet smoking jacket. Stumped by the clue, he rubbed the back of his neck in 
  annoyance. 
   
  The Doctor coughed slightly. Immediately, the paper was lowered and the man in the chair 
  glowered at him. 
   
  The Doctor held up his piece of paper. 
   
  14 Across, it read, Sesquipedalian. 
   
  'You bounder!' the man expostulated. The Doctor scurried off, grinning, and the white-
  haired man leaped to his feet as a number of irate footmen converged on him. I ran after 
  Holmes and Mycroft, ashamed of the Doctor's juvenile antics. 
   
  Mycroft took us down a side corridor. A few yards along it was a door marked Billiards 
  Room. 
   
  Mycroft took a key from his waistcoat pocket and unlocked it, then led the way inside. 
   
  Excepting a billiards room, I was taken aback to find a gas-lit and carpeted stairway. I 
  stumbled down the first few stairs into Holmes's back. In front of me, over Holmes's head, 
  I could see Mycroft's huge bulk filling up the space from stairs to ceiling and from wall to 
  wall. As we walked I wondered what would happen if he got stuck. 
   
  How could we get him out? Thank God he was in front, otherwise how would we get out?' 
   
  We walked on, and on. The stairs led down, seemingly to hell itself. A sudden whoosh in 
  the distance made me jump. Seconds later a warm breeze caressed my face. 
   
  'Where are we going?' I whispered to Holmes. 
   
  'Hanged if I know,' he replied over his shoulder, 'but I doubt that it's the wine cellar.' 
   
  
  Light blossomed around the edges of Mycroft's body and within seconds we were standing 
  in a spacious, bricklined cellar from whose ceiling an incongruous chandelier dangled. 
  Looking back up the stairs, I could see a glimmer of light. The distance was not as great 
  as I had feared. Relieved, I looked around. 
   
  Comfortable sofas lined the walls, and tables held copies of the day's newspapers, but my 
  eyes were caught and held by the semicircular cast-iron object which protruded from the 
  far wall. It was about four feet across and festooned with a number of smaller pipes, one 
  of which seemed to have a knurled wheel attached. I moved closer. It appeared to be 
  some form of hood and, kneeling and gazing into it, I could see that it was the final few 
  feet of a tunnel. The rest of the tunnel, which was lined with cast iron, vanished into 
  darkness after a few feet. A large hatch, hinged at the top, hung over the opening and two 
  rails, about three feet apart, emerged from it and crossed the cellar almost to where we 
  stood. Sitting on the rails was what I can only describe as an large artillery shell on 
  wheels. 
   
  'Barker?' Mycroft roared. We were obviously in another part of the Diogenes Club in which 
  speech was permitted. 
   
  'Ere, Guvnor!' 
   
  A small man emerged from the tunnel. His skin was pale, his eyes dark, and he was 
  dressed, incongruously, in immaculate morning dress. 
   
  'Be wantin' a trip, will ya?' 
   
  Without waiting for an answer, he threw some kind of catch and opened the entire top of 
  the wheeled shell. The interior was padded with velvet and contained two small armchairs. 
   
  'All aboard that's goin' aboard,' he said. 
   
  I looked questioningly at Holmes. He, in turn, looked at his brother. 
   
  'Get in,' Mycroft said. Holmes shrugged, and did so. I, with some trepidation, followed. 
   
  The armchairs were a tight fit. I gazed up out of the shell at the chandeliered ceiling. 
   
  'A pneumatic railway built for the Post Office and first used in 1863,' Mycroft explained, 
  beaming down at us. 'They used it to move post from Euston to the General Post Office at 
  St Martin's le Grand. They abandoned it in 1880. The Diogenes bought it - through one of 
  our members, of course - and extended the line to here. Excess air pressure - provided by 
  the London Hydraulic Power Company from their pumping station in Pimlico - pushes the 
  shells along, and a partial vacuum in front of them aids the process.' 
   
  'For what purpose?' I gasped. 
   
  
  'To get people in and out of the building unobserved,' Holmes said. I could tell from his 
  tone that he, too, felt a modicum of discomfort. 
   
  'Quite right,' Mycroft said. 'Certain meetings held on these premises have quite 
  distinguished guest lists. It would not do to have them observed. And...' his voice 
  hardened,'... it would not do to have any mention of this private railway in the public 
  domain. It shall remain our little secret.' 
   
  He made a signal to Barker. 
   
  'First stop Euston, a short walk away from Drummond Crescent, where Baron Maupertuis 
  is making for. Pleasant journey, gentlemen. You will forgive me for not joining you.' 
   
  The lid came down. 
   
  'If anybody had told me this morning,' I said with some venom, 'that I would be shot like a 
  bullet beneath London before lunch, I would have called them a liar.' 
   
  'I confess that the experience is a novel and unexpected one.' Holmes voice was flattened 
  by the padding. 'Still, look on it as a part of life's rich tapestry.,' 
   
  'Thank you,' I retorted. 'I'll remember that.' 
   
  We seemed to roll forward by a few feet, and a heavy thud behind us suggested that the 
  hatch had been closed. 
   
  'I seem to remember reading about something like this in a Jules Verne book,' I said 
  lightly, trying to keep my spirits up. 
   
  'Verne got it all wrong,' Holmes said in a level voice. 'At the pressures generated in his 
  manned rocket shell, the occupants would have been squashed into raspberry preserve 
  with a fraction of a second.' 
   
  There was a definite pressure building up in my ears. I swallowed. The pressure eased, 
  only to mount a few seconds later. 
   
  'Very reassuring,' I gasped. 'Any last words?' 
   
  'The world has not seen the last of Sherlock Holmes,' my friend said. I wasn't sure if it was 
  a threat or a promise. 
   
  There was a loud thud behind us and the vehicle rocked on its wheels. The armchair felt 
  as if it was being pushed hard against my back. Something roared loudly in the 
  background and the vehicle shook as if some unseen creature were caressing it with 
  rough hands. The temperature rose suddenly, bringing a fine dew of perspiration to my 
  brow. My fingers clutched at the arms of the chair and my head was forced back against 
  
  the padding, making me think, for some obscure -reason, of a dentist's surgery. I clenched 
  my neck muscles and tried to force my head forward. It was hard. I felt as if Mycroft 
  Holmes were sitting on my chest. I strained harder. 
   
  Suddenly the weight vanished from my chest. I catapulted forward, banging my nose 
  against the back of Holmes's chair. Stars exploded in the pitch darkness. The beast 
  outside was roaring louder now, and I had to brace myself against the sides of the vessel 
  to stop myself sliding off the velvet upholstery. Then we were slowing down, and the tone 
  of the roar changed. Within seconds we were stationary and the hinged lid was being 
  pulled open from outside. 
   
  'Ere ya go, mate.' 
   
  A tattooed arm reached in and hauled me like a kitten into a room that was the twin of the 
  one we had left. Holmes waved away the man with the tattoos, and clambered out under 
  his own steam. I looked at him and laughed. 
   
  'If you find the experience so amusing,' he snapped, 'perhaps you would like to make the 
  return journey.' 
   
  I suppressed my laughter. Part of it was sheer hysteria, but a large portion was due to the 
  velvet weave pattern embossed across Holmes's forehead. I hadn't been alone in hitting 
  my head. 
   
  We staggered out into Drummond Crescent and found ourselves outside a small, 
  anonymous house. We looked at each other, and burst out laughing. 
   
  'Quicker than a cab,' I gasped, 'and so much cheaper!' 
   
  'Gad, I've a small place a few hundred yards away where I keep make-up and disguises,' 
  he said between huge choking guffaws. 'And to think, I never knew...' 
   
  We were still laughing when a black hansom cab trotted past us. Holmes sprinted after it 
  and I, because of the wound I had sustained in Afghanistan, followed as best I could. The 
  hansom rounded the corner and, shortly afterwards, so did Holmes. By the time I reached 
  the corner the hansom was stationary and the door to a small terraced house was 
  swinging shut half-way down the street. 
   
  Holmes had taken off his top hat and flung it to the pavement. 
   
  'Damn and blast!' he shouted as I approached. 'Damn and blast! I could not make out his 
  face. Too late, by a few seconds.' 
   
  He walked along to where the carriage stood and looked up at the closed door. I joined 
  him, mindful of the hulking figure of the driver atop the carriage. 
   
  
  'I know that address,' Holmes said. His lips moved as he tried to recollect the memory, 
  then a slow smile spread across his face. 
   
  'We may be in luck after all, Watson. Follow me.' 
   
  With that he bounded up the stairs to the front door of the house. 
   
  'But Holmes . . . Good Lord, you can't just barge in there, man!' 
   
  'Why not?' he shouted down as he rang the bell. The door swung open just as I joined 
  him, revealing a rather seedy-looking footman whose hair was slicked down and who 
  grinned at us in a most familiar way. I had been about to apologize for Holmes's behaviour 
  but, after a short exchange of words, he walked in as if he owned the place. I followed, 
  confused. 
   
  The walls of the hall were papered in a red flock design that showed patches of wear. The 
  carpet had once been opulent, but now looked threadbare and out of fashion. There was 
  no sign of Maupertuis and his companion, if, indeed, this was the house they had entered. 
  A stairway led upstairs. Through a connecting door I could see a large drawing room 
  whose walls were thankfully half-hidden by drapes. I say 'thankfully' as there were children 
  lounging on sofas, and the murals which had been painted on the walls were of fauns and 
  satyrs in positions of amorous entanglements with partially clad nymphs of a shockingly 
  young age. I am no prude - my experience of women covers many nations and three 
  separate continents - but I was appalled by the almost medical explicitness with which 
  those paintings were rendered. 
   
  And then I looked at the children. 
   
  Most were girls, although three or four angelic boys fluttered long lashes at me. They were 
  lolling around in postures of provocative abandon, dressed in short frocks. Very short 
  frocks and nothing else. 
   
  I began to feel sick. 
   
  'Does anything take your fancy?' said a voice behind me. I turned. Behind me stood a 
  woman of uncertain years wearing a dress that looked as if it had been made out of the 
  same threadbare fabric as the flock wallpaper in the hall. She was short and wide, and her 
  mouth was a rouged slash across her face. 
   
  'We've got some loverly little ones here, gentlemen, and clean too, if you take my 
  meaning. Whatever your tastes, we can satisfy them. Blondes or redheads, bold or shy. If 
  you want them fresh, well, that comes a little extra, gents, but fresh you can have.' 
   
  She gazed up at us with bulging, frog-like eyes. I wanted to lash out at her with my stick, 
  but remnants of gentility and Holmes's presence by my side made me stay my hand. 
   
  
  'Thank you,' he said. He had roughened his voice and, looking at him from the corner of 
  my eye, I could see that he was holding himself differently, disguising his height and 
  suggesting some congenital deformity of the spine. 'Perhaps we could take some time in 
  choosing.' 
   
  She winked at him. 
   
  'Certainly, sir. I can see that you're a connersewer, a proper connersewer. Take your time. 
  Talk to 'em, if you like. Give us a call when you're ready, and I'll have a room put at your 
  disposal.' 
  She retreated back to whatever rock she had crawled out from under. I thought I heard her 
  say, 'Take two or three, if you want, it's all the same to them, and you looks like you can 
  afford it,' but the buzzing in my ears made it difficult to tell. 
   
  'Bear up, man,' Holmes's voice whispered beside me. 'Smile, and when I say the word, 
  make for the stairs.' 
   
  I glanced again into the room. One of the boys winked at me and licked his lips. I 
  shuddered. 
   
  On Holmes's command we moved back into the hall. As we rounded the bannister Holmes 
  reached out and opened the door slightly, then slammed it shut. 
   
  'With luck they'll think our courage deserted us,' he said grimly. 'That harpy could tell from 
  your face that you were discomfited.' 
   
  'Discomfited!' I hissed. 'Holmes, do you have any idea . . .?' 
   
  'More than you, old friend,' he said as we reached the first landing. 'The underside of 
  London is my natural habitat. I have been able to keep most of it from you. I'm only sorry 
  you had to be here now.' 
   
  'But Holmes, they were children!' 
   
  He scanned the carpet and sniffed the air like an experienced hunter in search of big 
  game, then started up the next flight of stairs. 
   
  'The other side of the coin to our experiences in Holborn,' he whispered. 'The 
  overcrowding in the slums and rookeries is so intense, the poverty so appalling, that many 
  families feel they have no option but to sell their children into what may seem to them to 
  be better circumstances.' 
   
  'And there are men willing to . . . to pay money for . . . And with boys as well . . .!' 
   
  I could not continue. Holmes glanced over at me, his eyes shadowed. 
   
  
  'I have never been one to censure what two consenting adults wish to do in private, 
  Watson, the provisions of Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill notwithstanding. 
  But to involve children is the lowest form of moral perversion imaginable.' 
   
  We had reached the second landing by now. The dubious trappings of respectability had 
  faded: the walls were distempered rather than papered, the floor uncarpeted. Holmes 
  repeated his shikari act, then led the way to a closed door which he opened a crack. 
  Behind it a smaller staircase led further upward. From upstairs I thought I could hear 
  chanting: voices raised in a deep, slow song whose words appeared to be in some foreign 
  language. Closing the door again, Holmes whispered, 'I can hear Maupertuis at the top of 
  the stairs. He appears to be standing guard over a room, inside which I presume is his 
  hooded companion. We must determine what he is doing in there.' 
   
  'But Holmes, surely it's obvious.' 
   
  He gazed at me pityingly. 
   
  'This address was familiar to me not because I am an expert in brothels but because 
  Madame Sosostris, the infamous clairvoyant, holds her devilish seances here.' 
   
  'Wasn't she mixed up in black mass ceremonies a few years back? I remember reading it 
  in the newspapers. Shocking.' 
   
  'Indeed, and this is where she ended up, attempting to contact the other side by using 
  devils and demons, rather than the Red Indian spirit guides so beloved of other 
  clairvoyants. I would give a great deal to know what this hooded man wants with her.' A 
  thought struck him. 'Perhaps we can gain access from this floor.' 
   
  Holmes and I checked the nearest door. Hearing nothing, I cautiously turned the handle 
  and opened the door a crack. The room was dark. I pushed the door a few more inches 
  and poked my head cautiously around the edge. Apart from a stained and rumpled bed 
  and a small plaster crucifix on the wall above it, there was nothing. The curtains had been 
  drawn, and the room was in twilight. 
  Holmes went straight to the window and drew back the curtains. Beyond the fly-specked 
  glass I could see a patch of overgrown garden bordered by chest-high walls. As I retrieved 
  my stethoscope from my hat, Holmes threw up the window, secure in the knowledge that 
  he could not be observed, and began to climb out onto the ledge. 
   
  'Be careful!' I mouthed. He nodded, and swung himself sideways, feeling with his fingers 
  and toes for the gaps between the bricks. 
   
  I was just about to turn back to the room when something-familiar caught my eye in the 
  garden, half hidden by the shadow cast by one of the walls. It was a pile of tall, thin twigs 
  with a leather pouch, like a half-deflated football, balanced on top. I tried to remember 
  where I had seen something similar, but my mind would not cooperate. 
   
  
  'Watson,' Holmes hissed from his position above me, 'stop wool-gathering and see what 
  you can hear through the ceiling!' 
   
  Chastened, I gazed upwards. All I could see were the soles of his feet. I scurried back and 
  placed my stethoscope against the ceiling. 
   
  There were two voices upstairs. One seemed to belong to an older man, and was oddly 
  familiar. The second was that of an old woman. Together they seemed to be chanting a 
  series of polysyllabic words in a regular and detached manner, like children reciting 
  nursery rhymes. 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay,' the sound seemed to go, 'naghaa, naghaighai! Shoggog fathaghn! I-ay, I-ay tsa 
  toggua tholo-ya! Tholo-ya fathaghn!' 
   
  I looked over towards the window, suppressing a shudder. There was no sign of Holmes. I 
  felt a moment of panic, but decided in the end that if he had fallen he would have made 
  some noise, if only to warn me. 
   
  The two voices were chanting out of phase now. They seemed still to be using the same 
  words, but the elder man's voice was two syllables ahead of the woman's. The effect was 
  oddly hypnotic. The curious stresses within the words made the chant resonate with a 
  strong beat as the voices alternately reinforced and competed with each other. I had 
  heard much the same effect in Afghanistan and India, listening to the music of the native 
  tribesmen of the hills, music based not upon the melodic structure so dear to Holmes's 
  heart, but upon a rhythmic foundation not heard in the West. 
   
  The chant stopped abruptly in the middle of a phrase. For a moment I thought that Holmes 
  had been discovered, until a third voice spoke. It was high-pitched and pure, without 
  character or personality. It oozed sweetness. I had never heard anything like it in my life. 
   
  'My children,' it said, 'you have done well. I am pleased.' 
   
  The man spoke again, but in English. 
   
  'When shall we bask again in your presence?' he asked fawningly. 
   
  'Soon, very soon,' the outlandish voice answered. Despite its peculiarities, I could make 
  out its meaning. 
   
  'The armies are gathered,' the man said. Presumably he was well used to the owner of the 
  strange accent. 
   
  'You must see to it yourself. The brethren will be committed to moving me soon.' 
   
  'I would crave a request, oh luminous one.' 
   
  
  'Name it. You are my favoured son.' 
   
  'There is interference here. I would ask that a few of the brethren are spared to protect this 
  side of the gateway.' 
   
  'Interference? You displease me. The guards are mobilizing. Soon they may realize our 
  plans. I am loathe to spare any of the brethren.' 
   
  'A detective and a stranger called the Doctor are investigating our affairs. They are 
  nothing, but I would not take chances with your safety at stake.' 
   
  There seemed to be a slight quickening of interest in the voice. 
   
  'Nothing can threaten my safety, but this Doctor may pose problems. You may have four 
  of the brethren. They will be waiting this side of the gateway. . . ' 
   
  There was a sudden scrabble outside the window, and the sound of rubble hitting stone 
  far below. In the moment before I tore my stethoscope away from the ceiling a silence fell 
  across the meeting, broken by the woman's voice asking, 'What was that?' 
   
  'Some jackanapes is outside the window!' the elder man snapped. 'The connection is 
  broken! Maupertuis! Damn you, man, attend me!' 
   
  As the door to the room above was thrown open by, I presumed, Baron Maupertuis, I 
  rushed across and peered out of the window. There was no sign of Holmes down below. 
   
  'Watson!' 
   
  An urgent hiss attracted my attention upwards. Holmes was moving rapidly down towards 
  me. Beyond him I could see that the lintel beneath the window must have crumbled under 
  his fingers, sending fragments of masonry crashing to the ground. 
   
  'Damn it,' Holmes exclaimed as I pulled him in. 'All that and I hardly got a glimpse. 
  Maupertuis was outside guarding the door, that much is for sure. There were only the two 
  of them in the room, and the robed man had his back to me.' 
   
  'Only two of them? But I heard three voices!' 
   
  'I know,' Holmes barked as he flung open the door. 
   
  We emerged onto the landing at the same time that Baron Maupertuis arrived from the 
  stairway. He was holding something in his hand. No flicker of expression crossed his face 
  as he saw us. Madame Sosostris - a sour-faced woman in faded finery - cowered behind 
  him. There was no sign of the hooded man. 
   
  'Surd!' yelled the Baron. 
  
   
  Holmes took two steps towards Maupertuis and tried to snatch whatever it was that he 
  was holding. They struggled silently for a few moments whilst the woman gazed at me 
  with horrified eyes: horrified not by what was going on, but by something else that she had 
  seen. I was trying to decide whether to join in the struggle or make for the stairs when a 
  grotesque figure rushed up from the floor below. He was at least seven feet tall, and wide 
  to match. His physique was that of a prize-fighter, but it was his face that held me in thrall. 
  Crowned by a rough thatch of black hair, it was scarred and swollen, and pulled into a 
  grotesque expression by what seemed to be all of the many muscles of his lips and 
  cheeks pulling in different directions. I recognized his garb: he was the driver of 
  Maupertuis's carriage. 
   
  Holmes broke off the struggle and ran to join me. 
   
  Maupertuis indicated us with a flick of his head. 
   
  'Surd,' he whispered to the man behind him, 'kill them.' 
   
  We leaped back into the room and I slammed the door. There was a cheap bolt on the 
  inside: I threw it, but it wouldn't stop Surd for long. Holmes tried to open the door again, 
  crying, 'I must see the other man!', but I pulled him towards the window. 
   
  'The drainpipe!' I gasped. He picked up my meaning straight away, and clambered over 
  the window-sill. I gave him a few seconds to get clear, then followed. 
   
  I still have nightmares about that climb. More than once I felt the bolts that attached the 
  drainpipe to the wall start to give. Rust scoured my hands, and a bloody haze seemed to 
  hover before my eyes as I called upon all my reserves of strength. I paused to look up at 
  one point, and saw Maupertuis and the cowled figure of his companion leaning out of the 
  window watching us. Of the menacing Surd there was no sign. I presumed that he was 
  racing down the stairs to catch us. In my panic my foot slipped, and I was left hanging by a 
  supporting bracket whilst my muscles screamed for release. My flailing feet found a brick 
  which projected slightly from the wall and I resumed my climb, drenched in sweat. I could 
  not tell how far I had come, or how much was left. My universe was a stretch of crumbling 
  brick and a cast-iron pipe. 
   
  'Jump!' Holmes's voice shouted from below. Trusting him, I let go. 
   
  It felt as if I was hanging unsupported in mid-air for an eternity, but the drop could have 
  been no more than a few feet. Holmes steadied me, then pulled me away across the 
  garden towards the wall. 
  'Oy!' a voice yelled from the direction of the house. I ignored it, and pounded after Holmes. 
  A hand caught my jacket, and I was pulled up short. Turning, I found myself in the grip of 
  the greasy-haired footman. 
   
  
  'What's your game, then?' he panted. I planted a short jab to his solar plexus and a cross-
  cut to his jaw. He'd been in a scrap before, though, and shrugged the blows off without 
  letting go. 
   
  Over his shoulder I saw Surd leave the house and lumber towards us. Holmes had 
  reached the wall by now, and was urging me on. I redoubled my efforts. 
   
  Surd paused, stood upright, and gazed strangely at me. A warm breeze stirred my hair. It 
  must have been a reflection of the sun, but it looked to me as if his eyes were glowing. 
   
  I tried to jerk myself out of the footman's grasp, and succeeded too well. Staggering 
  backwards, I caught my foot in a clump of weeds. I sat down, hard. 
   
  It was that which saved my life. 
   
  As the footman grinned down at me I felt, rather than heard, a sudden whumph, and 
  watched in disbelief as his head was engulfed in flames. He screamed and flailed his arms 
  around. I scrabbled backwards through the garden on my hands and heels. He was 
  jerking like a marionette in the hands of a drunkard. The flames were spreading down his 
  shoulders and arms. As I watched, a fiery seam opened up across his chest. I was 
  screaming too, as Holmes hauled me up over the wall and pulled me along the road, out 
  of sight of the burning man, but not out of range of his agonized shrieks. 
   
   
  Chapter 7 
   
  In which Watson and the Doctor attend a family reunion where much is explained and an 
  unusual guest is introduced. 
   
   
  Holmes dragged me around the corner and onto the street. My side was raw with the pain 
  of running, and the old Jezail bullet wound in my leg throbbed with a hot, insistent beat. I 
  kept gulping for air, but it seemed that no matter how fast I panted, it was not enough. My 
  stomach was in revolt, and I paused for long enough to bring up a thin, acrid bile before 
  Holmes pulled me on. 
   
  Eventually he slowed and allowed me to collapse against a lamp-post. He glanced back 
  urgently. I tried to follow his gaze. Although my eyes were watering, I could see that the 
  street behind us was empty. Everything seemed normal. The birds were singing, the sun 
  shone upon scrubbed steps and a cat padded along a wall. 
   
  And yet, not five minutes walk from where we stood, a man was burning like a Roman 
  candle. 
   
  'They do not seem to be pursuing us,' he said finally. Apart from a slight flush, he was 
  unaffected by our escape. 'No doubt they are worried about attracting attention.' 
  
   
  'Holmes, who are they?' 
   
  He frowned. 
   
  'These are deep waters, Watson,' he said finally. 'I confess myself adrift. What we have 
  seen today is not amenable to deductive logic, and yet...' 
   
  'And yet it happened.' 
   
  My breathing was coming under control now. My stamina had never fully recovered from 
  my wounding near Maiwand and a subsequent bout of typhoid in Peshawar. It never 
  usually let me down when I made demands: it just extracted its price later. I would 
  probably be laid up for a couple of days after this. 
   
  'I need to think,' he said distractedly. 
   
  'Perhaps Mycroft...' I ventured. 
   
  'No. No, not Mycroft . . : Holmes glanced briefly at me, debating whether to let me in on 
  something. I was well aware that there was some player in this mystery whose identity 
  was being kept from me. 'But perhaps...' 
   
  The clatter of a four-wheeler made us both jump. It was coming from the opposite 
  direction to Drummond Crescent, and I relaxed as Holmes hailed it with a short blast upon 
  his whistle. It slowed to a halt as I pulled myself to my feet. 
   
  'Baker Street,' Holmes barked to the muffled cabbie, 'and double the fare if you make 
  good time!' 
  He opened the door and aided me into the shadowed interior. I sank gratefully into the 
  upholstery. 
  'Thank Heaven for small mercies,' Holmes muttered with heartfelt relief as the growler 
  clattered off. 
  'Let's not get personal,' said a voice from the shadows. 'Small but perfectly formed, I think 
  you'll find.' 
   
  A figure leaned forward into the light from the windows. I groped for my revolver, then 
  remembered leaving it back at Baker Street. The four-wheeler turned a corner, and a shaft 
  of sunlight suddenly illuminated our fellow-traveller's features. 
   
  'Doctor,' Holmes snapped, 'is that you?' 
   
  'Let's pretend it's not,' said the Doctor, 'and see what happens.' 
   
  'I presume that this is no accident.' 
   
  
  'Given the random nature of quantum interactions,' the Doctor mused as the cab turned 
  again, and I saw the great hall of Euston Station through the window, 'can the confluence 
  of any two events be truly described as anything but accidental?' 
   
  'I refuse to bandy words with you, Doctor. Give me a straight answer.' 
   
  'I prefer bandy legs to bandy words,' the Doctor murmured. 'An answer to what, Mr 
  Holmes?' 
   
  'To my question.' 
   
  'You didn't ask any question.' 
   
  'I quite patently did.' 
   
  'Oh no you didn't!' the Doctor chanted, grinning. 
   
  'Oh yes I . . : Holmes pulled himself together with an effort. 'I distinctly asked you what you 
  were doing here.' 
   
  The Doctor gazed owlishly over the curved handle of his umbrella. 
   
  'No,' he said, 'you merely presumed that my presence here was no accident.' 
   
  'The question was implicit!' Holmes almost spat the words out. 
   
  'What question was implicit?' 
   
  'What are you doing in this cab?' 
   
  The cab swerved slightly as a growler overtook us at some speed. Our cabbie cursed the 
  driver in earnest and graphic terms. 
   
  'I'm following someone. Or perhaps I should say something.' 
   
  'Pray explain yourself, Doctor.' 
   
  'Oh, I'm not sure I could do that.' 
   
  He smiled. 
   
  'However, perhaps Doctor Watson here has told you that he has been followed ever since 
  we left Mrs Prendersly's house.' 
   
  Holmes shot a disappointed look at me. 
   
  
  'I have not been followed!' I protested. 'Holmes, you have taught me enough about 
  detective work that I would be able to tell if any man were dogging my footsteps.' 
   
  Holmes smiled slightly. 
   
  'I myself have followed you during a number of our cases,' he said, 'in situations where I 
  have anticipated some attack being made upon your person.' 
   
  'But I have seen nothing,' I exclaimed. 
   
  'That is what you may expect to see when I am following you,' he replied smugly. 
   
  'What makes you think that it is a man?' the Doctor interrupted. 
   
  'Because should any lady within a three mile radius show the slightest interest in Watson,' 
  Holmes said, smirking, 'then he would know about it.' 
   
  The Doctor drew back the curtain of the trotting cab and indicated an alleyway ahead with 
  his umbrella. 
   
  'Do you see?' 
   
  I peered towards the alley. It was mostly in shadow. I could make out no human form 
  within it, just a pile of sticks set to form a rough stand, reminiscent in form of the iron 'cat' 
  set in front of the fire at Baker Street upon which Holmes and I were wont to toast muffins 
  on winter evenings. I had seen its like elsewhere, recently, but where?' 
   
  It vanished. 
   
  'Great Scott!' I exclaimed. 
   
  The Doctor pointed ahead to where a tree stood by a corner. A bundle of twigs was 
  leaning up against it. 
   
  'A fast mover,' the Doctor said. 'Faster than the human eye can follow, at any rate. That 
  probably indicates a race who are preyed upon by hunters of some sort.' 
   
  I tried to focus upon the . . . the animal, if the Doctor was to be believed . . . but it moved 
  again. 
   
  'I've seen similar behaviour in Raston Robots,' the Doctor murmured, 'but never before in 
  a living creature. The energy it requires is phenomenal.' 
   
  He leaned out of the window. 
   
  'Around the corner!' he yelled. 
  
   
  'Right, guv,' came the resigned voice of the cabbie. 
   
  The growler veered sharply to the left, and Holmes peered out of the window. 
   
  'I see nothing,' he said. 
   
  The Doctor pointed to a pile of refuse, beside which I again saw the twigs. 
   
  'But what is it?' I cried. 
   
  'I don't know. I pursued it here from the Diogenes Club. I think it had followed you there, 
  and lost you.' 
   
  'You cannot possibly be serious.' 
   
  He gazed at me with eyes that seemed to contain the weight of the world within them. 
   
  'Can't I?' 
   
  I leaned back in my seat and tried to make sense of what I was being told. Try as I might, I 
  could not fit this particular piece into the rational world-view which I held. It came from a 
  different puzzle entirely. 
   
  The cab trotted on whilst I wrestled with my thoughts. The Doctor kept on yelling 
  instructions out of the window, and Holmes tried and failed to see what we were following. 
  Eventually we began to slow down, and I roused myself from my thoughts. 
   
  'Where are we?' I asked. 
   
  'Holborn,' Holmes and the Doctor said as one. I joined in as the growler halted: 'And the 
  Library of St John the Beheaded.' 
   
  Of course. Where else? 
   
  Holmes stepped out into the street. I joined him. We were in more or less the same 
  location in which Holmes and I had been dropped the day before. I took the Doctor's 
  umbrella as he scrambled out of the carriage and, on a whim, examined it closely for signs 
  of oil or a channel through which oil might emerge. The entire ferrule had been cast as a 
  solid lump of brass: despite Holmes's claims, whatever the Doctor had used to calm the 
  waters of the Serpentine, it was not this. I handed it back, and he smiled. 
   
  The Doctor paid the cabbie, who snorted, flicked his whip at his horses and drove off with 
  some speed. He must have thought we were mad. I must admit I was beginning to 
  suspect the same thing myself. 
   
  
  The sun was already heading for its rest and the deep chasms of the alleyways in front of 
  us were shadowed and seething with an infestation of humanity. The stench was 
  appalling. 
   
  'Well,' the Doctor said, 'there's no sign of the creature, but it seems clear where it went.' 
   
  'And you intend following?' Holmes snapped, stared down at the little man. 
   
  'Well,' the Doctor said softly, never quite looking up at Holmes, 'we could pussyfoot 
  around, check all approaches, scout the area, reconnoitre the target and all of those good 
  things, and never get any closer to the heart of the mystery, or we could walk right in and 
  ask some pointed questions. In the end, one way or another, we'll end up in there.' 
   
  'I'm going with you,' I said. 
   
  'Good man: The Doctor picked his way carefully along the valley that led through the St 
  Giles Rookery to the hidden Library of St John the Beheaded. I followed, of course. 
  Holmes, after a moment's hesitation, overtook both the Doctor and I and led the way. 
   
  It took us twenty minutes to press our way through the throng of unwashed and unkempt 
  humanity to the doorway that marked the only entrance and exit to the Library. As before, 
  some form of immunity had been conferred upon us. Nobody would meet our eye: despite 
  the crush of people, nobody touched us or spoke to us. Even the dogs seemed to ignore 
  us. 
   
  At the door to the Library, I looked around. Two separate groups of lounging men were 
  eyeing us. Jitter and Yeovil were still keeping watch upon the Library, and upon each 
  other. 
   
  We entered into the darkness. Instantly we were engulfed in peace and warmth. instead of 
  the stench of the Rookery, the musty, dusty smell of old books filled our nostrils. A black-
  robed man signed us in and led us along corridors lined with tottering piles of books, up 
  stairways, down ramps and spiral staircases, through linked sets of rooms whose walls 
  were invisible behind loaded shelves and finally up a ladder to a landing which bowed 
  noticeably beneath the weight of the literature stacked upon it. He tapped discreetly upon 
  a door, and withdrew. 
   
  'Come,' said a familiar voice. Holmes opened the door, and we entered. 
   
  The room was mercifully free of books. Panelled walls were interrupted only by a fireplace 
  in which logs crackled comfortingly, and a table containing a selection of bottles and a 
  gasogene. A desk stood at one end, in front of a massive tapestry which depicted some 
  marbled palace. A high-backed, high-winged leather armchair had been placed between 
  them, and turned so that its back was facing us. 
   
  
  Mycroft Holmes stood by the fireside. His hands were clasped behind him, and the 
  flickering light cast his bloated shadow over us all. 
   
  'Holmes, Watson,' he nodded, 'and, I presume, the Doctor.' 
   
  'What is the meaning of this, Mycroft?' Holmes snapped, advancing across the carpet 
  towards his brother. 'What are you doing here?' 
   
  'I followed a hunch: Mycroft gestured towards the bottles. 'Please help yourselves to 
  drinks, by the way. The Chateau Lafite is a century old, and looks fit to become one of the 
  world's great vintages if we don't drink it all first.' 
   
  'Yes,' the Doctor murmured. 'We followed something too.' 
   
  Holmes remained glaring at his brother. The Doctor seemed engrossed in the tapestry 
  behind the desk, and so I busied myself with a stiff whisky. 
   
  'Don't play the fool, Mycroft.' Holmes's face was contorted with rage. 'Save that for your 
  political lords and masters. I demand an explanation!' 
   
  'What an enchanting tapestry' the Doctor said, unheard by all except me. 
   
  As the accusations and recriminations flowed, I refreshed my drink with a spurt of aerated 
  water from the gasogene and turned to look at the tapestry. If the Doctor thought fit to 
  draw our attention to it, I presumed it must be important. Unlike Holmes, the Doctor 
  seemed to prompt from behind rather than lead from the front. 
   
  From my position by the drinks table I was seeing the tapestry at an angle. The 
  architecture of the place represented there was Indian, the style somewhat ponderous, 
  and I could not see what kept the Doctor so raptly attentive. I confess that I lost interest. 
  My gaze wandered across the panelled wall, the carpet, the desk, the chair and a 
  handkerchief which had been carelessly left upon its arm. I sipped at the whisky: it had 
  been a long day, and I had rarely needed a drink as much as I needed that one. 
   
  My gaze kept coming back to the handkerchief. I found myself idly wondering whose it 
  was and why it had not been tidied away. I must have stared at it for a full minute or so 
  before I realized that it wasn't a handkerchief at all. It was a gloved hand, perched 
  motionless upon the arm of the chair. The owner was hidden from me by the high wings 
  and, bereft of context, the hand was just an abstract white shape upon the maroon 
  leather. 
   
  'Your spleen is misplaced, Sherlock,' Mycroft boomed. 'I know little more than you do. I 
  merely tried to contact the last name upon the list of visitors to this Library, and found that 
  he was still here in London. He has agreed to see us.' 
   
  
  There was something about his ironic tone of voice that made me suspect he found 
  something amusing about the situation. Whilst he spoke, I surreptitiously shifted my 
  position so that I could see the occupant of the chair. 
   
  'And where is he now, pray?' Holmes's voice was icy. 
   
  Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the Doctor was moving too, paralleling my 
  course but on the other side of the chair. I glanced up at him. He nodded slightly towards 
  the hand. His expression was calm. His habitually fatuous smile had vanished. 
   
  As I moved, a face came into view around the wing of the chair: such a familiar face that I 
  had to glance back into the body of the room to check that Holmes was still there, eyeball 
  to eyeball with Mycroft. I looked again at the occupant of the chair. The hawk-like profile, 
  the supercilious expression, the deep lines around the closed eyes . . . it was as if the very 
  essence of Sherlock Holmes sat before me, a distillation of my friend down to the basics 
  that made up his character. 
  The Doctor appeared around the other side of the chair. He too looked back into the room, 
  then across at me. 
   
  For a moment I entertained the thought that the face was just a model, a wax bust 
  perhaps, but then the eyes opened and shifted first to examine me and then the Doctor 
  with an impassive gaze. A slight smile played around the corners of the mouth as, behind 
  us, Mycroft Holmes called out, 'Ah, gentlemen, I see that you have discovered our host. 
  May I present our elder brother, Sherringford Holmes!' 
   
  I was stunned, but perhaps I should not have been. It had taken Holmes long enough to 
  reveal the existence of one brother. For him to avow another would have been asking too 
  much. 
   
  Sherringford Holmes swung the chair around to face the room. In the light, I could see that 
  he was twenty or so years older than Sherlock, and therefore thirteen years older than 
  Mycroft. He had the build and demeanour of the one offset by the surprisingly mild brown 
  eyes of the other. His hair was grey and close-cropped. Taller and thinner than either of 
  his brothers, he dominated the room even whilst seated. His white gloves, unnecessary 
  with his dark and rather severe suit and the travelling rug which hid his legs, added a 
  touch of menace. 
   
  'Still an impetuous youth, eh, Sherlock?' he said in a dry, sardonic voice. 'And you, 
  Mycroft, as smug and as well-fed as ever, I see.' 
   
  Holmes was incredulous: Mycroft amused. The Doctor glanced across at me, and 
  murmured, 'I thought two of them was bad enough.' 
   
  'I am . . . surprised . . . to see you outside the North Riding,' Holmes said eventually. He 
  seemed cowed. Turning to me apologetically, he remarked, 'There are some details of my 
  family life to which I have not made you privy, Watson. My family derive from old Yorkshire 
  
  stock. Sherringford chooses to live on as squire in the old family farmstead, whereas both 
  Mycroft and I prefer the attractions of London.' 
   
  'Sherlock has always tried to disown his family,' Sherringford said to me. Ibis eyes 
  twinkled warmly, but his face appeared carved from an old, weathered, tree-trunk. 'It 
  bothers the logical side of his nature to think that he might have irrational family loyalties 
  above and beyond the clarion call of justice. Mycroft, of course.. ' and he gazed at his 
  corpulent brother, '. . : is rather ashamed of us in the exalted circles in which he now 
  moves. That probably explains why they kept from you the fact that my name was upon 
  the list of Library users provided by Mr Ambrose.' 
   
  Both Sherlock and Mycroft shifted slightly where they stood. 
   
  'You've a sharper brain than both of us put together, Sherringford, if only you would turn it 
  outward upon the world rather than reserving it for crop rotation and sheep breeding,' 
  Mycroft said grudgingly, 'but you still have not explained why you are here. What 
  connection do you have with this Library?' 
   
  Sherringford sighed. 
   
  'Is this necessary, dear boy?' he asked. 
   
  'Very necessary. You may hold a vital clue as the identity of the thief and murderer, 
  assuming them to be one and the same.' 
   
  'Very well. As you know, it has long been my ambition to write the history of our family: 
  Indeed, I have had some success in tracing our roots back to Norman times. More 
  recently, I discovered that one of our distant relatives married the Commander in Chief of 
  the Naval Forces of His Holiness the Pope during the last century. .' 
   
  'Holmes mentioned it to me,' I blurted. 'When we were on the Pope's train a few days ago.' 
   
  Sherringford appeared surprised. 
   
  'I had always assumed that you never read the letters I sent you, Sherlock.' he said. 
  'Perhaps I have done you an injustice. No matter. Mention of His Holiness brings me to 
  this Library, where I have been researching the time that our father spent in the service of 
  the East India Company. His own journal is fragmentary, and three volumes are missing 
  from the family archives. Eventually I tracked them down to here. I do not pretend to 
  understand how they came to be in this Library, and Mr Ambrose will not enlighten me. I 
  took rooms in London and started to examine them. Mr Ambrose kindly put this room at 
  my disposal.' 
   
  'But I thought that this Library contained only those documents which the Catholic Church 
  claim could destabilize the world,' I said. 
   
  
  'Perhaps so.' Sherringford glanced up at me. Suffice it to say that our father's journals 
  were amongst those stolen soon after I arrived, along with other documents relating to the 
  Indian subcontinent, with special reference to myths and legends.' 
   
  'I have been investigating the theft of our father's diaries?' Holmes snapped. 
   
  'Amongst other documents, indeed. I suspect that it was my own interest in them that 
  prompted the theft, and the interest of the Doctor here in some of the other documents.' 
   
  He glanced at the Doctor, who looked bashfully at the floor, clasped his hands before him 
  and swung one leg to and fro. 
   
  'Mr Ambrose made me aware of his intention to notify the hierarchy of the Catholic Church 
  of the thefts. I tried to dissuade him - the documents were not, after all, that important, but 
  he would not be swayed. I must admit that I had not anticipated that the Pope himself 
  would seek you out, Sherlock, and engage you to investigate the theft. This Library must 
  be more important to them than I had thought.' 
   
  'Or, perhaps, the stolen books are,' the Doctor murmured. Sherringford cast him a sharp 
  glance. 
   
  'Be that as it may,' he continued, 'you have quickly ascertained, more through luck than 
  judgement, that the culprit is Baron Maupertuis. His motive is unclear, but no doubt it can 
  be established by the constabulary in short order. Even better, you have regained two of 
  the books. Well done, Sherlock! 
  Mycroft, the Doctor and I all turned to stare at Holmes. He looked inclined to dissemble for 
  a moment, then delved into a pocket and retrieved two small volumes, about the size of 
  the palm of my hand. Sherringford waved an imperious hand, and Holmes passed them to 
  him with obvious reluctance. 
   
  'I grabbed them from Maupertuis during the scuffle on top of the stairs,' he said. 'I had 
  intended to produce them at an opportune moment, after I had examined them. I had no 
  idea...' 
   
  'Yes,' Sherringford confirmed with an expression of relief upon his face, 'I recognize 
  Father's handwriting. Thank you, dear boy.' 
   
  'How did you...' Mycroft began, but realizing that he would get no answer from 
  Sherringford, he trailed into silence, shook his huge head, and continued, 'I wouldn't bank 
  on prosecuting Maupertuis, or even regaining the rest of the books. My information is that 
  the Baron is heading for India this very evening. The tickets have been booked for some 
  time. I have men out looking for him, but since his run-in with Sherlock this afternoon, he 
  seems to have gone to ground. I would not be surprised if he managed to slip through the 
  web I have spun.' 
   
  
  'And what about the cowled man who was with him?' Holmes barked. Mycroft shook his 
  head sorrowfully, jowls a-quiver. 
   
  'No sign of him.' 
   
  'A great shame,' Sherringford sighed. 'But at least I have father's journals back. I can 
  complete the history of the Holmeses now.' 
   
  'I have accepted a commission,' Holmes said stiffly. 'I shall execute it, even if it means 
  travelling to India to apprehend the villain.' 
   
  'Sherlock, be reasonable. The arm of the British Law is long, but not impossibly so. You 
  have no powers...' 
   
  'Perhaps you are not aware of the fact, but two people have died in mysterious 
  circumstances. I shall hold Maupertuis to account for that.' 
   
  'I concur,' Mycroft said, clapping Holmes on the shoulders. Holmes winced. 
   
  'The key to Maupertuis's actions,' he continued, 'would appear to be the information that 
  Father's journals contained. Perhaps you could enlighten us, Sherringford.' 
   
  Sherringford shook his head. 
   
  'It is beyond your understanding. Let us leave it at that' 
   
  'It is important' 
  'I must agree with Sherlock,' Mycroft interjected. 'Reluctant as I am to do so. Knowledge of 
  why Maupertuis requires those documents could lead us to him.' 
   
  Sherringford looked from one to the other. 
   
  'No,' he said. 'Leave it be.' 
   
  The Doctor stepped forward. 
   
  'Perhaps I can help,' he said. 'Your father claimed that there were places where the veil 
  between this world and another could be broken, and that a determined man could cross 
  over.' 
   
  We stared at him as if he was mad. 
   
  'The veil...' Sherlock said. 
   
  'This world and another?' Mycroft murmured. 
   
  
  'Ah...' Sherringford sighed. 'The Doctor . . . I should have realized. The journals...' 
   
  'I was young,' the Doctor said quietly, looking at the floor. 
   
  'You were old, according to our father.' 
   
  'Old, young, it's all a matter of perception. My granddaughter and I were touring India by 
  elephant. We met your father, Siger Holmes, in the Officers' Mess at the British Army 
  cantonment in Jabalhabad. He had been out in India for many years, working for the East 
  India Company, despoiling the land and enslaving the natives. I was much more tolerant 
  of injustice in those days. Your father had spent many hours in the company of the fakirs 
  and wise men of the area. They told him of a place, up in the hills, where a man could step 
  into another world, if he knew the right words. I was fascinated, but my granddaughter 
  wished to travel on and I, foolishly, let her have her head. A lot of good it's done her now.' 
  He shook his head. 'No matter. Where was I? Oh yes. I noticed that your father kept a 
  journal, and I've been meaning to take a look at it for some years. There was a priest out 
  in Cawnpore at the time: I suggested to him that your father was on the trail of something 
  godless, and that the journals should be taken into safe keeping when your father died. I 
  was a member of the Library, even then. I knew that the next time I was in the temporal 
  vicinity, I could pop along and satisfy my curiosity. As I did. And here I am. Any 
  questions?' 
   
  'Yes,' I said. 'Everything.' 
   
  'Who are you?' Mycroft asked. 'Your signature in the visitor's book at the entrance 
  matches in every respect that of a member of the Diogenes, and let you look completely 
  different. You talk calmly of things such as other worlds. You claim to have met our father 
  in India, which would have been some forty-five years ago, and yet you stand before us 
  aged no more than fifty. I repeat: who are you?' 
   
  'Have you ever read Poe?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'I have no time for literature,' Mycroft replied. 
   
  'I have,' said Holmes. 
   
  I remembered listing Holmes's knowledge of literature as 'nil' shortly after we met. Either I 
  had been wrong, or he had done a lot of catching up since then. 
   
  'In which case,' the Doctor continued, 'you may have come across his story A Tale of the 
  Ragged Mountains. Of, if you prefer someone other than Poe, perhaps The Clock That 
  Went Backwards and An Uncommon Sort of Spectre by Edward Page Mitchell.' 
   
  Holmes blinked: the only sign he gave of what I now know to have been a considerable 
  shock. 
   
  
  'You claim to be some form of traveller . . . a traveller in time?' 
   
  'Yes,' the Doctor said simply. 'I do.' 
   
  'And further, do I understand that you claim other worlds, other planets such as Mars and 
  Venus, can be reached with a step, and not a laborious and dangerous journey such as 
  that described by Mr Verne in his book From the Earth to the Moon?' 
   
  Knowledge of astronomy - nil I had written six years ago. That list was looking increasingly 
  suspect. 
   
  'If I fold a map of London such that Baker Street lies parallel to Wellington Street, could 
  you not step straight from your lodgings into the Lyceum Theatre?' the Doctor asked 
  ingenuously. I was about to comment on the difference between a map and reality, but the 
  Doctor continued, 'Siger claimed to have witnessed Indian fakirs pass through what he 
  described as a "doorway", through which he could see a landscape that was unfamiliar to 
  him. The landscape of another planet.' 
   
  'Balderdash,' Mycroft expostulated. 
   
  'Baron Maupertuis does not think so,' the Doctor said. 
   
  'What do you mean?' 
   
  The Doctor seemed to grow within his strange costume. A flicker of sparks from the fire 
  caught his eyes and made them glow with a fierce, blue light. 
   
  'Baron Maupertuis is raising an army to invade that world in the name of colonial 
  imperialism. He intends claiming it by force. It's a barbaric act, and it must be stopped. I 
  shall stop it. Humanity's crimes will be appalling enough when it eventually develops 
  space travel, but to have Victorian armies spreading unchecked through dimensional 
  gateways is almost too much to bear. And if the planet in question is inhabited... even with 
  your antiquated weapons, the slaughter of innocent indigents could be immense.' 
   
  There was a silence after the Doctor spoke in which the import of his words seemed to 
  echo gently, like a struck bell. 
   
  'How did Maupertuis hear about it?' I asked, then cursed myself for getting sucked into the 
  Doctor's deranged story. 
   
  'I don't know,' he mused. 'Somebody must have tipped him off. Perhaps this Madame 
  Sosostris. She appears to know more about piercing the veil than I would have liked' 
   
  'Or perhaps the cowled figure,' Holmes growled. 'I knew I should have stayed behind to 
  unmask him!' 
   
  
  'I'm sorry,' Mycroft said, echoing my own thoughts, 'but this is all. too preposterous for 
  words. I'm not surprised that you've got sucked into it, Sherlock, you always were an 
  excitable child, but you, Sherringford, you disappoint me. I always looked up to you as the 
  hard-working member of the family, devoid of fancy. Now I find you accepting this lunatic's 
  unsubstantiated word for a story more riddled with holes than a Gruyere. Talking of which, 
  I do believe that I can hear a substantial dinner and a bottle of port calling to me, so if 
  you'll excuse me...' 
   
  Mycroft began to manoeuvre his massive bulk towards the door, like a battleship 
  attempting to come alongside a narrow dock. 
   
  'Unsubstantiated?' the Doctor said quietly, but with such force that Mycroft halted in his 
  tracks. 'I think not. Perhaps you could introduce us to your other guest, Mr Holmes.' 
  Sherringford said nothing. The Doctor crossed the room and, grasping an edge of the 
  tapestry, pulled it sharply to one side. The tapestry moved like a curtain, revealing an 
  alcove in which stood . . . 
   
  . . . in which stood . . . 
   
  . . . I cannot bring myself to write the words, even now, without a great mental effort and a 
  stiff tumbler of brandy. It has been said that if you shake a man's world hard enough, it is 
  the man that crumbles, not the world. When the creature in the alcove walked forward, its 
  five spindly legs jointed in odd directions and supporting a wrinkled and sagging body, the 
  whole thing looking like something that a man with a handful of pipe-cleaners and a walnut 
  might have modelled in an odd moment, I felt my mind teeter on the verge of collapse. A 
  red mist rose before my eyes and the floor rocked beneath my feet. I could not believe 
  what I was seeing, and yet I knew with a terrible certainty that it was no illusion or puppet. 
  I knew, because I had seen it before. It had been hidden in the shadows outside Mrs 
  Prendersly's house, it had moved across a fire on the other side of the Serpentine, it had 
  been standing in the garden of the brothel in Drummond Crescent and we had followed it 
  to the Library. 
   
  It had been following me. 
   
  'Gentlemen,' it said in a soft, sibilant voice as it halted in the centre of the room, 'we of 
  Ry'leh need your help.' 
   
   
   
  Interlude 
   
   
  AF135/5/3/14 
  V-ON, BRD-ABLE, WPU - 546.7 
  VERBAL INPUT, COMPRESS AND SAVE 
  MILITARY LOG FILE EPSILON 
  
  CODE GREEN FIVE 
  ENABLE 
   
  I'm crouched on a catwalk about a hundred and fifty metres above the ground. Well, I say 
  catwalk. Actually it's just three strips of wood running from side to side of one building to 
  another, and they don't have cats here, just chocolate-favoured animals with skates, and 
  three-legged rats. 
   
  I tracked the things back to where they came from. Bit of a trek - couple of hundred klicks, 
  I guess. It's a town, heavily fortified. The things live here and worship in this big temple 
  thing. There's other creatures out on the plain -vicious things, killers. They seem to act like 
  guards. Don't quite understand the set-up. 
   
  I'm hugging the wall beneath a slit-like window, trying to make out a conversation inside 
  the temple-thing. I'm dictating this live, just in case something happens to me, like I fall, or 
  I'm found out. I can hear voices inside the room. I'm holding the log-implant up to the 
  window now. 
   
  'My children, you have done well. I am pleased.' 
   
  That's one's actually in the room. Odd-sounding voice, like it's not real at all. Like that old 
  Pink Floyd song: there's someone in my head, but it's not me. 
   
  'When shall we bask again in your presence?' 
   
  Bloke's voice. Sounds like it's a long way away. 
   
  'Soon, very soon.' 
   
  'The armies are gathered.' 
   
  'You must see to them yourself. The brethren will be committed to moving me soon.' 
   
  'I would crave a request, oh luminous one.' 
   
  Crawler. 
   
  'Name it. You are my favoured son.' 
   
  God, they're all at it. It's like a convention of teachers' pets. 
   
  'There is interference here. I would ask that a few of the brethren are spared to protect this 
  side of the gateway.' 
   
  'Interference? You displease me. The guards are mobilizing. Soon they may realize our 
  plans. I am loath to spare any of the brethren.' 
  
   
  'A detective and a stranger called the Doctor are investigating our affairs. They are 
  nothing, but I would not take chances with your safety at stake.' 
   
  Yay, Professor! Nice to know that it's all coming together. 
   
  'Nothing can threaten my safety, but this Doctor may pose problems. You may have four 
  of the brethren. They will be waiting this side of the gateway...' 
   
  There's a sort of scuffle, then the background noise an the room changes in some strange 
  way I can't quite put my finger on. I think contact has been broken. 
   
  Just as I'm about to scramble down, the thing in the room murmurs something to itself. 
   
  'If only the gateway wasn't so dangerous,' it says, like it's talking to itself. Self-pity just 
  ladled on with a trowel. 'If they sing one note wrong then I shall never escape this hellish 
  place.' 
   
  Then it trails off into silence, and heavy breathing. Time to leave. I think I'll make my way 
  back to the plain. To where the Doctor said things would be happening. Beats being 
  bored, dunnit?' 
   
  DISABLE. 
  3531/748/AD PIP. 
   
   
   
   
  Chapter 8 
   
  In which a journey is continued and a conversation is recalled. 
   
   
  Bright morning sunshine hit the Mediterranean and shattered into a thousand silvery 
  fragments. I raised a hand to shield my eyes and squinted into the glare. Across the 
  glittering sea I could just make out the line of sand that marked the Egyptian coast. It 
  seemed to float upon the water like a dirty brown scum. 
   
  We had engaged passage upon the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company's 
  ship SS Matilda Briggs. Two weeks out of Tilbury, bound for Bombay, we had just come 
  within sight of Port Said - gateway to the Suez Canal. The town was just a jumble of sand-
  coloured buildings with the occasional dyed awning or flag fluttering in the breeze. Those 
  passengers who had not made the trip before would no doubt flock to shore. The rest of 
  us would be in the bar. 
   
  
  The stretch of water between the ship and the town was already littered with a flotsam of 
  small boats, rafts and dinghies, all heading our way. I knew what to expect. Within the 
  hour we would be invaded by all manner of Arab salesmen hawking insanitary food, 
  unfashionable tropical clothing and insalubrious 'French photographs', along with an 
  entourage of conjurors and beggars, gawkers and hangers-on. The crew would stand by 
  to repel boarders, of course, but it would be of no avail. These peaceful but insistent 
  pirates could not be stopped. 
   
  I turned, luxuriating in the slight movement of air across my skin. I was clad only in my 
  nightshirt, as were all of the gentlemen on this side of the deck. Most of us had rolled up 
  our bedding by now, and soon we would dress to allow the lascars to swab the decks. Any 
  ladies brave enough to sleep above deck would, I presumed, be doing so on the other 
  side of the ship. 
   
  We all had cabins, of course. Those of us who had made the trip before were travelling 
  POSH - port out, starboard home - to escape direct sunlight. The weather had been 
  comfortable for the first week, but as we passed Italy and Greece the calm, temperate 
  climate of Europe had given way to the oppressive sultriness of the tropics and the captain 
  had given permission for anybody who so wished to sleep on deck. Old hands like me 
  knew the value of staking an immediate claim, and had bagged deckchairs in the lee of 
  the superstructure of funnels and masts. The johnny-come-latelies would have to make do 
  with the bare deck nearer the rails. 
   
  I dressed leisurely and wandered forward. The lascars were folding away the canvas 
  partitions and beginning to hose down the decks. As I passed the lifeboats I caught a 
  glimpse of the Doctor's diminutive form at the prow of the ship, standing in the same 
  position that I had left him in the previous night. 
   
  'Did you sleep well?' I ventured, walking over to join him. Warm salt water sprayed my 
  face as the Matilda Briggs cleaved the waves. 
   
  'I don't sleep,' he rejoined without taking his gaze from the glittering sea. 
   
  I took his measure. His eyes were bright, and his countenance ruddy, although his dark 
  scowl suggested some inner turmoil. His hair was slicked back by the spume. 
   
  'I can provide you with a sleeping draught.' 
   
  'You misunderstand,' he said. 'I mean I don't sleep. Ever.' 
   
  'The human constitution is not designed to operate without rest.' 
   
  'Indeed,' he said dismissively, 'a crippling flaw which I would have advised against if the 
  designer had consulted me first' 
   
  
  I let that one pass, and gazed out across the water. I could make out small figures on the 
  quayside now, swarming like ants. The heat was like an oppressive weight. A sudden gust 
  of wind swept spray into my face, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. 
   
  'What have you been doing all night, if not sleeping?' I said eventually, more to break the 
  silence than for any other reason. 
   
  'Thinking.' 
   
  'Deep thoughts, then, to have taken so long.' 
   
  He turned his head and gazed at me. His eyes were violet in colour, shot through with tiny 
  threads of orange. I had never seen their like before. I could see no expression that I 
  recognized in them, nothing human at all. 
   
  'The deepest,' he said quietly. 'This journey worries me. We're too exposed. If Baron 
  Maupertuis or his mysterious hooded colleague wish to stop us, we're sitting here like 
  horda in a pit.' 
   
  'Like what?' 
   
  He smiled suddenly, and his face was transformed from sulky glower to almost imbecilic 
  happiness. 
  °I mean, like china ducks in a shooting gallery.' He sighed. 'I won't feel safe until we get to 
  Bombay.' 
   
  I gazed out across the water, but in my mind it was a different sea and I was just a boy. 
   
  'I remember, many years ago,' I murmured, more to myself than to the Doctor, 'travelling 
  to Australia with my father and brother in a decrepit barque with a leaky hull and a cracked 
  main spar. We rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the middle of a storm. I hope to God 
  never to sail seas that rough again. I was as sick as a dog for weeks on end. I thought I 
  was condemned to live on the ship forever, the journey took so long.' 
   
  A dash of sea-spray in my face pulled me back to reality. 
   
  'Nowadays, thanks to modern know-how,' I continued, 'a six-month journey from England 
  to India can be accomplished in four weeks.' 
   
  A slight sneer seemed to caress the Doctor's lips. 
   
  'Modern know-how? You humans are all the same. Would it surprise you to learn that the 
  first canal linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea was dug over two thousand years 
  ago? Not much more than a furrow in the sand, but they only had small ships in those 
  days, not -' and he looked around him' - miracles of technology such as this. That canal 
  
  lasted for eight hundred years before falling into disuse. Do you think this one will last 
  anywhere near as long?' 
   
  He cocked his head on one side and looked up at me with a bright, sparrow-like gaze. I 
  opened my mouth to stammer an answer, but he continued speaking. 
   
  'Pharaoh Necho started to re-dig the canal a century later. The Canal of the Pharaohs, 
  they called it. A hundred thousand men died in the digging. Perhaps they should have 
  called it the Canal of the Dead. Necho was the son of old Psammitichus, you know? 
  Lovely man: liked his drink, but then don't we all? Anyway, Darius took it over when Necho 
  snuffed it, and my old friend Ptolemy took it over when Darius shuffled off this mortal coil. 
  Or was taken upon the boat of the Night to join his ancestors, as I'm sure he would have 
  liked to think of it. Ptolemy even built a lock in the canal: you probably thought that the 
  English invented locks, didn't you?' 
   
  I shook my head, but the Doctor wasn't looking. He seemed to have got himself into a rut, 
  and intended to keep talking until the subject was exhausted. 
   
  'Well, after about five hundred years the canal was impassable, and it wasn't until the 
  Romans took over the country that anything more got done. They liked straight roads, did 
  the Romans. They must have loved the idea of a canal. Emperor Trajan restored it, but a 
  hundred years later it had silted up again. When the Moslems conquered Egypt the Caliph 
  Omar ordered the governor, a little rat-faced man by the name of Amr-ibn-al-Aas as I 
  recall, to ream it out again. They called it the Canal of the Prince of the Faithful, and it 
  lasted until the eighth century. That was a thousand years ago. Your version of the Suez 
  Canal has been open for - what? twenty years? -and you think 
  you've given Mother Nature a bloody nose. What was it Shelley wrote? "Look upon my 
  works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing endures, Doctor Watson, nothing endures.' 
   
  He stopped abruptly. I felt chastened. 
   
  'Your historical knowledge is exceptional,' I said eventually. 
   
  'I pick things up, here and there.' 
   
  'There's usually a trip arranged across land to see Cairo and the pyramids. You can pick 
  up the ship again at Suez. Will you be signing up for it?' 
   
  He chuckled boyishly. 
   
  'I've had some nasty experiences around the pyramids,' he said. 
   
  The flotilla of home-made craft had almost reached us by now, or we had almost reached 
  them. The sailors in the lead were already holding aloft their wares and shouting out how 
  fine a bargain they were for two handsome gentlemen such as us. The beggars who had 
  hitched lifts with them, or who piloted their own boats, were crying out for alms. 
  
   
  'Baksheesh!' they implored, their voices rising and falling like the wails of seagulls. 
  'Effendi, baksheesh!' 
   
  'Breakfast?' I asked the Doctor. 
   
  He grimaced. 
   
  'With and without,' he murmured, 'have and have not: Then, pulling himself together, 'Yes, 
  I'll take breakfast with you.' 
   
  I was just about to lead the way when a lone voice seemed to rise above the chorus 
  below. An English voice. A voice I recognized. 
   
  'Watson! Watson! Save some breakfast for me!' 
   
  I glanced over the side again. There, in the lead boat, was Holmes, dressed in a striped, 
  one-piece bathing costume. 
   
  'Good Lord,' I muttered inanely. 
   
  'I saw him at sunrise,' the Doctor said. 'He said he was going to swim to shore for some 
  exercise. He did ask me if I wanted to join him, but I declined.' 
   
  'Do you swim?' I asked. 
   
  He gazed up at me levelly. 
   
  'If pushed,' he replied. He turned and walked off abruptly towards where breakfast 
  awaited. I made to follow, but as I did so I noticed that the wood of the rail where his 
  hands had rested was perfectly dry, and the spray from the waves had dampened the 
  deck all around except for two footprints where he had been standing. 
   
  Before we could even get to the hatch and descend to the saloon for breakfast, the 
  vanguard of the local flotilla had glancingly docked with the SS Matilda Briggs. The crew 
  attempted to fend it off with long poles, but a handful of entrepreneurs scurried up 
  dangling cables and the anchor chain to the deck. There they proceeded to buttonhole the 
  passengers and display the cheap gewgaws and gimcracks that they had brought with 
  them. 
   
  'Mr Mackenzie! Mr Mackenzie!' 
   
  An insistent merchant in a ragged robe plucked hold of my sleeve. For some reason they 
  always referred to gentlemen as 'Mr Mackenzie' and ladies as 'Lillie Langtry.' I pushed 
  past him and was three steps down the stairs when I realized that the Doctor had paused 
  to watch. The Arab scrabbled around inside his robe for a moment, and brought out a day-
  
  old chick. I had seen hulley-gulley men before: their conjuring tricks with livestock were 
  superficially fascinating, but no better than a second-rate music hall magician could have 
  managed and certainly not deserving of reward. I watched impatiently as, before the 
  Doctor's eager eye, he passed a hand in front of the chick and made it disappear. The 
  Doctor smiled in innocent delight. The smell of bacon drifted up from the galley below. I 
  sighed. 
   
  For the next few minutes, the hulley-gulley man plucked little cheeping bundles from his 
  fist, his mouth, thin air, the Doctor's ears and the sleeves of passing passengers. He 
  juggled with the creatures, carelessly dropping one over the side of the boat but carrying 
  on like a trooper. He made them do tricks: running up his arm and back, weaving in and 
  out of his fingers, climbing atop one 
  another to form a rough pyramid. The Doctor was entranced. Eventually the conjuror 
  finished, threw them roughly into his pocket and held out an eager hand to the Doctor, 
  saying, 'You like, Mr Mackenzie, you like?' 
   
  The Doctor nodded, beaming happily, and took off his hat. Reaching inside, he pulled out 
  a large white rabbit and handed it to the astounded conjurer. As the man stared at it in 
  bemusement, the Doctor walked over to join me with a quizzical smile upon his face. 
   
  We quitted the deck and made for the dining room. Holmes appeared just as I was 
  chasing the remnants of my fried egg around the plate with some toast. 
   
  'I see that you haven't been wasting the morning,' he said cheerfully, pulling up a chair. 
   
  'Swimming obviously agrees with you,' I riposted. 'You should do more of it. Perhaps a 
  dawn dip in the Serpentine every morning. As your physician, I strongly recommend it.' 
   
  'I have commented before upon your pawky sense of humour, Watson. I shall have to do 
  something about it. Some bromide in your tea, perhaps.' 
   
  He attracted the attention of a waiter and ordered a large breakfast. 
   
  'I awoke early,' he continued, helping himself to a cup of coffee, 'and decided to take a 
  constitutional swim. I encountered the local fleet on the way out and took the opportunity 
  to test my spoken Egyptian.' 
   
  The Doctor smiled slightly as he gazed at the table. He did not seem to take Holmes 
  terribly seriously. 
   
  'Baggage day, today,' I observed as Holmes's breakfast was delivered and he fell upon it 
  like a wolf upon the fold. 
   
  'Babbage day?'The Doctor frowned. 'I wasn't counting on that.' 
   
  
  'Baggage day. The crew will bring the trunks containing our tropical wear up from the hold 
  and replace them with the ones currently in our cabins. White drill suits replace black 
  serge. Black cummerbunds oust waistcoats. Topees take over from trilbies.' 
   
  'Very poetic.' The Doctor looked down at his lightweight tropical suit. 'No change here, I'm 
  afraid.' 
  I thought for a moment. Had the Doctor brought any luggage at all on board? Had I ever 
  seen him in anything apart from the clothes he stood up in? My memory was hazy: I was 
  sure that I was missing something obvious, but for the life of me, I could not remember 
  what. 
   
  'Well,' Holmes said from around a mouthful of food, 'let us hope that this momentous day 
  marks an end to the boredom of the past two weeks and the beginning of the ennui of the 
  next two.' 
   
  Boredom? I had not been bored, although I had been aware of Holmes pacing the deck 
  and the Doctor sitting cross-legged in a deck-chair for days on end, watching the waves. 
  No, I had spent a large part of the journey chronicling the adventures which had taken 
  place in London. The pages which you have already read were the result: written in 
  longhand with a scratchy fountain pen in a ledger book brought with me for that purpose. 
  The exercise had served to sharpen in my mind the questions that still remained: who was 
  the hooded figure with whom Baron Maupertuis had met, and how did Maupertuis 
  smuggle the books out of the Library of St John the Beheaded? As I had come to the end 
  of the narrative, however - the section which detailed our discussions with Sherringford 
  Holmes and his unusual guest in the Library - I found myself reluctant to write. I kept 
  looking for excuses to leave my cabin. I would walk along the promenade, exchanging 
  small-talk with the ladies and taking part in the daily lottery based upon the previous day's 
  run. I would visit the bar and listen to the ribald talk of the men. I would sit out on deck with 
  Holmes and the Doctor, trying to follow their abstruse discussions. I even attended the 
  fancy-dress ball - the social high spot of the voyage although I would not normally be seen 
  dead at such an event. I did not wish to write of that conversation. 
   
  Now, some years later, I have gained a little perspective. Perhaps so many stranger 
  things have happened to me since that I can recall the scene in the Library with less 
  disquiet than before. Or perhaps I have forgotten much of what made me shy away from 
  it. Whatever the reason, I now find it easier to cast my mind back to the week before we 
  left London, to that oak-lined room, deep in the heart of the Library of St John the 
  Beheaded, and the moment when the alien creature stepped out from behind the curtain. 
   
  'Gentlemen,' it said in a hissy voice, 'we of Ry'leh need your help.' 
   
  Mycroft Holmes, as I recall, spilled his wine on the carpet. Holmes leaned forward eagerly, 
  his eyes scanning over every inch of the creature's flesh. Sherringford Holmes sat back 
  smugly in his armchair and the Doctor, apart from raising his eyebrows, did nothing. 
   
  
  And I? The floor seemed to shift beneath my feet, swaying as if in an earthquake. I could 
  hear a faint buzzing in my ears, and a small, still voice in the back of my mind kept 
  repeating a snatch of poetry by the French writer Victor Hugo: 
   
  Every globe revolving round a star, 
  Is home to a humanity near yet far. 
   
  until I could hear nothing else. The only way I could snap back to reality was by 
  considering the creature as a biological entity and using my medical knowledge to 
  determine something of its life. You may gather from this that on one level, at least, I was 
  convinced that it was real. 
   
  'My name is K'tcar'ch,' it hissed. I noted that the voice coincided with the pulsation of a 
  small membrane beneath its sack-like body. This I labelled as the creature's mouth, 
  although I could see no method of ingesting food. 
   
  'As the esteemed Doctor has explained, our planets are distant from one another in space, 
  so distant that light itself would take many centuries to travel from us to you, and yet in the 
  folds of what we call the space-time continuum, we are only a step away' K'tcar'ch took a 
  step forward. I watched with fascination how its spindly legs bent. Each of the five 'joints' 
  was in fact composed of two hinges, one above the other, each acting in a different plane 
  so that the limbs could move in any direction. 
   
  'We are a peaceful race. We have no weapons, no armies, no desire to fight. All we have 
  are philosophers. All we wish to conquer is the realm of thought' 
   
  'Which planet did you say you came from?' the Doctor queried. 
   
  'Ry'leh,' K'tchar'ch said. 'It is a world of no great cosmic significance. We keep ourselves 
  to ourselves. We do not encourage visitors.' 
   
  'The name is familiar,' the Doctor said, scowling. 'If either of my brains were working, I'd 
  remember.' 
   
  The three Holmes brothers stared at him. 
   
  'Brains?' Mycroft said finally. 
   
  'One for everyday use and one for best: The Doctor smiled sweetly at the alien. 'Please 
  continue.' 
   
  'Our rulers, the Great Cogitators, have known for many of your millenniums that travel 
  between worlds was possible by using certain sounds which resonate at the basal 
  frequency of the cosmos. These sounds can pull together areas of space which are 
  separate, causing gateways which intrepid travellers can pass through. In that way we 
  have met great scholars from many other races. Sherringford Holmes is one of them.' 
  
   
  I noted in passing that K'tcar'ch's skin was a mottled grey colour, apart from a few hard 
  red patches which were streaked with black veins. I speculated that they might be 
  indications of old age, injury or illness. 
   
  'How long has this been going on, Sherringford?' There was a tone of disapproval in 
  Holmes's voice. 
   
  'Some years now,' Sherringford replied. 
   
  'And why did you not wish to tell us of this earlier?' 
   
  Sherringford shrugged. 
   
  'Would you have believed me?' he asked. 
   
  Mycroft snorted. 
   
  'I remember once or twice writing to you, asking if I could visit...' 
   
  '. . . Whenever your guilty conscience got the better of you, dear boy,' Sherringford 
  murmured. 
   
  '. . . And receiving a telegram saying that you had company. I never realized,' and he took 
  a sip of his wine, 'how far your company had travelled to be with you.' 
   
  There was a short silence. A log cracked in the fire, making us all jump. All except 
  K'tcar'ch. I became fascinated by what might be blood vessels beneath its skin, arranged 
  not like the branches of a tree, as with humanity, but like a cobweb. 
   
  'We became aware, not so long ago,' it continued, 'that others had discovered how to 
  open gateways between our worlds. Reports reached the Great Cogitators that small 
  bands of humans were appearing in the wastelands of our planet. They appeared to be 
  drawing maps. It did not take us long to realize what their intentions were.' 
   
  'Invasion,' Mycroft said. 'The first resort of fools.' 
   
  'I have been aware for some time,' Holmes revealed, 'that the criminal underclasses 
  seemed to be severely underpopulated. Several thousand thugs and bruisers appeared to 
  be lying low. I now suspect that they have been shipped secretly to India as part of 
  Maupertuis's army .' 
   
  He smiled grimly. 
   
  'I wonder what Professor Moriarty makes of it all,' he added. 
   
  
  K'tcar'ch flexed its five limbs slightly, as a man might shift position to ease a cramp. I had 
  been trying to work out how its musculature was arranged, but its baggy, canvas-like skin 
  was thick enough to hide the movements of the muscles - if muscles they were. 
   
  'We asked friend Sherringford for aid. We asked him to find out who was planning to 
  destroy the peace of Ry'leh.' 
   
  'I knew that Father had seen evidence of the joining of worlds,' Sherringford continued. 'It 
  was by reading his journals that I had started experimenting, and it was those experiments 
  that attracted the attention of the Ry'lehans. So I started with the Library, only to find that 
  Father's journals had been stolen. And that's where you came in, Sherlock.' 
   
  I wondered, but did not dare ask, why K'tcar'ch had been following me. 
   
  'So where does this get us?' said Mycroft with characteristic directness, leaning back 
  against the panelling. It creaked beneath its weight. 'If we accept the evidence of Mr . . . er 
  . . . Mr K'tcar'ch, was it . . .?' 
   
  The alien clicked in what seemed to be approval. 
   
  ' . . And add it to what we already know, then Baron Maupertuis is attempting to raise an 
  army and invade the peaceful world of Ry'leh. Now, I must point out that Her Majesty's 
  Government has no treaty or alliance with Ry'leh to my certain knowledge, and therefore, 
  whilst we would treat any request for assistance with great sympathy, we can take no 
  action that might result in an inconvenient diplomatic situation.' 
   
  'You have summed the situation up correctly,' Sherringford agreed. 
   
  The Doctor strode across to confront Mycroft. He was almost half the man's size and half 
  his width, but in some strange way he seemed to tower over the diplomat. 
   
  'And so while you debate, a world is invaded? Is this British justice? Has the Mother of 
  Parliaments been replaced by a talking shop for indecisive milksops?' 
   
  Mycroft glanced across to where Sherlock Holmes stood. 
   
  'All I can do is to advise on the official Government position,' he boomed. 'We have no 
  control over independent agents, of course. Just as we cannot dictate the actions of Baron 
  Maupertuis on an alien planet, neither can we legislate against the actions of a band of 
  doughty adventurers who might wish to prevent his actions.' He waved a flipper-like hand. 
  'If, by any chance, you need assistance, I believe a big-game hunting expedition funded 
  by the Diogenes is making its way across India even as we speak.' 
   
  A slow smile spread across the Doctor's face. 
   
  
  'So,' he said, 'once again it comes down to this: a handful of us against the forces of 
  darkness.' He turned to Mycroft. 'Can you arrange for our passports to India?' 
   
  'Of course, but why?' 
   
  'Because Baron Maupertuis is headed there.' 
   
  'Forgive me,' I interrupted, 'but I am puzzled.' Everybody turned to look at me as if they 
  had forgotten that I was there, even K'tcar'ch, although I had seen no evidence of eyes. 'If 
  these gateways can be opened from anywhere, as Sherringford Holmes seemed to 
  indicate, then why is Baron Maupertuis heading for India?' 
   
  'A good question,' Holmes said, turning to his brother, 'and one which had been puzzling 
  me.' 
   
  'The location is important,' K'tcar'ch replied, 'because of the relative positions of the two 
  planets in the spacetime continuum. It can only be done between India and a portion of 
  Ry'leh that we call the Plain of Leng.' 
   
  Holmes frowned slightly, but nodded. 
   
  'A fair answer,' he said. 
   
  'We will need the books, of course,' said the Doctor, skipping across the room and 
  retrieving them from the desk. Sherringford made to grab at them with his gloved hands, 
  but the Doctor shoved them into a pocket of his coat and moved away. 
   
  'Surely they would be safer here...' Sherringford began, but Mycroft interrupted him. 
   
  'No,' he said heavily. 'If they contain information about where or how this amazing feat is 
  to be engineered, then our brave and unofficial troops will be needing them.' 
   
  'We of Ry'leh thank you, gentlemen,' said K'tcar'ch. 'You will live in our thoughts forever.' 
   
  'I hope to live a great deal more substantially than that,' the Doctor muttered. 
   
  From there the discussion moved on. Sherringford tried once again to dissuade us from 
  the journey, whilst K'tcar'ch remained strangely silent. Mycroft revealed that the 
  Government had been aware that a larger than usual number of people had left the 
  country bound for India, but in their infinite wisdom had decided not to pursue the matter. 
  The Doctor and I debated how Maupertuis had got to hear about the books, but without 
  success. After that I remember little of our packing and making arrangements. Now, as I 
  sat with the Doctor and Holmes in the dining room of the Matilda Briggs, the time in 
  between the revelations in the Library and that moment seemed like a dream, glimpsed 
  but dimly through a glass. 
   
  
  'We should start planning our itinerary for when we reach Bombay,' Holmes said, breaking 
  into my reverie. 'Maupertuis is on the .S S Soudan, and will have three days' head start on 
  us. Watson, you're something of an expert on matters Indian. How do you suppose we 
  can find the Baron?' 
   
  'Well, we'll need to make contact with a local man, preferably one with some influence, to 
  make arrangements over travel and suggest likely places to check hotels and suchlike. 
  Then it's a question of whether Maupertuis is covering his trail or not. If he's not expecting 
  to be followed we should be able to determine his location fairly quickly.' I shook my head. 
  'If only we had been able to send a message ahead to prepare the way for us.' 
   
  'We did,' said the Doctor. 
   
  'What do you mean?' 
   
  'Didn't I tell you? How remiss of me. I have already been in contact with a friend of mine, 
  who is waiting for us in Bombay. With any luck, she will be able to tell us everything we 
  want to know.' 
   
  'And how did you know that you would need someone in Bombay?' Holmes snapped. 'Or 
  was it sheer coincidence?' 
   
  The Doctor gazed up at him with an ageless expression on his face, and it was Holmes 
  who looked away first. 
   
  'Oh,' said the Doctor finally, 'I have a girl in every port.' 
   
  That was the first we heard of Professor Bernice Summerfield, a woman who was to 
  become very dear to my heart in a very short space of time. As she is to play such an 
  important part in the continuation of this narrative, it is only fair that I should let her 
  introduce herself in her own words, from the diary to which she has so very kindly allowed 
  me access. 
   
   
   
   
  Chapter 9 
   
  In which a new voice takes up the story, and the Doctor is picked up in a hotel. 
   
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
  Bombay smells. 
   
  
  Yes, I know I've written the same words every morning for the past two months, but they 
  come from the heart. Bombay smells. It smells like no other place I've ever visited. I mean, 
  I've lived everywhere from the slums of Avernus, where dead bodies are left to rot where 
  they drop, to a squat above a thoat-gelding shop in the mires of Zellen VIII, but I've never 
  come across such an all-pervading, gut-wrenching stench of decay and unwashed flesh. 
  That's what coming home means, if Earth is really home any more. Unwashed aliens just 
  smell exotic, and more often than not rotting alien food tastes better than it does fresh. 
  What I'm trying to say is that even a nasty alien stink has something extraordinary about it, 
  but sheer human squalor just turns the stomach. 
   
  Especially when I'm in a city whose people think that the function of a river is to act as a 
  latrine upstream and a launderette downstream. I'd complain, but I'm too polite. I have to 
  be polite. In 1887, on Earth, everybody is polite. Well, everybody that matters. 
   
  But that's the general gripe over with. Onto the specific. 
   
  The P&O representative told me yesterday that the Matilda Briggs was due in after lunch. 
  Today, after all the usual guff - sleeping in, being woken up by the mamlet who wanted to 
  clean my room, dressing, having lunch - I wandered through town towards the dock. The 
  route was lined with shops, hotels and offices designed to be impressive, in a gothic sort 
  of way. I had to push my way through crowds of workers, soldiers, beggars, lepers, 
  amputees, bullocks and pariah dogs before I could pass across the vast open square to 
  where the ocean rolled greasily against the pylons of the dock. A battalion of British Army 
  soldiers was waiting to embark on one of the ships. Their pennants fluttered limply in the 
  breeze, their brightly coloured uniforms were already soaked in sweat, and one in three 
  was yellow and wasted by malaria. Behind them the Deccan mountains pierced the pure 
  blue membrane of the sky. I could almost believe that the sharp silhouette of their peaks 
  against the sky was actually the coastline poking out into the waters of the Arabian Sea, 
  and I was standing on the mountain tops, looking downwards, far away from where the 
  Doctor would arrive. 
   
  Eventually I wandered across to the Ballard Pier, surrounded by eager shipping agents 
  and harassed representatives from P&O, Bibby's and British India. I was clutching the 
  Doctor's telegram in my hand. Every few minutes I unfolded it and checked again that I 
  hadn't got the name of the ship wrong. Odd thoughts kept chasing their tails around my 
  mind. What if there'd been a problem and the Doctor hadn't boarded in the end? What if 
  I'd misinterpreted his instructions and I was supposed to be somewhere else? What if he 
  was angry at me for wasting my time when I could have presented him with a solution to 
  his problems, all wrapped up with a little pink bow? What if...? 
   
  I knew the real problem, of course. I was scared of seeing him again. No reason: just 
  scared. 
   
  A beggar approached, imploring me for alms. His head was covered in running sores. His 
  thick hair rippled gently in the breeze. I looked closer, and recoiled as some of it took 
  flight, buzzing briefly around his head before settling again to feed. Flies - the ever-present 
  
  curse of India. I waved him away, feeling a sudden knife-stab of guilt. There were tens of 
  thousands of people in Bombay. I 
  couldn't help all of them. That was the true evil. Not Daleks, not Hoothi. Poverty and 
  powerlessness. 
  From the dock I gazed out across the Arabian Sea, out to where the heat haze and the 
  waves merged to form an ambiguous boundary, neither sea nor sky, half in this universe 
  and half somewhere else. I was hypnotized by it. My mind blurred like the landscape. The 
  Matilda Briggs had grown into a cloud the size of a man's hand before I woke up. Within 
  an hour it was a metal leviathan, belching steam as it wallowed up to the dock. 
   
  And there he was, on deck, waving his umbrella to attract my attention. He was exactly as 
  I had remembered. I felt my breath catch in my throat. He was small and he was trouble, 
  but I'd missed him. 
   
  Ropes were flung back and forth, and there was a lot of jostling and bustling, most of it 
  unproductive. Eventually a gangplank was in place. 
   
  After he disembarked he scurried up as if to give me a great big hug, but skidded to a halt 
  inches from me and raised his hat instead. 
   
  'Doctor Livingstone, I presume?' he said. 
   
  'Doctor Doctor, I presume?' I replied. 
   
  He gazed at me for a while, checking me out from head to toe and from side to side. 
  Around us, disembarking families wandered like ducklings. 
   
  'There's something different about you. He frowned, and looked me over again. 'Don't tell 
  me. Let me guess.' 
   
  'Doctor, I . .' 
   
  'It's the hair, isn't it? You've had your hair done.' 
   
  'No, I...' 
   
  'I know! You've lost weight' 
   
  I sighed. 
   
  'No Doctor, I'm disguised as a man.' 
   
  He checked again. 
   
  'Are you? How very Shakespearian. Well, I'm sure you've got a good reason.' 
   
  
  'I have,' I said. 'Have you got any idea how they treat women in this era? You asked me to 
  pretend to be one of the girls who comes out looking for a husband. It was so demeaning. 
  Do you know what the men call those girls? 'The fishing fleet'. The ones who can't find 
  husbands are called 'returned empties'. It's disgusting. I was going mad!' 
   
  He scowled. 
   
  'You were supposed to remain inconspicuous.' 
   
  'I knocked a man out in the hotel bar one night. After that, I decided I was more 
  inconspicuous disguised as a man than as a woman.' 
   
  The Doctor winced. 
   
  'I'm sure I don't want to know,' he said, 'but I know you're going to tell me anyway' 
  'I'd just popped in for a drink when a cigar-chomping moron tried to feel me up. I politely 
  told him to go away, but he persisted. So I told him not so politely. I think he's out of the 
  hospital now.' 
   
  The ship's horn suddenly blasted out a sound like a drashig's mating call. The Doctor 
  winced. 
  'I did tell you- that women are decorative, rather than productive, in this society,' he said, 
  scrunching his hat up in his hands. 'They do not drink alone in bars, and they most 
  emphatically do not get involved in unseemly brawls.' 
   
  'They don't do anything! I checked out of the hotel that night, and checked into another 
  one the next day dressed like this.' 
   
  'Where did you get the clothes?' 
   
  'From my erstwhile admirer's room. I figured he wouldn't be needing them for a while, not 
  with his ribs in that state. So I liberated them.' 
   
  The Doctor grinned slightly, and so did I. His eyes twinkled. I couldn't match that, so I 
  waggled my ears instead. And that's how Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson found us, 
  grinning like loons and performing tricks with bits of our anatomy. 
   
  I knew there was something familiar about them when they approached, gazing around at 
  the spectacle that was Bombay, sweat glossing their faces and a bevy of Indian porters 
  hauling their trunks after them. Watson could have been anyone - he was handsome, in a 
  reserved sort of 
  way, but he wouldn't stand out in a crowd - but Holmes's aquiline profile and incisive, 
  penetrating gaze hit some deep vein of memory in me. 
   
  They were both wearing lightweight tropical suits and those topees that make people look 
  like mushrooms. The Doctor (who once took me to a planet where mushrooms look like 
  
  people, but that's another story) was dressed in his usual linen suit and white hat, and 
  somehow looked less out of place here than usual. I could tell from the way that Holmes 
  and Watson were standing that they were wearing those bizarre spinal pads that were 
  supposed to protect your spine from the sun and facilitate the circulation of air, but ended 
  up making you feel even more uncomfortable and just as hot. 
   
  'Professor Bernice Summerfield, Mr Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson,' the 
  Doctor announced. 
   
  Holmes nodded coolly at me. Watson was flustered. I wondered why for a second, then 
  remembered that I was dressed as a man. He didn't know whether to shake my hand or 
  kiss it. 
   
  'Professor Summerfield,' he said finally, clasping his hands behind his back. 'I'm 
  enchanted.' 
   
  By his expression he had me figured for a lesbian. Normally it wouldn't bother me - 
  bisexuality is the norm in my era - but I knew from my researches that the eighteen 
  eighties weren't quite as enlightened. Ask Oscar Wilde. 
   
  'I'm working undercover,' I confided, 'and call me Bennie.' He smiled, relieved. 
   
  'Where do we go from here?' he asked. 
   
  'I've booked rooms for you in my hotel,' I replied. 'I suggest that you wash and brush up, 
  then we'll meet for dinner.' 
   
  He nodded. 
   
  'I've been looking forward to tasting Indian food again for the entire voyage,' he confided 
  as I gestured to the nearest group of tikka-gharis - four wheeled horse-drawn carriages 
  similar to hansom cabs. After a brief argument, one of them headed towards us. Watson 
  made to take my arm, but caught himself just in time. 
   
  'You've been here before?' I asked. 
   
  'Indeed. I passed through here on my way to Afghanistan. I fought in the Second Afghan 
  Campaign, you know?' 
   
  'How brave.' I was being mildly sarcastic, but he didn't seem to notice. 
   
  'I was wounded in the shoulder with a jezail bullet. Still gives me gyp. Nasty things.' 
   
  'Jezail?' 
   
  'It's a sort of long-barrelled musket, fired from a rest.' 
  
   
  The carriage pulled up beside us and the driver busied himself fighting with Holmes and 
  Watson's bearers for possession of the bags. Like all lower-caste Indians, they wore 
  turbans and dhotis - long lengths of cloth wound around their midriffs - and little else. It 
  had taken me a month to stop regarding them as unfortunate accident victims. Still it could 
  be worse. The Ook of the Crallis Sector wear clothes made out of small mammals, still 
  alive but stitched together. 
   
  Eventually, after I was satisfied that our luggage was all present and correct, I gave the 
  driver the name of my hotel and made him repeat it. Then we set off. Watson, after fussing 
  about trying to order the men around and failing, had bagged the seat beside me. 
   
  'You speak Hindi?' he asked, miffed, as I settled into the seat and we moved off. 
   
  'Hindustani, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telegu, Sontaran,' I said. 'I speak them all. It's 
  a gift.' 
   
  'Oh.' 
   
  He turned to gaze out at the sun-baked streets. I refrained from telling him that I hadn't 
  had to learn a word: somehow my association with the Doctor had enabled me to 
  understand any language I came across. If only he could bottle it and sell it. 
   
  I met the three of them in the hotel bar after they had unpacked. I had a couple of minutes 
  alone amid the bamboo furniture and brass fittings before they turned up. A large sheet of 
  woven bamboo strips swung back and forth from a hinge on the ceiling, twitched by a rope 
  which passed through a hole in the wall to where some hapless punkah-wallah sat 
  outside. There was a piano in one corner, its legs sitting in saucers of water to stop white 
  ants from climbing up and eating their way through the instrument. A couple of florid ex-
  Army types with huge walrus moustaches were sitting over by it, balancing their G&Ts on 
  the lid, to the obvious displeasure of the splendidly turbaned and uniformed khitmagar 
  behind the bar. They nodded at me in a companionable way. If only they knew, I thought. 
  The Doctor arrived first. I suspect that he didn't even go inside his room. I'd never seen 
  him sleep, or carry a spare set of clothes, or brush his teeth, or do any of those things that 
  we all take for granted. I also suspect that when the rest of humanity go to bed the Doctor 
  is either out wandering the streets or standing in a corner of his room until sunrise. 
   
  'So, what do you think of India, then?' he asked, settling himself cross-legged into a cane 
  chair. 
   
  'I've been all over the universe with you, Doctor, and Earth in the nineteenth century is the 
  most alien place I've ever seen.' 
   
  He smiled. 
   
  
  'I've always had a soft spot for it,' he confided. 'There's such a sense of infinite possibility. 
  You feel that almost anything could evolve from this morass of science and superstition. It 
  showcases humanity at its best, and at its worst. What about India? What have you found 
  out?' 
   
  'I thought from the histories that it was all fairly simple. The Mughal dynasty ruled the 
  continent for some three centuries until 1756, when their last emperor was dethroned by 
  the British. After that, the British East India Company was allowed to run the country on 
  behalf of the British Government for the lucrative jute, indigo and spice trade. Just like IMC 
  and Lucifer, I guess. There was a native revolt in 1857. You know why?' 
   
  He nodded, but I continued anyway. 'It was so stupid: the sepoy troops believed that a 
  new type of cartridge case was coated with either beef fat or pork fat. Of course, the 
  Hindus couldn't touch pork and the Muslims couldn't touch beef. So they revolted -literally. 
  After the mutiny the British Army was sent in to oversee the place, the British East India 
  Company was abolished and the Indian Civil Service was set up. Lots of young British 
  lads were sent out to keep the place running for the next century, and then India achieved 
  dominion status in 1947.' 
   
  He nodded. 
   
  'You seem to have grasped the basics.' 
   
  'But that's too simplistic!' I protested. 'This place is a jigsaw. At the moment there are 
  fourteen British-run provinces like Baluchistan, Sind, Madras, Bombay and Bengal, each 
  with its own distinct character and geography, divided into a total of two hundred and fifty-
  six districts. Alongside that, there are five hundred and sixty-two native states like 
  Rajputana, Mysore and Hyderabad, lorded over by an assortment of Nizams, Walis, Jams, 
  Rajahs, Maharajahs, Ackonds, Ranas, Raos and Mehtars. Across both the British-run and 
  the native areas, there are over two thousand three hundred castes, sects, and creeds, 
  each with its own distinctive customs and religious injunctions. This isn't a country, it's a 
  universe in its own right,' 
   
  He grinned. 
   
  'I've always thought of India as a microcosm,' he said. 
   
  'Of what?' 
   
  'If I ever find out, I'll be a wiser man than I am now.' 
   
  I grimaced. 
   
  'Yes, very deep,' said a voice behind me. I looked up to find Holmes and Watson standing 
  over me. 
   
  
  'Please,' the Doctor waved to two free seats, 'join us.' 
   
  I bought the drinks. The Doctor's careful with his money. Well, to be fair, I remember a 
  time in a bar on Barrabas Gamma when I shamed him into paying for his round. He 
  rummaged around in his pockets, cursing all the time, and threw a handful of change onto 
  the counter. 
   
  Unfortunately it was Cimliss money, and most of it jumped off and ran into the shadows 
  before we could recapture it. I hear they were still finding loose change reproducing in 
  dark corners for weeks. 
  Where was I? Oh yes, Holmes and Watson. They sat down, and we drank for a few 
  minutes, swapping pleasantries. Eventually Holmes turned to me. 
   
  'As you probably know,' he said, 'we have pursued a certain gentleman here from Tilbury.' 
   
  'Baron Maupertuis,' I prompted. 
   
  'Indeed: He cast a sour glance at me. I decided to interrupt him as much as possible. 
   
  'You are aware of the circumstances?' he continued. 
   
  'The Library, the thefts, the aliens, blah, blab, blah . .' 
   
  He controlled himself with some difficulty. 
   
  'Has Baron Maupertuis passed through Bombay, to your knowledge?' 
   
  I took a small notebook out of my pocket and began to read from it. 
   
  'I was proceeding in an easterly direction  along Rivett-Karnac Road when -' 
   
  'Benny...' the Doctor murmured. Holmes's snort punctuated the Doctor's warning. 
   
  'Oh very well: I put the notebook away. 'Volume five of the Doctor's telegraph message 
  told me that the guy with the title was on board the SS Soudan, which docked two days 
  ago. I had the Baron paged, and spotted him when he disembarked. He was accompanied 
  by a great hulking deaf mute named Surd. They headed here, which is one of the reasons 
  why I did too. They stayed for one night, ate nothing and met nobody. They rose early the 
  next morning, took a rickshaw to the station and bought tickets for Calcutta. They caught 
  the next train out of Bombay. That's all I know.' 
   
  'An admirable summary,' Holmes said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. 
  'Calcutta is not their destination, of course.' 
   
  'Why not?' Watson asked. 
   
  
  'It is a coastal city at the other end of the line from Bombay. Had Baron Maupertuis wished 
  to travel to Calcutta, he could have travelled there directly by ship, a quicker and more 
  comfortable journey. No, the tickets are a blind. I have no doubt that they caught the train -
  ' he glanced sharply over at me, and I nodded. ' - but I would suggest that they 
  disembarked somewhere along the line.' 
   
  I handed him a list of stations. 
   
  'Difficult to tell from this what their destination might have been,' he continued. 'The train 
  passes through the major British provinces on both sides of the continent, and also the 
  belt of native states in between. What about luggage?' 
   
  'Two trunks. Heavy by the looks of them. Surd carried them as though they were nothing.' 
   
  'Contents?' 
   
  'I . . . I don't know.' 
   
  Holmes half-opened his eyes and gazed at me. 
   
  'All right,' I admitted, 'nothing but clothing and medical supplies. I sneaked a look.' 
   
  He frowned. 
   
  'No books?' 
   
  'No books.' 
   
  'No maps?' 
   
  'No maps.' 
   
  'No weapons?' 
   
  'No weapons.' 
   
  'Hmmm.' 
   
  Watson and the Doctor exchanged puzzled glances. 
   
  'I would have expected more equipment for a planned invasion,' Holmes explained. 'Their 
  lack does not rule out our theory, of course - the material may have been sent on ahead - 
  but evidence would have been reassuring.' 
   
  'What about the twenty large boxes addressed to the station-master at Jabalhabad that 
  were loaded in the guard's van?' 
  
   
  I was the focus of all eyes. 
   
  'What makes you think that they were associated with Baron Maupertuis?' Holmes 
  snapped. 
   
  'The address labels were in his handwriting. I checked them against the hotel register.' 
   
  He smiled. 
   
  'An excellent piece of work. I could not have wished for a better agent in place.' 
   
  The Doctor raised his eyebrows at me. I smiled back. We went to dinner happy. 
   
  We discussed all sorts of things while eating. Over lobster curry with various spicy 
  vegetable dishes Holmes and the Doctor had a running argument - good-natured on the 
  Doctor's side but I'm not sure about Holmes - about the Basque language and its 
  relationship to the ancient Cornish tongue while John Watson asked me what I thought 
  about women playing sphairixtike for the first time. When I admitted my ignorance of the 
  game he told me that it had recently been renamed lawn tennis. I was still none the wiser. 
  Over a pudding made from boiled rice and coconut flavoured with rose essence we all 
  discussed the recent testing of a machine-gun by Hiram Maxim. Watson ventured to 
  suggest that it would put an end to war. I pointed out that the same was said of the bow 
  and arrow. The Doctor muttered something about Z-bombs. We finished off with coffee 
  and liqueurs, and debated our next move. The general consensus was that we should 
  follow the Baron and his tame gorilla to Hyderabad in the morning. 
   
  When Holmes and Watson lit up foul-smelling cheroots, I decided to retire for the night. 
  The Doctor and I walked through the decaying splendour of the hotel to the door of his 
  room. 
   
  'You seem to be fitting in to the era very well,' he said. 
   
  'No thanks to you. Your Time-Lord gift of the gab is fine for alien languages but lousy on 
  slang. I've got a feeling I'm a few decades out' 
   
  'I'm sure nobody will notice.' 
   
  'And what's all this boat travel rubbish? Why not travel straight here in the TARDIS?' 
   
  He smiled. 
   
  'It was a ship, not a boat. And I prefer the scenic route.' 
   
  
  By that time we had reached his room. I didn't want to say goodnight, so I told him what I 
  had been thinking earlier, about him probably not sleeping, or even using his room. He 
  smiled bashfully. 
  'I'll be doing some reading tonight,' he said, patting his pocket. 'I've brought Siger 
  Holmes's journals with me. Siger was definitely on to something. I've been trying to make 
  out the underlying meaning of the chants he reproduces. I'm close, but there's still 
  something I'm missing..' 
   
  'Do you intend getting any sleep at all?' 
   
  'I tell people that I don't sleep,' he admitted, 'but that's just for effect. I do sleep. Once 
  every hundred years I have a kip for a decade or so.' 
   
  He yawned suddenly. 
   
  'Excuse me,' he said, 'I'm suddenly very tired.' 
   
  He vanished into his room like a rabbit down a burrow. 
   
  I stood for a moment, staring at the door in bewilderment, then turned and headed off to 
  my room. 
  I was four steps down the corridor when a sudden series of crashes and thuds made me 
  whirl and run back to the Doctor's room. I put my ear to the door. It sounded as if there 
  was a fight going on, and it sounded as though it was a big one. 
   
  'Doctor?' I yelled. No answer. 
   
  Glass crashed inside. I kicked the door down. 
   
  The window was broken and the furniture was smashed  to matchwood apart from a 
  wardrobe which had unaccountably escaped intact. The carpet was ripped into tatters. 
  The Doctor was standing in the centre of the room with his umbrella held in front of him 
  like a sabre. Before him, crouched but still brushing the ceiling, was a creature from a 
  nightmare. It was a venomous crimson colour, armoured like a crustacean, and it walked 
  on the taloned points of its billowing leathery wings. A coiled tail with a wicked spiked club 
  of flesh on the end brushed the floor beneath its glossy body. Its head was low-slung and 
  vicious. It had no eyes, no mouth, just a set of thorny growths which jutted forward and 
  seemed to swing from the Doctor to me and back, weighing up the threat. 
   
  It shuffled round to face me, the claws on the ends of its wings churning the carpet. 
   
  'Get out, Benny,' the Doctor hissed, 'it's me the rakshassa wants.' 
   
  'Rakshassa?' 
   
  'Yes, rakshassa. Plural, rakshassi. A type of Hindu demon.' 
  
   
  'Well, whatever it is, it'll have to get through me to get to you.' 
   
  I shuffled forward. It shuffled back. Emboldened, I shuffled forward a bit more. 
   
  It leaped for my throat, using its tail as a spring. 
   
  I dived for the floor, and felt the acrid wind of its passage as the rakshassa passed over 
  my head and hit the doorframe. Plaster showered me. I rolled to one side. The rakshassa 
  whirled and smashed the floor where I had been lying with its spiked tail. I scrambled to 
  my feet. The thorny protrusions that were its face were all pointed at me and trembling. I 
  backed slowly towards the cool breeze from the window, planning to dive out. It 
  anticipated me, and manoeuvred me sideways, towards a corner. 
   
  I quickly scanned the room. The Doctor had vanished, sensible man. There was nothing 
  large enough to use as a weapon save the wardrobe, and try as I might, I couldn't think of 
  a realistic attack strategy with it. The rakshassa raised itself up on the tips of its wings and 
  lashed its tail, preparing to strike. 
   
  I took a deep breath. 
   
  The wardrobe door slammed open and the Doctor leaped out, yelling at the top of his 
  voice and whirling his umbrella around his head. He fetched the rakshassa an almighty 
  crack across one of the spikes of its snout. It snapped off in a spray of pink, watery fluid. 
  The rakshassa screamed - an undulating, unearthly noise like a nail in the eardrum - and 
  shuffled backwards to the window. 
   
  'Thanks,' I breathed. 
   
  'I got you into this,' he admitted with a rare display of honesty, 'so I feel duty-bound to get 
  you out.' 
   
  The rakshassa sprang across the room toward us. I tried to push the Doctor out of the 
  way, but he took hold of my arm and shoved me into the wardrobe. The last thing I saw 
  before the door clicked shut was the Doctor lunging towards one of the creature's wings 
  with his umbrella, trying to puncture the membrane, then I was engulfed by darkness. 
   
  It took me less than a minute to smash the door down from the inside, and for most of that 
  time I could hear nothing apart from my own laboured breathing. When I finally emerged, 
  wreathed in splinters, the room was empty. I staggered to the window. The cool breeze 
  and the scent of flowers were like something from a fairy-tale. All outside was darkness, 
  apart from the occasional flicker of a fire. The stars glowed like the sun on waves. 
   
  And a shadow passed across the face of the moon, like a bird with a broken wing. It was 
  carrying something limp. 
   
  
   
   
  Chapter 10 
   
  In which a train once again figures in the narrative and our heroes encounter a few familiar 
  faces. 
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
  Water trickled like perspiration down the ice block in the centre of the carriage. I watched 
  the drops as they hesitantly felt their way across the shining surface to join the water 
  sloshing in the tray beneath. They had eroded the base of the block to such an extent that 
  the ice was balanced unsteadily upon a thin stem. I had been waiting for it to topple for 
  three hours now, hypnotized by its slow disintegration, my head hanging heavily and 
  rocking back and forth with the motion of the carriage. 
   
  Professor Summerfield shifted slightly on the leather sofa opposite and murmured 
  something in her sleep. Her eyes flicked restlessly behind closed lids. Her face was 
  flushed and glossy. Holmes, sitting in a cane chair in the corner, was also dozing. What 
  else was there to do in this relentless heat? 
   
  Something moved past the window. I peered intently, if somewhat blearily, through the 
  gauze and the glass at one of the many banyans that dotted the plains. Its branches 
  swelled straight out into a root system without feeling in need of a trunk. The sight cheered 
  me momentarily: anything that interrupted the landscape and provided a moment of 
  interest was worth cherishing. I gazed around for some other distraction but, apart from 
  the scarlet blaze of a mohar tree in the distance, nothing else broke the monotony of the 
  dusty brown landscape. The distant horizon was so straight that it could have been drawn 
  by a draughtsman, and the sky so impossibly blue that it had to have been painted. 
   
  We were travelling on the Imperial Indian Mail train through the mofussil - the up-country 
  area of India - and had been doing so for most of three days now. We had a first-class, 
  four-berth compartment with bathroom attached. The train had left Bombay just after 
  sunrise, heading north-east towards the town of Gadawara through the states of Nagpur 
  and Bhopal. From Gadawara we had continued onwards towards Benares, where the train 
  would turn south-east for the final leg to Calcutta. We would not be on it. Our goal was the 
  small state of Jabalhabad, a few hundred miles west of Benares and a good day or so 
  from our current position in the hinterland of purgatory. 
  The ice suddenly fell over with a loud splash! Professor Summerfield jerked awake and 
  glared at me. Holmes merely raised an eyebrow. 
   
  I have refrained from describing Professor Summerfield, trusting rather to her own words 
  to paint a self-portrait. Suffice it to say that I found her fascinating. Her refreshing 
  bluntness, her vivacity and her cynicism were all at odds with the refined (dare I say 
  prim?) ladies that I was used to dealing with back in London. To give an example: when 
  
  Holmes and I burst into the Doctor's hotel room back in Bombay to find the Doctor missing 
  and the room wrecked, I had expected to find her in a state of womanly distress. In fact 
  she was systematically reducing the remains of the wardrobe to splinters whilst cursing fit 
  to strike a midshipman deaf. I did not recognize many of the epithets she employed, but 
  their meaning was clear. During the subsequent discussion, in which it was decided that 
  the Doctor had probably been kidnapped by some creature allied to Baron Maupertuis and 
  that our best course of action was to follow the Baron and hope to find the Doctor, it was 
  Professor Summerfield who took the lead. Holmes and I merely stood and marvelled at 
  her single-minded determination and her profanity. 
   
  Lest I give the impression that Professor Summerfield - or Bernice, as she encouraged me 
  to call her - was in some way unwomanly, let me add that she was also exceedingly 
  attractive, despite her male attire. If she was, as the Doctor had led us to believe, a 
  denizen of the future, then all I can do is echo Shakespeare's cry: 'O brave new world, that 
  has such people in't.' 
   
  'We would appear to be slowing,' Holmes said. 
   
  'I don't believe so,' I replied. Glancing out of the window, however, I could see the track far 
  ahead curving towards a clutter of buildings on the horizon. 'Good Lord, we do appear to 
  be heading for a station. How did you know?' 
   
  'You may have noticed that a proportion of the steam from the furnace has been making 
  its way into the carriage. You had not? No matter. For the past few minutes I have 
  detected a reduction in the amount of steam, leading me to believe that we are slowing 
  down enough that the cloud has risen out of the way before our carriage passes through 
  it. A trifling deduction: He sniffed slightly. 'I am considering writing a monograph on the 
  tell-tale odour of various types of coal. Our fuel derives, I believe, from the seams at 
  Rewa.' 
   
  Bernice snorted. I could tell that she wasn't taking Holmes seriously. 
   
  'Who wants to move up to the restaurant car?' she asked. 'I could do with some food and 
  a decent drink.' 
   
  'And a new block of ice,' I added. 
   
  Holmes checked his watch. 
   
  'According to our schedule, the next station after this one should be some three hours 
  away. That should give us enough time for a leisurely lunch.' 
   
  I freshened myself up in the bathroom and emerged just as we were pulling into the 
  outskirts of whatever cantonment or village this was. The train jerked as the engineer 
  applied the brakes. The place looked deserted. Huts and hovels were empty, and the only 
  signs of life were the pi-dogs pacing us as we approached the station. Far in the distance, 
  
  half-hidden by the dust and the heat-haze, I thought I could make out the regular lines of a 
  British Army fort with a flag hanging limply from its pole. 
   
  We jerked again, and dropped to a crawl. The station crept closer and I could suddenly 
  see where everybody was. The platform was alive with a churning crowd. Hordes of 
  people poured out from the shaded area beneath the platform itself, careless of the 
  approaching train. I shivered, reminded of a stream of cockroaches. A terrific gabble of 
  voices in a Babel of languages assailed our ears. 
   
  'Tahsa char, garumi garum!' 
   
  Pahn biri! Pahn biri!' 
   
  Hindi pani, Musselman pans' 'Beecham Sahib ki gooli!' 
   
  I turned to Professor . . . to Bernice. 
   
  'Did I hear the word Beecham?' 
   
  'Indeed you did,' she replied. 'He's offering us some of Mr Beecham's little pills. Does that 
  mean anything to you?' 
   
  'Indigestion tablets!' I laughed. 
   
  'Well, you learn something every day,' she murmured. 'But is it ever useful?' 
   
  The train shuddered to a halt. Beyond our window a wall of faces watched us with no hint 
  of decorum. We stepped out onto the station. It felt good to be able to stretch my legs. 
  Holmes locked the door and the crowd cleared a way for us as we made our way along 
  the platform towards the dining car. Beggars implored us for alms, sweetmeat sellers 
  beseeched us to buy their wares and those Indians who were travelling onward from here 
  in the third or fourth-class carriages bustled around with broken umbrellas looking self-
  important. Those unable or unwilling to pay for tickets on the train were climbing onto the 
  roof, joining those who had been there since Bombay. Ahead of us a small cadre of British 
  soldiers had disembarked and were trying to form up into some sort of order before 
  marching off. 
   
  Bernice dickered with an ice seller, then borrowed a key to the carriage from Holmes so 
  that she could leave it to cool the compartment down. We found the dining car and 
  secured a table in its cool, dark interior. 
   
  'This may seem like a stupid question,' Bernice said when she joined us, 'but how come 
  we can find huge great blocks of ice at these one-horse towns in the middle of God's own 
  oven?' 
  'The Carres Ice Machine,' Holmes pronounced. He loved to show off. 'Most stations will 
  have one. The device contains a cylinder of ammonia which is heated and then plunged 
  
  into water. The liquid, confined in such a small space, absorbs heat from the metal and 
  then the water in order to evaporate, causing the water to turn to ice. A most interesting 
  device. I was involved in a case recently where a Mr Matthew Jolly was murdered with a 
  Carres Ice Machine.' 
   
  'I don't recall that case, Hohnes,' I said stiffly. 
   
  'I believe I did draw some of its features to your attention.' 
   
  The train quivered, and began to heave its vast bulk out of the station. For the first half of 
  our journey, stationmasters had politely sought Holmes's permission for the train to leave 
  their stations - something to do with him being the most senior traveller. Somebody more 
  important must have joined the train at Gadawara, as we were no longer bothered by such 
  requests. 
   
  A great wail went up outside. I looked out of the window, only to find it blocked by a swarm 
  of naked children who clung to the frame and gazed at us with imploring spaniel eyes. The 
  stewards rushed up and down the aisle rapping their little knuckles with spoons until they 
  dropped away, screeching. 
   
  'Don't leave me in suspense!' Bernice said eagerly. 'What happened to Mr Jolly?' 
   
  'His wife, Josephine, had purchased one of the devices some months beforehand. On the 
  night in question, she waited until he fell asleep downstairs, as was his habit after drinking 
  heavily, then manoeuvred the device so that his head was resting in the water. She then 
  activated it' 
   
  'You don't mean . . .?' She was aghast. 
   
  'His brain froze whilst he slept. She waited until the water had thawed again and then 
  moved the machine back to the pantry. He was found dead by the maid in the morning 
  without a mark upon him.' 
   
  Bernice shivered. 'What a way to go. Why did she do it?' 
   
  'Every evening for ten years he had taken his false teeth out after dinner and hurled them 
  at her. One day she finally snapped. I cannot find it in my heart to blame her. Knowing 
  how much I get on Watson's nerves, I occasionally wonder if my last sight on this Earth 
  will be of him standing at the foot of my bed with a syringe of cyanide in his hand.' 
   
  I coughed to hide my smile. 
   
  'And how did you detect the crime?' I asked, trying to deflect the conversation into a 
  different course. 
  'Mr Jolly had a glass eye. The rapid cooling, followed by the significant rise in temperature 
  as the rising sun shone upon it, had caused it to crack.' 
  
   
  'You're making it up,' said Bernice. 
   
  At that moment a figure loomed into sight behind Holmes's back. I half rose from my seat. 
  The figure clapped its hands on my shoulders and shook me. 
   
  'Watson! Good God man, what on Earth are you doing here? Do you live on trains?' 
   
  That florid face: that huge walrus moustache. A conversation about violins. 
   
  'Warburton?' 
   
  'The very same.' 
   
  In amazement I cast my mind back to the Orient Express, where our adventure had 
  started a few short weeks ago. Colonel Warburton had been one of the passengers. He 
  and his wife had been on their way to . . . 
   
  'Jabalhabad, wasn't it?' Holmes said casually. 'I remember you saying that you were the 
  Resident there.' 
   
  'Mr Holmes, good to see you again. Yes indeed, we've been back for a few weeks now. I 
  left the memsahib sorting out the mess the servants had made of the bungalow and 
  headed to Gadawara on business. I must say, I hadn't expected to find you here. On a 
  case are you? The little lady will be pleased. I thought you were on your way back to dear 
  old Blighty after that odd business with the other train. You never did tell us what that was 
  about. Some secret assignation, was it?' 
   
  I could see from Holmes's slightly glassy expression that he wasn't entirely sure which 
  question to duck. 
   
  'We find ourselves heading for Jabalhabad as well,' he said finally. 'Quite a coincidence 
  that we should come across each other again.' 
   
  'Mind if I join you?' 
   
  Warburton eased his large frame into the seat opposite Bernice. 
   
  'I don't believe I've had the pleasure,' he continued, extending a hand. 
   
  'Colonel Warburton,' I blustered, 'this is . . . er, Miss . . . er Mister...' 
   
  'Benny Summerfield,' said Bernice, shaking Warburton's hand. He winced slightly at her 
  firm grip. 
   
  'Pleased to meet you. Are you part of the mystery too?' 
  
   
  Bernice smiled. 
   
  'Aren't we all?' she said. 
   
  The stewards came along then, and took our orders for lunch. We dined well and drank 
  even better. Holmes and Bernice ordered copious quantities of weak whisky and soda: 
  Warburton and I, old hands at the tropics, stuck with gin and tonic. Many was the toast to 
  the Queen-Empress that afternoon. Warburton was eager to find out what we were doing 
  heading for Jabalhabad, but Bernice was singularly skilled at turning the subject back to 
  the Colonel's life in India. He told us about the Nizam of Jabalhabad, who ruled the small 
  province to which Warburton had been posted as the representative of Her Majesty. God 
  alone knows how it happened, but by the time lunch was over, Bernice had inveigled 
  Warburton into inviting us to stay at his bungalow and attend an official dinner - a burrah 
  khana, or big feast, as Warburton called it - to be thrown by the Nizam in a few days time. 
  Even Holmes was taken aback at the speed with which Bernice worked. I felt my 
  admiration for her growing by leaps and bounds. 
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
  It's been a couple of days since I've made an entry. The Doctor's kidnapping threw me into 
  a furious rage, most of which I took out on poor Watson. We decided that the best thing to 
  do was to follow the plan and set off for Jabalhabad, there to try and trace the recipient of 
  Maupertuis's boxes. 
  We staggered off the train at Jabalhabad two days ago. I haven't had time to make an 
  entry since then. The area is hilly and green, and a lot cooler than the plains. Have you 
  ever heard of a heat rash? It's like lots of little pimples, all over your body, so close 
  together that you can't slip a pin in between them. Itches like crazy. Thank God Watson's 
  a medic. 
   
  We've been spending our time trying to find those boxes. A couple of locals say they saw 
  them being unloaded at the station, but after that the trail goes cold. Jabalhabad is a large 
  place, and they could be anywhere. 
   
  Colonel Warburton has been a brick (is that what they say in Victorian times? Slang is so 
  ephemeral: here today, old hat tomorrow). His bungalow is a large, rambling, mud-brick 
  building. It's thatched on top, has walls made of reeds covered in cow-dung and 
  whitewash, rattan screens over the windows and muslin ceilings. I've always been good 
  on materials. I'm sure there are things living up there: I can hear them moving round, and 
  the muslin shifts from time to time as if something has rested its weight on it. 
   
  We were introduced to Warburton's secretary: a thin, rather diffident man who held out his 
  hand for shaking like a man might proffer a rather dubious anchovy. His name was 
  Smithee. I decided straight away that I didn't like him: an impression reinforced at dinner 
  yesterday when a kitehawk managed to swoop down and make off with the roast as it was 
  being carried along the veranda from the kitchen to the dining room. The rest of us cursed 
  
  and raved, but Smithee walked calmly out and took potshots at the bird with a revolver. It 
  wouldn't have done any good - the food would have been inedible, whatever happened - 
  but it seemed to make him feel better. 
   
  I was getting ready for this bean-feast tonight up at the Great Panjandrum's palace, when I 
  realized I was missing something. I'd 'liberated' a full set of evening wear from my 
  disappointed suitor back in Bombay, and studied enough men one night to know where 
  the cummerbund went, but somehow I must have dropped one of the cufflinks. I couldn't 
  eat dinner with one sleeve dangling in the soup, so I decided to borrow one from Colonel 
  Warburton. I wandered around the bungalow - which was TARDIS-like in its deceptively 
  spacious interior - but couldn't find him. I popped out on to the veranda, just in case he 
  was out there, and found his wife Gloria instead. Her hair was piled high on her head, and 
  she was wearing a floor-length gown and white gloves up to her elbows. That didn't faze 
  me: the archaeology of fashion was a minor interest of mine. What did surprise me slightly 
  was the Indian bearer on his knees beside her with his hands under her gown. 
   
  'Could I trouble you for a cuff . . : I said, and trailed off into silence. Don't get. me wrong - 
  I'm no prude, it's just that all the research I've ever done on nineteenth-century Earth 
  suggests that the British were sexually repressed to an incredible degree. The rumour that 
  they put little skirts on piano legs is probably just a joke, but I did read once about a 
  Victorian woman who had little suits made for her goldfish, and another one in France who 
  set aside money in her will for clothes for snowmen. Faced with this scene, I had one of 
  those moments I've started getting recently where, for a second, I don't know where or 
  when I am. 
   
  She must have seen my confusion and mistaken it for embarrassment. 'Insecticide,' she 
  confided. 'Keeps the mosquitoes out.' The bearer withdrew his hands, stood up and 
  bowed to her. He was holding a large, syringe-like object. I could see faint wisps of a 
  white, powdery substance creeping from beneath her hem. 
   
  'How do you avoid the snakes?' I asked snappily. 'Use a mongoose?' 
   
  She smiled and changed the subject. 
   
  'My husband and Mr Holmes are taking a turn around the grounds. Was there something 
  that I could help you with?' 
   
  I smiled back. 
   
  'No, thank you,' I said, turning to go. 
   
  There was an explosion somewhere nearby. The sound was curiously dull and flat. I could 
  smell an acrid, burnt odour. Cordite? Mrs Warburton and I looked at each other. 
   
  I ran to where the sound had come from. It was the bathroom. There was nothing but an 
  ominous silence in there now. I kicked the door in. 
  
   
  Watson was sitting squeezed into the little hip bath. He was naked and held a gun. He 
  didn't seem to register my presence. Instead, he was staring fixedly across the room. I 
  followed his gaze. 
   
  At first I thought two snakes were coiling furiously on the floor, over by the large wooden 
  object that was euphemistically known as the 'thunderbox'. Then I saw the blood, and 
  realized that he had shot a cobra in half. 
   
  'Good shooting,' I said, noticing the rip in the muslin above his head through which the 
  snake had dropped. 
   
  Watson, realizing that I was there, grabbed for a towel to hide his modesty. 
   
  'I'll see about getting that mongoose,' Mrs Warburton's voice sang out from the veranda. 
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
  We had taken a carriage up from the bungalow; Warburton, his wife, his secretary, 
  Holmes, Bernice and myself. 
   
  The outside of the building reminded me of an enormous wedding cake: all tiers and 
  pillars and white surfaces edged with rose. Two other men had arrived at the same time 
  as us. Warburton introduced us: one was a redheaded missionary named O'Connor and 
  the other, Lord John Roxton, was hunting big game up in the hills. A man in long golden 
  robes and a white turban met us beneath a huge scalloped archway. 
   
  'I am Ghulam Haidar,' he said, bowing deeply to us. 'The Nizam bids you welcome.' 
   
  Turning, he led us into a vast cloistered area whose lofty ceiling was held up by row upon 
  row of the most impressively carved marble pillars. It was as if we had entered a forest of 
  marble. I half expected to see a deer peering around one of them, or a squirrel running up 
  it. 
   
  We were escorted through cool corridors to a large room hung with embroidered material. 
  A low table in the centre of the room was piled high with food of all descriptions. A man in 
  his early twenties was sat on a large golden cushion. His robes were silken and flowed 
  around him like a glossy waterfall when he moved. Jewels glinted in the fold of his turban, 
  and a single emerald the size of an egg sat at its front. 
   
  'Mr Holmes, I'm so pleased to meet you at last,' he said with a broad smile. 
   
  Holmes, if he was surprised at the Nizam's urbanity, did not show it. Bowing deeply, he 
  said, 'I am honoured to meet your Highness. May I compliment you upon your excellent 
  grasp of our clumsy tongue.' 
  
   
  Tir Ram laughed joyfully. 
   
  'I was at Eton and Cambridge, Mr Holmes. I even speak Hindi with an accent now.' 
   
  He shook our hands firmly, to the obvious displeasure of Ghulam Haidar. 
   
  Shortly we sat cross-legged for the meal. I shall not dwell overmuch upon it. Silent 
  servants waited on us. The food was unusual but not unappealing, and the drink flowed 
  freely. Most Indian rulers are either Hindu or Muslim, but the Nizam seemed to have few 
  religious injunctions concerning what he could or could not eat. I sampled yellow, red, 
  green and purple rices, along with various spiced meats which were served swimming in 
  butter and garnished with sultanas and almonds. Coffee was served between every 
  course. Lord Roxton proved an interesting conversationalist, and gave me some tips on 
  hunting tigers that I hope I will never need to use. He was a strange man: small and wiry, 
  with a thin moustache and a small goatee beard. 
   
  'An experienced man can tell from the blood marks where the animal is hit, young fellow 
  my lad,' he said, leaning, forward and poking me in the chest for emphasis. 'If it's been hit 
  in the lungs the blood will be dark red and frothy, if in the liver or near the heart it will be 
  dark red, sort of port-wine colour, if you get my drift. If you're unlucky enough to bag it in 
  the stomach the blood comes out pale and watery, and anywhere else it will be a fight red. 
  Fancy a day's shootin' tomorrow?' 
   
  Bernice seemed to be locked into conversation with Warburton's secretary, Smithee. She 
  occasionally cast glances in my direction which started off as entreaties to rescue her and 
  ended up as threats of physical violence if I did not. Holmes, Warburton and Tir Ram 
  carried on a spirited discussion concerning the British public school tradition, and Mr 
  O'Connor sat in silence for most of the meal. From what I knew of the byzantine 
  complexities of British Empire etiquette, he was considerably further down the social scale 
  than Warburton and, by extension, us. He obviously felt it. 
  Oddly enough, on the couple of occasions I glanced over to find O'Connor gazing at me 
  with a faintly sardonic expression. There was something about his eyes that I recognized: 
  they blinked too much. I noted Holmes staring at him as well, but he had no more success 
  in identifying the man than I did. Surely hair of that fiery hue would not be easy to forget? 
   
  I found myself at one stage talking to Tir Ram. He was a handsome youth, self-assured 
  and pleasant with a sly sense of humour. 
   
  'Quite a change from Cambridge,' I ventured. 
   
  'Indeed,' he replied. 'I was all set for a career in the City when my father and elder brother 
  both succumbed to cholera.' 
   
  Nodding in acceptance of my hasty but sincere condolences, he continued: 'I was forced 
  to return to my home to rule what must seem to you like a minor province with nothing in 
  
  particular to recommend it. A degree in the classics hardly prepared me for the life I now 
  lead.' 
   
  'I'm sure there are many people who would envy you this life,' I said, indicating our 
  surroundings. 
  'One can tire so easily of ostentation. My favourite place in the whole palace is a cave 
  below us. The local thuggee sects used to worship Kali in it. They claim that rakshassi 
  have appeared to them there.' 
   
  'Rakshassi?' Bernice asked. I had not realized that she was listening to the conversation. I 
  thought I saw a warning glance pass between Warburton and the Nizam, but I could have 
  been mistaken. 
   
  'Hindu demons,' Tir Ram said with a sad smile. 'A part of our heritage. I must not scoff - 
  Ghulam Haidar will be angry with me.' 
   
  Colonel Warburton interrupted to tell us all a rambling and rather bawdy story about his 
  early experiences in the army. The meal ground to a halt, and servants brought round 
  betel nuts on silver trays. Holmes, O'Connor and Roxton popped them in their mouths and 
  chewed wholeheartedly. Bernice and I refused. I know that they are meant to aid 
  digestion, but I am also aware of their narcotic properties. I had an orderly in Afghanistan 
  who became addicted to them. 
   
  I felt the need to visit a cloakroom. Divining my need, Ghulam Haidar assigned a white-
  gowned servant as my guide. 
   
  As I left the impressively marbled room, I looked around for the servant. The corridor 
  stretched in both directions: empty. I cursed. I had not bothered memorizing the route from 
  the banquet, assuming as I did that I would be led back. 
   
  I waited for a few minutes, then began to walk in what I thought was the right direction. 
  Even if it was wrong, I would probably come across a servant of some description who 
  could point me in the right direction. The only thing to be careful of was wandering into the 
  Nizam's harem, if Nizams had harems. If they did, the ladies would undoubtedly be 
  attractive. 
   
  It was in this frame of mind that I turned a corner and walked straight into a massive 
  figure. Before I could react, a hand was clamped across my mouth and I was thrown 
  against the wall. A red haze filled my vision. I tried to shake my head to clear the ringing in 
  my ears, but the hand was forcing my head up the wall. I tried to take a breath, but could 
  not. My feet left the floor. My chest felt as if a rope were being tightened around it. I tried 
  to bite the hand, in fact I did bite it, but the pressure on my jaw increased remorselessly. 
   
  And then my eyes came level with the face of my assailant, and all thoughts of my own 
  pain vanished. 
   
  
  It was Baron Maupertuis's manservant: Surd. Seen close-up, his face was a jigsaw-puzzle 
  of stitches and glossy scar tissue. His hair, however, was full bodied and fine, hanging in a 
  neatly coiffured fringe across his eyes. His glowing eyes. 
   
  I lashed out with my feet and caught him in the groin. He grunted, and shifted his grip. I 
  tried to wriggle free, but his fingers were pressing into the soft flesh beneath my jawbone. 
  The pain was incredible. I started to slip in and out of consciousness: every few seconds I 
  would awake from a nightmare of agony only to find that it was real. The skin of my neck 
  was pulled so taut that I expected to feel it pop at any moment and find his fingers 
  clutching at my windpipe. 
   
  The next time I awoke it was to find myself sprawled against the cool stone wall. The 
  agony was receding like a wave across a beach, always promising to return. 
   
  Surd was a shadow blocking out the light. From behind him, a soft caress of a voice said: 
  'Your friend Holmes is slightly less stupid than I had assumed. You should be in Calcutta 
  by now, searching for me in vain. I had not anticipated that you would penetrate my 
  alliance with the Nizam so soon.' 
   
  I tried to speak, but the tide rolled over me again and withdrew, leaving me shivering. 
   
  A white-gloved hand raised my chin. 
   
  'You are pathetic,' Maupertuis said. I managed to raise my eyes to gaze into his thin, 
  impassive face. His eyes seemed to sear into me: somehow the experience of his gaze 
  was worse than all the pain. 
  'We can find out everything we want from your friends. How much they know. What sort of 
  threat they pose. Why they persist in following me, when all I want is to restore the glory of 
  the Empire and extend it to other worlds. You, however, are irrelevant.' 
   
  I could hear the rustle of a gown as somebody else joined us. For a moment I had hopes 
  of a rescue, until Ghulam Haidar said, 'The Nizam wishes you to join him. The others have 
  been subdued.' 
   
  'Very well,' Maupertuis whispered. 
   
  The gloved hand released my chin. I tried to keep my head up, but failed. I could feel 
  consciousness ebbing away with the tide. 
   
  'Surd,' he said, turning away, 'kill him.' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 11 
   
   
  
  In which Holmes stands alongside an unlikely companion and a villain falls for Bernice and 
  Watson. 
   
  Maupertuis's footsteps echoed like the knell of some huge bell as he walked away. Surd 
  bent to take my head in his huge hands. I tried to look away, but I was fascinated by the 
  twin sparks glowing deep in his eyes. I swear that I could feel the heat emanating from 
  them. I made my peace with God. Surd, seeing my acceptance of my fate in my 
  expression, smiled twistedly. 
   
  I wrenched my head downwards as the fire in Surd's eyes reached out for me. Heat 
  seared the top of my head and I heard a massive crack! as the wall exploded. Chips of 
  marble stung the back of my neck. Surd fell backwards, clutching at his face. Blood 
  seeped between his fingers. I scuttled crab-fashion away from him and climbed 
  precariously to my feet. The last things I saw before I staggered away were a scorched pit 
  in the wall where my head had been resting, and Surd wiping the blood from his eyes and 
  looking round for me. 
   
  I ran. I ran until my lungs were heaving and my legs would not carry me any more. I ran 
  until I no longer knew where I was. I ran until I could no longer avoid the question that 
  pounded in my brain to the exclusion of all else. What could I do now? 
   
  My funk lasted for a few minutes, and left me shaking and soaked with perspiration. What 
  pulled me back from the brink was the thought of my friends in danger.. I could not allow 
  anything to happen to them. I am not a brave man by any stretch of the imagination - I 
  have seen too much pain and suffering in the lives of others to face it with equanimity 
  myself - but there is a code that transcends all else, and its name is honour. I had to help. 
   
  I slipped quietly through the whited sepulchre of the Nizam's palace, looking for some 
  stretch of corridor or ornamental feature that I recognized. The coolness, the silence and 
  the marble all reminded me of the Diogenes Club back in London. I found the comparison 
  strangely calming. The sweat dried on my brow and a warm glow of courage spread 
  through my limbs. Perhaps I could achieve something after all. 
   
  A sound! I hesitated, then flung myself flat against the wall as a small group of people 
  emerged from an adjoining corridor ahead. I was as invisible as a fly on a bedsheet, but 
  fortunately they turned and walked in the other direction. 
   
  Three burly servants dressed in dhotis and turbans were carrying the unconscious bodies 
  of Holmes, Roxton and the red-headed O'Connor over their shoulders. Four others were 
  attempting to carry Bernice, who was swearing and struggling in their grip. My mind raced 
  to piece together the evidence. If Bernice and I were conscious and the rest were not . . . 
  The betel nut! It must have been drugged, and the absence of Warburton, his wife and 
  secretary, and the Nizam would suggest that they were implicated in the scheme. I cursed 
  bitterly. How could Warburton, a fellow officer, have allowed himself to fall amongst 
  thieves in this way? 
   
  
  I followed the group for a few minutes. Watching Bernice's face, I noticed when she 
  caught sight of me over the shoulder of one of her captors. To her credit, she made no 
  sign. In fact she twisted more furiously in their grip, slowing them down so that the other 
  three bearers trudged on ahead with their unfeeling loads. We were passing a junction at 
  the time, and she caught my eye for a fraction of a second and flicked her head. What did 
  she want? I frowned in an exaggerated manner. She rolled her eyes, then flicked her gaze 
  quickly towards one branch of the corridor and back to me. Did she want me to go by a 
  different path, overtake the bearers and somehow rescue her? 
   
  Flattered as I was by her confidence in my skills, I could not see it working. And surely she 
  was no more familiar with the layout of the palace than I was. I shook my head. 
   
  'Hide round the corner, you damn fool!' she yelled in the middle of her stream of profanity, 
  then carried on blaspheming without drawing breath. 
   
  I nipped back to the corner and turned to the right, halting a few yards down. Hopefully the 
  bearers were unfamiliar with English. Or perhaps Bernice assumed that they were as 
  stupid as I was. 
   
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
  After Watson finally got the hint and hid round the corner, I managed to twist my body 
  around and push against one wall with both legs. The guys carrying me were thrown off-
  balance, and staggered towards the other wall. It was easy for me to deliberately catch my 
  head against the marble. A spike of sick pain shot through me. I went limp. It was all I 
  could do to keep myself conscious. 
   
  The guys stopped and had a little conference. One of them tried yelling after the ones up 
  ahead, but they were too far away and didn't respond. The guys patted my face a couple 
  of times but I didn't react. When one of them raised my eyelids I had rolled my eyes so far 
  up that I could almost see the roots of my hair. They talked a bit more, then four of them 
  turned and headed back along the corridor while the fifth sighed deeply and picked me up 
  again. I almost laughed in relief: it had worked! Gazing through my eyelashes at the 
  departing Indians, I suddenly realized why. There was a very convincing streak of fresh 
  blood marring the stonework of the corridor, and I suddenly became aware of something 
  warm trickling down my neck. There is such a thing as being too convincing. 
  When the four who had left vanished around a corner - not the one that Watson had gone 
  around, thank God - I went into action. 
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
  I watched with a palpable sense of relief as the four bearers turned the corner and walked 
  away from me. Emerging into the main corridor, I saw Bernice standing over the body of 
  
  the fourth man. There was blood everywhere. As I got closer I realized that it was hers, 
  not his. 
   
  'Let me have a look at that,' I said in tones more suitable for my Kensington surgery than 
  Mughal India. 
   
  'No time,' she hissed. She was obviously in pain. 
   
  'It won't do any of us any good if you pass out through lack of blood.' 
   
  I gave her a quick once-over. The blood was issuing from a shallow scrape on her scalp, 
  and was coagulating as I watched. 
   
  'You'll have a headache for some time, but apart from that you'll be all right.' 
   
  'A headache. Thanks for warning me: I'll be sure to watch out for it.' 
   
  'What now?' 
   
  She looked around. 
   
  'Well, there's not much option, is there? We have to follow to find out where they're taking 
  Holmes. If we're really lucky, the Doctor might be there as well' 
   
  The path taken by the three Indians was quite clear. The damp marks of their bare feet on 
  the marble flagstones had not yet evaporated, and we made good time. We turned a 
  corner to find them some yards ahead of us, at a point where the corridor opened out into 
  a large open space. Sunlight glared on stone, and the heat and stink of the outside world 
  suddenly assailed us. In the centre of the space, a large circular pit seemed to absorb the 
  light. I could make out the first few steps of a stairway which spiralled around its edge 
  before the shadows lapped over it like black water. 
   
  The Indians carrying Holmes, Roxton and O'Connor did not hesitate, but plodded down 
  the stairway into the pit. 
   
  With barely a hesitation, Bernice and I followed. 
   
  Stale air drifted up from the dark heart of the pit. The steps were almost invisible beneath 
  our feet. Three times I wandered too close to the edge and would have fallen had Bernice 
  not grabbed my sleeve. Gazing upwards I could see birds wheeling across the deep blue 
  circle of the sky. I started to count steps, and got up to several hundred before I gave up. 
  The comforting light above us receded to the size of a guinea, then a farthing and then a 
  sixpence. My feet fell into a pattern - step, step, step and my mind wandered free. I 
  suppose that I had fallen into some kind of hypnotic state, a dream land where logic is 
  conspicuous by its absence. I seemed to be standing in a familiar city of tall buildings. 
  There were people thronging the pavements and buckboard carriages manoeuvring 
  
  through the refuse-laden streets. I was trying to warn passers-by of the danger they were 
  in - although I did not know what that danger was myself - but they were ignoring me. I 
  screamed to them to take cover, to beware, but it was as if I was invisible to them. And 
  then a huge crack opened up across the street, and buckboards fell into it, their 
  occupants' faces contorted in terror. Buildings around me wavered and crumbled. Chunks 
  of masonry fell and buried themselves in the dusty ground. I stared at the devastation, 
  knowing that I could have prevented it but uncertain how. 
  A hand tugged at my sleeve and woke me from my day-dream. I was in darkness. The 
  stairway continued on as before. Bernice's face was lit by a flickering orange light. 
   
  'Are you all right?' 
   
  'I'm not sure . . . I think I blacked out for a while,' I replied. 
   
  'Can't say I blame you: She grimaced. 'I think we've arrived somewhere.' 
   
  She indicated downwards. A few steps past where we had stopped, the pit seemed to 
  open out into a vast conical cave with us at its apex. I crept down a few steps. The 
  stairway hugged the sides of the cone, descending in a spiral to a rocky floor some half-
  mile across its base. 
   
  The three Indian bearers carrying Holmes, Roxton and O'Connor were trudging down the 
  sides of the cave like ants on the inside of a flower pot. Pools of brackish water littered the 
  plain like malignant sores. In between them, a host of men were sitting, lined up in rows 
  with kit bags at their feet and rifles across their shoulders. There were larger weapons in 
  evidence as well: Gatling guns, elephant rifles and the like. Some of the soldiery were 
  British, some were Indian, but they were all wearing uniforms of bright blue and silver, but 
  looked uncomfortable and self-conscious in them: more like dressed-up apes than 
  soldiers. This, I presumed, was Maupertuis's army. 
   
  Around the edges of this ragtag invasion force, groups of Indian men of the type known as 
  fakirs were sitting in groups around fires, staring vacantly into space. They were singing. 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay,' their voices echoed through the shadows, 'naghaa, naghai-ghai! Shoggog 
  fathaghn! I-ay, I-ay tsa toggua thola-ya! Thola-ya fathaghn! I-ay Azathoth!' 
   
  The chant soared through the vacant space, filling it and echoing back upon itself in a 
  complex web of sound. Sometimes the song reverberated in a single pure note loud 
  enough to make the stairs beneath my feet tremble: moments later I could distinguish 
  individual voices raised in sweet harmony. I had heard this before. I racked my mind trying 
  to remember where, and then it came to me. Mrs Prendersly had repeated those words to 
  the Doctor and I in her house in Deptford just before she had burned to death, having 
  heard them from the lips of her husband. It was also what Maupertuis' mysterious hooded 
  companion had been singing in the brothel in Euston. 
   
  
  I caught sight of a movement in the centre of the cave. There amidst the singing wise 
  men, Maupertuis, Tir Ram, Colonel Warburton, Gloria Warburton and Smithee were 
  making their way towards a raised dais which contained three ornate chairs. The gigantic 
  Surd was following his master. I nudged Bernice. 
   
  'I'm way ahead of you,' she said. 'Look over there.' 
   
  She gestured to the bottom of the stairway, where the three Indians with their captors had 
  just reached the ground. A fourth man had been waiting for them. He was holding the 
  Doctor by the scruff of the neck. 
   
  'Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party,' I murmured. 
   
  'What?' 
   
  'We have to rescue them!' 
   
  Bernice sighed. 
   
  'I'm open to suggestions,' she whispered. 
   
  By this time the Doctor, Holmes, Lord Roxton and Mr O'Connor had been dumped at the 
  foot of the dais upon which Maupertuis, Warburton and Tir Ram sat. Mrs Warburton and 
  Smithee stood behind the chairs. The Doctor, still clutching what was by now a rather 
  battered umbrella, gazed up balefully at them. The other three prisoners seemed to be 
  recovering from the effects of whatever narcotic drug the betel nut had been adulterated 
  with. Holmes was pulling himself painfully to his feet, whilst the other two were holding 
  their heads and groaning. Maupertuis leaned forward to stare at them. 
   
  'You have each tried to interfere in my plans,' he said. 'You have crept on your bellies into 
  this country and followed me here to the country of my friend Tir Ram, ready to stop me in 
  my grand venture.' His voice was as quiet as wind in dry grass, and yet I could hear him 
  clearly above the background chanting. 
   
  Mr O'Connor removed a small notebook from his jacket and began making notes: of what I 
  could not guess. 
   
  'I do not understand,' Maupertuis continued. 'My only aim is to extend British influence to 
  the stars, bringing more dominions under the control of the Queen.' 
   
  He gestured to the regiments lined up in the shadows. 
   
  'My army, drawn from the ranks of the poor and the powerless in the slums of England's 
  great cities, trained and commanded by my brave general...' 
   
  Warburton preened himself. 
  
   
  '. . . will march through the portal created by the wisdom of my ally, whose land is best 
  placed to be the launching point for this glorious enterprise. . .' 
  Tir Ram smiled slightly. 
   
  '. . . and place this virgin territory, its goods and its chattels, its spices, oils and minerals, 
  its people and their treasures, under British dominion. Yet you try to stop me. Why?' 
   
  The Doctor stepped forward. 
   
  'You will be spreading death and destruction across the cosmos,' he cried. 'The British 
  Empire is based upon oppression and slavery. You offer not the hand of friendship but the 
  jackboot of tyranny! I shall prevent your plans!' 
   
  'Ah,' said Maupertuis, 'a liberal. There are always those whose hearts bleed for the 
  underdogs. You fail to understand: there will always be underdogs. You cannot prevent it.' 
   
  He turned to Holmes. 
   
  'And you, Mr Holmes. What interest has a private detective in my affairs?' 
   
  Holmes grasped the lapels of his linen suit and stepped forward to stand beside the 
  Doctor. His expression was calm, supercilious even. 
   
  'A number of books were stolen from a library in Holborn. A lady named Kate Prendersly 
  was murdered in Deptford. A footman was also murdered in Euston. It is my intention to 
  bring you to justice for those crimes.' 
   
  Maupertuis leaned back in his throne. A faint sneer etched itself across that bone-white 
  face. 
  'How petty. I offer a bountiful land of opportunities: new spices, new sources of power, 
  whole continents to colonize, and what do you greet my beneficence with? A handful of 
  minor grievances. There are no laws in this new land, Mr Holmes. You cannot touch me 
  there. I will be king. I will be God' 
  His gaze moved on to Lord Roxton. 
   
  'And you, big game hunter and peer of the realm. What pitiful excuses do you offer?' 
   
  Roxton joined Holmes and the Doctor, standing proud before the dais. 
   
  'You talk of openin' up this alien world for the greater good of Britain. As a representative 
  of the Queen, I repudiate your claims. The Empire is based upon fairness and 
  incorruptibility. We will not have men of your ilk sourin' our reputation.' 
   
  'You claim to speak for Britain?' Maupertuis scoffed in a voice that grated like rats' feet 
  over broken glass. 
  
   
  'I speak for the Diogenes Club,' Roxton said triumphantly, 'and they speak for Britain.' _ 
   
  Of course! I turned to Bernice and whispered, 'Holmes's brother Mycroft said that he had 
  people in the area.' 
   
  'Nice to know they're doing as well as we are,' she snapped. 
   
  Far below, Maupertuis turned his attention upon the fourth man, the meek O'Connor. 
   
  'And you, what pathetic reason do you offer for attempting to obstruct my plans?' 
   
  O'Connor put away his notebook and climbed to his feet, avoiding Maupertuis's searing 
  gaze. 
   
  'Your regiments, as you call them,' he said hesitantly, 'are drawn from the criminal classes 
  of England. You've taken away my thugs, my bullies, my bodyguards and my enforcers.' 
  His voice was growing stronger and more familiar. 'You've created your own army by 
  depleting mine, offering them more money and greater glory. Oaths were taken when they 
  entered my employ. I intend to see that those oaths are honoured.' 
   
  'And who are you?' 
   
  O'Connor straightened up from his cowering position and met Maupertuis's gaze. He 
  seemed thinner, gaunt even, and his head seemed to have developed a slight tremor. 
  With a sudden movement he pulled the bright red wig from his head and cast it to the 
  floor, revealing a large expanse of domed forehead. He stared malevolently up at 
  Maupertuis with puckered, blinking eyes. 
  'I am Professor James Moriarty,' he exclaimed. 'The greatest criminal genius that the 
  world has ever known!' 
   
  Holmes's eyes widened in sudden shock. I felt unsteady on my feet, and Bernice clutched 
  at my shoulder, afraid that I might fall into their midst. 
   
  A ripple of unease washed across those of Maupertuis's troops who hailed from Britain as 
  they recognized their erstwhile employer, the criminal genius who sat at the centre of a 
  web of crime that stretched across the civilized world, the man whose lieutenants - men 
  such as Mr Jitter and Mack 'The Knife' Yeovil - were mere babes in arms when compared 
  to him. He gazed over them with a promise of retribution in his eyes. They quailed, but 
  they did not break. 
   
  He turned to stare at Holmes. 
   
  'Dear me,' he said quietly. 'I had hardly expected to be standing by your side, Mr Holmes.' 
   
  'Nor I yours,' Holmes replied grimly. 
  
   
  'A common outlaw,' Maupertuis scoffed. 'To add to a spineless apologist for the weak, a 
  small-minded detective and a secret agent for a government too blinkered to understand 
  what I am offering.' 
   
  Behind him, the chanting of the fakirs had continued unabated. Now it rose to a 
  crescendo. The air itself seemed to throb in anticipation. 
   
  'Not a patch on the Isley Brothers,' Bernice murmured. 
   
  'Behold,' Maupertuis screamed above the pandemonium. 'Behold the gateway to glory!' 
   
  Bright light flooded the cavern. It issued from a rip that had appeared in the air to one side 
  of the cavern, a rip that pulled itself apart into a rent, and then a hole. 
   
  And through the hole, another world. 
   
  Its sky was a pearly white colour, and was held up by purple mountains. It was like a 
  tapestry suspended in midair, except that I could smell its dry, lemony odour and feel the 
  cool touch of its air. 
   
  Warburton was issuing orders through a megaphone. The army, stunned by the sight of 
  their objective but too stupid to let it bother them, prepared to march. 
   
  Maupertuis reached into his jacket. 
   
  'I have no use for you,' he said to the small but defiant group of men before him. 
  Removing a small whistle from a waistcoat pocket, he raised it to his lips and blew. I heard 
  no noise, but felt a sudden stab of pain in the centre of my forehead. Bernice winced. 
   
  Fetid air ruffled my hair. I glanced about, but saw nothing. My stomach churned. 
  Something was coming, something evil, but I could not tell from which direction it 
  approached. I turned to consult Bernice, but she was gazing upwards in horror. I followed 
  her gaze, and felt my bowels turn to ice. 
  The tiny circle of daylight at the top of the shaft was obscured by a shadow that was 
  growing larger with every passing second. Wings flapped. I could not move. It was almost 
  on top of me. 
   
  I felt a leathery wing brush past me, saw a sudden flash of pebbled scarlet hide, and then 
  it was past me, and I was looking down upon a creature from delirium as it plummeted 
  towards the ground. I recognized it from Bernice's description. It was one of the creatures 
  that had abducted the Doctor. 
  Another one dropped past me, almost knocking me from the stairs with the wind of its 
  passage. Opening its wings to their widest extent, it circled around the dais. The spikes 
  that comprised its face quivered in anticipation of the kill. . 
   
  
  A third creature dropped from the shaft, and a fourth. They flocked for a moment like 
  blood-soaked vultures around a carcass. I pulled my revolver from my pocket, but Bernice 
  grabbed my hand before I could fire. 
   
  'You'll give away our position! Let's see whether or not they need us first.' 
   
  The first creature swooped for the Doctor. 
   
  He ducked as its mace-like tail swept through the air where his head had been. The wind 
  from its mighty wings beat Holmes and Roxton back as it gained height again; then, 
  folding those wings against its body, it plummeted towards the Doctor's prone body. He 
  rolled to one side. The tail smashed into the ground beside his face, its spikes drawing 
  deep scratches down his cheek. 
   
  'What are they?' I hissed. 
   
  'The Doctor called them rakshassi. I guess they're native to the planet through the 
  gateway. They look barely intelligent to me. Maupertuis probably brought some back with 
  him and trained them up as glorified penis-substitutes.' 
   
  'Glorified what?' I exclaimed. 
   
  'Go have a chat with Freud,' she replied cryptically. 
   
  The vanguard of Maupertuis's army were filing apprehensively into the gateway now. They 
  gazed around, not sure whether to be more frightened of the alien world ahead or the 
  alien creatures behind. Grizzled sergeant-types kept them moving. 
   
  The three other rakshassi had engaged Holmes, Roxton and Moriarty, harrying them from 
  the air, lashing them with their tails and clutching at them with the talons on the ends of 
  their wings. They hissed in anticipation of the kill. It was all the men could do to keep out 
  of their clutches. There was no chance of fighting back. 
   
  Smiling cruelly, Maupertuis leaned back in his throne to enjoy the fun. Besides him, Tir 
  Ram was looking a little sick. 
   
  One of the creatures had cornered Holmes by one of the pools of water. He had nowhere 
  to back away to as the thing hovered above him, preparing to dash his brains out with its 
  tail. Moriarty lurked behind it, unable or unwilling to intervene. 
   
  I didn't even know I was going to fire until I felt the gun buck in my hand. My, shot hit 
  where one of its wings met the body, exploding the joint in a shower of bone and blood. 
  The creature screamed shrilly and plunged to the ground. Moriarty was on in a flash, 
  snapping the bony ribs of the wings and tearing at the membranes between them. The 
  creature thrashed about, but Moriarty fought like a daemon. Taking a bunch of the sharp 
  
  spikes of its face in each hand, he pulled sharply in opposite directions. Watery fluid 
  sprayed up from the rent. The creature convulsed and was still. 
   
  'Oh well,' said Bernice, pulling a tiny double-barrelled Derringer from her sleeve and 
  searching for a target. 
   
  Maupertuis was up and out of his chair, gazing around and trying to find the source of the 
  shot. His gaze flickered wildly around the cavern. He didn't think to look upwards. 
   
  The Doctor managed to poke the ferrule of his umbrella into the thorny face of his 
  rakshassa opponent. The creature hissed at him and sprang into the air, spraying pink 
  blood from the wound. The Doctor bounced to his feet and held the umbrella before him 
  like a sword as the beast dived at him, neatly impaling it. Its death cry rang out across the 
  cavern, almost drowning out the constant chanting of the fakirs and causing the rent 
  between Earth and Ry'leh to wobble alarmingly. The onward marching regiments 
  hesitated for a few moments, waiting for their destination to come back into focus. 
   
  Roxton was throwing rocks at the rakshassa that had been harrying him. It flew higher and 
  higher, striving to escape the persecution. As it came, within range of her weapon, Bernice 
  fired. A small rent appeared in its wing. Its blind head snapped around, targeting her for 
  death, but the rent suddenly opened out into a tear and its wing folded up. It fell into a 
  spiral, screaming all the while, and hit the ground in a crumpled heap. 
   
  The shot had attracted Maupertuis's attention. His face convulsed with rage. Gesturing to 
  Surd, he shouted, 'Kill them! Kill them!' 
   
  Surd lumbered towards the rocky stairway and began the long climb up to the apex of the 
  conical cavern, and us. 
   
  The fourth rakshassa was stalking Moriarty across the cavern floor. Holmes and Roxton 
  were shadowing it, but it lashed its tail violently to discourage them from getting too close. 
  It was gaining on the Professor as his stamina gave out. I would have been quite happy to 
  see him perish, but I knew that for the moment we were all in it together, and so I shot at 
  the back of its head. The wound would have been fatal in a human, but it just jerked 
  slightly, then turned its head to fix me with a blind and baleful gaze. 
   
  Holmes took his chance. Springing on the back of the beast, he took hold of the shafts of 
  its wings and jerked backwards, as one would pull the wishbone of a turkey. A distinct 
  snap reached my ears. The spines of its face seemed to bulge, and it slowly fell forward 
  into one of the pools that dotted the cavern floor. Holmes clambered off its back and 
  kicked it a few times, but it remained still. 
  We had killed all four of the rakshassi. 
   
  I waved a triumphant hand at Holmes. He grinned and waved back. Nearby I could see 
  Moriarty bending over one of the fallen creatures, examining the carcass. The rank and 
  file of Maupertuis's army marched past them, still heading for the dimensional gateway. 
  
  Maupertuis himself was standing on the dais gazing malevolently up at Bernice and I. 
  Suddenly he switched his gaze to the section of stairway leading up to us, and smiled in 
  triumph. 
   
  Without thinking, I flung myself backwards, hitting Bernice. We fell in a tangle of limbs onto 
  sharp rock. 
   
  'What the...' 
   
  Fire exploded across the cavern wall where we had been standing. Hot air washed across 
  us, blistering our skin. I threw an arm across my eyes to protect them. Bernice cried out in 
  pain behind me. 
   
  When I lowered my arm, Surd was standing in front of us. The jigsaw of scars that made 
  up his face were distorted into a leer. Pinpricks of insane flame danced in his eyes. 
   
  I scrambled back slightly to shield Bernice as best I could. Her breath was warm against 
  my neck. 
   
  'It's been fun,' she whispered. 
   
  'We must do this again,' I murmured in reply. She laughed, bright and clear. 
   
  Hell reached out for us. 
   
  And then there was nothing but blessed coolness. Where Surd had been standing there 
  was just an expanse of seared rock. A faint crack! drifted up from the cavern below. 
   
  Bernice twisted her body to gaze over the edge. I edged closer and looked out into the 
  void. 
   
  Turning like a sycamore seed, Surd's body fell away from us. For a long while he seemed 
  to move very slowly, hardly getting any smaller, and then with a sickening rush his body 
  shrunk to the size of a doll and crashed into one of the pools of stagnant water. Water 
  sprayed everywhere, dousing several fires. 
   
  A few yards away, Lord Roxton lowered the rifle from his shoulder. One of Maupertuis's 
  soldiers was sprawled unconscious at his feet. 
   
  'One good turn, an' all that rot!' he yelled. 
   
  'Well,' Bernice said, 'if you ever hear me say that the aristocracy was a useless vestigal 
  appendix on the body of society, you have my permission to spank me soundly on the 
  bottom.' 
   
  
  I turned my head, and found myself gazing into her eyes from a distance of less than six 
  inches. 
   
  'Can I have that in writing?' I asked. 
   
  'Ask me again when this is all over.' 
   
  There was a long moment of silence between us. Somewhere in the background a lone 
  voice was raised in song. By the time I realized that it was one of Maupertuis's fakirs, still 
  chanting his incomprehensible chant, the voice had stopped and the cavern was suddenly 
  a lot darker. 
  The dimensional portal had closed. 
   
  As we gazed around, the extent of our meagre victory became apparent. We had won the 
  battle, but the war was far from over. There were more dead bodies than live ones down 
  on the cavern floor. Maupertuis had gone. His troops had gone. His fakirs had gone. 
  Warburton, his wife, his secretary and Tir Ram had gone. 
   
  And so had the Doctor. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 12 
   
  In which Surd undergoes a hair-raising experience and a jolly travelling song is sung. 
   
   
  Bernice and I descended the steps into the cavern, feeling remarkably like actors who 
  watch the curtain rise only to discover that the audience has already left. Holmes and Lord 
  Roxton were examining the ground where the gateway to Ry'leh had been. Professor 
  Moriarty was some distance away, bent over the corpse of one of the rakshassi. 
   
  'Good work, Watson,' Holmes said as we approached. The fires cast a flickering orange 
  light upon his features, rendering them even more gaunt than usual. 'I knew I could count 
  on you.' 
   
  'That was damn good shootin', both of you,' Lord Roxton agreed. 'Remind me never to 
  invite you up to my estate. The grouse'd never recover!' 
   
  I knew that he was jesting, but the compliment brought a blush to my cheek. Bernice also 
  was pleased. 
   
  We gazed around in silence for a moment at the remnants of Maupertuis's army. 
  Wherever we looked we could see abandoned mess kits, churned ground and blankets. 
  There was nobody left, though. Nobody at all. 
   
  
  'So we've lost the Doctor again,' I murmured. 'This is getting beyond a joke.' 
   
  'He's always getting lost,' Bernice replied. 'It's what he's best at. Like a bad penny, he'll 
  turn up again.' 
   
  'The little fellah?' Roxton asked. 'Seemed like a plucky sort of chap. Didn't see him go 
  through that . . . that thing . . . though, whatever it was.' 
   
  'It was a gateway,' I confided. 
   
  'To another world,' said Bernice, smiling at Lord Roxton and daring him to disbelieve us. 
   
  'Another world, eh? I dare say the huntin' there would be an experience an' a half.' 
   
  'I take it from what you said earlier that you are one of Mycroft's agents,' I said to him. 
  'What brought you here?' 
   
  He rubbed a hand across his beard. 
   
  'I work for the Diogenes on and off. Nothin' formal, but I occasionally pick up the odd 
  snippet of information here an' there. Feel it's me duty to let someone know. Mycroft knew 
  I was comin' to India on a tiger shoot an' asked me to have a sniff around, see what I 
  could come up with. Cabled me last week, told me you were comin' out as well, an' asked 
  me to keep an eye on you.' 
   
  'What made you come to Jabalhabad?' Bernice asked. 'We only came across a clue that 
  led us here by accident.' 
   
  'I've been tryin' to track the members of Maupertuis's ragtag army,' Roxton admitted. 
  'They've been comin' ashore all around the place - Calcutta, Bombay, Lahore - an' some 
  even slipped across from Afghanistan. I picked up a hint of some Englishmen headin' for 
  here when I was in Sind, so I popped across to have a look-see.' 
   
  He frowned. 
   
  'Knew Tir Ram from fox-huntin' back in Blighty,' he added. 'Members of the Quantock, 
  both of us. Surprised to find him mixed up in all this.' 
   
  'I suspected from the start that we had walked into a trap,' Holmes snapped. 
   
  'Is that why you accepted the drugged betel nut?' Bernice asked. 
   
  He gazed superciliously at her. 
   
  'I palmed the nut and feigned unconsciousness. I felt it was the best way to force their 
  hand.' 
  
   
  'You were takin' a bit of a risk,' Roxton said admiringly. 'Hate to admit it, but I was taken in 
  completely. Me head feels like a ruddy rugger ball after the International.' 
   
  Bernice leaned towards me. 
   
  'Do you believe him?' she whispered. 
   
  'Of course.' 
   
  'It occurs to me that your Mr Holmes is a bit of a showoff. Doesn't like to admit that he can 
  be wrong.' 
   
  'He so rarely is.' 
   
  She smiled. 
   
  'How do you know?' 
   
  Leaving me with that thought, she walked off towards where Surd had fallen. For a 
  moment it occurred to me to protect her from the sight, but I quickly realized that she 
  would not thank me. She gave the impression of having seen a lot worse. I turned my 
  attention back to Holmes and Roxton. 
   
  'It was Colonel Warburton's reappearance that alerted me,' Holmes was saying. 'I believe 
  that our initial meeting with him on the Orient Express was accidental - he was, no doubt, 
  in the process of winding down the overland transfer route for Maupertuis's troops - but 
  our second meeting here was pre-planned. Either Maupertuis suspected that we would be 
  following him or the mysterious hooded man back in England alerted him via some 
  preternatural means. Either way, he sent Warburton to lull us into a false sense of security 
  and reel us in, like a trout on the line.' 
   
  'This is all a bit above me head,' Roxton admitted. 'Where do we go from here?' 
   
  Holmes looked around. 
   
  'I would suggest a comprehensive sweep of the cavern for clues. I shall divide it up into 
  areas, and assign each of you to an area. The process of searching is a painstaking one: I 
  have often thought of writing a monograph on the subject. I shall give you all precise 
  instructions on how to search, and what to search for. Until then, touch nothing and try not 
  to move around too much.' 
   
  The thought of all of us scuttling like cockroaches across the floor of the cavern as Holmes 
  tutored us in his hallowed techniques struck me as funny. I chuckled to myself. Holmes 
  glanced over darkly. 
   
  
  'That young lady is having an unfortunate effect upon your dignity, Watson,' he snapped. 
  'Perhaps you should remember your age, and act accordingly.' 
   
  I stifled an incipient fit of giggles. Holmes could be so terribly pompous if he thought he 
  was being made fun of. 
   
  'Young lady?' Roxton asked, confused. 'What young lady?' 
   
  'It's a long story,' I replied. 
   
  A slight prickling at the back of my neck made me turn. Professor Moriarty was standing a 
  few feet away. His deep-set eyes examined me as he might examine a simple but rather 
  tedious problem in mathematics. Of course, most mathematical problems were simple and 
  rather tedious to Professor Moriarty. He was, so Holmes had led me to believe, one of the 
  foremost authorities in the world on asteroid dynamics, having derived a result for the 
  three-body problem using the binomial theorem and gone on to generalize it to situations 
  involving four, five and six bodies. The whole thing sounded rather distasteful to me, but 
  Holmes assured me that it had been a bete noir of mathematicians and astronomers ever 
  since the time of Newton. Apparently only three other people were capable of 
  understanding the subtleties of Moriarty's work: two of them disagreed so violently over 
  the implications that they had come to blows during an international conference and the 
  third one had suffered a bout of brain fever following three sleepless nights checking the 
  details. 
   
  I had once asked Holmes why, when he had international fame and presumably fortune in 
  his grasp, Moriarty spent so much time indulging in criminal pursuits. Holmes had puffed 
  away on his pipe for a few moments. 
   
  'For the same reason that I resort to cocaine,' he said finally. 'To alleviate boredom. And 
  besides, I doubt that he wastes more than half an hour a week pulling the various threads 
  of his web of villainy. No, Moriarty is a dilettante malefactor, albeit a highly dangerous and 
  successful one.' 
   
  Now, as I met his gaze, I tried to fathom something of the depth of purpose, the iron will, 
  the phenomenal intellect that Professor Moriarty must possess. I failed. He could have 
  been a minor bank manager or a crusty old prelate. He was unimpressive. 
   
  His head oscillated slightly from side to side. Holmes had described the phenomenon 
  before, and even imitated it for me, but I still found myself slightly hypnotized by the 
  motion. I found myself grasping for a stray butterfly of memory. I had read descriptions of 
  symptoms such as his before, in an article by the French neurologist Gilles de la Tourette. 
  The tics and twitches of the head, allied with the phenomenal quickness of thought and 
  the relaxation of 'moral' guidance, were typical symptoms. Could it be that Professor 
  Moriarty suffered from a minor form of Tourette's Syndrome? 
   
  
  'I do not intend to spend my time scrabbling around the floor for you, Mr Holmes,' Moriarty 
  said quietly. 'I have done what I set out to do, and traced my missing men. They are 
  beyond my reach now. Naught else remains. I shall return to England.' 
   
  'Really?' Holmes snapped back. 'You surprise me. Are there no dacoit or thuggee gangs 
  with whom you can debate unusual techniques of murder? Can you not spare a few 
  weeks to travel to China and discuss plans for world domination with the Si Fan's Council 
  of Seven?' 
   
  'Such sarcasm,' Moriarty whispered. 'You should take care. It may be the death of you.' 
   
  'Should I take that to be a threat?' 
   
  'I do not issue threats, Mr Holmes. Merely predictions.' 
   
  'Then I shall reply in kind. I shall see you in the dock ere long, Professor. You have my 
  word on it.' 
   
  Moriarty smiled: a thin, wintry flexing of the lips. 
   
  'Of what worth is the word of a drug addict?' 
   
  Holmes flinched. Moriarty turned to leave. 
   
  'Professor?' 
   
  He glanced over at me. 
   
  'Doctor Watson?' 
   
  I waved a hand to indicate the cavern and, in a wider sense, all that had occurred there. 
   
  'You seem remarkably unaffected by all of this. Does it not surprise you in any way?' 
   
  He thought for a moment. 
   
  'I have no expectations, therefore nothing that occurs in the world is a surprise. But, if it 
  makes you feel better, the mathematics of folding higher dimensions are relatively simply. 
  I am currently writing a paper on the subject. Perhaps I could send you a copy?' 
   
  'I cannot promise to understand it,' I rejoined. 
   
  'Nobody will understand it, apart from myself' He did not appear to be boasting. 
   
  'You don't want to be understood?' I was intrigued. Perhaps this provided the key to his 
  character. 
  
  He gazed at me for a few long moments, his head moving like a cat eyeing up a bird, or a 
  cobra preparing to strike. 
   
  'I merely wish to be noticed,' he said finally, and smiled slightly. He knew what I was 
  digging for. 
   
  'That's hardly an excuse for your crimes,' Holmes interjected. 
   
  'It is not meant to be an excuse,' Moriarty said, still gazing at me. 'It is meant to be an 
  explanation.' 
  He took a step toward me and held out an object in a thin hand. It was a page torn from a 
  notebook, covered in a thin, spidery handwriting. 
   
  'You may find this advance preview of my paper useful,' he said. 
   
  And with that he left. 
   
  'If you've finished playing dominance games,' Bernice shouted from where she crouched, 
  near to the scattered remnants of one of the fires, 'then you might be interested in this.' 
   
  I crumpled the piece of paper up and shoved it into a pocket. Holmes and I walked over to 
  join Bernice whilst Roxton set to work cleaning the rifle with which he had shot the 
  rakshassa. Moriarty's footsteps echoed for some little while as he climbed up the stairs 
  towards the Nizam's palace. 
  Bernice was bending over the body of Surd, which. looked larger in death than it had in 
  life. I bent and quickly checked the cadaver over. Most of his bones were shattered or 
  twisted, and his face had impacted upon a sharp fragment of rock. Fortunately, his glossy 
  thatch of hair had fallen forward to cover the ruin. 
   
  I couldn't say that I was sorry about his fate. 
   
  Holmes bent, took a firm grip on the back of Surd's head, and pulled. The results were 
  startling. Surd's hair came away in his hand, revealing a naked scalp, crisscrossed with 
  thick, worm-like scars. 
   
  'Interesting,' he commented dryly, and examined the hairpiece inside and out. 
   
  'A fine piece of work,' he murmured. 'Made by Meunier of Grenoble, if I don't miss my 
  guess. What do you think, Watson?' 
   
  I opened my mouth to answer but as usual he wasn't listening. Instead, he sniffed at the 
  wig, then spent some moments parting the hairs and subjecting the surface in which they 
  had been woven to a close examination, as if he were searching for lice. 
   
  'Hmmm. Most instructive.' 
   
  
  Placing the wig into a pocket, he turned his attention upon the corpse itself, running his 
  fine, sensitive fingers over the fissured skin of Surd's head. 
   
  'There's something about these scars that intrigues me,' he muttered, retrieving his 
  magnifying glass and scrutinizing Surd's scalp from close range. His forefinger traced a 
  path amongst the cicatrices: along for a few inches, then down towards the nape of the 
  neck, across for a few more inches and finally up, arriving at the point he had left. 
   
  'They're too regular,' he finished. 
   
  Bernice gasped. 
   
  'But that's . . 
   
  'Impossible?' 
   
  'I was going to say "ingenious": 
   
  I could contain myself no longer. 
   
  'What are you suggesting?' I asked. 
   
  Instead of replying, Holmes removed a penknife from his pocket. Choosing a small blade, 
  he placed its edge against one of the scars, as if he was going to make an incision. 
   
  'Surely surgery is my province?' I joked. Holmes did not smile. 
   
  The blade slipped too easily out of sight, as if a cut had already been made. Holmes 
  twisted the knife, and I watched in astonishment as a section of Surd's skull, some four 
  inches by three, lifted away in Holmes's hand. 
  'Voila,' my friend exclaimed. 'The perfect smuggler's hiding place.' 
  I gazed at the small, dark space thus revealed. It had been lined with velvet, now slightly 
  stained by the cranial fluids, and stitched to the skin of the scalp. I presumed that the 
  stitching had also sealed the gap in the dura and pia mater membranes. I estimated that 
  about half of Surd's brain must have been removed to create the space. 
   
  'Fascinating,' Holmes murmured. 
   
  'Sick,' said Bernice. 'Are you seriously suggesting that the books were smuggled out of the 
  Library inside the head of this ape?' 
   
  'The space is obviously not large enough to hold more than a few pages, tightly folded. 
  Perhaps the books were smuggled out a piece at a time. There is some collateral 
  evidence to suggest this.' 
   
  'What evidence?' I asked. 
  
   
  'Do you not remember your interview with Mrs Prendersly? Did you not repeat to me her 
  assertion that she had seen the shadow of a man eating books? I put it to you, Watson, 
  that what she actually saw was Surd here inserting a small volume into this space.' 
   
  'And that was why she was . . . killed in such a terrible way?' 
   
  'Quite possibly, although she did repeat to you the chant that her husband had overheard 
  and which, it transpires, is the, key to unlocking the dimensional gateway. I can imagine 
  that Maupertuis would wish to silence anybody who knew that information. The question 
  remains, however: how did Maupertuis determine that she knew anything?' 
   
  I tried to think, but I found that I could not look away from the gaping space in Surd's head. 
   
  'I cannot accept that Maupertuis would do this to his servant.' 
   
  'I admit that it is a length to which even the recently departed Professor would not stoop. 
  Still, as a method of conveying stolen materials past guards it has its advantages.' 
   
  He frowned. 
   
  'But why stop there?' he asked himself. He reached beneath the body and gently eased it 
  onto its back. Surd's face resisted the attempt for a few moments, finally coming free with 
  a glutinous sucking noise. The features were no longer recognizable, being how 
  subsumed into a mass of raw meat. I felt my stomach lurch. Holmes, unconcerned, began 
  to unbutton the shirt. 
   
  'Aha!' 
   
  Surd's chest, like his scalp, was a mass of scars. 
   
  'The man is a walking suitcase!' Holmes observed, pulling at a flap to reveal another, 
  larger leather-lined space in the position where I would have expected a lung to be. Either 
  it had been shunted aside or removed entirely. 
   
  'I wonder how many poor souls underwent Maupertuis's surgery before one survived,' I 
  mused. 
  Holmes turned a rueful gaze upon me. 
   
  'You do right to remind us that this is an abomination committed against our fellow man,' 
  he sighed. 'I find it hard to believe that anybody could survive such massive trauma, let 
  alone evade infection afterwards.' 
   
  'I have seen worse,' I replied. 'During field surgery in Afghanistan, I worked on men whose 
  heads had been half-obliterated by cannon-fire, and I was still able to hold a conversation 
  with them. Much of the brain is underutilized, and many of our organs are duplicates which 
  
  we can do without - kidneys, for instance, and lungs and...' I hesitated, conscious of 
  Bernice's rapt attention, '. . . er, other things. In fact, it is amazing how little of our bodies 
  and our brains we actually use.' 
   
  Holmes just looked at me. 
   
  'Well, some of us,' I amended. 
   
  'What I find myself wondering about,' Bernice mused, 'is those powers of his.' 
   
  'You mean the spontaneous combustion?' I asked. 'What connection could there be?' 
   
  'It's been shown that damage to one part of the brain results in other parts - possibly 
  dormant parts - taking on the extra workload. Like if fire destroys your bedroom you might 
  start sleeping in the attic.' 
   
  'Where has that been reported?' I asked. 
   
  'Well, maybe it hasn't yet. Anyway, it's also been shown that mental powers like telepathy 
  and telekinesis and the like are related to unused areas of the human brain the attic and 
  basement areas, if you like. So.. .' 
   
  I carried on the thought to its logical conclusion. 
   
  '. . . So if some part of Surd's brain was surgically removed, it might follow that other parts 
  could come into operation!' 
   
  Whole vistas of medical and mental science began to open up before me. I was 
  entranced. 
   
  'Telepathy, of course,' Holmes said, frowning. 'From the ,Greek for feeling at a distance. 
  Telekinesis, therefore, would mean movement at a distance. Most intriguing.' 
   
  Bernice's expression suddenly changed. 
   
  'What it is?' I asked. 
   
  'The Doctor always warned me about interfering in history. "Don't reveal more than they 
  already know," he said. "Such gifts don't come cheap". And I think I've just done it. He 
  won't be pleased.' 
   
  'I'm not,' said the Doctor from behind us. We whirled around. Bernice flushed a bright red. 
   
  'Good Lord,' exclaimed Roxton, who was standing beside the Doctor and peering at Surd's 
  corpse. 'What a poacher that feller'd make!' 
   
  
  'You seem to have a remarkable facility for turning up when least expected, Doctor,' 
  Holmes said. 
   
  'You don't seem pleased to see me,' the Doctor replied. His linen suit was stained with a 
  pinkish fluid and his hair was covered in some sticky substance. He was a mess. 
   
  'What happened?' I inquired. 
   
  'Ask Bernice.' 
   
  Bernice frowned. 'I don't. . : she began, and then started to laugh. 'Oh no! You can't be 
  serious!' 
  'I'm always serious, even when I'm being trivial,' the Doctor snapped. 
   
  I just looked from one to the other. Eventually the Doctor saw fit to put me out of my 
  misery. 
  'I was underneath the last rakshassa that you shot down. It knocked me out. When I woke 
  up, everything was dark and sticky. I thought I'd gone to Time Lord hell. It was only when I 
  heard your voices that I realized I was lying beneath its wing.' 
   
  'What's Time Lord hell like?' Bernice asked. 
   
  'Earth,' the Doctor replied. 
   
  There was no answer to that. 
  Holmes dragooned us all into a search of the cavern, but we found nothing of any import 
  save odd scraps of clothing and a few personal possessions left behind by the departing 
  army. I tried to imagine where they were now and what they were engaged in, but my 
  mind would not stretch that far. How would the men stand up to Ry'leh? How well had they 
  been trained? Would K'tcar'ch's people be waiting for them or would their entry be 
  unopposed? 
   
  I could hear part of a conversation between the Doctor and Bernice concerning his period 
  of captivity. Apparently his flight across India had taken almost as long as our train 
  journey. He had only arrived a day or so ahead of us, and had been held captive in the 
  Nizam's palace. The books, of course, had been taken from him. 
   
  'There's nothing here,' Bernice said finally. She sounded dejected. 'The action's moved on 
  and left us all dressed up with nowhere to go.' 
   
  'The lad's right,' shouted Roxton from his little area of ground. I looked around for a 
  moment before realizing that he meant Bernice. 'We're on a wild goose chase.' 
   
  'I have no choice but to follow them,' the Doctor said decisively. 'Thank you for your help 
  so far.' 
   
  
  'We will accompany you,' Holmes said. 'Watson, can you remember the words of the 
  chant?' 
   
  'You have to be joking.' 
   
  Holmes just stared at me. 
   
  'You're not joking,' I said finally. 
   
  'You've heard it three times now, Watson.' 
   
  'But I've got a tin ear.' 
   
  'I'm not exactly one of the De Reskes Brothers myself, but it's the only chance we have.' 
   
  I walked across until we were standing virtually nose to nose. 
   
  'Holmes,' I said quietly, 'has it occurred to you that we could just turn around and go 
  home? We've done our bit. We can't be expected to do any more. Alien planets are 
  outside our bailiwick.' 
   
  'I accepted a commission. I shall see it through. And besides, can you really see the 
  Doctor succeeding?' 
   
  I glanced over to where the diminutive man was shaking rakshassa blood out of his 
  umbrella, and sighed. 
   
  'Well, I had to try.' 
   
  Holmes smiled. 
   
  'The better Roman Emperors had servants who would whisper in their ear, "You too are 
  mortal". I value your level-headedness, Watson. Don't ever think that I don't.' 
   
  I didn't, of course, and I never have since. 
   
  'Lord Roxton!' Holmes called. Roxton came over. 
   
  'You'll be needing an old shikari like me,' he said. 'I've shot everywhere on Earth. Might as 
  well have a crack at baggin' game up in the heavens.' 
   
  'I'm afraid not.' 
   
  Roxton sighed, and nodded. 
   
  
  'I thought as much. You'll be needin' someone to report back to your brother, and you 
  can't trust Moriarty.' 
   
  'I'm glad you understand.' 
   
  Roxton held out a hand and Holmes shook it. 
   
  'You're a credit to your country, Mr Holmes, and there's not many I'd say that about.' 
   
  As he shook my hand, I wished him a safe journey. 
   
  'Gad, I hope not!' he cried, and laughed. 
   
  Bernice took his hand and pumped it vigorously. 
   
  'I hope you'll seek me out and tell me the outcome of this adventure when you get back to 
  Blighty,' he said. 
   
  'Oh, Doctor Watson is the teller of tales,' she said diplomatically. 'I'm sure he'll be only too 
  pleased to turn a minor skirmish into a major adventure.' 
   
  The Doctor saluted Roxton with his umbrella. 
   
  'Fare thee well,' he said. 
   
  Roxton looked one last time at us, saluted, and walked towards the stairway which coiled 
  up the side of the cavern. I felt as though some vital force had been drained from our 
  enterprise. 
   
  'Well,' said the Doctor finally. 'Let's get on with it.' 
   
  'How do we start?' I asked. 
   
  'We must all do our best to remember the words which were used in the ceremony,' 
  Holmes snapped. 'I have trained my memory to the point where it rivals the Daguerreotype 
  for accuracy. You, Professor Summerfield and the Doctor may be able to aid me in 
  problems of intonation.' 
   
  I rummaged around in my pockets. 
   
  'I'd better write down what I remember, then.' 
   
  Pulling out a piece of paper and a fountain pen, I was about to start writing when I realized 
  that it was the piece of paper Moriarty had given me. I tried to decipher his scrawl. The 
  words were meaningless gibberish. Gibberish like . . . 
   
  
  'Holmes! Moriarty has written down the words of the chant!' 
   
  'Indeed. What a fortuitous piece of luck,' Holmes said dryly, walking over and taking the 
  paper from my hand. 'Indeed, these are the words as I remember them, with phonetic 
  notes as well.' 
   
  'I remember him writing something just before the attack,' Bernice said, 'but why would he 
  want to give it to us? Could it be a trap?' 
   
  'I think not,' said Holmes after a moment's thought. 'I am an irritant to the good Professor, 
  and he has already tried to kill me on a number of occasions. How convenient for him if 
  we died on this alien planet, and thus allowed him to continue extorting, blackmailing and 
  terrorizing his way through England and ultimately the world?' 
   
  'So you trust him?' 
   
  'In this instance, his aims and ours coincide. Now, to business.' 
   
  Like members of a choir, we gathered around Holmes and the piece of paper. 
   
  'On the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!' 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay,' we managed before Bernice and I collapsed in fits of giggles. Holmes and the 
  Doctor stared at us with lips pursed. 
   
  'When you have quite recovered...' Holmes said. 
   
  'That's quite enough of that...' the Doctor barked. 
   
  Without daring to look at one another, Bernice and I clustered around them and tried 
  again. 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay Naghaa, naghai-ghai! Shoggog fathaghn! I-ay, I-ay t - ' 
   
  The phrasing was wrong and we stumbled over the unnatural words, but there was 
  something there. We tried again, and again. Under Holmes's tutelage we must have spent 
  a good hour rehearsing that damned chant. Even now I can hear it echo in the labyrinthine 
  passages of my mind: a dark, malevolent sound that has a life of its own and induces 
  feelings of dread in me whenever it pops into my mind. 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay. Naghaa, naghai-ghai! Shoggog fathaghn! lay, I-ay tsa toggua tholo-ya! Tholo-ya 
  fathaghn!' 
   
  After a while, we were confident enough that we could introduce a phasing in the chant, 
  with Holmes coming in a beat after Bernice and myself, and the Doctor's fine baritone 
  soaring high above on the descant. The nature of the chant altered in subtle ways: 
  
  sometimes Holmes's voice was a powerful engine behind us, pushing us on, and 
  sometimes it seemed to be dragging us backwards. Our voices seemed to be echoing in a 
  deeper and larger space than the cavern. 
   
  And then, after what seemed like an eternity but must have been only half an hour, I 
  thought I could detect other voices singing along with us: soft, sibilant voices pronouncing 
  words in a subtly different way. A hallucination? Perhaps, but we took our cue from them 
  and tried to shape our palates to form the same sounds as they did. It was not easy. I 
  suspect now, so many years later, that if they were real then they were not human in form. 
  We must have produced a close enough approximation, however, for it was shortly after 
  that when Bernice plucked at my sleeve and indicated that our shadows were being cast 
  in front of us from a bright source of light behind. Still singing, I turned to look. 
   
  Through the gates of delirium I saw an alien world blazing in all its glory. A wide plain 
  spread before us, curling up in the distance to form tall mountains of knobbly purple rock. 
  The sky was white and glowing, and seemed to cut the mountains off as if it were solid. A 
  citrus-scented breeze ruffled my hair. 
   
  Still chanting, we walked into another world. 
   
   
   
  Interlude 
   
  GGJ235/57/3/82-PK3 
  V-ON, BRD-ABLE, WPU = 1.244 
  VERBAL INPUT, 
  COMPRESS AND SAVE 
  MILITARY LOG FILE EPSILON 
  CODE GREEN FIVE 
  ENABLE 
   
  They know I'm watching them now. I made too much noise getting down from that window 
  the other day, and attracted a bit of unwelcome attention. It ended up in a chase through 
  the alleys. Since they can fly and I can't, I reckon it was a bit one-sided, so I brought one 
  of them down with a sort of home-made bolas and another two with smart missiles. 
   
  I keep having to move my base camp. They're very good at searches: that's what flying 
  does for you, it gives you a different perspective on where people might hide. For a while I 
  hid out in nooks and crannies that couldn't be seen from the air, but they caught on and 
  started using packs of those three-legged rat things with the red eyes.  I had to look for 
  somewhere else. Base camp's only a rucksack anyway, so moving isn't too much hassle. 
   
  Time to get back to the plain, l guess Hope the Professor makes it through okay. If not, I 
  guess it's chocolate flavour animal for tea forever. 
   
  
  DISABLE. 
  2757/3/FF43 PIP. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 13 
   
  In which our intrepid heroes arrive in the New World and Watson takes up scouting. 
   
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
  I suspect that midnight has passed by, back in India, so distinguish this entry with a new 
  date. I've been awake for almost forty-eight hours and I feel ready to drop. In fact, I keep 
  falling asleep in the middle of writing this diary entry. Four times I've tried to start it now, 
  but each time I get a few words in and suddenly my pen will start sliding down the page. 
  When I snap back to wakefulness a few moments later, I don't know where I am and I've 
  only got a sketchy idea of who. So: if you've just woken up, Bernice Summerfield, and 
  you're reading this for some clue as to what's happened, the Doctor's made some coffee 
  and I think I can cover the past few hours before the big black bag goes over my head 
  again. 
   
  First question: where am I? Well, it's an alien planet. Not just any alien planet, either. This 
  one's stranger than most. Stranger than Moloch, the hollow moon of Lucifer that's linked 
  by a bridge to its sister Belial. Stranger than Eusapia and Zeta Minor, half in this universe 
  and half in another. Stranger than Tersurus, with its clone banks and its singing stones. 
  Stranger even than Magla, whose crust is a shell covering a vast, dreaming, creature. No, 
  Ry'leh is the strangest planet I've ever seen. I'm not a geologist, but I suspect that it's an 
  old world. At some point in its past the local star must have gone nova, blasting much of 
  its matter away into space to leave a colder, smaller core.  Soon after that Ry'leh's 
  atmosphere must have frozen, leaving it looking like a great cue-ball hanging in space. 
  The frozen jacket doesn't fit tightly though: the heat from the planet's core has melted the 
  interior layers of ice back into an atmosphere, leaving valleys, fissures, channels and 
  plains with an oppressively solid sky hanging above them, supported upon the pillars of 
  the mountains. And that's where you are, girl: sandwiched between rock and a hard place. 
   
  The wind whistles through the canyons like a demon. It plucks at your clothes and whips 
  your hair into your eyes. It snatches things from your hands and whirls them gleefully 
  away from you. It hates you. 
   
  The plants hate you too. Only the strongest and most stubborn life-forms survived the sun 
  going nova. Their razor-sharp bruise-coloured vanes catch at your clothing as you 
  clamber past them, and make rents for the wind to get in and sap the warmth from your 
  bones. Some of them hiss and thrust their roots between your feet as you pass. High 
  above, up where the sky is hard and cold, small black specks wheel. Rakshassi? I 
  wouldn't be at all surprised. 
  
   
  You get the picture? Ry'leh is not a nice place to be. 
   
  As we emerged from the gateway the wind snatched the words from our mouths, and it 
  collapsed behind us. When we turned, India had vanished. We were just a step away from 
  Earth in one direction, a million light-years in another. 
   
  We were standing at the foot of a mountain range. The dusky purple ground rose gently 
  for a few miles, then jabbed sharply upwards into a set of harsh peaks, all of them 
  truncated by the ice sky. The sun was a lighter spot through the ice, too weak to cast any 
  shadows. Turning, I could see that we were surrounded by the mountains. Valleys led 
  away in three directions. It was as if we had been dumped in the middle of a giant's maze. 
   
  Gravity seemed to be about Earth normal. I find it difficult to tell - I've been on so many 
  worlds that I forget what my body was designed for sometimes - but neither Watson nor 
  Holmes were falling down or falling up. The Doctor walked around as if he owned the 
  place. Which he might well have done, of course. 
   
  Holmes gazed around in some shock. I think that the reality of an alien planet was turning 
  out to be completely different to the theory. He bent down and investigated the ground, 
  then plucked a small weed-like flower from a crack. It bit him, and he dropped it with a cry. 
  Watson tended to the wound. It wasn't serious, but I think he might have been worried 
  about poison. There's a theory I once heard suggesting that there is no logical basis for 
  alien poisons to work on humans, and vice versa, because the two ecologies would have 
  evolved different chemical bases for life. Personally, I don't believe it. Summerfield's First 
  Law of Planetary Evolution states that anything not specifically designed to hurt you will 
  still manage to find a way. Or, to put it another way, the buggerance factor of the universe 
  tends towards a maximum. 
   
  Watson was turning gradually around, a bit like a weather vane influenced by the wind. 
  Eventually he came to a halt facing down one of the valleys towards a misty horizon half-
  glimpsed through the distant mountains. 
   
  'That way,' he said. 'Maupertuis's troops went that way.' 
   
  'How can you tell?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'Not sure. It's a matter of instinct, more than anything. I spent some time talking to an old 
  Afghan tracker during the war, you see. He was a prisoner of ours, but he'd been injured 
  and I had to treat him. Picked up some tips on hunting.' He smiled boyishly. 'I rather fancy 
  his skills at treating wounds improved as well.' 
   
  'Fascinating though this is,' I interjected, 'where do we go from here?' 
   
  
  'We try and get in front of Maupertuis's troops,' Watson said, 'and alert the appropriate 
  native authorities to the fact that they are being invaded. We then request their help in 
  taking Maupertuis into custody.' 
   
  'Of course,' I said. 'Simple, isn't it?' 
   
  Watson shrugged. 
   
  'Well, as a broad plan I think it has its strong points. Obviously there are some details 
  which remain to be ironed out...' 
   
  'Such as: how do we persuade a peaceful, philosophical race like K'tcar'ch's to join 
  together to fight Maupertuis's marauders?' 
   
  'We shall have to play it by ear,' he said stiffly. 
   
  'But back in the Nizam's cavern you said that you had a tin ear.' 
   
  He gave me an exaggeratedly withering glance that had an underlying vein of humour in 
  it. Ever since I surprised him naked in the bath, he seemed to believe that he and I were 
  sharing something special. I hated to disillusion him. 
   
  We set out in the direction that Watson had identified, on the basis that it was no worse 
  than any other choice. Watson marched on ahead, and the Doctor and I followed behind. 
  Holmes brought up the rear. He was uncharacteristically silent. Whenever I turned to 
  make sure he was still there, I found him striding along with his hands in his pockets and a 
  distinct glower on his face. 
   
  'What's the matter with him?' I asked the Doctor, indicating Holmes with my thumb. 
   
  'He's been thrown completely out of his element,' the Doctor explained as we walked. 'Mr 
  Holmes's deductions rely upon a comprehensive knowledge of the way things work, or so 
  Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. He knows London back to front, for instance. He can identify 
  the typefaces used by all of the daily newspapers, he knows the secret signs employed by 
  vagrants and down-and-outs to identify households prone to charity, he can identify the 
  profession of any man based upon the small changes made to their hands, or their 
  clothes, or the way they stand. In the provinces his knowledge is probably less 
  comprehensive. I doubt, for instance, that he knows much about the regional variations in 
  shoeing horses, but he probably does know where to research the subject, should the 
  need arise. In Switzerland, to pick a country at random, he could well be at a 
  disadvantage, as his base of knowledge would be largely useless and his opportunities to 
  research would be limited, but here on Ry'leh he has nothing at all upon which to work. 
  None of the signs that he looks for are valid. On the other hand, your friend Doctor 
  Watson, being a man who works on the instinctive rather than the intellectual level, comes 
  to terms with new sets of rules remarkably quickly. A very adaptable man, and one much 
  after my own hearts.' 
  
   
  'He's not my friend,' I murmured, not liking the way the Doctor had rolled the word around 
  his mouth, getting every last nuance out of it. 
   
  'Don't you like him?' the Doctor said innocently. 
   
  'I like him, but...' 
   
  'I thought you two were getting on rather well.' 
   
  'We were. We are. But I'm not going to have an affair with him.' 
  'Well, that makes a change,' he murmured. 'I'm worried enough about Ace's amorous 
  predilections without every male you meet falling for you left, right and centre.' 
   
  He glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye. I smiled back, but beneath his serious surface 
  and his humorous interior I could see something else, a deeper, more fundamental worry. 
   
  'What's the matter?' I asked. 
   
  He shook his head. 
   
  'A word, that's all.' 
   
  'A word?' 
   
  'Something I heard back in Tir Ram's cavern. Something in that chant.' 
   
  I shook my head. 
   
  'I couldn't make any of it out,' I said. 'It didn't sound like a real language at all. I'd have 
  understood it otherwise, surely?' 
   
  The Doctor pursed his lips for a moment. I took the opportunity to look around. Nothing 
  had changed. The plain was still plain, the mountains still touched the sky. Watson still 
  walked too fast. Holmes was still sulking. 
   
  'It wasn't a language as such,' he mused finally, 'more a polyglot collection of words which 
  I've heard before on half a hundred worlds across the universe, although with translations 
  as varied as "window", "reddish-green" and "happily unicycling in an easterly direction". 
  The actual chant was meaningless, but one of those words made me think.' 
   
  'Don't leave me in suspense. Which one?' 
   
  ' "Azathoth",' he said gloomily. 
   
  Now it was my turn to frown. 
  
   
  'I know that word. I've seen it somewhere. An article, or a journal, something. Maybe on 
  Braxiatel...' 
   
  'Azathoth is a god of anarchy and chaos: one of a pantheon whose worship sprung up on 
  various planets across the universe at more or less the same time. The Silurians, for 
  instance, venerated them before mankind was even a gleam in evolution's eye, as did the 
  gargantuan entities that ruled Earth a hundred thousand years before them. Hundreds 
  more races sacrificed in their names. There was even a cult amongst the Shobogans at 
  one time.' 
   
  'Shobogans?' 
   
  'New Age Time-Lord drop-outs, but that's not important right now. Azathoth is a 
  representation - an avatar, if you like - of one of the Great Old Ones.' 
   
  'And they are . . .?' 
   
  The Doctor sighed explosively. Watson looked round at  the sudden noise, tripped over 
  his feet and almost fell. 
   
  'I was hoping not to have to go into this.' 
   
  'Start at the very beginning.' 
   
  'A very good place to start. Very well: the universe is cyclical, which means that it 
  periodically goes through cycles of expansion and contraction, punctuated by a series of 
  big bangs.' 
   
  'I think we can skip the history of the universe, if it's all the same to you.' 
   
  'No, no,' he complained, flapping his hand at me, 'the Great Old Ones predate even that. 
  In the dying days of the universe before this current one, which is forever separated from 
  us by a point where time and space do not exist, a group of beings discovered how to 
  preserve themselves past that point where their universe ceased. They shuttled 
  themselves sideways, into a parallel universe which, for various reasons that I will not 
  even attempt to explain now, ceased a split-second after our one. With me so far?' 
   
  'No.' 
   
  'Good. Just before that universe ceased, they jumped back to our one, which had just 
  started expanding afresh after a moment of nothingness. The trouble is, the universe 
  before ours was set up differently. Fundamental physical laws such as the speed of light 
  and the charge on the electron were different, which means that the Great Old Ones have 
  powers undreamed of by anybody in this universe. Powers that make them look like gods, 
  to naive races. And they're a pretty nasty bunch, too.' 
  
   
  'Great. I thought I'd heard the name before. I went to a seminar on Felophitacitel Major, a 
  few years back. There was a Draconian who had this theory about various cults springing 
  up across the universe, all worshipping the same gods. We all laughed at him.' 
   
  'He was on the right track. The Great Old Ones are those gods. There's Cthulhu, who we 
  met in Haiti, if you recall, and the Gods of Ragnarok, who Ace will tell you about if you ask 
  her nicely, and Nyarlathotep, who I sincerely hope never to encounter. And Dagon, who 
  was worshipped by the Sea Devils, and the entity known as Hastur the Unspeakable who 
  also goes around calling himself Fenric and who Ace will not tell you about no matter how 
  nicely you ask. And Yog-Sothoth, who I met in Tibet and again in London, and Lloigor, 
  who settled quite happily on Vortis . . . oh, there's a lot of them. All alien to this universe 
  and its laws, both moral and physical.' 
   
  'It's amazing, the stuff you can remember sometimes.' 
   
  'I wish I could remember more,' he scowled. 'I failed practical theology, back in the 
  Academy.' 
   
  'Did you pass anything?' 
   
  'I was highly commended for my landscape gardening.' 
   
  'Very useful.' 
   
  'You should have been with me when I fought the Vervoids.' He suddenly looked 
  confused. 'You weren't, were you? No, of course you weren't. I have a bit of trouble with 
  that period in my life: bits of it appear to be in the wrong order. Never mind, many a mickle 
  makes a muckle, as somebody once said to someone else.' 
   
  'What does that mean?' I asked, confused by the rapid changes in conversational tack, 
  just as I suspect he intended me to be. 
   
  'I don't know. I just like the sound of it. I wish I knew who said it - was it Robert Burns? My 
  previous incarnation would have known: he was very good at obscure quotations.' 
   
  'And you don't know anything else useful about this Azathoth character? Or what his 
  connection is to all of this?' 
   
  'I've got a book that might help, back in the TARDIS. Every Gallifreyan Child's Pop-Up 
  Book of Nasty Creatures From Other Dimensions. You'll like it.' 
   
  'Don't you think I'm a bit old for a pop-up book?' 
   
  'Not compared to a Gallifreyan child. And besides, the pop-ups are four-dimensional. But I 
  really think that we should discuss it later.' 
  
   
  'Why?' 
   
  'Because we've just found Maupertuis's army.' 
   
  At that moment I walked into Watson's back. He had stopped, and had been gesturing to 
  us to do the same. 
   
  We had been walking for some time and had penetrated some distance along the floor of 
  the valley. The mountains rose to either side of us. Although it was beginning to get dark, I 
  could make out the beginnings of a plain, far ahead. At its edge, a splash of colour and 
  movement stood out. 
   
  'They're setting up camp,' Watson murmured. 'Smart move on Colonel Warburton's part: 
  keep them moving after they go through the gateway so they don't have a chance to worry 
  about where they are, then pitch tents when they're good and tired.' 
   
  'I suspect that there is a small native town across the plain,' Holmes said, surprising us all. 
   
  'How can you tell?' the Doctor asked. I got the impression that he wasn't so much 
  questioning Holmes as giving him a chance to explain his thought processes to us. 
   
  'The sky appears to be reflective,' Holmes replied, more hesitantly than usual. 'Perhaps, 
  like Dante's inner circle of hell, we have ice above us. If you look closely, you will see a 
  reflected glow from something over the horizon. The nearest Earthly equivalent would be 
  the lights of a town or city' He coughed. 'I am merely speculating, of course. It could be an 
  incandescent chicken the size of the North Riding for all I know.' 
   
  'Maupertuis is probably intending to attack it on the morrow,' Watson said. 'We must 
  bypass the camp and warn the natives.' 
   
  'I think they already know,' said the Doctor, pointing up the slope of the left-hand 
  mountain, just above Maupertuis's camp. For a moment I couldn't make anything out 
  through the gloom, then, squinting, I began to make out what looked like bundles of sticks 
  set upright on the slope behind some rocks. Bundles of sticks in armoured suits. 
   
  'K'tchar'ch's people,' Watson breathed, and shivered suddenly. He was right, of course. 
  Once he had said it, I could see that they were living beings, but then he and the Doctor 
  had seen them before, whereas I had made do with a second-hand description. 'I wonder 
  what they're doing up there,' he continued. 'Observing, perhaps.' 
   
  Silently the Doctor indicated other areas of the mountain slope, and areas of the right-
  hand mountain as well. 
   
  'There are several thousand of the creatures,' Holmes snapped. 'This is an ambush in 
  force.' 
  
   
  'But Maupertuis's army has only been on Ry'leh for a few hours,' I protested. 'How come 
  the Ry'lehans had time to set up an ambush?' 
   
  'Perhaps more to the point,' the Doctor added, 'why are a race who claim to be peaceful 
  philosophers armed and armoured?' 
   
  'As we suspected,' said Holmes, 'we have been misled.' 
   
  I think the phrase is, 'some discussion ensued'. It went around in circles, but the upshot 
  was that everything K'tchar'ch had told Holmes, Watson and the Doctor was now in doubt, 
  and we didn't know who was the friend and who was the foe. On the face of it, the points 
  were still racked up against Maupertuis, but he had never actually lied to us. Just tried to 
  kill us. 
   
  Eventually, as I feared he would, Watson said, 'There's only one thing to do. I'll have to 
  sneak closer and find out what's going on.' 
   
  'It's too dangerous,' Holmes urged. 'I should go.' 
   
  'You cannot.'  Watson placed a hand upon Holmes's upper arm. 'Your ratiocination got us 
  here. Leave the rest up to me. This is what I do best.' He took a deep breath, and looked 
  directly at me. 'I'll be back soon,' he said, and vanished into the deepening shadows. 
   
  He wasn't, of course. It's been almost half an hour, and there's no sign of him. Holmes is 
  sat by the fire that the Doctor lit with his eternal matches and some of the local vegetation. 
  The fire squirms every so often, but Holmes is too wrapped up in his own thoughts to care. 
  I hate to see him like this. He seems to have given up. 
   
  The Doctor found some sachets of instant coffee in his pocket, along with an unopened 
  bottle of mineral water. We were three thousand years before the use-by date of either of 
  them. The resulting brew tasted so bad that I added a slug of brandy from my hip-flask. It 
  still tasted awful, but at least I could drink it. 
   
  The fire is burning low now, and the Doctor and Holmes are both staring into its depths for 
  answers. As for me, the coffee is wearing off, and I'm gradually falling asleep. 
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
  I made the mistake of using a bush for shelter as I approached the cluster of canvas tents. 
  It made a lunge for me and I quickly backed off, hoping that its disappointed hiss wouldn't 
  echo through the night air. Fortunately the wind was blowing toward me from the camp, 
  carrying with it the smell of cheap tobacco and roasting meat but hiding any noises that I 
  might make. It had been hours since last I ate, and I had vomited most of that up in the 
  
  corridors of the Nizam's palace, so the smell of food forced sharp little pangs through my 
  stomach. I quelled them and moved closer. 
   
  The camp was set out sloppily: the guards were congregating around a camp-fire rather 
  than patrolling the perimeter and the arrangement of the tents would make it easy for any 
  attackers to duck and dive, and hard for any defenders to marshall their forces. I was 
  surprised at Warburton, but perhaps he could be forgiven. After all, he was organizing the 
  invasion of a planet. He had enough on his plate already. No doubt he had delegated to 
  some old sweat who was more concerned with comfort than carrying out a commission. 
   
  Oddly enough, I could see no sign of the fakirs whose chanting had opened the gateway 
  to this world. Perhaps they had set their camp elsewhere. 
   
  I glanced up to where the dark shape of the mountains loomed against the icy sky. 
  Somewhere up there, the Ry'lehans were gathering. What did they want? Perhaps if I 
  could discover whether Maupertuis was aware of their presence I would know the answer 
  to that question. 
   
  As I crept closer, I saw that the guards were roasting an animal on a spit and telling vulgar 
  jokes. The creature's flesh was greasy and green, and it had three legs. A pair of sightless 
  red eyes gleamed as the juices from the roasting flesh ran over them. I recognized the 
  thing from Holmes's description as being akin to the creature at the dog fight in the 
  Hackney marches. 
   
  I waited, hoping for a particularly crass joke to be told, and whilst the sentries were 
  convulsed with laughter I slipped past them and into the camp. I had to locate Baron 
  Maupertuis, Colonel Warburton and Tir Ram, and to eavesdrop on their conversation. I 
  knew it was a risky course of action, but I felt that it was worth it. The thought of 
  impressing Bernice Summerfield with my courage and feats of dewing-do had nothing to 
  do with it. 
   
  I slipped like a wraith between concentric circles of rough tents. The guy-ropes were as 
  unmanageable as a cat's cradle, and I had to pick my way carefully through them, 
  listening all the while for sounds of activity from within. Snoring and muted conversations 
  were all I heard. Nobody was about. I began to take more risks: rather than slipping 
  beneath the ropes I would stand up and step across them. 
   
  A cough made me dive for the ground. I held my breath, positive that I must have been 
  seen. After a minute or so during which no alarm was raised and no shots fired, I took the 
  risk of looking up. For a moment I saw nothing, then a match flared in the darkness, 
  illuminating the face of one of Maupertuis's private soldiers. After lighting his cigarette he 
  threw the match towards me. I closed my eyes, and felt it lodge in my hair. For a few 
  agonizing moments I could feel the increasing warmth from my scalp and smell the 
  singeing hair, but dared not move. The feeling of relief that swept over me when he 
  walked away was something that I will remember to my dying day. I swept my hands back 
  
  and forth across my head until I found the match - dead and cold. Imagination is a 
  powerful enemy. After a few deep breaths I crawled off again. 
   
  After ten minutes, I stopped to take stock of my situation. The brave venture was 
  beginning to seem more and more like a misguided attempt at false valour. The camp was 
  larger than I had thought: I could wander around for hours without locating anything of 
  importance. 
   
  I turned back. 
   
  I had moved five yards when the ground behind me exploded in blue fire. The concussion 
  almost stunned me into insensibility. Tents were engulfed in flame: their occupants spilling 
  out, cursing and screaming. Another explosion, some thirty yards to one side, flung bodies 
  into the air. They fell again to the ground in broken, charred heaps: some of them 
  whimpering, some lying ominously still. Amid the bodies I thought I could make out the 
  crinoline dress worn by Warburton's wife. 
   
  I looked wildly around, trying to locate the source of the attack. Tents burned, soldiers ran 
  around like ants whose nest had been disturbed, but of the attackers I could see nothing. 
   
  And then I looked upwards, towards the invisible mountain. A small turquoise flower 
  bloomed upon the slope and faded again to black. Moments later, another explosion 
  knocked me off my feet. 
  Picking myself up, I began to run back towards the point where I had entered the camp. 
  Nobody bothered with me. They had enough to worry about. Two questions at least had 
  been answered: the Ry'lehans on the slopes of the mountain were not allied to 
  Maupertuis; and they weren't peaceful philosophers either. 
   
  A soldier rose up from the collapsed wreckage of his tent. He yelled something at me, but 
  I elbowed him aside and ran on. 
   
  Another blast flung me into a collapsing tent. I became tangled in guy-ropes and thrashed 
  about for some moments before I could extricate myself Standing, I noticed a figure to one 
  side, silhouetted by an azure conflagration. I made to move off, but it raised a hand. A 
  hand holding a gun. 
   
  'I should have had you killed back in England,' Baron Maupertuis screamed above the 
  pandemonium. 'You will pay in coins of agony for the trouble you have caused me!' 
   
  I tensed, ready to dive, but a cold caress of metal at the nape of my neck made me pause. 
   
  'The Baron would prefer to keep you alive for the moment, old boy,' Colonel Warburton's 
  voice drawled in my ear, 'but I think you'd look just as good dead.' 
   
  'Haven't you got other things to worry about?' I asked as another of the Ry'lehans' infernal 
  devices exploded nearby. 
  
   
  Maupertuis looked wildly around, his ash-blond hair falling in lank strands around his 
  gaunt face. 
   
  'What have you done? My army! You have destroyed my army!' 
   
  'Look elsewhere for your attackers, Baron. Much as I would wish to take credit, I cannot' 
   
  'Then who . . .?' 
   
  'Your intended victims.' 
   
  He sneered. 
   
  'The natives of this God-forsaken planet are lily-livered philosophers. They rejected arms 
  millenniums ago.' 
   
  'Your hooded friend obviously misinformed you,' I continued, anxious to divert the Baron's 
  attention for as long as possible from whatever plans they had for me. A hit, a very 
  palpable hit. Something moved behind his eyes: a flicker of annoyance, and perhaps even 
  distrust. 
   
  'You know nothing.' 
   
  I decided to make a stab in the dark. 
   
  'I know that you have been played for a fool by whoever it is that you work for.' 
   
  A series of explosions punctuated my words. 
   
  'Baron,' Warburton interrupted from behind me, 'perhaps we should...' 
   
  'Insects!' the Baron screamed at his troops as they milled around us. 'You were supposed 
  to be an all-consuming fire, spreading out to conquer this planet in the name of the 
  Empire! Now you run like insects!' His cold gaze turned to Warburton. 
   
  'You assured me that their training had turned them into an efficient fighting machine. You 
  guaranteed that they were ready for anything!' 
   
  The pressure of Warburton's pistol vanished from my neck. Surreptitiously I edged 
  sideways. 
   
  'You gave me a month!' Warburton snapped. 'It takes years to build up an army, and you 
  gave me a month!' 
   
  
  'It was not my decision,' Maupertuis said coldly. 'I agreed with your strategy. I was 
  overruled.' 
   
  'Whoever our mysterious benefactor is, he knows as much about building a fighting force 
  as I do about ballet dancing.' 
   
  Maupertuis looked around. The camp was almost deserted now. The landscape of burning 
  tents was bereft of movement. 
   
  'As I have no army,' he said calmly, 'and no need of a ballet tutor, it would seem that I no 
  longer require your services.' 
   
  He shot Colonel Warburton between the eyes. I watched with mixed feelings as 
  Warburton stumbled backwards, staring at Maupertuis with a puzzled expression on his 
  face. Blood streamed from the wound. 
   
  'Gloria?' he said in a quiet, almost conversational tone, then fell to his knees. 'Gloria . . .?' 
   
  He pitched forward onto his face. His fingers clutched at the cold, hard ground for a 
  moment, and then a great shudder ran through his body. 
   
  'God forgive your sins,' I murmured to his departing spirit. 
   
  'There is no sin,' Maupertuis said, swinging his pistol so that I was staring down the rifled 
  barrel. 'There is only disobedience in the face of a higher authority.' 
   
  'And who elected you to be a higher authority?' I said scathingly. 'You bring the whole 
  human race into disrepute.' 
   
  As an epitaph, I wish I had been given time to polish it a bit, but it would do. As 
  Maupertius's finger tightened on the trigger, and I watched the tiny gleam at the end of the 
  barrel that I knew was the tip of the bullet that would shortly be tearing through my brain, I 
  tried to recall Holmes's face as an example to give me courage. I could not. All I could 
  remember was an afternoon thirty years ago, when the bright Australian sun shone down 
  upon a creek, and my father and brother and I sat and fished together. It was the happiest 
  day of my life, but I had not realized it until now. 
   
  The world seemed to explode around me. My eyes were filled with a red mist. So this was 
  death. 
  The mist settled on my face. It was sticky and tasted of salt and hot metal. I licked it from 
  my lips. I had spent enough of my youth tying off spurting arteries that I recognized it as 
  blood. Mine? Reflexively I wiped a hand across my eyes. 
   
  Maupertuis was still standing in front of me, gun raised, but there was a large hole in the 
  middle of his chest. The rim was charred and I could see the edges of his rib-cage 
  projecting into the void where his heart should have been. 
  
   
  His face was noble in death. Noble and unreal, like a marble statue. He fell like a statue 
  too: without bending. 
   
  A young woman stood behind him. She was holding a device the size of a Maxim gun, but 
  a lot sleeker. 
   
  'Hi,' she said. 'My name's Ace. And you're grateful.' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 14 
   
  In which Ace and Watson pit themselves against nature, and come out on top. 
   
   
  She was wearing a smooth armoured bodice like the carapace of some glossy black 
  beetle. Her shirt and leggings seemed to be composed of some fine-mesh metal weave. 
  She was wearing spectacles, but of such a deep hue that I could not make out her eyes. I 
  could not help but wonder how she could see out of them in the dark. She was so shorn of 
  the identifying badges of her gender that the only clues were her long hair, her voice and 
  the curve of her bodice. 
   
  Her weapon was trained firmly upon my midriff. 
   
  'My name is Watson,' I said, and swallowed. All I could see in her spectacles was my own 
  distorted reflection. I hoped that the panic evident in my expression was caused by the 
  distortion rather than the circumstances. 'Doctor John Watson, at your service. I presume 
  that you are another of the Doctor's companions, Miss . . . ah?' 
   
  'Ace, like I said. And what makes you think I'm with the Doc?' 
   
  'A wild guess. He seems to have a fondness for leaving young ladies in situations fraught 
  with danger.' 
   
  She looked around. 
   
  'Young ladies? Oh, I get it. You must mean Bernice.' 
   
  She stared strangely at me. 
   
  'Are you for real?' she asked. 
   
  'Indubitably. Shall we go?' 
   
  
  She lowered the gun and, with a couple of quick twists, disassembled it into components 
  which she hung off her belt. 
   
  'Show me the way.' 
   
  I pointed, and without another word she moved off. I took a last glance back at Baron 
  Maupertuis's ruined body. I could not find it in my heart to regret what Ace - I supposed 
  that I should call her by that appellation - had done to him, but something in me had 
  responded to his fervent, if misguided, patriotism. 
   
  But what now? Would his invasion fall apart with his army scattered and its general dead, 
  or would the mysterious hooded man that Holmes and I had seen in Euston weld it back 
  together again? Only time would tell. 
   
  We moved across the ravaged landscape, trying as far as we could to avoid the bodies. 
  The explosions seemed to have ceased, but I could see a large number of survivors 
  forming up into lines closer to the slopes of the mountain. It looked to me as if they were 
  preparing to take the fight to the Ry'lehans. 
   
  Ace quickly impressed me with her skills. She moved quickly but carefully, maintaining a 
  constant watch upon our surroundings. She threw questions back over her shoulder and, 
  under their prompting, I told her the story of how we came to be there. 
   
  'He shouldn't meddle,' she said at one point. 'He doesn't know the half of what's going on 
  here.' 
   
  'What do you mean?' I asked, but she gestured impatiently for me to continue. 
   
  I finished talking as we passed the last row of tents, and persuaded her to wait for a few 
  moments whilst I found the beast which had been roasting as I entered the camp. The spit 
  had been knocked over during the attack, but the carcass was still in one piece, and I 
  managed to pull two of the legs off. They did not look appetizing, but I was ravenous. I 
  rejoined Ace, who refused the food I offered with a secret little smile. As we walked off I 
  asked her how she came to be there. Whilst I ate the tender, spicy flesh, she explained in 
  a few terse sentences that the Doctor had left her on Ry'leh in the same way that he had 
  left Bernice in India, and for the same reasons. She was meant to scout out the area, 
  prepare the way for the Doctor and report on anything interesting that happened. Having 
  seen my confrontation with Maupertuis, she had decided to act. 
   
  'Does he always do this sort of thing?' I asked. 
   
  'What sort of thing?' 
   
  'Move you and Bernice round like pieces in a game of chess?' 
   
  'You don't know the half of it. Trouble is, I've seen him play chess, and he's crap.' 
  
   
  By now I had finished both legs and discarded the bones. My stomach was beginning to 
  rebel against its unfamiliar contents, but I ruthlessly suppressed the incipient insurrection. 
  I would not give Ace the satisfaction of seeing me ill. 
   
  The camp was a few miles behind us now, and we were approaching the area where I 
  remembered leaving my friends. Looking round, I could see no sign of Bernice, Holmes or 
  the Doctor. I caught hold of Ace's arm to stop her whilst I got my bearings. At the touch of 
  my hand she whirled and knocked me to the ground. My head slammed against rock: I 
  blacked out for a moment, and awoke to find her fingers pressed into my windpipe. 
   
  'A word of warning,' she hissed. 'Don't touch me. Too many people have done that 
  already, starting with a scumbag named Glitz. I don't like it, and these days, what I don't 
  like, I stop. Violently.' 
   
  'Glawp!' I said. It was all I could manage to get out of my compressed larynx. 
   
  'I'm glad that's understood.' 
   
  She stood up and looked around. 
   
  'So where's the party, then?' 
   
  I rolled over to enable my arms to take the strain of lifting my body, bruised and battered 
  by recent events, to its feet. A dark stain on the ground caught my attention. I touched it 
  tentatively, and my fingers came away sticky. 
   
  It was blood. 
   
  I ran a hand across the back of my head to determine whether I had hit the ground harder 
  than I had thought, but my scalp was clear of any wounds. 
   
  'Ace,' I said. 
   
  'I know.' 
   
  I rose, to find her holding the torn remains of the Doctor's paisley-pattern scarf. 
   
  'Why is nothing ever easy where he's concerned?' 
   
  To that I had no answer. 
   
  Casting around, we found little else to indicate that they had ever been there. The most 
  significant discovery was a patch of charred ground where a fire had obviously been lit. 
  The ashes were still warm. 
   
  
  As a pearly, directionless sheen spread across the sky, heralding the approach of a new 
  day, I sat down upon the hard, cold ground. A patch of moss squirmed beneath me, so I 
  shuffled sideways. It tried to follow, so I stood up again and watched it cast itself 
  unsuccessfully upon my boots. 
   
  Sounds of gunfire suddenly drifted across the plain. Maupertuis's shattered army had 
  regrouped enough to go on the offensive. I wondered who was leading them now. 
   
  Hearing a sound, I glanced round to where Ace was talking softly into a small box. I 
  wondered if it was some marvellous form of communication, but I soon realized that she 
  was leaving no space for a reply. A dictation machine, perhaps, akin to the phonograph 
  but much smaller. 
   
  I glanced around at the harsh landscape now emerging from the shadow of night. The 
  murmur of Ace's voice ceased. 
   
  'Who do you think took them?' I asked. 
   
  'How do I know?' She sounded bad-tempered. 'It could have been this Baron's men, or it 
  could have been the spindly sack-things with five legs, or it could have been those winged 
  creatures with the spiky tails. We won't know till we find them.' 
   
  'I doubt that it's the rakshassi,' I said patronizingly. 'They're only animals.' 
   
  'Rakshassi?' 
   
  'The winged creatures. The red ones.' 
   
  'Who told you they're only animals?' 
   
  I frowned. 
   
  'Well . . . it seemed obvious.' 
   
  'Nothing obvious about it, mate. They're as intelligent as you or me. Well, you at any rate.' 
   
  I didn't know what to say for a moment. 
   
  'But...' I stammered finally, 'they've never shown any sign of intellect . . .' 
   
  She looked pityingly at me. 
   
  'Well they're not going to do crosswords on the train, are they, dick-brain? Remember that 
  seance you told me about? The one in Euston with this hooded geezer?' 
   
  I nodded. 
  
   
  'Well, I was listening to the other end of it. There's a large township a couple of hundred 
  clicks away...' 
   
  'Clicks?' 
   
  'Kilometres. A bit over a hundred miles. Anyway, I was scouting around a big temple-type 
  building, and heard something big inside opening hailing frequencies. The town itself was 
  occupied by the rakshassi.' 
   
  'Occupied? You mean, they were living there?' 
   
  'Yeah. Worshipping at the temple, too.' 
   
  'Worshipping what?' 
   
  'I don't know, but it wasn't Sonic the Hedgehog.' 
   
  She took pleasure in watching the stunned expression blossom on my face. Foolishly, 
  perhaps, I had made certain assumptions about the nature of the new reality in which I 
  had found myself. Now, one by one, those assumptions were being overturned. If only 
  Holmes were there to make things clear for me. 
   
  'They could have taken him anywhere,' I whispered to myself, disheartened. 
   
  'Not quite,' Ace said. 'The plants here kip during the night, and they get a bit ratty if 
  something disturbs them. If we're lucky, we can tell which way the kidnappers went by 
  checking how quickly the plants react to us.' 
   
  'How do we do that?' I asked stupidly. 
   
  'Stick your finger out and see how long it takes them to bite it.' 
   
  Ace watched on, a sardonic smile upon her face, as I hesitantly knelt and tempted the 
  mosses with my outstretched digit. It quickly became apparent that those lying towards the 
  distant mountains responded significantly faster than those in any other direction. So quick 
  were they that they almost ripped my nail out with their thorny little mouths. 
   
  'Well,' she said, 'that settles it.' 
   
  'Do you think they're poisonous?' 
   
  'I wouldn't have thought so. They're probably more at risk biting you than you are being 
  bitten.' 
   
  'Somehow that fails to reassure me.' 
  
   
  'It wasn't meant to.' 
   
  We set out shortly after that. 
   
  The walk to the lower slopes of the nearest mountain took us some hours. Every few 
  minutes I would check the plants in the vicinity to ensure that we were heading in the right 
  direction, but our course was as straight as a die. It was hard to tell when we actually 
  began to climb the mountain slopes: it was only after I complained to Ace that I was tiring, 
  and she agreed that the going suddenly seemed to have become hard, that we realized 
  we had been walking uphill for some little time. We rested for a few moments, and I took 
  the opportunity to appreciate the view in the manner of a tourist, rather than a tired doctor. 
   
  The slope fell away from us, blending gradually into the purple plain below. I could see 
  Maupertuis's quondam encampment and, through the haze of distance, men in blue and 
  silver uniforms in close combat with five-legged Ry'lehans. Further than that, the ground 
  rose up to form more mountain ranges whose tops were lost to the ice. Ry'leh seemed to 
  be a planet composed of peakless mountains. From where we stood I could see along 
  three major valleys. It was like standing in Cheddar Gorge back on Earth, and looking 
  between the stalactites and stalagmites, but on a far vaster scale. What was God thinking 
  of when he created this place? 
   
  We seemed to have risen above what, on Earth, I would have termed the tree-line. The 
  vegetation had died away, but we had been moving in a straight line for so long that we 
  saw little point in altering our course. 
   
  We were closer to the sky now, and I could see features upon it: patches of shadow, deep 
  gouges and little black specks that seemed to move. 
   
  'Animals,' said Ace when I pointed them out to her. 'Good to eat, too. I shoot them down 
  with a bow and arrow when I get the chance. They taste of chocolate.' 
   
  'But how can . . .?' 
   
  'They're like big balloons full of some gas that's lighter than air. They float up against the 
  ice.' 
   
  'I see. So how do they move around?' 
   
  She looked at me as if I was slow-witted. 
   
  'Skates,' she said succinctly. 
   
  We moved on. The going was getting rougher now: we were having to use our hands, 
  more often than not, to pull ourselves along. Sometimes, when I looked up, the sky was a 
  milky white wall towards which we were crawling. At one point I grasped at a rock which 
  
  came away in my hand and rolled down the slope with an increasing clatter of smaller 
  stones following it until it was out of sight. The echoes of its passage lived on for some 
  time. 
   
  It was getting colder. Much colder. I turned the collar of my coat up and bound strips of 
  handkerchief round my hands, but it was of little use. Ace did not seem to be bothered by 
  the cold. 
  'You should try doing route marches on Ragnarok,' she snapped when I offered her my 
  jacket. 'The only inhabitants are a tribe of brass monkeys who all look like they've lost 
  something.' 
   
  I did not understand her meaning, so I smiled and climbed on. 
   
  By this time I was forced to seek out crevices with my hands and feet to anchor myself 
  before taking a step. The sharply edged rocks tore at my fingertips, and the blood seeping 
  from the wounds made my handholds difficult. I wished that I had brought gloves. The 
  weight of my body constantly threatened to tear me from the rock and send me hurtling 
  down the slope. I dared not look down. My world was a few square feet of rock, my one 
  aim to find enough purchase to enable me to pull myself onwards to another world: 
  another few feet of rock. Every so often, but not often enough, Ace called a halt. In those 
  periods I gazed ahead, toward the oppressive ice barrier. Wavelike formations of thin 
  clouds seemed to chase each other across its surface and crash against the mountainside 
  where it penetrated the ice. The inflated bladder-like animals skated across the sky in 
  flocks of ten or twenty, looking rather like fat pheasants, or perhaps puffed-up goldfish. 
  The thought of chocolate began to obsess me. 
   
  We passed a stream of some viscous turquoise substance that wound its way through the 
  rocks. My throat was dry, and so I made as if to drink some. Ace warned me off. 
   
  'It's not water,' she said. 'More like a liquid atmosphere. Oxygen and nitrogen, mainly, 
  although it should be gaseous at this temperature. Probably some kind of allotropic form 
  that we don't get on Earth. A-level chemistry's all right for a few bangs, but not much use 
  on alien planets.' 
   
  Over the course of a few minutes, I found it increasingly difficult to breath. My lungs 
  seemed to be on fire, and I felt as if spikes were being driven into my temples. Finding 
  handholds was almost impossible: I seemed to be able to concentrate on a smaller area of 
  ground than before and my hands were having to scrabble in the grey areas on the edges 
  of my vision until they found something which would take my weight. Twice I found 
  nothing, and had to retrace my path and find a new one. I cursed myself for eating that 
  alien creature. Its flesh was obviously poisonous, and I had obviously ingested an 
  incapacitating, if not fatal, dose. It was only when I noticed that Ace was also having 
  problems that I remembered the symptoms of oxygen deprivation, and suggested that we 
  go back and dip handkerchiefs in the stream. If we tied them around our necks, I 
  reasoned, the heat of our bodies should cause the liquid to evaporate back into a 
  breathable vapour. Although sceptical, Ace complied with my suggestion. I am glad to say 
  
  that it worked, and we were able to climb onwards refreshed. We made sure that we 
  climbed alongside the stream, and when the effort of drawing a breath became a chore 
  again, we would re-moisten our handkerchiefs. Ace took me more seriously after that. 
   
  We were constantly attempting to find the easiest path up the side of the mountain, 
  choosing those sections which appeared to have more cracks which we could use as 
  hand- and footholds, detouring around large outcrops of stone and sections of friable rock, 
  always trying to look ahead and predict which channels, chimneys or ledges would lead to 
  fresh paths and which would lead to dead ends. Sometimes we got it right, and could gain 
  ten or fifteen feet in a few minutes: sometimes we got it wrong and would have to retrace 
  our steps and find another path. Frequently we would have to spend as much time 
  travelling sideways, edging along precarious ledges, as we did climbing upwards. 
   
  A cramp hit me as we traversed one such section: a fairly broad lip of rock beneath a 
  jutting boulder made of some striated element more impervious to the weathering effect of 
  the wind. I fell to my knees, clutching at my calf. The pain was agonizing, as if a ligament 
  had snapped or a muscle had torn. I was familiar with the sensation - I used to play rugby 
  for Blackheath - but it as no more welcome for that. Fortunately Ace was also familiar with 
  cramp, and forced me to lie flat whilst she massaged my calf until the muscle relaxed. 
   
  'Are you sure that we're headed in the right direction?' I asked as her fingers probed my 
  leg. 
   
  'No. I haven't seen anywhere for them to have diverted, though, so it looks like we're 
  headed for the top.' 
   
  The wind picked up as we climbed higher. It attacked us first from one direction and then 
  from another, circling around to find our weakest spots, sometimes insinuating its cold, 
  hard fingers into our clothes and sapping the strength from our limbs, sometimes buffeting 
  us hard and making us lose our precious fingerholds. There was no mercy here: the 
  elements were pitting their strength against two pygmies who had dared profane this 
  sacred place. Perversely these natural attacks gave me some small measure of comfort, 
  for compared to them the evil of men such as Maupertuis and his mysterious master were 
  as nothing. If we could defeat the mountain, I felt that we could defeat anything. 
   
  That epiphany proved to be the turning point of the climb. Perhaps the cold had finally got 
  to me and numbed my marrow but I felt warmer and more confident after that. Even when 
  the rock vanished, to be replaced with a sheer wall of black ice, I did not quail. Ace and I 
  took turns with her miraculous weapon, which she had set to produce a thin knife of 
  sunlight, cutting steps into the ice. I took my cue from her: each step that she cut was 
  precisely the right size, no deeper than it should be, and spaced apart from its neighbours 
  by a comfortable distance. My own initial attempts were farcical but I soon learned how to 
  wield the device, and I found that I could match her delicacy of touch. 
   
  At one stage, when Ace was above me, cutting away, and I was clinging to the steps that I 
  had recently cut but which had refrozen within seconds, I looked past her. The mountain 
  
  could only have been a few hundred yards in diameter at that point, and I was shocked to 
  discover that the sky was only a few body-lengths away. At that range the ice was pitted, 
  rough and grey. Gaps existed between the ice and the mountain: black voids, like wounds 
  in reality. The river of liquid atmosphere, just a trickle at this elevation, emerged from one 
  of them. The view was half-hidden by tendrils of mist which curled around us. Looking 
  down, first a few inches, then a few feet, and then further, I found that I could no longer 
  make out the ground. We were suspended between heaven and hell, cocooned in the 
  mist. 
   
  'Jesus, I didn't realize we were so close.' 
   
  Ace's voice surprised me out of my reverie. I climbed past her and took the light-gun. 
   
  'A few more minutes should see us to the top,' I grunted, and set to work cutting a set of 
  steps and then a rough platform for us to stand on, side by side. 
   
  Reverently, I reached up and touched the sky. It was as hard as the mountain had been, 
  and as cold. I craned my neck and looked out, upside down, along its surface. My mind 
  played funny tricks with perspective, for a moment I couldn't tell which direction was up 
  and which was down, what was surface and what was sky. Some primitive part of my 
  brain kept screaming that I was going to fall, but only for a moment. 
   
  And then a distorted face thrust itself out of a patch of mist at me, and I did scream. 
   
  Ace laughed. 
   
  'It's only one of the skaters,' she said. 
   
  Catching my breath, I looked closer. The face, which looked so much like a gross 
  caricature of a well-fed, gout-ridden Dickensian gentleman, or a rector straight out of 
  Trollope, gazed with an expression of bovine stupidity straight from a spherical, semi-
  transparent body some ten feet in diameter. Three stubby limbs rose from the top of the 
  body, each terminating in what looked for all the world like a skate, made of some bony 
  substance. A pouch of skin drooped below the creature. I wondered for a moment what its 
  function was, but I was enlightened when the creature grew bored with me and unfurled 
  the pouch to form a sail with which it caught the breeze and skated away across the 
  surface of the ice. 
   
  'Your face,' Ace said, and laughed again. 
   
  'They taste of chocolate, you say?' 
   
  'Yeah. They have these big macho dominance fights, sometimes, and they use those 
  skate-things as weapons. The loser gets his balloon punctured and falls all the way down 
  to the surface. I got hungry one night, and one just dropped out of the sky, virtually into my 
  
  lap. "That's 'andy, 'Arty," I said, and bunged it on the fire. After that I made myself a bow 
  and arrow. No time to eat now, though. We've got a job to do.' 
   
  'Where do we go now?' 
   
  She looked around. 
   
  'Where else is there? Onward and upward.' 
   
  'Upward where?' 
   
  She indicated the gap where the ice did not quite meet the rock. 
   
  'Up there. To the real surface. To the outside.' 
   
  'Are you mad? There's no reason to think that they've been taken up there! The chances 
  are that we missed the signs of a camp or a cave further down the mountain, and we've 
  been climbing blindly ever since!' 
   
  Ace nodded to a larger fissure some thirty or so feet away. 
   
  'Look at that. The edges aren't natural. They've been clawed away. That's where they 
  were taken.' 
   
  'But..' I was searching round for excuses now. I did not want to climb any further. Every 
  muscle in my body ached with the accumulated toxins of fatigue. '. . . But the air is too 
  thin. How will we manage to breathe? How did they manage? You must be mistaken.' 
   
  'That's a bit of a poser,' Ace admitted, frowning. 'You're right of course. If the atmosphere's 
  this thin here, it'll be non-existent if we climb much further. They probably had suits of 
  some kind. We'll have to improvize.' 
   
  I didn't like the sound of that. 
   
  'Improvize?' 
   
  'What's the matter, never seen Blue Peter?' 
   
  'No.' 
   
  'Lucky man. Now think: how do we ensure a supply of air for ourselves?' 
   
  'We've managed with the handkerchiefs so far,' I offered. 
   
  'True, but the path might move away from the mountain side, like in a tunnel through the 
  ice or something. We can't rely on still being able to use the stream to refresh them.' 
  
   
  'So we need a larger supply,' I mused. 
   
  'Good thinking, Sherlock.' 
   
  I frowned at her and she blushed, embarrassed. 
   
  'What about the animals?' I asked, as an idea suddenly struck me. 
   
  'The animals? You mean, cut a couple of them open, get rid of the gas inside and replace 
  it with air?' She grinned. 'Ace!' 
   
  Luring the creatures over was, paradoxically, the easiest part. They were not wary of 
  humans in the way that animals on Earth might have been. We had a few teething 
  troubles in the butchery department: Ace used her lightgun on the first one, and it 
  exploded with a surprised expression upon its face, singeing my eyebrows. The gas inside 
  appeared to be inflammable, as well as lighter than air. The next one was almost as bad. I 
  held it whilst Ace made a slight incision in its tough but flexible skin with my pocket knife. It 
  burst in my arms, splattering me with a gelid blue substance. If I hadn't been so cold and 
  so tired, the farcical elements of our actions would have set me laughing. As it was, both 
  of us were getting increasingly angry. By the time we had captured a third creature, we 
  had evolved a strategy. I pinched a section of its skin, and Ace cut off the protruding 
  section. I could then gradually let the gas out using my fingers as a crude valve. It died 
  struggling, and in confusion. The gas made me slightly light-headed, but I welcomed the 
  feeling as it cushioned my tiredness somewhat. It also made me feel slightly better about 
  what we were doing. I did not enjoy killing them, especially in such an undignified manner, 
  but we were desperate. 
   
  Once we had two deflated skins, we set about cutting away the limbs and protruding 
  members and refilling the remaining bladders. We carefully held the rents beneath the 
  surface of the stream until some liquid got in. Whilst I held them closed again, Ace filled 
  two oddly shaped canteens with liquid as well, and hooked one onto my belt. 
   
  'Additional supplies,' she said, then climbed inside one of the skins. I did likewise with the 
  other. We knotted the rents from the inside. As we had hoped, the warmth from our bodies 
  vaporized the liquid and inflated the skin. 
   
  Urgency had lent skill to our endeavours: the scheme had worked, and we were left 
  standing within two tough, translucent, taut spheres that used to be living creatures but 
  now functioned as crude reservoirs of breathable air. 
   
  Ace waved at me. I waved back, and followed her as she carefully climbed up towards the 
  dark opening. The skin of the life-preserving integument deformed beneath our fingers 
  and feet, enabling us to climb, but was tough enough to resist tearing against the rock. 
   
  
  We entered the dark channel. A tunnel led upwards through the ice at a shallow enough 
  angle that we could walk along it in comfort. Ace turned and bestowed a triumphant smile 
  upon me. I pretended not to see it. 
   
  We walked for what seemed like hours. There were no side tunnels, no choices of path. 
  Although the walls were rough ice, I gained the impression that they had been carved, 
  rather than formed naturally. They glowed with what I first took to be an inner effulgence, 
  but later realized was the light from the planet's sun, refracted through the ice. It got 
  brighter as we walked, and more directional. Upon Ry'leh's interior surface I had not been 
  able to tell where the sun was, merely that it was up. Now I could have pointed to it with 
  some accuracy. I stumbled numerous times, but each time I managed to pick myself up 
  and carry on. My friends were depending on me. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I kept 
  on putting one foot before the other, slogging away like a trooper. The air within the 
  balloon became stuffier and stuffier, and the skin grew tauter and tauter as the pressure 
  outside reduced, but the trapped warmth of my body combated the cold which stung my 
  fingers whenever I inadvertently touched the skin. I was on the verge of passing out when 
  I remembered the canteen that Ace had provided me with. With clumsy fingers I untied the 
  knot and tried to bleed some of the stale air away. The reduced pressure outside snatched 
  at the rent, but I managed to hang on. I retied the skin when the balloon was half empty 
  and carefully poured some liquid from Ace's canteen. Within seconds the balloon had 
  reflated, and I felt refreshed. 
   
  I glanced over to where Ace had stopped. She was engaged in the same activity. From 
  the haggard look upon her face, she had almost left it too late. 
   
  We started walking again along the monotonous tunnel. I had completely lost track of 
  time, and was dreaming about roast turkey and plum pudding, when Ace stopped. I 
  bumped into her, and rebounded. She pointed ahead. 
   
  There was an irregular black opening some ten feet away. Cautiously, we crept closer and 
  peered out. 
   
  We had emerged at the base of a sheer cliff. The landscape that surrounded us was like 
  illustrations I have seen of the surface of the moon. Tremendous spires of rock -the tops 
  of the mountains - soared into the jet-black, starspeckled sky. Broken escarpments and 
  jumbled, irregular cliffs vied with large expanses of fiat ice. A bloated red sphere, spotted 
  with black, hung above our heads, casting a maleficent light across the terrain. 
   
  I have reconstructed the view at my leisure, to set the scene for the adventures that were 
  to come. At the time, it was not the alienness of the landscape that captured and held our 
  attention but rather the group of wooden caravans that sat not twenty feet away from us. 
  Their seams were sealed with some black, sticky substance and they sat upon huge metal 
  runners that cut deeply into the ice. The central caravan was cathedral-sized and ornate, 
  with symbols carved deeply into its sides and ten or eleven doors spaced around its 
  circumference. The others were smaller, clustered like ducklings around their mother. 
  Great grooves in the ice led away towards the horizon. They had been brought here. 
  
   
  Surrounding them: hundreds of rakshassi. They too were encased in inflated skins, forcing 
  them to fold their wings up against their backs. Some of them were busying themselves 
  with ropes, a handful of others were connecting the larger caravan to one of the smaller 
  ones with a tube which seemed to have been sewn together out of the same flexible skins 
  that Ace and I wore, and inflating it. 
   
  As we watched, a door in the largest caravan opened and a figure emerged wearing a 
  hooded robe. Climbing down from the caravan to the ground, the figure walked calmly 
  through the tube towards the smaller caravan. Two rakshassi followed it. It was hardly a 
  shock to me, but a shiver still ran up my spine as I recognized Maupertuis's mysterious 
  superior, the person at the seance in Euston. 
   
  Ace touched her balloon against mine. 
   
  'Well,' her voice said faintly, 'it looks like a party. Shall we gatecrash?' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 15 
   
  In which Holmes discovers that all things are relative and Watson sees the face of God. 
   
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
  Well, despite having two of the best brains this side of the planet Arcadia on the team, 
  we've been captured. Comprehensively and unquestionably captured. Imprisoned. Shut 
  up in a wooden caravan. The tinkle that I heard just after the door slammed was probably 
  them throwing away the key. 
  I could write a traveller's guide to places not to be locked up in. This one gets three stars: 
  it's clean, at least, and you can stand up without hitting your head but, as you can 
  probably tell from the handwriting, it's dark. I'm writing by the light of the Doctor's 
  everlasting matches, but they flicker too much to let me write in a straight line. In the 
  shadows I can hear Holmes pacing up and down and muttering to himself. I can't say I 
  blame him: he's had a hell of shock. All I can see of the Doctor is his eyes gleaming in the 
  darkness. He doesn't move or make any noise for ages, then he murmurs something, like, 
  'Of course, the Anglo-Saxon name for a council of kings was a micklemote,' and subsides 
  into silence again. 
   
  But I'm getting ahead of myself (so easy to do when you're a time traveller). Where did I 
  leave us at the end of the last entry? Oh yes, camping out on the plain, waiting for Watson 
  to return. Well, I fell into a fitful sleep, punctuated by bright blue flowers that bloomed 
  noisily across my mind's eye. It was only when the Doctor shook me awake that I found 
  that there was some sort of attack going on in Maupertuis's camp. The Ry'lehans on the 
  mountainside were firing at the humans down below. There was general confusion, and I 
  
  can't say that I blame them. My heart flip-flopped a couple of times when I thought about 
  Watson being caught up in it. I mean, he's such an innocent abroad, I'd hate it if anything 
  happened to him. 
   
  'As von Clausewitz so nearly said,' Holmes muttered dryly, 'war is the continuation of 
  philosophy by other means.' 
   
  A movement overhead caught my eye. I glanced up. A bat-winged silhouette was 
  dropping rapidly towards me. Bloody hell, I thought, it's a rakshassa! I shouted at Holmes 
  and the Doctor, and tried to dive out of the way. The creature's claws hit the ground where 
  I had been sitting, striking sparks from the rock. I rolled sideways, but it was too fast for 
  me. With an ungainly hop it straddled my body, blocking any escape with the shrouds of 
  its wings. I recoiled in disgust as it lowered its spiky face toward mine. In the valleys 
  between the spikes I could see small red orifices fluttering open and shut. 
   
  'So. . : it hissed, its breath rancid and steaming, 'we have the unbelievers who killed our 
  brothers. We forgive you. We forgive you.' 
   
  The shock of hearing it speak, and realizing that it was intelligent, made my head whirl. I 
  glanced to one side, looking for Holmes and the Doctor, hoping that one of them at least 
  had managed to put up some resistance, but the creature's crimson wing blocked my 
  view. 
   
  'Don't worry...' Its voice was warm in my ear. 'We have the other two heathens.' 
   
  'Let me go!' I shouted. 
   
  'Or what?' it asked, amused. Small droplets of its spittle rained down upon my face. I tried 
  not to gag. 
   
  'Or I'll . . . Look, what do you want with us, anyway?' 
   
  It cocked its head slightly. 
   
  'You will see the light,' it said. 
   
  'Oh, great. And this will happen when?' 
   
  'Worry not, human. The ceremony of innocence will soon begin.' 
   
  Before I could move, it reared up on its wing tips and wrapped its tail tightly around my rib-
  cage. Springing into the air, it spread its wings wide and flapped, gaining height rapidly. I 
  tried to take a breath but the damned thing was holding me too tight. The world stared to 
  fuzz out, like static on an open comm-link. Air buffeted my face as the rakshassa's wings 
  clutched at the air and pulled us aloft, but I couldn't seem to get any of it where it would do 
  
  the most good. I tried to prise the segmented coils of its tail apart, but they were 
  unmovable. I hit out at its cold, hard body but it didn't even seem to notice. 
   
  And then a gust of wind caught us and it shifted its grip on me slightly. Enough to breathe. 
  I sucked in great gulps of precious air, too concerned with staying alive to bother about the 
  sudden and catastrophic turnabout in our fortunes. After a few minutes of that, after my 
  heart settled down and stopped threatening to jump through my chest, I took a look 
  around. 
   
  And wished I hadn't. 
   
  The camp was a small blot on the landscape. Below us, and slightly to one side, another 
  rakshassa soared upwards with the Doctor held tightly beneath it. He waved reassuringly 
  at me. Irrationally, I felt like punching him on the nose. Morose for no reason and cheerful 
  in a crisis. I don't know how his other companions managed to stand him for so long. Or 
  maybe they didn't. Maybe they're all in therapy now. 
   
  'The battle is still going on,' Holmes cried faintly from somewhere above me. 'Maupertuis's 
  men appear to have successfully counter-attacked.' 
   
  As we rose higher, I could see that although most of the tents were on fire, Maupertuis's 
  men in their bright shiny uniforms were putting up quite a fight out on the plain. They had a 
  number of Gatling guns set up, and were raking the Ry'lehan lines. Although the 
  Ry'lehans had superior firepower they appeared to be surprised at the resistance they 
  were getting. A number of little fivelegged shapes were lying dead upon the ground. 
   
  Something odd was happening on the far side of the camp. I could see winged shapes - 
  rakshassi - diving down and picking up the occasional figure. They were very selective, 
  swooping low over the heads of the soldiery and choosing only the occasional victim. 
  Gradually I realized what they were doing. 
   
  'It's the Indian fakirs!' I yelled. 'The rakshassi are only picking up the Indian fakirs! The rest 
  of Maupertuis's men are being left to fight the Ry'lehans.' 
   
  'I cannot see Watson,' Holmes shouted. The Doctor remained silent, but I could see the 
  scowl on his face. 
   
  We flew higher, and higher still. The fires of Maupertuis's camp dwindled until they were 
  just a bright glow on the ground. As I saw more of the landscape of Ry'leh, I began to 
  appreciate its raw, uncompromising beauty. Valleys snaked away in every direction and 
  the ice sky reflected the mountains so that it looked as if we were rising from the surface 
  of one world, past twisted pillars, towards the surface of another. After a while I became 
  disoriented, but as we got closer and closer to the ice I could see that it had its own 
  topography and its own ecology. Looking around, I saw that we had been joined by a 
  number of other rakshassi, each clutching a bewildered fakir in its tail. Some of the fakirs 
  were chanting prayers, others appeared to have passed out. I thought I could see Tir 
  
  Ram, the Nizam of Jabalhabad, dangling from the tail of a rakshassa in the distance, but it 
  was difficult to be sure. 
   
  Eventually, the rakshassi settled onto the upper slopes of a mountain like a flock of birds 
  congregating on a church steeple. I tried to take a breath, but the air was so thin that I 
  found myself gasping. My eyes streamed but I could see a large crack in the ice where the 
  mountain pierced it. A translucent tunnel poked out of it like some bloated worm. It looked 
  like it had been made from circular patches of material or skin sewn together. It bulged, as 
  if filled with air, and there was a zip-like arrangement at one end. It looked to me 
  remarkably like a crude but workable pressurized corridor. The rakshassi were picking up 
  their prisoners, one by one, flying them up to the mouth of the tunnel and throwing them 
  in, then pulling up the zip after them. Dimly, through the skin of the tunnel, I could see 
  another rakshassa inside the corridor operating another zip. Okay, it was a crude but 
  workable pressurized corridor with an airlock. I had to admire their ingenuity, if not their 
  good looks and personal hygiene. 
   
  Eventually it was my turn, and not a moment too soon. I was on the verge of passing out. 
  After a short flight I was thrown into the tunnel, and after the zip was fastened behind me 
  the rakshassa inside opened his zip and pulled me through into the main body of the 
  corridor. A sudden rush of oxygen made me dizzy. Where was it coming from? 
   
  I reached out to touch the walls. They were smooth and leathery, and marred every few 
  feet by a rough stitched seam. Beyond them, the smooth walls of an icy tunnel led 
  upwards at a gentle angle. 
   
  My fingers ran over what felt like a distorted nose and a puffy cheek. I didn't want to know. 
   
  The rakshassa at the tunnel mouth grabbed my shoulder and pulled me past its hard body 
  to join the end of a line of turbaned and breech-clothed fakirs. We all trudged along 
  through the dark and the cold. The fakirs were singing some kind of gentle song, but I 
  didn't know the words. I tried calling out for the Doctor or Holmes, or even Tir Ram, but 
  there was no response. For the first time I felt truly alone. 
   
  We emerged after what seemed like hours onto the surface of Ry'leh. The sight of the 
  stars shining down on us cheered me up for a moment. Through the translucent skin of 
  the tunnel I could see that the peaks of the mountains erupted through the ice all around, 
  giving the planet the air of a frightened hedgehog. 
   
  A group of large wooden caravans on skates were huddled together out on the ice. 
  Gouges in the ice showed that this was the end of their journey, not the start. Mostly they 
  were small, but one enormous one loomed over the rest, so big and so heavy that the ice 
  seemed to bow slightly beneath it. 
   
  The pressurized tunnel, which I now realize was sewn together out of animal skins, led to 
  another airlock, which was connected to a large wooden caravan on skates. This place 
  was getting wilder and wilder. A rakshassa at the end of the tunnel was throwing prisoners 
  
  willy-nilly into its dark interior. A queue had already formed. Every so often there would be 
  a hold-up while the airlock was resealed and the caravan was towed away by teams of 
  rakshassi pulling ropes, to be replaced with another one. The rakshassi outside the tunnel 
  were all squeezed into impromptu spacesuits. They had to fold their wings up to fit in. I 
  hoped it hurt. 
   
  I shuffled forward, a few steps at a time, trying to come up with some witty comment but 
  failing miserably. Miserably, yes, that was the word. When I got to the end, the rakshassa 
  took a closer look at me, then pulled me roughly inside. 
   
  'You are special,' it assured me. 
   
  'Tell me something I don't know,' I snapped, but it was already busy throwing more fakirs 
  into the caravan. 
   
  I slumped against the wall of the corridor for a while, glad of the chance to rest. One by 
  one, the fakirs filed past me. 
   
  'Mr Summerfield!' 
   
  I jerked out of my reverie to find the youthful figure of Tir Ram standing in the line. His fine 
  robes were ruined, but the Indians around him still knelt in his presence. My brain 
  floundered for a moment, then I remembered that I had attended his feast disguised as a 
  man. I was still wearing the same formal attire, but it was just as ripped and stained as his 
  was by now. Considering the rips, I was surprised that he still referred to me as 'Mr'. He 
  was either being polite or he'd led a sheltered life. 
   
  'Happy?' I asked. 
   
  'I do beg your pardon?' 
   
  'Are you happy? Have your plans worked out the way you thought?' 
   
  Sarcasm was wasted on him. 
   
  'I think that I was misled by the good Baron,' he said without any trace of irony. 'He 
  promised me a new empire. He said that Jabalhabad would be a new port, a landbound 
  harbour through which the trade of two worlds would flow.' 
   
  He smiled, rather shamefacedly. 
   
  'I'm afraid I believed him,' he continued. 'I didn't want Jabalhabad to remain a backwater 
  province too small even for you British to bother about. Was I wrong?' 
  There was desperation in his voice. 
   
  
  'Ask them,' I said, gesturing towards his subjects. He opened his mouth to reply, but the 
  rakshassa picked him up and threw him into the airlock. 
   
  I saw the Doctor's hat bobbing in the distance, and called out to him. He was talking 
  earnestly to one of the fakirs, but waved his hat in the air in reply. A few minutes later we 
  were reunited as the rakshassa pulled him out to stand beside me. We hugged in 
  greeting. Holmes joined us shortly afterwards, but I didn't hug him. 
   
  The next caravan to come along was for us and us alone. 
   
  'We're honoured,' I murmured as I climbed through a simple but effective wooden airlock 
  arrangement into the dark interior. 
   
  'There are times,' the Doctor said, joining me, 'when it pays to be one of the crowd.' 
   
  'You suspect that we have been singled out for something special?' Holmes asked. 
   
  I could just make out the Doctor's sombre expression. 
   
  'It seems to be the story of my life.' 
   
  Holmes laughed briefly. 
   
  'And mine as well. We make a fine pair, Doctor.' 
   
  The heavy thud of the door cut off my retort. Darkness descended upon us. 
  And that's where we are now. The caravan moved off shortly after that, but stopped a few 
  minutes later. It looked like we were parking until all of the prisoners had been transferred 
  from the tunnel. The Doctor lit a couple of his wonder-matches and stuck them into his 
  hatband, so we could just about see what we were doing. 
   
  Which wasn't much. 
   
  Holmes paced up and down, and the Doctor made gnomic little utterances from time to 
  time. To keep myself amused I did my usual trick of going back over my diary entries for 
  the past few days and sticking yellow labels over the pages, then writing an alternative, 
  more dramatic version of events in which I played a much larger part. After a while, even 
  that palled. 
   
  When we heard the outer airlock door chunk open, then shut, I was so glad to have my 
  boredom relieved that I didn't even feel scared. It was only when the inner door opened 
  and a figure in a hooded white robe and white gloves stepped into the room, flanked by a 
  massive rakshassa, that I felt a shiver run through me like a seam of silver through rock. 
   
  
  The figure stood silently for a moment. I could feel its gaze pass across me, although I 
  couldn't see any features within the hood. The light from the Doctor's matches gleamed on 
  the hard, chitinous skin of the rakshassa. 
   
  Holmes gazed at the figure. He looked anguished. 
   
  'Why?' he whispered. 'Why did you do it?' 
   
  Raising his gloved hands the newcomer threw back his hood. The sharp face and close-
  cropped grey hair were familiar. Very familiar. 
   
  Holmes's lips tightened slightly. His body-language told me that he was not surprised. 
   
  'Professor Summerfield,' he said quietly, 'may I introduce my brother, Sherringford.' 
   
  'Two meetings in a month,' said Sherringford Holmes with a smile. 'Wouldn't Mother have 
  been pleased to see how well we're getting along?' 
   
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
   
  'Well?' Ace said, 'what's it to be?' 
   
  I looked across from our coign of vantage to the cluster of caravans. 
   
  'How much air have we got left?' I asked. 
   
  'Haven't got a clue.' 
   
  'What are the chances that Holmes, Bernice and the Doctor are held captive down there?' 
   
  'Don't know.' 
   
  'How do you see us proceeding, assuming that we can get to those caravans undetected?' 
   
  'You've got me there, squire.' 
  'It strikes me,' I said, with some asperity, 'that, as plans go, it leaves a lot to be desired.' 
   
  'Listen, spunk-brain, if .you've got a better one. . .' 
   
  'Any alternative plans I might have rather depend on different things having occurred over 
  the past few hours,' I said placatingly. 'Given the current situation. . .' 
   
  
  'I'll let you into a secret,' Ace said. 'I've been in more sneaky situations than you've had hot 
  dinners, and the best plan is usually not to have one. Any plan you can think up, the 
  enemy can anticipate, and the more complicated it is, the further away they can see it 
  coming. Take it on the fly, and it confuses them.' 
   
  'Do you always think in terms of enemies?' 
   
  A dark shadow passed behind her eyes. 
   
  'Who else is there?' she murmured. Without waiting for an answer, she moved off down 
  the slope. Reluctantly, I followed. 
   
  We moved carefully over the icy terrain, the more so because of our globular suits. I kept 
  worrying that they would tear on sharp shards of ice, but they were remarkably resilient. 
  The rakshassi were fussing around with ropes at the front of the caravans, obviously 
  preparing to move, and so we crept around to the back where it was safer. We managed 
  to sneak through the line of caravans to the huge central one without being detected. 
  Close up it was even larger than I had thought. Sheltering beneath it, in the lee of one of is 
  vast metal runners, standing beside one of the parallel gouges in the ice that marked its 
  journey, we debated out next move. 
   
  'Whatever is in there is heavy,' I pointed out, indicating the way the floor bowed towards 
  us. 'It might just be a storehouse.' 
   
  'I'm going inside anyway,' Ace insisted. 
   
  'Why? It's obviously important to them, whatever it is.' 
   
  'That's exactly why.' 
   
  'I'm not going to risk it!' 
   
  'I didn't ask you to.' 
   
  True to her word, Ace moved away from me towards the edge of the caravan, where the 
  lip of one of the doors jutted out. Cursing, I followed. She checked that the coast was 
  clear, and then emerged into the open. The spherical suit made it difficult for her to swing 
  up to the door, and in the end she reluctantly let me help her up. Somehow I managed to 
  scramble up beside her without bursting my own bubble. The incised sides of the caravan 
  loomed above us. It must have been some ten or twelve yards high. 
   
  Ace examined the edges of the door. 
   
  'It's an airlock,' she announced. 
   
  'A what?' 
  
   
  'It keeps the air in. Look at the seals. There must be another one, just inside. Fair enough, 
  unless they've got a pump or something they'll lose whatever air is trapped between the 
  doors, but I guess that doesn't worry them. They can probably replenish it. Shall we go?' 
   
  'Are you sure about this?' 
   
  'Does the Pope wear a funny hat?' 
   
  'Not the last time I saw him,' I replied. She grinned at me, shedding a lot of years as she 
  did so. I smiled back. 
   
  She pushed at the door. It opened easily, giving us access to a chamber about the size of 
  a large wardrobe. I closed it behind us, and noticed that it pressed against a door-seal 
  which was made of some material like guttapercha. There was a door ahead. Judging by 
  the hinges, it opened away from us. It too had a rubbery seal. Ace pushed against it, but it 
  resisted her. 
   
  'Air pressure,' she grunted. 'Give us a hand.' 
   
  I added my weight to hers. For a moment nothing happened, then a crack appeared 
  between the door and the seal. A sudden hiss made me jump. My bubble misted up and 
  began to wrinkle. 
   
  'Pressure's equalizing,' Ace said. Her envelope was also sagging. She pushed the door 
  fully open. 
   
  I did not know what to expect when I entered that foul, awful place. My mind could have 
  conjured up a myriad possibilities, but never, never in a million years, could it have hit 
  upon what I actually saw. 
   
  The interior of the caravan was one huge space. Flying buttresses braced the sides 
  against the floor and the high ceiling. Windows of coloured glass, high up in the caravan's 
  sides, admitted the weak crimson light of the sun to cast illumination upon a creature that 
  should have remained in darkness forever. 
   
   
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
   
  As Sherringford Holmes stood over us, flanked by his gargoyle-like rakshassa 
  bodyguards, I felt a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach. Or 'breadbasket', as Watson 
  would have called it in his po-faced Victorian way. 
   
  The Doctor chuckled slightly, surprising me. 
  
   
  'You knew!' I accused him. 
   
  'I had my suspicions,' he admitted. 'So did Holmes, although he didn't want to 
  acknowledge it. Sherringford was so against us pursuing the Baron to India that I began to 
  smell a rat.' 
   
  'Hang on,' I said, 'it can't be Sherringford. I mean, it is Sherringford, but it can't be. Didn't 
  Holmes and Watson see this mysterious hooded man in Euston just before you all met 
  Sherringford in Holborn?' 
   
  'Yes,' the Doctor said earnestly, 'but we were almost forced off the road by a carriage 
  which raced past us. Sherringford must have been inside it, doing a quickchange act on 
  his way back to the Library to meet Mycroft. And then there's those curious gloves...' 
   
  'The gloves? What about the gloves?' 
   
  'Well, that's the curious thing. . .' 
   
  'The Doctor leaned back with a self-satisfied smile on his face, and looked up to where 
  Sherlock Holmes was staring at the gaunt, grey-haired form of his brother. 
   
  'I had hoped that my reasoning was faulty...' Holmes said finally, and trailed off into 
  silence. He looked pretty stunned. I guess I would to, if my brother turned up as the villain 
  of the piece. Especially since I haven't got a brother. 
   
  'I had hoped that you were in blissful ignorance, dear boy,' Sherringford said. 'Once Mr 
  Ambrose in the Library told me of his intention to recommend you to the Pope, I sent 
  Colonel Warburton out to Vienna to follow you, and then detailed K'tcar'ch to monitor your 
  investigations in London, but they both reported that your suspicions were directed at 
  Maupertuis. Out of interest, what gave me away?' 
   
  'A number of minor clues, most important of which was Father's journal.' 
   
  'What of it?' 
   
  Explaining his reasoning seemed to be helping Holmes calm down. He wasn't quite as 
  pale as he had been, and his eyes weren't quite as glazed. 
   
  'I asked myself why only one of our party should be kidnapped from the hotel in Bombay. 
  Why not take all of us? The only answer I could come up with was that the kidnapper 
  wanted not the Doctor but the book that he carried, the book with the chant in it. Not only 
  did you evince a strong desire to keep the book back in England, but you were also one of 
  the few people to know that we were heading for Bombay.' 
   
  
  'How careless of me,' Sherringford sighed. 'I needed the book in order to open the 
  gateway, of course. When I knew that it was coming to India with the Doctor, I sent a 
  message ahead to Maupertuis and followed on the next ship.' 
   
  'You must know by now that your scheme has been scotched.' Holmes's voice rang with a 
  kind of righteous indignation, brother or no brother. 'The army which Baron Maupertuis 
  raised for you has been scattered. You may have retrieved your fakirs from the fray, but 
  you cannot proceed with your invasion of Ry'leh. You may as well give yourself up and 
  return to England, where I can...' The words seemed to catch in his throat. '. . . I can 
  promise you a fair trial.' 
   
  'Oh Sherlock,' said Sherringford, 'you can never abandon a theory once you've got your 
  teeth into it, can you? At least Mycroft, lazy though he may be, is flexible in that regard.' 
   
  He smiled in brotherly affection. 
   
  'We aren't invading Ry'leh,' he said. 'We're invading Earth.' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 16 
   
  In which God wants to have a word, and an evil from the dawn of time is debunked. 
   
   
  'Invading the Earth?' Holmes snapped. 'I've never heard anything so preposterous. Why in 
  Heaven's name would you betray everything that you hold dear in the name of some alien 
  race?' 
   
  Sherringford leaned forward earnestly. 
   
  'Have you heard the word of God?' 
   
  There was a moment of silence as we tried to work that one out. The Doctor was the first 
  person to come up with an adequate response. 
   
  'Were you thinking of any god in particular, or would a general chit-chat with any deity 
  suffice?' he piped up eventually. 'You see, I've come across enough gods in my time to 
  stock several pantheons and still have a few left over for a Gotterdammerung or two. 
  There's even a planet I could point you to where they worshipped me for a few 
  generations, but then, I suppose that's understandable. I hope you don't want references, 
  because I'm not on good terms with very many of them. Apart from myself, of course, and 
  even then we had our differences.' 
  He frowned, as if rerunning the spiel in his mind to check that it all made sense. I knew 
  that the whole thing was a trick to give him time to think, and to make Sherringford 
  underestimate his intelligence, but I couldn't help thinking that he was overdoing it a bit. 
  
   
  Sherringford had heard the Doctor out in good humour. 
   
  'You are a heathen, Doctor, but that will change.' 
   
  'I doubt it,' the Doctor said. 'I've bandied words with bigger megalomaniacs than you 
  without any noticeable change in my opinions.' 
   
  The rakshassa took a step forward. Its claws gouged holes in the wood and its spiked tail 
  swung ominously. I'd felt the strength in that tail, and I didn't particularly want to come up 
  against it again. 
   
  'You will regret those words, heretic. . .' it whispered. 
   
  'Worry not, Brother K'tcar'ch,' Sherringford said soothingly. 'God will protect me.' 
   
  'K'tcar'ch?' the Doctor exclaimed. I could see he was surprised, and suddenly 
  remembered the name. K'tcar'ch was the alien that they had all met in the Library in 
  Holborn, but I thought the Doctor had told me that it looked like a large walnut with five 
  legs, like the Ry'lehans fighting on the slopes of the mountain. 
   
  'We have already met, Doctor,' K'tcar'ch hissed, 'but now I know the Peace of God, and 
  have abandoned my body of flesh for this spiritual form!' 
   
  'Brother K'tcar'ch has been converted to the One True Faith,' Sherringford said with some 
  pleasure. 'Another of Her miracles. Once you have heard the Word, you too will know 
  Peace.' 
   
  'Peace?' spat the Doctor, 'I've seen more, bigger and nastier wars than you've pulled 
  wings off flies, and most of them were the result of the members of one faith thinking they 
  were better than the members of another. I abjured religion a long time ago. You may 
  have come across some creature that claims to be a god, but I will eat my hat if it is the 
  real thing.' 
   
  'You will meet Azathoth shortly,' Sherringford assured him with a benign smile, 'then you 
  will understand.' 
   
  Now there's a familiar name, I thought, as the rakshassa made a complex sign across its 
  armoured and studded chest, and the Doctor's face fell. 
   
  'Azathoth?' he said. 
   
  Sherringford beamed. 
   
  'Not the Azathoth?' 
   
  
  'Indeed.' 
   
  'Not the amorphous blight of nethermost confusion that blasphemes and bubbles at the 
  centre of all infinity, coexistent with all time and conterminous with all space?' 
   
  Sherringford's face broke into a joyous smile. 
   
  'Doctor, I had no idea that you had studied the Faith!' 
   
  The Doctor cocked his head and gazed up at Sherringford. 
   
  'Oh, I've come across some of your sales literature in dentists' waiting rooms and the like,' 
  he said with a straight face. 'I may even have attended a jumble sale or two. What 
  confused me is what an omnipotent, omniscient god like Azathoth is doing here on Ry'leh.' 
   
  'This is hardly the time for a theology lesson,' Holmes muttered. 
   
  'On the contrary,' his brother corrected him, 'your transubstantiation will be easier if you 
  are prepared and if you understand what hearing the Word truly means.' 
   
  Holmes sneered and turned away. Sherringford turned to the Doctor and me and smiled. 
   
  'After giving birth to the cosmos, Azathoth drifted, discorporate, through the void,' he said 
  in the tone of voice reserved for priests and religious lunatics the universe over. 'Across 
  the Universe, Her followers prayed that She would be born into a physical body. After 
  hundreds of billions of years, their prayers were answered, and Azathoth became 
  incarnate amongst them. As a mark of Her special favour She spread the Word amongst 
  them, so that they might be more pleasing in her sight.' 
   
  'You see,' the Doctor said, turning to me, 'how the truth becomes distorted and woven into 
  the legend? Azathoth must have floated around in the vortex for billennia before managing 
  to find a gap and manifest itself corporeally on somebody's home planet. It was always the 
  weakest of the Great Old Ones, according to legend.' 
   
  'They went out into the universe in their star-spanning craft to spread the gospel of 
  Azathoth,' Sherringford went on, 'but the unbelievers took arms against them. There was a 
  jihad, a holy war. Azathoth, in Her infinite mercy, would not lay waste to the forces of 
  darkness, and was vanquished. They wanted to kill Her - as if a God could be killed! - but 
  they were too weak and divided, and banished Her to this cold, hard world with the most 
  faithful of her followers.' 
   
  'For which,' the Doctor murmured, 'read "Azathoth tried to spread her religion around a bit 
  via a sophisticated sort of mind control, and got stomped on".' 
   
  'It's a bit hard on the inhabitants of Ry'leh,' I said. 'Having a god dumped in their laps.' 
   
  
  'Inhabitants?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'His lot,' I said, pointing to K'tcar'ch. 'The ones with five legs.' 
   
  'The Shlangii?' He shook his head. 'No, they don't live here. The Shlangii are the most 
  feared mercenaries in the known universe. I presume that a couple of garrisons of them 
  were stationed on Ry'leh to stop Azathoth escaping. They are notoriously unreceptive to 
  new ideas, which makes them ideal choices to guard a creature with a natty line in mass 
  hypnosis. Unfortunately, it looks as if Azathoth has managed to convert a substantial 
  number of them. I knew that it reminded me of something back in Holborn, but I couldn't 
  remember what.' 
   
  Sherringford had been following our conversation. 
   
  'Alas,' he said, 'the remainder have taken steps to prevent themselves hearing the 
  message. Some form of surgery I believe. Poor, misguided creatures. If only they knew 
  the glories that they have blinded themselves to.' 
   
  'So they're not peaceful philosophers?' I asked, just to make sure. He just laughed. 
   
  'That's why they were attacking Maupertuis's men,' the Doctor said. 'They must have 
  thought that Maupertuis had come to rescue Azathoth.' 
   
  'Which, of course, he had,' said Sherringford. 'Although he did not know it. But we tarry too 
  long. It is time that you heard the Word yourselves.' 
   
  Holmes was staring at his brother's hands. 
   
  'I have been wondering ever since we met in the Library why my brother has been wearing 
  gloves,' he said suddenly. 'An affectation, I thought, or perhaps a disfiguring skin disease. 
  I noticed then that his nails had not been cut for some time - the material of the gloves 
  was stretched to a point in an unmistakable way - but it has just struck me that his nails 
  are considerably longer now than they were in the Library. Longer than they could feasibly 
  have grown in that time.' 
   
  'The Mark of Azathoth,' the Doctor said quietly. 
   
  Sherringford raised his right hand. 
   
  'Our stigmata,' he said, flexing his fingers. Something seemed to ripple beneath the glove, 
  which suddenly split along the seam. Scarlet flesh swelled out, revealing fingers that were 
  clawed, pebbled and veined with black. Scraps of white material fluttered to the wooden 
  floor of the caravan. 
   
  'Such a relief,' he sighed. 'I have been trying to hold this back for weeks.' 
  His shoulders began to swell. 
  
   
  'Dealing with pagans and unbelievers, I have been forced to retain this debased guise, 
  hiding any changes beneath by clothes, but now I can allow my transubstantiation full 
  rein.' 
   
  We were all backing away from Sherringford now. Holmes was horror-struck. He held out 
  his hands towards his brother in a way that was either an entreaty, an offer of help or a 
  warding off. The Doctor was looking on with a detached scientific interest. I just wanted to 
  get out. 
   
  Sherringford's shoulders erupted through his robes into moist, filmy wings. I could see the 
  pulsing of veins as blood pumped into them, filling them out as I watched. Droplets of 
  some fluid sprayed across my face. The wings stretched until they touched the ground. As 
  soon as his wings could take his weight his legs began to wither away into an armoured 
  tail. 
   
  'You will be so happy when you have heard the Word,' he hissed. 
   
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
   
  The creature was vast and swollen, like the carcass of a beached whale that had become 
  bloated with putrefaction. 
   
  A discharge of some mucus-like substance hung in thick, cobweb-like strands from its 
  rugose skin to the floor. It was a vivid purple in colour, with irregular black spots marring 
  its surface. I saw no limbs, no eyes, no organs of sense at all, just one huge toothless 
  maw that slobbered incessantly at us. The wooden planks of the floor were bent under its 
  weight, and pitted as if it sweated some acidic substance. 
   
  'Oh my God!' I whispered. There was a stench within the caravan: a stench of something 
  old, and decayed, and evil. 
   
  'My child...' 
   
  I whirled, looking for the speaker, but we were alone. 
   
  'Where . . .?' I said. 
   
  Ace inclined her head towards the . . . the thing in front of us. 
   
  'There,' she said. 
   
  
  'You poor lost souls, you have made your way to salvation.' The voice continued. It was 
  mellifluous and curiously hypnotic. I could not believe that it came from this swollen leech. 
   
  'Who are you?' I cried. 'Where are you?' 
   
  'I have been known by many names,' the voice continued, 'but you may call me Azathoth.' 
  I could not determine whether it was a physical thing or whether I was hearing it within the 
  confines of my own skull. 'I am everywhere. I am here for you. I am your saviour.' 
   
  'Talks like the R.E. master at school,' Ace muttered. 
   
  'Approach me, and feel the warmth of my love for you.' 
   
  'No fear.' 
   
  There was something in that voice that touched a chord deep within me. It approved of 
  me. It forgave me. 
   
  'Come closer...' 
   
  I took a step forward. Ace caught at my arm and tried to drag me back, but I pushed her 
  away. 
   
  'What do you think you're doing?' she yelled. 
   
  'Come close to me, and receive my redemption.' 
   
  I gazed lovingly up at its rough hide. 
   
  'I want. . .' I began, then trailed off in confusion. 
   
  'You want to be loved,' it said. I nodded dumbly, and took another step. 
  Ace's arm snaked around my windpipe and pressed hard. Choking, I fell back into her 
  arms. 
   
  'Don't listen to it,' she yelled in my ear, but it was still whispering in my mind, and I 
  struggled in her arms. Somehow, as I fought to get free and she fought to drag me back, 
  we staggered sideways just enough to bring a figure into view around the side of the 
  creature's bulk. A figure that was kneeling before it, dressed in ragged embroidered robes 
  of peacock blue. 
   
  'Tir Ram!' I cried, forgetting for a moment that insistent voice in my mind. He did not react. 
  He seemed to be in a world of his own, worshipping Azathoth. 
   
  'Who . . .?' Ace asked. 
   
  
  I shook my head to try and clear it. My thoughts were muddy and confused. 
   
  'He's... he was allied with Baron Maupertuis...' I said, stumbling over the words. 'I told you 
  about him . . . it was his fakirs who created the gateway through which we arrived here.' 
   
  'The gateway that brought you into my light,' said Azathoth calmly. 'Tir Ram has joined 
  me, as you will join me. Follow his example, and submit yourself to my love.' 
   
  I managed to elbow Ace in the pit of the stomach. She fell back, coughing, and I ran 
  forward to take hold of Tir Ram's shoulder. His head was bowed and his dark hair fell 
  across his features. I am still not sure whether I wanted to drag him away or join him. A 
  part of me had succumbed to Azathoth's message, but a part of me still rebelled against 
  its seductive lure. 
   
  'Tir Ram!' I cried. 
   
  He turned to look at me. 
   
  His face was a forest of tiny crimson thorns. 
   
   
   
  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield 
   
   
  The pressurized tunnel had been rearranged to connect us to the vast central caravan. 
  Waves of cold radiated at us from the bulging walls. As the three of us crossed the open 
  ground, escorted by the two rakshassi, and started up the steps of the cathedral-like 
  caravan, I could see, through the mist of condensation, rakshassi in pressurized globes 
  attaching ropes to anchor-points all around the caravans. I was confused. If they were 
  intending to pull the caravans across the ice, why attach ropes all the way around? 
   
  Sherringford was having a bit of trouble walking on his shiny new wings. It's not the sort of 
  thing that you can practise beforehand. 
   
  'I take it,' the Doctor said to him as we walked, 'that all of this business has been in order 
  to rescue your putative god and get it to Earth.' 
   
  The door in front of us began to creak slowly open, like something out of an old horror film. 
   
  'Indeed,' Sherringford said in a hiss-laden voice. 'Azathoth suspected that natural 
  gateways had long existed between Earth and Ry'leh - the occasional Indian mystic had 
  managed to open a window through which they had seen the occasional rakshassi. Tir 
  Ram's thuggee forebears believed Ry'leh to be the realm of Siva, the Destroyer, and built 
  a temple to worship in.' 
   
  
  'Not far wrong, were they?' I murmured. 
   
  'However,' Sherringford continued, 'neither Azathoth nor Her faithful followers could open 
  the gateway between the worlds from Ry'leh.' 
   
  'Why not?' The Doctor seemed genuinely eager to know. 'I would have thought that 
  escape would have been Azathoth's priority. After all, what sort of god would put up with 
  the shame of eternal detention on a cold ball of rock?' 
   
  Sherringford's spiked face swung around until his facial spikes were quivering a few 
  inches from the Doctor's snub nose. 
   
  'As you have already found, the only way to open a gateway is by use of certain musical 
  tones which vibrate at some underlying universal frequency - that harmony of the spheres. 
  One of the drawbacks of this form is that we cannot sing.' 
   
  'And Azathoth couldn't conjure up a voice box?' The Doctor kept his face straight as he 
  baited Sherringford. 'Not much of a deity, if you ask me. What do you think, Bernice?' 
   
  'Perhaps Azathoth could have equipped her flock with harmonicas.' 
   
  'Or kazoos,' he agreed. 'I'm a dab hand with the old comb and paper.' 
   
  Sherringford turned away. 
   
  'Azathoth had been weakened in Her long battle against the forces of darkness,' he 
  explained. 
   
  It was too much like 'God moves in mysterious ways' for me, and he didn't exactly sound 
  convinced himself. 
   
  'It was fortunate for Azathoth,' he went on, 'that I had discovered our father's diaries in the 
  Library of St John the Beheaded. He reproduced the chants he had heard. I was intrigued, 
  and began to experiment with opening a gateway. Travelling to India, I stayed with Tir 
  Ram and managed, with the help of his wise men, to find my way to Ry'leh. After Azathoth 
  had opened my eyes to the Truth, I willingly returned to Earth to make preparations to 
  open a larger, more permanent connection so that we could spread the Word far and 
  wide.' 
   
  'And that's where Maupertuis came on board?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'Indeed. Poor Maupertuis. He was so looking forward to his invasion. We needed him to 
  create a diversion, of course. Once I had determined how to move Azathoth from the city 
  of Kadath in the Cold Wastes to the Plain of Leng where the transfer had to take place, I 
  needed to keep the nearest garrison of Shlangii busy while the gateway was opened and 
  
  Azathoth escaped to Earth. I knew Maupertuis through the Diogenes, and I knew how 
  bright the flame of glory burned within his breast.' 
   
  We were walking up the steps to the big doors now. The caravan loomed overhead, 
  dwarfing everything nearby. It looked like a fitting place for a God. No, actually it looked 
  like a very big dog kennel, but I'm a sucker for religious architecture. I've dug up so much 
  of it in my time. 
   
  'Why did you not convert more innocents to your cult?' Holmes asked. 'Why the 
  subterfuge? Why not spread the Word to Maupertuis, or Warburton, or Tir Ram?' 
   
  The door opened to K'tcar'ch's push, and Sherringford stepped forward. Well, lurched. He 
  wasn't getting the hang of those wings. 
   
  'The Mark of Azathoth is not easily hidden, as you can see from Brother K'tcar'ch' he said. 
  'Azathoth's faithful worshippers would have attracted too much attention to themselves. In 
  order to raise an army to rescue Azathoth from this purgatory, Maupertuis and Warburton 
  had to travel. In Her infinite wisdom, Azathoth decided not to take the risk. I, of course, 
  had little contact with anybody, and could hide whatever physical changes occurred 
  beneath my robes. And besides, the Word is not something that can be explained quickly. 
  Its subtleties and intricacies take time to explain. We did not have time to spare.' 
   
  'Vast amounts of physiological and psychological data to transfer,' the Doctor murmured to 
  me as we followed Sherringford into the darkness. 'Even given data compression 
  techniques and broad-band telepathy, it still takes an appreciable time.' 
   
  'And why did you steal the books?' Holmes asked as the airlock door closed behind us 
  and embedded itself in some kind of rubber seal. 
   
  'Because the Doctor had asked to see them, dear boy. It was apparent that somebody had 
  stumbled on our plans and we had to cover our tracks. I had to act, and act quickly. Once 
  you began to show an interest in the books, Maupertuis's brutal manservant was the 
  perfect choice to steal them.' 
   
  'Yes,' the Doctor said, 'that manservant. Did Azathoth have anything to do with the 
  surgery?' 
   
  'Oh no,' Sherringford said, rather shocked at the idea. 'That was all Maupertuis's doing. He 
  seemed to enjoy that sort of thing.' He shook his head at the folly of the world. 'Brother 
  K'tcar'ch followed you, of course, to see how far your investigations had progressed, but 
  alas you followed it back to the Library and we were forced to invent a tale to satisfy you. It 
  seemed best to tell you the same story that we had told Maupertuis, with some small 
  modifications.' 
   
  The Doctor obviously wanted to ask more, but the inner door opened, revealing a dark, 
  echoing space, crisscrossed by beams of light from windows high above. In the middle of 
  
  the space sat what I can only describe as a big fat slug. A big, fat slug with a mouth that 
  drooled thick strands of black saliva. The stench alone made my eyes water. 
   
  'If that's God,' I said, 'then somebody should shoot Michelangelo.' 
  I glanced sideways at the Doctor, but he had an odd expression on his face. It looked like 
  disappointment. 
   
  Sherringford was on his knees again, with his forehead touching the floor. 
   
  Deciding that discretion was better part of valour, I joined him. The Doctor, scowling, 
  followed my example, but I saw him sticking his tongue out as he bent his head. 
   
  Something cold and slimy infiltrated itself into my mind. I shook my head violently to try 
  and dislodge it, but I could feel cupboards and drawers being opened and ransacked, and 
  old memories being held up to the light. I tried to turn my attention inwards and fight this 
  thing that was skulking around inside my personality, my me-ness, but it was like trying to 
  catch a rat in the beam of a torch. 
   
  It was disgusting. It was rape. 
   
  And then it was over. The touch withdrew, leaving a nasty taste in my mind. 
   
  'Azathoth!' Sherringford cried, 'all praise!' 
   
  The rakshassa repeated the words in its hissing voice. 
   
  For a long moment nothing happened, and then Azathoth spoke in a voice as sweet as 
  honey. 
   
  'Sherringford, my child... ' it began, 'I am concentrating my energies upon the spiritual 
  plane to ensure our success. You have done well. Disturb me not.' 
   
  Sherringford seemed surprised at this abrupt dismissal. 
   
  'I have brought you two more worshippers, oh great Azathoth.' 
   
  Azathoth seemed to pause, as if it was listening to something. 
   
  'Leave them here. I shall deal with them in my own time. You must oversee the 
  preparations for my descent to the surface.' 
   
  Sherringford frowned. 
   
  'Alone? Unguarded by your faithful?' 
   
  Another pause. 
  
   
  'Do you doubt my power?' 
   
  Backtracking quickly, he cried, 'No, oh Great One! My concern for you overrides my good 
  sense.' 
   
  'I have . . . converted two intruders to the cause,' Azathoth said. 'I shall send them to you. 
  They will serve as my guards.' 
   
  I glanced at the Doctor. He looked back with a forboding frown. I knew what he was 
  thinking, and it was bad news. 
   
  He glanced across at Sherringford. 
   
  'This One True Faith lark,' he said. 'It sounds as if you have something more literal in mind 
  than a quick dip in the holy water.' 
   
  'Once you have heard my Word, Doctor,' Azathoth's voice murmured seductively in my 
  mind, 'then your doubts will evaporate like dew in the sunlight, and you will receive my 
  Mark as a sign of my special favour.' 
   
  'Hypnosis? Mind control? I was hoping for something a little more impressive than that.' 
   
  He turned to me. 
   
  'I've spent a thousand years fighting the Great Old Ones and their servants, and this 
  pathetic specimen isn't one of them. It's nothing but a confidence trickster with the power 
  to make people love it: a cosmic cuckoo masquerading as a trans-dimensional power and 
  trading on the reputation of a being far greater than it could ever be. How pathetic.' 
   
  'Clutch at whatever straws of explanation you like, Doctor,' Sherringford whispered, 'but 
  you will think differently when you have heard the Word.' 
   
  'That,' the Doctor said, 'is what I am afraid of.' 
   
  He turned to look at me. 
   
  'Imetay otay ogay,' he said, 'When I say the "R" word.. .' 
   
  'Message understood.' 
   
  'Make sure Holmes comes too.' 
   
  I quickly glanced over to where the Great Detective stood. His face showed no expression 
  now, and he seemed to have got stuck in a particular pose. 
   
  
  'He's in shock,' I said. 'Not surprising. I'll try and pull him after us.' 
   
  'Run,' the Doctor cried. 
   
  I turned, and froze. 
   
  Ace was standing behind me. She looked fine, apart from an unnatural hump across her 
  shoulders. Beside her, Watson was holding his hand out to touch my face. The hand was 
  a hard glossy crimson thing veined with black, with fingers that ended in vicious claws. 
   
  'Ah, the newcomers to the congregation,' Sherringford hissed. 'I'll leave you in their 
  capable hands.' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 17 
   
  In which our heroes are finally reunited but their celebrations are suspended for a while. 
   
   
  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. 
   
  There was a long pause after Sherringford Holmes and K'tcar'ch walked out of the 
  caravan and into the airlock. There was an expression of complete and utter resignation 
  on Holmes's face, as if he was trapped in a dream and could not wake up. Bernice's face 
  registered a mixture of horror and betrayal, whilst I could read nothing from the Doctor. 
   
  After we heard the outer door to the caravan open and then close again, Ace gazed at the 
  Doctor's rumpled linen suit and battered hat. 
   
  'It's Kolchak the bleeding Night Stalker, isn't it?' she said. 
   
  A slow smile spread across the Doctor's face. 
   
  'I've never known you to be convinced by anybody else,' he said, 'so why should a god 
  find it any easier?' 
   
  'I used to fancy this guy, when I was a kid,' she replied, twisting so that she could pull the 
  bundled-up floater skins from beneath her jacket, the ones that had given the impression 
  of nascent wings. 'But he was one of the happyclappy God Squad types. Used to take me 
  to church discos on a Saturday night. No booze, no fun, and it all finished at half past ten. 
  I've had more fun watching Question Time. Didn't stop him trying it on when he walked me 
  home, though. Anyway, got chatting to the vicar one night, and come closedown I'd thrown 
  so many spanners into his faith that he had to go off to a monastery in the Hebrides for 
  five years to recover. He lives in a squat in Woolwich now, or at least he did the last time I 
  asked. So, don't talk to me about religion.' 
  
   
  Bernice's eyes were darting between Ace and myself now as she tried to work out whether 
  or not we had converted to the cult of Azathoth. I reached out a hand to comfort her, but 
  she recoiled. Cursing my clumsiness, I pulled the rakshassa hand off my own and threw it 
  away. She watched it fall. 
   
  'Now I've seen everything,' she said to herself. 
   
  'It was Tir Ram's hand,' I said. 'He was in the process of changing into one of those 
  creatures. He tried to explain to us about the cult of Azathoth, but Ace . . . well, she 
  dispatched him, I'm afraid.' 
   
  'She what?' 
   
  'She killed him.' 
   
  Bernice smiled. 
   
  'Well, no surprises there.' 
   
  'I had to,' Ace interposed, casting a glance over towards the bloated bulk of Azathoth. 
  'That thing was trying to pass the Word on to us. I had to distract its attention somehow.' 
   
  'Thanks for saving us,' Bernice said. 'It's good to see you again.' 
   
  Stepping forward impulsively, she hugged Ace. Surprised, the girl hugged back. 
   
  The Doctor looked down at the scarlet object on the floor. 
   
  'And what about Mr Ram's hand, then?' 
   
  Ace was unrepentant. 
   
  'Well he wasn't going to use it any more, was he?' 
   
  'Sometimes,' the Doctor mused, 'just sometimes, I hanker for the good old days, when all 
  my companions ever did was scream and ask me stupid questions.' 
   
  'So what's going on, then?' Ace asked. 
   
  'Yes, that was a favourite one. Well, Bernice, perhaps you would care to summarize the 
  present situation.' 
   
  'Fine.' She nodded towards Azathoth. 'Well, that's one alien creature pretending to be an 
  ancient god from another dimension. It can control your mind, and when it does you 
  worship it and turn into something that looks like it might be more at home in the larder of 
  
  a seafood restaurant. It's imprisoned here, with the five-legged things as guards, and it 
  wants out. Unbeknownst to the people who put it here, there's a short cut between Earth 
  and Ry'leh that can be opened by singing, but none of the lobster things can sing. 
  Sherlock Holmes's father heard the local wise men in India singing the song and wrote it 
  down in his notebook, where brother Sherringford found it. Sherringford managed to open 
  a gateway between the worlds and arrived here, only to find himself having a face-to-face 
  talk with God. Once his mind had been given a good pummelling, he and God hit upon a 
  plan to escape. He would travel back to England, raise an army and bring them back to 
  India where the Indians would open another gateway. The army was necessary to create 
  a diversion. The guards would try to repel all boarders, and in the confusion, God and all 
  hands would head for Earth. Does that cover all the salient points?' 
   
  Ace looked stunned. 
   
  'I've never heard such an implausible idea in my life!' she said. 'Apart from the 
  imprisonment bit. The big maggot lived in a city some way away, worshipped by the 
  winged things. The five-legged things were in little garrisons around the city.' 
   
  'That was the problem,' the Doctor added. 'Getting Azathoth out of the city and past the 
  garrisons to the plain of . . . what did K'tcar'ch call it? The Plain of Leng. That was the only 
  place where so few people could open such a large gateway.' He gazed over to Azathoth. 
  'I presume that you have managed to turn the tables upon our host, Ace.' 
   
  'You blaspheme my temple,' Azathoth said in a voice that was all sweetness and light. 
  'You cannot stop me. I shall escape this world. I shall!' 
   
  'Shut it,' said Ace. She put her fingers to her lips and emitted a piercing whistle. A small 
  black object, about the size of my hand, whistled round Azathoth's bulk and knifed through 
  the air towards her. Bernice and the Doctor ducked, but the object terminated its trajectory 
  a few scant inches in front of Ace's face. 
   
  'Smart missile,' she said. 'I used to read about these things in lain M. Banks's books, then I 
  found that SpaceFleet issues them like the Civil Service issues biros. That's the nice thing 
  about the future: it's full of little things you've already read about.' 
   
  She murmured something to her little infernal device and it whipped away, back to its 
  sentry position in front of Azathoth's face, where we could hardly see it. 
   
  'I've never threatened a god before,' she continued. 'I could get used to it.' 
   
  'It was you who dictated what Azathoth was saying just now,' Holmes said suddenly. 
   
  'Yeah,' Ace replied. 'Once we topped Tir Ram, Azathoth knew we were serious, so I made 
  a deal. If it didn't try to convert us, I wouldn't blow its face off.' 
   
  'Sounds fair,' said Bernice. 
  
   
  'When you lot came in, and Watson here recognized Sherlock's brother, we were a bit 
  stumped. Then Watson reckoned that we could get rid of him and his minders by getting 
  Azathoth to tell him to leave. When he played up a bit it threw us, but I worked out that if 
  he thought you were being guarded by a couple of new converts, he'd be happy. Good 
  thing the rakshassi are crustaceans,' she added, 'otherwise Watson would have had 
  trouble dressing up as a true believer. As it was, he could slip the hand on like a glove. 
  After we'd scooped it out, of course.' 
   
  Azathoth shifted its massive bulk slightly. 
   
  'It's being very quiet,' I said. 'Does that not strike you as odd?' 
   
  'Probably had a shock,' Ace said. 'I mean, nobody's ever talked to it like that before.' 
   
  She seemed inordinately pleased with herself. I was not so sanguine about our position. 
   
  The Doctor appeared to be listening to something. 
   
  'Can anybody hear a whispering sound?' he asked. We all shook our heads. 'Hmm. 
  Perhaps I'm hearing things.' 
   
  Judging by his scowl, he was not convinced. 
   
  'Anyway, they're preparing to descend to the plain,' he continued. 'To the area where we 
  came through to Ry'leh, the weakest point of contact.' 
   
  'How can they get Azathoth down there?' Bernice asked. 'The rakshassi can fly, but their 
  god's powers seem to be strictly limited in that department.' 
   
  'A fair question,' the Doctor said, 'but they've shown a remarkable ability to get around 
  problems so far. They've evaded the Shlangii mercenaries by building these pressurized 
  caravans and taking Azathoth across the icy surface, they've built rough and ready space 
  suits for themselves . . . No, I don't think that we can rely on them falling at the last hurdle. 
  And remember, they had to get Azathoth up here somehow.' 
   
  'They will obviously use Tir Ram's fakirs to open a gateway back to Earth,' Holmes added. 
  'Once in India, the cult would spread like wildfire. Within a few months, the entire world 
  would be united in Azathoth worship, I have always nurtured a hankering for a united 
  world, but not this way.' He shook his head. 'I am presuming that the fakirs have been 
  converted?' 
   
  'We were locked in that caravan for long enough,' the Doctor said. 
   
  I cleared my throat. 
   
  
  'Tir Ram assured us that all of his people had been blessed by Azathoth.' 
   
  I noticed a smile appear on the Doctor's face. I was just about to ask him what he had in 
  mind when there was a tremendous bang! and the entire caravan rocked suddenly, 
  throwing us off our feet. Ripples ran through Azathoth's moist bulk. I thought I could feel a 
  sigh of satisfaction emanating from it. 
   
  'Bloody hell!' Ace scrambled back to her feet and looked around wildly. 'We're under 
  attack.' 
   
  'I think not,' the Doctor replied calmly. 'Climb up to one of those windows, if you will, and 
  see what's going on.' 
   
  Like a monkey, Ace scrambled up the rough wooden walls of the caravan to where the 
  coloured glass windows were set. Some remnant of my usual gallantry - severely dented 
  by these capable women of the future - rose to the surface. I climbed up behind her. 
   
  'This is no place for women,' I said as I came alongside her. 
   
  'Sod off,' she said succinctly. 
   
  I kept quiet, and gazed through the thick red glass of the window at the panorama thus 
  revealed. 
  The sun cast a low red light across the jumbled terrain, and the twisted spires of the 
  mountain tops reached for the star-speckled sky as before, but near where our caravan 
  sat the icy surface of Ry'leh was marred by a jagged hole a few hundred yards across. I 
  could hardly see it for rolling banks of mist. The grotesque silhouettes of rakshassi 
  clustered around the opening. 
   
  'Looks like they've blown a hole in the ice,' Ace said. 'Dunno if they've got through to the 
  interior yet. Depends on the explosive.' 
   
  'Could they be using the gas from the floaters?' I asked. 
   
  'Good thinking,' she said. 'Probably take them a few goes, then. That stuff's not a patch on 
  nitro-nine even.' 
   
  As she spoke, another enormous explosion made the caravan judder. My fingers slipped 
  and for a moment I had to scrabble for a hold. Metal squealed beneath us as the massive 
  skates ground against the ice. A column of vapour shot upwards out of the hole like a 
  waterfall in reverse, plunging into the obsidian sky until it was lost to sight. 
   
  'I lie,' she added. 'Looks like they've done it in two. Those floaters must live on beans, or 
  something.' 
   
  'The vapour . . . That's Ry'leh's atmosphere?' 
  
   
  'Uh-huh. Not much of it at this altitude, of course. If there was, the pressure would've 
  caused the entire ice sheet to fracture.' 
   
  'There's a reassuring thought,' I said dryly. She smiled. 
   
  'You've got hidden depths to you, mate.' 
   
  I would have replied, but then I felt the entire caravan lurch towards the fissure. I cried out. 
  Craning my neck, I tried to see down the wooden side and was rewarded by the sight of 
  ten or so rakshassi pulling on ropes. They appeared to be dragging the caravan towards 
  the column of mist. 
   
  'I would not wish to worry you...' I started, but Ace interrupted. 
   
  'Heads down, folks,' she said. 'We're riding for a fall.' 
   
  Holmes stepped forward. 
   
  'Quick, Watson, how many pressurized suits did you bring?' 
   
  'Just the two.' 
   
  'Not enough time to get us all out, then. Miss Summerfield, Miss . . . er, Miss Ace, I 
  suggest that you make your escape and leave us to survive as best we can.' 
   
  'Not a chance,' said Bernice. 
   
  'Seconded,' Ace said from her position beside me. 'Besides, the Professor's got a card up 
  his sleeve.' 
   
  She looked pointedly at the Doctor, but he did not react. 
   
  'Haven't you, Professor?' 
   
  'Why do you have to rely on me to get you out of everything?' he said, scowling. 'Use your 
  native intelligence.' 
   
  'The rakshassi aren't going to risk the life of their god,' Bernice said. 'Whatever's 
  happening, they intend to happen.' 
   
  I switched my attention back to the window. We were a hundred or so yards away from 
  the hole now. I could see the melted ice that made up its sides. It was easily large enough 
  to accommodate the caravan. 
   
  
  'I believe that we have only another few moments,' I said. 'I would suggest that you brace 
  yourselves.' 
   
  The caravan slid another few yards, and I found myself staring down the funnel-like hole. 
  Thankfully, mist wreathed its depths. I think that my last vestiges of calm might have fled if 
  I could have seen Ry'leh, far below. 
   
  Another lurch. The rakshassi were yanking hard on the ropes. Like a malevolent eye, the 
  hole grabbed my attention and held it. The column of vapour was rising straight past the 
  window, blocking any sign of the surrounding landscape. 
   
  'Uh, Watson?' Bernice said hesitantly. 'Do you think you should come down now?' 
   
  The precariousness of my position should we be shoved over the edge suddenly struck 
  me. I glanced over to warn Ace of the danger, only to find that she was already climbing 
  down. I took one last look out of the window before following her, but what I saw caused 
  me to stay, glued to the glass. 
   
  The rakshassi were rising up past the window, their wings spread wide, borne aloft by the 
  rising current of air. They had removed their globes - no doubt because the atmospheric 
  column could now sustain them. Each of them was holding the end of a rope in its tail, 
  and, as they rose and the ropes pulled taut, I felt the caravan lurch, then rise unmistakably 
  into the air! The rakshassi were supporting us! 
   
  'What's going on?' Bernice asked. 
   
  'We're flying!' 
   
  'Be serious.' 
  'I am serious. The rakshassi are holding us up.' 
   
  The caravan swung sickeningly, and the hole disappeared beneath us. I felt the 
  unmistakable sensation of descent. Within moments I could make out the melted ice of the 
  hole passing a few hundred feet away through the upflowing vapour. 
   
  'Exceedingly ingenious,' Holmes said. 
   
  'I've always been in favour of low-tech solutions,' the Doctor murmured. 
   
  'They don't come much more low-tech than this,' Bernice sighed. She was looking a little 
  queasy. Glancing up at me, she said, 'How can you stand it, up there? Don't you feel the 
  remotest bit ill?' 
   
  'No,' I said. 'In fact, I'm quite enjoying myself.' The feeling reminded me irresistibly of a 
  balloon ride that I had undertaken as a child in the grounds of Batty's Grand National 
  Hippodrome in Kensington. 
  
   
  I turned my attention to the sight outside the window, where we were just passing the 
  inner lip of the hole that had been blasted through the frozen sky. Clouds had gathered 
  around the rent, and the caravan was buffeted by gusts of wind. Gazing upward, I could 
  feel the strain evident in the almost heroic poses of the rakshassi. Whatever else I thought 
  of them, I had to admire their dedication to their god. Thoughts of Azathoth quickly turned 
  me to a consideration of what was ahead of us. As the ground grew ever closer, I began 
  to make out vegetation and the remains of Maupertuis's encampment. Bodies lay about, 
  human and Shlangii, allies in death. Nothing moved apart from the odd three-legged 
  scavenger. My spirits fell. How could we prevent this profane invasion of everything we 
  held dear? 
   
  High above us, a number of square dots had appeared amid a web of rope. The other 
  caravans, the ones carrying the fakirs. Everything was going according to Sherringford's 
  plan. The local Shlangii garrison had been distracted and defeated by Maupertuis's army, 
  and by the time more could be shipped from other garrisons, it would be too late. The 
  gateway would have opened and closed. 
   
  I looked down. We were dangling a hundred or so feet above the ground. 
   
  'Perhaps we should think about our escape,' I said tentatively. 
   
  'Ace,' the Doctor commanded, 'how many of those suicidal robots do you have?' 
   
  'If you mean the smart missiles, why not say so?' she snapped. 
   
  'Because it's exploiting a thinking creature, and I don't approve.' 
   
  'Professor, they're programmed to do what they do.' 
   
  'That's no excuse, Ace. The American CIA used to strap bombs to dolphins' backs and 
  train them to swim up to Russian submarines. Training, programming, what's the 
  difference? Don't answer that, just tell me how many you have left.' 
   
  'None, apart from the one that's keeping Azathoth occupied.' 
   
  'None?' 
   
  Ace looked away. 
   
  'No,' she said. 
   
  'Why not? You used to have hundreds.' 
   
  'Some I've used, the rest deserted back on Peladon. They said they were going to set up 
  a union with the mining machinery.' 
  
   
  The Doctor smiled, thought for a moment, then walked over to the moist grey bulk of 
  Azathoth. 
  'Can you hear me?' he cried. 
   
  Azathoth remained stubbornly silent. The Doctor waved a hand at Ace. 
   
  'You can answer,' she said. 'The missile won't explode. Yet. But if I hear anything that 
  sounds like it might change my mind in a way I won't like, I'll make sure that your mind 
  changes into a pile of mush on the walls.' 
   
  'I hear you,' Azathoth replied sulkily. 'Blasph . . . ' 
   
  'Yes, yes, we'll take that as read, thank you very much,' the Doctor said. 'Azathoth, I offer 
  you a choice.' 
   
  'There is no choice. I am God. I do what I wish.' 
   
  'You are no god, and you know it. You're just a fake deity whose powers are limited to a 
  rather forceful form of persuasion.' 
   
  There was a thud as the caravan settled to the ground. I could hear the hiss of ropes 
  sliding down the outside as the rakshassi released them. 
   
  'What is your offer?' 
   
  'Stop this invasion. Stay here on Ry'leh.' 
   
  'And what do you give me in return?' 
   
  'Your life.' 
   
  Azathoth laughed: great quaking peals of laughter that caused its body to quake and the 
  wooden floor beneath it to creak alarmingly. 
   
  'What power do you puny creatures have over the life of mighty Azathoth?' 
   
  'Have you forgotten the missile that guards you?' 
   
  'If you mean the most recent convert to the cult of Azathoth, no. We have been enjoying a 
  long conversation: The Doctor's face fell, and he began to back away. 'Missile,' Azathoth 
  continued, 'kill the Doctor.' 
   
   
   
  Chapter 18 
  
   
  In which one disaster is sought and another one narrowly avoided. 
   
   
  The tiny black object that had been hovering in front of Azathoth's slobbering maw 
  suddenly darted away. 
   
  The Doctor turned to run. Circling quickly, the missile sped for the Doctor's back in a blur 
  of ebony. The Doctor tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, leaving the missile to 
  overshoot its target. 
   
  'Disengage!' Ace yelled. 'Do you hear me, disengage!' 
   
  Azathoth was giggling. 
   
  I dropped to the floor and whipped out my trusty revolver. The missile was heading 
  straight for the Doctor's face, but I managed to deflect its path with a well-placed bullet. 
  For a moment I thought that I had crippled it, but it recovered its momentum quickly and 
  headed straight for the Doctor again. He had climbed to his feet and was pressed against 
  the wall with nowhere else to run. The missiles sped directly for his wide-eyed face. I fired 
  again, but missed. 
   
  The Doctor threw himself to the floor. The missile hit the wall and exploded, sending a hail 
  of wooden splinters across the caravan. Several of them hit Azathoth, who howled in pain. 
  Through the hole I could make out the rocky surface of Ry'leh. 
   
  'Quickly,' I shouted, 'before anybody investigates.' 
   
  I stood by the hole and helped the others as they scrambled through. The Doctor was last, 
  and caught his coat upon a projecting spar of wood. 
   
  'With friends like Ace. . .' he muttered as I disentangled him. 
   
  Within seconds I was outside with the rest of them. As we ran off, Azathoth's plaintive 
  voice tugged at my mind. 
   
  'Listen to me. . .' it shouted, its voice growing fainter and fainter. 'I can offer you peace and 
  happiness and a place in heaven.. .' 
   
  I was not the only one to stop and look back, but we kept on going none the less. 
   
  We took refuge finally in a small clump of bushes. They snapped at us tentatively, but the 
  size and mood of our party obviously frightened them and they returned to sleep with their 
  buds safely tucked beneath their leaves. 
   
  
  'Look,' said Bernice, gazing upwards in wonder. Her face seemed to shine. At first I 
  thought that it was her inner beauty, but then I followed her gaze. For the first time in a 
  thousand years the sun was shining upon the surface of Ry'leh. Its rays were pouring 
  through the hole in the sky, surrounded by concentric rings of cloud, and shone down like 
  a stage spotlight upon the plain where the caravans were landing. Rakshassi hovered 
  high above, looking for us, the shadows of their wings skimming across the ground like 
  lithe black animals. 
   
  'There is a crack in everything,' the Doctor whispered. 'That's how the light gets in.' 
   
  'Pardon?' I said. 
   
  'A line of poetry from my home planet. I think it loses something in translation.' 
   
  In the distance, illuminated by the finger of light, the fakirs were emerging from the landed 
  caravans. They immediately formed up into lines and began to chant. 
   
  'I-ay, I-ay!' The words echoed across the plain. 'Naghaa, naghai-ghai! Shoggog fathaghn! 
  I-ay, I-ay tsa toggua tholoya! Tholo-ya fathaghn! I-ay Azathoth!' 
   
  The words repeated, growing louder as more voices joined the chorus, throbbing like a 
  heartbeat in the distance. I felt, as I did the last time that I heard those words, that a 
  pressure was building up behind my eyes. 
   
  'They don't waste much time, do they?' Bernice said. 
   
  'It's their big moment,' Ace replied. 'And besides, the Shlangii will soon be here.' 
   
  'How soon?' the Doctor asked. 
   
  'The nearest garrison is a small one, so let's assume that it's been wiped out during the 
  battle with Maupertuis's men. The next one is half-way around the planet, but they've got 
  skimmers. Giving them an hour to work out that something has happened, and another 
  fifteen minutes to mobilize . . . I guess half an hour until they arrive.' 
   
  'Too long. Azathoth will be through to India by then.' 
   
  'So what are our options?' Holmes asked. 
   
  'I don't know,' the Doctor said. 
   
  Bernice gazed sceptically at him. 
   
  'No cards up the sleeve?' 
   
  'None.' 
  
   
  'No long-range plans?' 
   
  'Not one.' 
   
  'Scout's honour?' 
   
  'May my woggle fall off if I lie.' 
   
  'That chant,' Ace said thoughtfully. 'You said it weakens the fabric of reality, whatever that 
  is, enabling a gateway to be opened, and you also said that this fabric thing is already 
  weakest between India and this plain.' 
   
  'Indeed.' 
   
  'Well, how easy would it be to move the gateway? What I mean is, could we change the 
  chant and alter the aim point?' 
   
  The Doctor thought for a moment.' 
   
  'Hmm. A canny notion, and one well worth bearing in mind. What made you think of it?' 
   
  Ace smiled. 'Something I overheard while I was hanging around waiting for you to arrive,' 
  she said. 
   
  Delving around in his pockets, the Doctor finally pulled out a piece of green chalk. 'No 
  paper,' he complained. He looked around for something to write on, and his eyes lit up as 
  their penetrating gaze crossed Ace's battle-armour. 
   
  'Ace, turn around.' 
   
  'You what?' 
   
  'Just do it!' 
   
  He began to scribble on the matt-black surface, quickly covering it with symbols and small 
  diagrams, some of which I recognized from the inscriptions on Azathoth's caravan. 
  Sometimes he would go back and rub a line out with his sleeve: once or twice he retrieved 
  chalks of other colours and added notes in and around his original ones. Holmes was 
  following the Doctor's calculations so closely that he ended up with chalk-dust on the tip of 
  his nose. The Doctor kept up a running barrage of commentary, muttering phrases such 
  as: 'Of course, the rhomeson flux must be taken into account. . : , 'it's important to 
  remember that E equals MC cubed in the exo-space time continuum. . : and 'for heaven's 
  sake, keep still Ace!' 
   
  
  The chant was building up, with individual voices soaring above the main theme, and a 
  strong beat pushing it along. My head was beginning to throb in sympathy. 
   
  Finally the Doctor leaned back and sighed. 
   
  'This would have been so much easier with the books from the Library, but Sherringford 
  still has them. Fortunately I had a quick flick through some of them, and I also managed to 
  chat with one or two of the fakirs when we were on our way to the surface. I think we can 
  do it.' 
   
  'How?' said Ace, stretching after sitting in a cramped position for so long. 
   
  'The whole thing is frequency-specific. It's the subtle shifting of discords that weakens the 
  structure of spacetime, enabling the connection to be made with the nearest world - Earth. 
  If we introduce a specific set of new discords, we can move the point of connection.' 
   
  'But why didn't Azathoth or Sherringford think of that?' I asked. 
   
  'Because they were thinking in purely spatial terms,' the Doctor replied. 'And the 
  frequencies required are just too high to achieve. It never occurred to them to move the 
  aim-point in time. The calculations are harder, but the frequencies can be sung, and the 
  further forward or back in time we move the aim point, the wider our spatial error can be.' 
   
  'In time,' Holmes breathed. 'You mean . . .?' 
   
  'I mean I'm looking for suggestions as to the best place to dump an evil god and its 
  worshippers. Somewhere that they can't do any major harm. A geological disaster would 
  do perfectly. Eighteen eighty seven, plus or minus fifty years, and on the Earth's surface. 
  That's our window of opportunity. Once we dump them, we can sing our own way back to 
  Tir Ram's cavern, and from there we can make our way home.' 
   
  Bernice thought for a moment, then said, 'What about Siberia, nineteen-oh-eight? The 
  TARDIS explosion?' 
   
  'No,' the Doctor snapped. 'If I start mixing dimensional rips they could end up anywhere.' 
   
  'Krakatoa!' I exclaimed. 'Four years ago. If it's an explosion you're looking for, that's the 
  biggest one I can remember.' 
   
  'Is that east or west of Java?' the Doctor said, then thought for a moment. 'A distinct 
  possibility,' he added, 'but a trifle dangerous if we get caught up in it. Ditto the Titanic in 
  nineteen twelve, which I was also considering, with the added problem that we would be 
  interfering in our own pasts. Has it occurred to you that we seem to have toured most of 
  the major disasters of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in the past few 
  months?' 
   
  
  'California,' said Ace quietly. 'Nineteen-oh-six. The great San Francisco earthquake.' 
   
  'Perfect!' the Doctor shouted. 'We missed that one. What made you think of that?' 
   
  'Personal interest,' she replied. 'It was an old school History project.' 
   
  History?, I thought, then let it slip away. 
   
  The Doctor delved in his pockets and pulled out a large, leather-bound book. 
   
  'My five-hundred-year diary,' he said, catching my inquiring glance. 'All sorts of information 
  that's completely pointless unless you are trying to avert an alien invasion.' 
   
  He flicked through the pages. 
   
  'Now let me see . . . We'll need a location which is known to have been completely wiped 
  out. We can't risk them escaping. That rules out quite a bit of the town...' 
   
  His scowl deepened as his fingers riffled through page after page. 
   
  'Town Hall . . . no. Agnews State Insane Asylum . . . no. Palace Hotel...' 
   
  A smile broke across his face. 
   
  'Yes! Razed to the ground.' 
   
  His face fell again. 
   
  'But what's the address?' 
   
  'Market Street,' I said. To Bernice's inquiring glance, I added, 'I lived in San Francisco for 
  nearly a year.' 
   
  'What are the galactic co-ordinates for Market Street?' the Doctor asked. 'Never mind. I'll 
  estimate.' 
   
  Wiping across Ace's carapace with his sleeve, he began to scribble down staves and sets 
  of crotchets and quavers. 
   
  'No time to lose,' he urged. 'Ace, get your armour off!' 
   
  Under his direction, and all clustered around Ace's armour, we began to sing. Ace was 
  shivering in an immodest singlet, and so I gave her my jacket to wear. I thought that she 
  might throw it back in my face, but in fact she accepted it gratefully. The song was a 
  collection of words similar to the chant that the fakirs were singing, but the notes spanned 
  theirs, weaving around and between their weird harmonies, forming a straightjacket for 
  
  their chant and forcing it in a different direction. The Doctor was forever darting in and 
  scribbling an additional sharp or a flat, or altering the length of a note, until we got it right. 
   
  We knew that it was working when the deep, underlying beat of the fakirs' chant began to 
  alter into a double beat, and their descant picked up some of our notes. It was working. 
  We were changing their song, but were we changing it enough? 
   
  The first indication we had that something was happening was when light - yellow gaslight, 
  not the diseased red glow that illuminated Ry'leh - shone across us. We looked up, still 
  singing, to see a vast tear in the fabric of reality through which a stretch of carpet and a 
  marble wall could be seen. Silhouetted against it, I could see the winged figures of 
  rakshassi and Sherringford Holmes's still-robed form. He seemed agitated. It must have 
  been obvious to him that this was not India but, unwilling to stop now and disappoint his 
  god, he went onward, leading Azathoth's followers in. Most of the rakshassi went first, in 
  case of trouble, then Azathoth's personal honour guard pulled its temple through the rent, 
  straining to move the metal runners across the rock. The fakirs followed, still chanting. I 
  could smell smoke and, oddly, freshly made coffee. 
   
  The chant was swelling towards some final crescendo now, and I watched, wide-eyed, not 
  wishing to miss a moment of Azathoth's downfall. 
   
  Bernice tugged at my sleeve. I tried to shrug her off. Insistently, she tugged again. I tore 
  my gaze away from the rent and glanced at her. She was looking back, over the terrain of 
  Ry'leh. 
   
  I followed her gaze, and drew a sudden breath as I glimpsed a number of metallic shapes 
  trailing fire as they arrowed through the air towards us. 
   
  A deep rumble shook the ground. The Doctor turned. His eyes widened in shock as he 
  saw the craft. He chalked a quick message on Ace's back. 
   
  Shlangii mercenaries! it read. 
   
  A blue-green line of fire lanced from the leading craft and melted rock not ten feet to our 
  right. The Doctor shook his head and, before I could stop him, ran towards the rent in the 
  air. 
   
  We followed him. We had no choice. 
   
  The fakirs stopped singing just as we passed through behind them and felt the carpet 
  beneath our feet. We were in a huge, high-ceilinged ballroom whose walls were cracked 
  and whose carpet was thickly smeared with dust. Nobody else was present. A feeling of 
  peace washed over me. I was home. I didn't care that it was, if Ace could be believed, 
  almost twenty years since I had left. At least it was the same planet. 
   
  
  I turned and looked behind. The surface of Ry'leh hung like a painting on a wall of the 
  ballroom. Tiny five-legged shapes were rushing across the ground towards us, clutching 
  weapons, as the metal shapes flew overhead like a flock of birds. 
   
  The gateway closed behind me, close enough for me to feel the sudden whoosh as it 
  collapsed. 
   
  The Doctor led us into a deep recess in the wall. From there we watched the rakshassi 
  milling around the temple, whose runners had cut deep gouges in the carpet. I could not 
  see Sherringford. 
   
  'I thought you said half an hour,' he said to Ace. 
   
  'Anyone can make a mistake,' she said. 
   
  'Looks like a frying pan and fire situation to me,' Bernice added, looking around. 'How do 
  we get back to the TARDIS from here?' 
   
  'We can worry about that later,' the Doctor said. 'Are we in the right place?' 
   
  'Search me,' Ace replied. 'I did all my research from an old copy of the Reader's Digest.' 
   
  'It's the Palace Hotel,' I said. 
   
  Holmes looked at me sceptically. 
   
  'It is,' I insisted. 'I practised medicine in San Francisco for nearly a year. I took rooms here 
  when I first arrived. You sent telegrams to me.' 
   
  'It looks like we're too late,' the Doctor muttered. 'The earthquake has already happened. 
  The hotel is still standing. I don't understand!' 
   
  'So they can still invade?' Bernice asked. 
   
  'More fool me, yes they can. And in the middle of a national disaster, it will be even more 
  difficult to fight them. Still, at least we're here to try.' 
   
  In the centre of the ballroom, Sherringford emerged from Azathoth's temple. 
   
  'My brothers...' he began. 
   
  He got no further. A deep shudder ran through the fabric of the hotel. Sherringford looked 
  around wildly. 
   
  
  With a tremendous explosion, the doors to the ballroom burst open to reveal a wall of 
  flame. Gluts of red-tongued fire leaped up the walls, scorching the plaster and cracking 
  the marble. A wave of heat rolled towards us. 
   
  'Fire?' Holmes mouthed. 
   
  Ace grinned. 
   
  'Started after the earthquake when some stupid woman tried to cook breakfast after the 
  gas main cracked. Caused more damage than the earthquake itself. The army tried to 
  stop it by dynamiting the buildings, but they spread it even further. I remember the 
  dynamite, it's why I enjoyed the project so much.' 
   
  An ominous cracking made me look upwards. What I saw made me shout: 'Run, run for it!' 
   
  We got to the door just as the ceiling gave way and huge chunks of masonry fell into the 
  centre of the room. Rakshassi staggered around, blinded and deafened, their wings alight. 
  A cloud of dust and smoke rolled towards us, hiding the hellish scene. Holmes led the 
  Doctor, Ace and Bernice along the corridor. I stopped to look back. I thought that I had 
  heard a voice, a sweet voice screaming, 'No, I cannot die, I cannot die! Help meee!' 
   
  I took a step into the room, but the heat drove me back towards the door. A gust of 
  superheated air drove the dust and the smoke away from me for a moment, and I saw that 
  the temple had been smashed open by a falling concrete beam. Azathoth flailed helplessly 
  in the wreckage, pinned by the beam. Its skin was burning. 
   
  'Watson!' it screamed, 'help meee!' 
   
  I took a step into the room. I wanted to help. I had to help. 
   
  From the smoke, a figure emerged. Its white robes were in tatters and its wings were 
  ragged and torn. Its chitinous armour had been seared by the fire. It swayed uncertainly 
  as it looked me over. 
  'Forgiveness only goes so far,' Sherringford hissed in a pained voice. 'You have killed my 
  God. No punishment can atone for that.' 
   
  He took a step towards me, his spiked tail swinging in readiness. In the midst of the spikes 
  that constituted his face I could just make out two human eyes that gazed at me in 
  bloodshot hatred. 
  Holmes walked past me. He was holding a length of iron pipe that had fallen from the 
  ceiling. 
   
  'No,' he said simply. 'Watson is my friend.' 
   
  He lashed out with the pipe, catching Sherringford across his chestplate. Pale pink fluid 
  splashed out of a crack in the living armour. Sherringford staggered backwards and flailed 
  
  at Holmes with his tail, but Holmes stepped out of the way and snapped Sherringford's 
  wing with a short jab. 
   
  Sherringford fell sideways as the wing crumpled. He lowered his head for a long moment, 
  then looked back up at his brother. There were tears in his eyes. 
   
  'The horror. . .' he said quietly. 'The horror!' 
   
  Holmes brought the pipe crashing down on the back of his brother's head, splitting it open 
  and bending the pipe. A shower of sparks drifted down from the ceiling and lodged in the 
  folds of his wings. Tiny flames began to flicker. His other wing buckled beneath his weight, 
  sending him sprawling. 
   
  I turned to Holmes. His gaze met mine. 
   
  'I had to,' he said. 
   
  I nodded. 
   
  'I know.' 
   
  Something exploded on one of the upper floors. Flames and drips of molten metal issued 
  through the cracks in the ballroom ceiling. We left in a hurry, running through rubble-
  strewn corridors until we found ourselves in the deserted foyer of the hotel. Its fine antique 
  trappings were wrecked. 
  We emerged, coughing and choking, into bright sunlight and ran across the road to a 
  barricade where the Doctor, Ace and Bernice were waiting anxiously for us. Behind them, 
  uniformed men watched the destruction. They were pale and haggard, as if they had 
  walked through the valley of the shadow. I glanced back at the hotel. Every window was a 
  glimpse of hell. Nothing could survive that conflagration. Nothing. 
   
  The last thing I saw before I turned away was a tongue of flame licking up the flagpole on 
  the hotel roof and setting fire to the Stars and Stripes. 
   
   
   
  Chapter 19 
   
  In which our heroes have breakfast in the ruins, and the Doctor makes a surprising offer. 
   
   
  There was, as is usual in Holmes's cases, no distinct finale, no crescendo and clash of 
  cymbals to mark the end of the case. Rather, there was a long, slow diminuendo, a trailing 
  off into silence. Even now, four years later, the case of the All-Consuming Fire still haunts 
  us both, and yet it is that moment, as we wandered amid the ruins of San Francisco, that 
  marks an end, of sorts. 
  
   
  We walked for a little while, the four of us. We were not heading for anywhere in particular. 
  We just needed to get away from the scene of Azathoth's destruction. 
   
  The city was devastated. Cracks crossed streets and houses without any distinction. Many 
  areas were in flames, or had been afire but were now charred and smoking. Whole streets 
  had been blown up as makeshift fire-breaks, scattering bricks, twisted metal, items of 
  crockery and personal items to the winds. One of those houses had been mine. In it I had 
  wooed and won my wife. Now she was dead, and a part of me wished that I was too. I 
  was tired. I was so tired. 
   
  We saw things as we walked that I cannot explain. At one point we turned a corner to find 
  a group of Chinese men attacking a maddened bull with machetes. I wanted to intervene, 
  but Bernice held me back. Later we had to hide from a group of soldiers who were firing 
  indiscriminately at looters. Later we found a quiet square on the edge of the city and sat 
  there for a while, saying nothing and trying hard not to think. As we did so, a man started 
  to sing in the sweetest, purest voice I have ever heard. His clothes were torn and covered 
  in dust, but he did not seem to care, and neither did his listeners. Hearing him, I felt a 
  small bud of hope flower from the ashes within me. Life went on. Life went on. 
  'Enrico Caruso,' the Doctor said eventually, after the man had finished his recital and had 
  begun to argue with a companion. 'You are lucky to have heard him sing.' 
   
  'I wish I had been in a better mood to appreciate it,' Holmes said dryly. 'Forgive me, 
  Doctor, but if you are to be believed, we are several thousand miles and nineteen years 
  from home. Do you have any suggestions?' 
   
  The Doctor blinked owlishly. 
   
  'As usual, the time is no problem,' he said. 'It's the space that might be difficult.' 
   
  The Doctor walked off around the corner, telling us that he would be back in a moment. 
  Indeed, he was. A miraculous contraption appeared out of the air before us, a blue cabinet 
  of the Doctor's own construction that can travel through the aether at his direction. He told 
  us that after walking round the corner he had made his way across America by rail and 
  engaged passage in New York upon a ship bound for London. Once there he had located 
  his miraculous time-travelling cabinet, which remained exactly where he had left it at the 
  home of Professor Litefoot, and travelled back to the moment at which he had left us. 
   
  I did not know whether to believe him or not, at least, not until we travelled back to Baker 
  Street in that same cabinet: nineteen years removed from the life of the world in as many 
  minutes. I cannot help thinking that such power is dangerous, and yet I cannot think of 
  safer hands to hold it than those of the Doctor. He is a strange little man, but he 
  engenders such trust. 
   
  Bernice and I talked for some of those nineteen minutes. We were standing in a corner of 
  the control chamber of the Doctor's mighty craft, a room whose oak-panelled walls and 
  
  brass railings give no hint as to its true function. With the Doctor's permission Holmes had 
  opened a round panel in one of the walls, and was asking pointed but, I fear, ill-informed 
  questions as to the source of its energy. Ace was standing near Holmes. I assumed that 
  she was watching to make sure that he did not interfere with the workings of the 
  mechanism. 
   
  I asked Bernice if I might see her again. Perhaps, I offered, a night at the theatre might 
  amuse her, or a meal at the Savoy. She smiled. 
   
  'I'm a good six hundred years too young for you,' she said, handing me a package 
  wrapped up with string. 'Have this instead.' 
   
  'A gift? Really, I . . .' 
  'It's not a gift, it's some of my diary entries. You might find them useful when you come to 
  write this case up.' 
   
  I started to protest, but the Doctor wandered over. 
   
  'Perhaps you would like to stay,' he said. 'There's room enough for more travellers.' 
   
  Bernice looked askance at him. 
   
  'Well, why not?' he asked defensively. 'I've been thinking that one of our problems is that 
  there's just the three of us, cooped up in here, getting on each other's nerves. It might do 
  us good to broaden the team a bit. Bring some fresh blood in.' 
   
  'This isn't Mission bloody Impossible,' Ace muttered. 
   
  'A tempting offer,' Holmes replied, shutting the panel decisively. 'I greatly wish to see more 
  of these worlds you talk about, and the shining marvels that technology will bring us in the 
  future. And yet...' 
   
  He glanced over at me, a question in his eyes. I nodded. I knew what he was thinking: the 
  same arguments had occurred to me as well. 
   
  '. . .And yet I fear that we would be out of our depths. The adventure we have just shared 
  with you has brought us both to the edge of our sanity. The human brain cannot take too 
  much information at once: it must be given time to sort, to index, to catalogue. We need 
  our London around us once more, like a comfortable overcoat.' 
   
  'Perhaps...' I ventured. 
   
  'Yes, Watson?' 
   
  'Perhaps in a few years. When we have distanced ourselves from the events of the past 
  few days.' 
  
   
  He smiled. 
   
  'A wise prescription. We would be happy to travel with you, Doctor, but not just yet. Not, at 
  least, until I see that scoundrel Moriarty dangling at the end of a noose.' 
   
  We soon arrived in our sitting room at 221b Baker Street, frightening the life out of Mrs 
  Hudson, who was tidying the room and had just popped out for a fresh duster. By the time 
  she returned, Holmes and I were sitting in our usual seats and the Doctor and his 
  companions had gone. I was still blushing after Bernice had kissed my cheek. 
   
  We discussed the entire affair over dinner with Mycroft and Lord Roxton, who had arrived 
  safely back in London and was eager to hear of hunting opportunities in this New World. 
  Mycroft undertook to pass a sanitized report back to His Excellence Pope Leo XIII. I did 
  not envy him the task. 
   
  It seemed to me that the more Holmes and I recounted our adventures to Mycroft or 
  Roxton, or discussed them with each other, the less real they became. It was as if by 
  telling them as a story, they became a story. Perhaps it is for the best. I still wake from 
  nightmares in which I see Azathoth twisting in the flames. In some of them, I am burning 
  too. 
   
  Holmes threw himself into more mundane cases immediately upon our return. In quick 
  succession he solved the bizarre problem of the paradol chamber, investigated the loss of 
  the British barque Sophy Anderson and cast light upon the grotesque affair of the monkey 
  and the plywood violin. Other adventures followed, and I was proud to stand with him 
  during them. 
   
  I am ashamed to say that the memory of Bernice faded, and I married again. My wife and I 
  had a happy few years together before a congenital weakness of the heart robbed me of 
  her wit and her beauty. Had it not been for Holmes's friendship, I too would have perished, 
  of a broken heart. 
   
  Following the success of my memoir entitled A Study in Scarlet, I embarked upon another 
  account of my adventures with Holmes: The Sign of the Four. To my surprise (and, if truth 
  be told, to Holmes's chagrin) the public rather took to these little amusements, and so I 
  began to write more of them. I composed A Scandal in Bohemia in shorter form as an 
  experiment, and found that its popularity far outstripped either of the two longer works. I 
  was a middling to fair physician, but I found that I had a talent for fiction. My medical 
  colleague and co-author, Arthur Conan Doyle, became well known to the public. The 
  noms-de-plume with which he protected the identities of Holmes and myself became 
  equally famous, but Doyle never revealed our real names. After a while, we both found 
  ourselves in the curious position where we would answer either to our real names or to 
  our fictional ones. Secretly, we both preferred the latter. 
   
  
  On a number of occasions I had attempted to set down the circumstances of our meeting 
  with the Doctor, and their shocking outcome. On each occasion I found myself 
  floundering, wondering what people would make of them. It was Holmes, of course, who 
  came up with the solution. 
   
  'Write for yourself, Watson,' he said. 'Write the book, let the doctor friend of yours pretty it 
  up for you, and then lock it away somewhere.' 
   
  I did write the book, this book, and it helped. Seeing aspects of the narrative from the point 
  of view of Bernice Summerfield helped me to find a wider perspective. The notes she had 
  written on strange, yellow scraps of paper with a sticky margin, have been integrated into 
  the text almost verbatim. I do not pretend to understand much of what she says, and some 
  of it jars with my own recollections, but I admire the way that she says it. 
   
  When I look back and ask myself what I learned, I can say that I now know the universe to 
  be a far stranger place than I had, in my prosaic British way, imagined. Far stranger, and 
  far richer. I also find myself intolerant of the pronouncements of clerics of any sort. They 
  may talk of Hell, but I have seen it. 
   
  And Holmes? He refuses to talk about his brother Sherringford. He seems to have 
  retreated inside himself He is dismissive of love, friendship and family ties. 
   
  He has also taken to wearing gloves. 
   
  There is a confession that I have to make. I have suppressed a deal of material in 
  preparing this narrative, even though it will never see print. Our interview with Doctor 
  Minor in the Broadmoor asylum, for instance, is too appalling to consider setting down on 
  paper, and the circumstances surrounding the mysterious deaths of Patrick Grice-
  Patterson and Cardinal Tosca on the island of Uffa, germane though they are, would only 
  serve to confuse an already fragmentary account. 
  And now we sit here, Holmes and I, warming ourselves before the fire. I write these words 
  in my ledger and Holmes busies himself with the newspaper. It is four years to the day 
  since we said goodbye to the strangest man we have ever met. 
   
  I sip my brandy. Rain splatters across the window. There is a storm in the offing. 
   
  Holmes looks up and smiles at me. I smile back, and wonder whether we will ever see the 
  Doctor and his companions again. 
   
  More rain, like gravel thrown against the glass. 
   
  And thunder, echoing far away. 
   
   
   
  Epilogue 
  
   
  March 1843 - Jabalhabad, India 
   
   
  As Bernice read the last few words, she shivered. 
   
  'Any good?' Ace asked casually. 
   
  'Not bad. Want to read it?' 
   
  'Nah. I'll wait till the film comes out.' 
   
  Bernice laughed. 
   
  'I don't know how much of this is Watson and how much is Conan Doyle, but whoever it 
  was is all right,' she said. 'It's a bit verbose at times, but the plot moves fast. A lot of the 
  facts have been changed, mind you. I don't remember half of these things happening. And 
  it's odd reading about Holmes and Watson, rather than-' 
   
  'What about the characterization?' Ace interrupted. 
   
  'He's got you down perfectly, but I think he misses the essential me.' 
   
  Ace grinned. 
   
  'What about the Professor?' she asked. 
   
  Bernice glanced at the Doctor, who was resting his chin on the handle of his umbrella and 
  gazing sombrely across the lawn towards the old man and Siger Holmes, father-to-be of 
  Sherringford, Mycroft and Sherlock. 
   
  'A good question,' she said quietly. 
   
  The Doctor's gaze shifted from his former self to his latest companion. The corners of his 
  mouth twitched slightly in what passed for a smile. 
   
  'A question,' Bernice said. 
   
  'Fire away,' he replied, his voice muffled by the umbrella handle. 
   
  'I wouldn't say that too loudly when Ace is around.' 
   
  This time his mouth curved into a definite grin. Ace snorted, but her eyes were laughing. 
   
  'This book...' Bernice continued. 
   
  
  'What about it?' 
   
  'Well, a lot of the material about Victorian London is bizarre. Odd. Grotesque, in fact.' 
   
  'That's the way it was.' 
   
  'But surely there wasn't really an air-driven underground railway running out of Euston?' 
   
  'There was indeed.' 
   
  'And strychnine as an additive to beer, and sugar being refined with bull's blood?' 
   
  'Without a doubt.' 
   
  'And the Fenians building a submarine to attack the Royal Navy with?' 
   
  'Indubitably.' 
   
  'The more I delve into history, the weirder it gets.' 
   
  'My sentiments exactly.,' 
   
  'Something I don't get,' Ace said, frowning. The setting sun cast a rose-tinted glow across 
  her face, and she squinted. The Doctor smiled at her. 
   
  'Go on,' he said. 
   
  'Well, the big worm-thing, Azathoth, was turning its worshippers into the lobster things - 
  the rakshassi.' 
   
  'Indeed it was.' 
   
  'Why?, 
   
  'Ah. A good question. I suspect that Azathoth was still in the larval stage of its race when it 
  developed its powers, and had become trapped there, a mutant imago, if you like. 
  Perhaps, had it been normal, its adult form would have resembled the rakshassi.' 
   
  'So it made everyone love it and then made them look like mum and dad,' she said 
  scornfully. 
   
  'It's only a theory' the Doctor replied, affronted. 
   
  'It's well weird, that's what it is.' 
   
  The Doctor gazed across at where the girl sat painting the landscape. 
  
   
  'Families are,' he murmured. 
   
  Across the lawn, the old man pulled a gleaming Hunter watch from the fob pocket of his 
  waistcoat and consulted it. Unconsciously, the Doctor mirrored the action. Bernice gazed 
  from one to the other, stunned more by the fact that it was the same watch than the same 
  person. 
   
  'It's five past time to leave,' he said. 
   
  They rose. The Doctor gestured to his two companions to go first, sighed deeply, then 
  raised his hat to the old man and walked away. 
   
  He didn't look back. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/Dr Who/Book Series/Doctor Who - NA - All Consuming Fire.pdf