Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [109]
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, greyhaired 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