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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