Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [51]
‘You are taking things personally,’ said Sabbath with a thin smile. ‘Yes,’ the Doctor acknowledged. ‘Perhaps I am.’ He stood up and started for the door.
‘I knew you wouldn’t kill me.’
The Doctor turned. ‘Oh,’ he said softly, ‘did you? Were you absolutely certain?’
For a moment they just looked at each other again. At last Sabbath said, ‘Never trust anyone.’
‘Good advice,’ said the Doctor, and left.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Micah Scale did not consider himself a fortunate man. On the contrary, he spent most of his time in various states of self-pity, these being resentment, despair, maudlin sorrow, envy and viciousness. He blamed these states and any moral failings that might accompany them on the theft of his precious mirror-maze, though in reality he had been exactly the same before that catastrophe had given him an excuse for his character.
Scale’s disgruntlement was aggravated by the irony of knowing who his malefactor was. This had not really been so hard to figure out, as the man had stood out from the other visitors – a gentleman, educated, and he’d asked a lot of questions. So when the mirrors went missing, Scale was certain where they had gone. He hadn’t any proof, though, and even if he had, he knew what his chances would be accusing a man on a so much higher social scale of such an absurd theft.
With more resource and courage than he usually showed in his dealings with life, Scale had traced and attempted to confront the thief. Humbly, to be sure, with much cringing and wheedling. After being turned from the door, he wrote grovelling letters. When they produced only silence, he wrote slightly sterner letters. Somewhat to his surprise, these resulted in an interview. The man denied everything, of course, and told Scale he was only dealing with him to stop his being a nuisance. He then handed over what even Scale admitted was a very fair sum of money and told him he wanted never to hear from him again. He had eyes like ice, and Scale understood the threat behind the remark. Any thoughts of trying to sell the mirror he still possessed vanished from his mind. He was certain the man didn’t know one was missing – it was almost impossible to count them properly when the maze was set up, reflecting each other as they did in such deceiving multiples – and after that disturbing interview, he’d decided simply to take the money and keep quiet.
However, several weeks later when he’d drunk and gambled the payment away, he began to feel differently. His grievance returned. He brooded long over his single mirror and whatever scenes it chose to show him. He wept sentimentally and picked fights. He had been wronged by fate, he told himself over bottles of cheap gin. The gin frequently made him sick, and that was fate’s fault too. Finally, one night, almost too drunk to walk, he had gone to the man’s house again, only to discover it shut up. Peering through windows, he could just discern furniture – the place wasn’t deserted then. Before he could explore further, a dog started baying on the other side of the house and he decided that prudent withdrawal was perhaps the best plan.
A little inquiry in the village informed him that the man had gone up to his main residence in London. It was simple enough to find him there as he made no attempt to hide. At this point, however, Scale hit an impasse. What could he do? He had no bargaining card, no way either to get his mirrors back – not very likely anyway, he admitted – or wring more money from their present possessor.
Scale was cunning enough to have figured out that the mirrors’ value to the man who had stolen them (he continued to characterise it this way to himself, in spite of having been paid) had nothing to do with their value as a carnival attraction but was linked somehow to the strange scenes they periodically showed. And he knew, because people who had been through the maze sometimes told him, that on occasion these were scenes from other times. This was enough