Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [6]
Surely, thought the Doctor, he’s not... he wouldn’t dare appear in two places at once.
And indeed, Octave intended no such thing. As soon as the chains fell to the floor, he bowed to the stagehands, to the Doctor, to the audience, and once more entered the fifth cabinet. He pulled the door to. As soon as the latch clicked, the door of the first cabinet was shoved open, and, from its interior, Octave bowed deeply.
The applause became a din. The Doctor, who had moved modestly to the far side of the stage, slipped into the wings. Quietly, he crept back to where he could see the rear of the cabinets. There were no pieces of black cloth hung from the platforms: no one was slipping in and out of trapdoors in the back walls. But from the sides the boxes looked deeper than they should have. Secret compartments? Probably.
The Doctor resumed his place at the edge of the stage just in time for Octave to turn to smile and thank him for his assistance. The Doctor gave a small, polite bow and returned to his place in the audience.
As soon as he sat down, people jammed the aisle beside his seat. Who was he? Did he really not know Octave? How did he think the magician had done it? The Doctor answered as best he could, distracted. The scar on his chest had suddenly, achingly tightened. He twisted around, trying to see over the heads of the crowd surrounding him. Up at the back of the theatre, he thought he glimpsed a large, familiar figure ducking into the lobby. A word in a language he didn’t know leaped into the Doctor’s head. He was pretty sure it was an oath.
It took him nearly half an hour to extricate himself from the mob of curiosity-seekers. By the time he did, the theatre manager had taken to the stage to explain that Octave had departed so there was no reason for anyone to visit his dressing room. The Doctor thought there was a good possibility this wasn’t true. Avoiding the door that led directly from the auditorium to backstage, where the manager was firmly turning away others who hadn’t believed the announcement, he slipped up on to the stage and into the wings again. The stage lights had been extinguished, and he moved in near darkness smelling of dust and canvas. Picking his way over coils of rope and past curtain weights, he went along behind the backdrop at the very rear of the stage and through a door in the far corner that led him into a dingy hall.
Only three of the corridor’s gas lamps were working. The Doctor’s soft-edged shadow twinned and tripled as he walked past them. He stopped at a door with a slit of light beneath it and knocked.
As he had expected, there was no reply. The Doctor put his ear to the door. The greasy, perfumed scent of stage makeup floated to him.
‘Mr Octave, I’m the man who helped you on stage. I think I can help you offstage as well.’ No answer. ‘You need help, you know.’ Still no answer. ‘I’m not a rival magician. I’m not with the press.’ More lack of answer. The Doctor put his mouth close to the edge of the door. ‘You’re having a few difficulties with time, aren’t you?’
There was a new quality to the silence, an intensified stillness. The Doctor waited. Finally Octave’s voice said, ‘Go away.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor.
‘Go away, I tell you!’
‘Not until we talk.’
‘Go away!!’ Octave’s voice rose to a sudden shriek. The Doctor stepped back. ‘Go away, go away, go away, go away, go away –’
Even muted by the door, his cries echoed along the hall. At the far end, the figure of the manager appeared. Octave’s outburst subsided into incoherence, a wordless hysterical rant.
‘Sir!’ The manager advanced firmly. ‘No one is allowed back here.’
‘I was only –’
‘I must ask you to leave.’
The manager had stopped a few feet from him, his expression politely determined. The Doctor looked again at the door, behind which the high, almost keening noise went on.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
Lightly avoiding the other’s attempt to put a hand on his arm, he went down the hall to the exit.
The stage door