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By Root 156 0

his torch. The footsteps came nearer, and now the glare of a torch carried by someone in a hurry. Looking up from his hiding place, the Doctor could just discern the outline of a man in the spill of light from the man’s torch. The man stopped by a louvred door set in the wall. He did something to the door that the Doctor couldn’t see; immediately there was the sound of a lift ascending. Fifteen seconds later light glared through the louvres of the door as the lift came up and stopped. The Doctor risked his luck and craned his neck out from under the bench. As the man opened the door the Doctor caught a glimpse of a livid scar running down his cheek. The man, dressed in a lounge suit and carrying a large suitcase, entered the lift. A moment later its glaring light sank down and out of sight.

The Doctor crawled out from under the bench and brushed down his clothes. He listened until the noise of the lift machinery stopped. Then he shone his torch on the louvred door and inspected it closely. There was no key hole. He tried to guess what the man had done to activate the lift, and ran his fingers down the slats. The fifth slat turned on an axis. Instantly, the lift machinery came to life. Fifteen seconds later, light glared through the louvres. The lift door opened with ease, to reveal a cleaners’ cupboard containing mops and pails. He stepped inside, and pulled the door shut. Then he searched for a control that would activate the lift from inside. There was nothing to be seen except two hooks in the wall. From one of them hung a cleaner’s overall. The Doctor touched the empty hook, and found that it could be manoeuvred like a little lever. He turned it round on its in-built axis until it pointed straight down. The lift started to descend.

Butler opened the suitcase to let Professor Whitaker examine its contents. ‘Do you now have everything you need, Professor?’

Whitaker picked over the electronic equipment that filled the suitcase. ‘I don’t know yet. If I need anything more, you’ll have to provide it.’

‘It isn’t easy getting this stuff for you. Every time I go out in the streets I risk being shot as a looter.’

Professor Whitaker stepped back from the open suitcase. ‘If you’re going to make a big thing of it, let’s forget the entire project! ‘

Butler would very much have liked to batter Professor Whitaker’s head to pulp. He smiled and said, ‘You will have your little joke, Professor. Don’t take me seriously.’

But Whitaker was sulking. ‘I know when I’m not welcome. If it’s such a problem to provide me with the equipment that’s vital for Operation Golden Age, you only have to say.’

Twice when Butler was entering electronic shops in the Tottenham Court Road and Lisle Street to take these things for Whitaker, he had had to hide like a thief from Army patrols. He hated these trips outside because of their danger; even more, he hated being cooped up with this peculiar professor day and night under the ground. ‘I am very sorry for what I just said, Professor. Will you be kind enough to accept my sincere and most abject apologies?’

Professor Whitaker regarded him for half a minute. Then the flicker of a smile. ‘You really are sorry?’

‘Yes,’ said Butler, wishing he could drive his fist into Whitaker’s pale face and break all his teeth, ‘I really am terribly sorry. Obviously you must have all the equipment that you need for the great experiment which only you can carry out.’

‘All right,’ said Whitaker, coming back to the suitcase, ‘let’s have a proper look at what you’ve got for me.’

Butler lifted out a piece of electronic equipment. ‘You said you wanted one of these.’

Whitaker clapped his hands with delight. ‘A thermal dynometer 1 How terribly clever of you to get one—’

He stopped short. Something had caught his eye. The lift indicator was flashing. ‘It seems we are going to have company,’ he said.

Butler rushed to one of the TV monitors and pressed a button. On to the screen flashed a picture of the corridor by the lifts. One of the lift doors opened and the Doctor stepped out.

‘Who on earth is that?’ said Professor