Doctor Who_ Foreign Devils - Andrew Cartmel [13]
The Doctor opened a silver pocket watch and pursed his lips. 'I thought I'd actually done rather well, but it's hard to say from this.' He held the watch to his ear. 'The poor old thing has stopped.' 'Which makes it extremely accurate, but only twice a day,' sighed Zoe in disgust. 'Now get me out of here. This place is repulsive.' 'Where's Jamie?'
'I have no idea. And believe me, it's not for want of looking. I've been searching for him ever since I arrived here.'
The Doctor inspected Zoe's uniform. 'How did you manage to infiltrate so quickly into the household staff?'
'Infiltrate wasn't in it. They were expecting an additional draft of slaves to handle the Christmas festivities. I saw a column of the poor wretches turning up the driveway and making for the back door of this pile. I realised I could speak the language and it was easy enough to pass myself off as one of them. At least it got me in out of the cold.' 'What did you do about your clothes?' said the Doctor, recalling Zoe's clinging silver one piece jumpsuit. 'I imagine a reflective thermal spacesuit liner would have raised a few eyebrows in the household.' 'It would have if anybody had seen it. I found a coat in the back of one of the cars they parked in a field behind the house. So I pinched it. it covered me up pretty thoroughly and when I got my uniform I hid the suit so none of the others maids saw it. It wasn't easy. They're a nosy bunch. And that room we have to share. You wouldn't believe it. It's tiny. And so cold.'
'Oh, I'd believe it,' said the Doctor. 'By the way, can I have my hot water bottle?' He smiled politely.
'Here,' Zoe shoved it into his hands and turned away.
'I don't mean to be rude,' she added contritely, a moment later. 'But I'm fed up with being one of the serving class. These people expect to be waited on hand and foot and I've had my bottom pinched by at least two miserable gnarly fingered old men.' 'At least two?' said the Doctor with interest.
'The third one might have been a gnarly fingered old woman but it was too dark to make out,' said Zoe. 'And then there's Thor Upcott, Pemberton's younger brother. The word among the servants is to steer well clear of him. Can't we just go?'
'Not until we find Jamie. Did you happen to notice the spirit gate in the garden?'
'Notice it? I came through it. It was as if I had stepped through the one in Canton and ended up here.'
The Doctor nodded with approval, as though a theory had been confirmed. 'That explains why the gate appears identical to the one in the Concession garden. It is the same one. But how did it come to be here?'
'It was brought from Canton by that man we met. The one with the
tattoo.'
'Roderick Upcott.'
'Yes, as a symbol of his mercantile triumphs or something sad like that. He apparently returned to found a Victorian dynasty and when he died he left them all his immense wealth.' Zoe gestured at the big house that extended around them.
'The wealth that opium brought him.' The Doctor shook his head. 'Poor Roderick. It seems only a moment ago that I left him.' He thought of a figure reclining on a divan in December 1800, wreathed in the smoke of finest Benares black opium which dribbled from a lacquer pipe while the sound of gunfire sporadically spattered around the British Trade Concession.
'Roderick's body is buried in an arboretum attached to the house, a kind of miniature Kew Gardens greenhouse.' Zoe gave a little shudder. 'And Doctor . . . his pet monkey was buried with him.'
'Yes,' the Doctor nodded. 'The two did seem very attached to each other.'
'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Pemberton Upcott to his assembled guests, 'tonight we will be providing a lecture for your amusement.' Pemberton resembled his great grandfather Roderick in the tobacco colour of his eyes, but there any similarity ended. He was a tall myopic cadaverous man with pebble spectacles and receding silver hair. He smiled at the crowd sitting around the huge dining table, revealing uneven yellow teeth. 'To be more specific, Mr Carnacki will be providing the