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Upcott shrugged. 'The idea is that demons can only move in a straight line.' He walked, in a straight line, towards the black pillars of the gate.

'No,' said Zoe. 'Don't go in there. That's where Jamie disappeared.' Upcott didn't even slow down. 'Anyway, that's the Chinese notion.' He strolled briskly between the black pillars and right up to the stone screen beyond them. 'You see, walk in a straight line and you come smack into this.' The Doctor followed him.

'Doctor, please,' said Zoe. 'Don't go through that gate.'

But the Doctor did, stepping up beside Roderick Upcott. 'I see,' said the Doctor touching the stone screen. 'So the demons run straight into the screen.'

'That's right,' said Upcott. 'And they can go no further. They can't turn corners like us mere mortals.' He turned and walked around the screen and on into the smoky depths of the garden. 'Thus it keeps them out.'

The Doctor also stepped around the screen and followed him. 'I see. While for us it just involves a little detour.' He looked back at Zoe. 'Come on Zoe. It won't do you any harm.'

Zoe remained standing adamantly outside the pillars. 'No. Jamie went through it and disappeared.'

Upcott came looming back out of the pink smoke. 'What did the girl say?'

Zoe frowned at him. 'I said,' said Zoe, 'that Jamie stepped through that thing and vanished. He was there and then he was simply gone.' Upcott shook his head, smiling a benign patient smile. 'Nonsense, he's merely lost around here somewhere, bumbling around in this smoke.'

But as he said this, a freshening breeze came blowing in and stirred the smoke across the whole length of the garden as if it were a giant

hand lifting a sheet. The garden emerged from the haze, clear in every

detail, every leaf and stone.

And there was no sign of Jamie.

The Doctor gave Upcott a look of ironic enquiry. 'All right, perhaps he's wandered into one of the Concession buildings. I'll root up some servants to make a proper search of the premises. Would that satisfy your young friend, Doctor?'

'I doubt it,' said the Doctor. 'But well worth a try nonetheless.'

Upcott slung his gun over his shoulder and trotted across the gravel and back into the building. The Doctor turned again to Zoe, who remained stubbornly outside the black stone gates.

'Don't step inside if you don't want to,' said the Doctor coaxingly. 'You might be right. It might indeed be the best course of action.' For the first time Zoe stirred from the spot where she stood. 'Do you mean that in a sort of a crude reverse-psychology way?' 'No, no. Not at all,' said the Doctor.

Zoe took a hesitant step towards the gate. 'I mean in a sort of Huck Finn painting the fence kind of a way?'

'You mean Tom Sawyer. No, absolutely not,' said the Doctor. 'How do you know about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer?'

'I did work in a library.' Zoe hovered just outside the black stone pillars. Her voice was tart with exasperation. 'What I'm driving at is that you're trying to get me to come in by telling me to do the opposite.' 'I'm doing nothing of the kind.'

'You think I'm behaving irrationally,' said Zoe. 'But I saw it happen to Jamie. I did.'

'I'm sure you did,' agreed the Doctor hastily. 'And when I say don't step through the gate, I actually and sincerely mean it.'

'He just stepped through it,' said Zoe. 'Like this.' And she stepped forward and through the gate and she was gone. Like the image vanishing from a screen when you switch it off. There was perhaps a slight shimmering of her form as she stepped through the gate, just detectable by the Doctor's unusual eyes. And then she was gone.

The Doctor sighed. 'Oh dear.' A moment later Roderick Upcott came out of the house and trotted over to him. The Doctor looked at Upcott. 'The servants are just coming. I convinced them that the smoke was gone and the magic of the Emperor's Astrologer had abated.' He looked around and registered Zoe's absence. 'Where's the girl?' The expression on the Doctor's face answered his question.