Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [12]
The explorer seemed no longer concerned by Ace’s skimpy apparel. ‘I must thank you, Doctor. I am grateful to have found an ally,’ he interrupted.
‘You are?’ queried the Doctor.
‘Of course. You have provided me with substantial proof at last.’
As he reached down for the snuffbox, the Doctor blocked Ace’s instinctive move to stop him. There was a slight crackle of electricity as the explorer scooped up the box, as if either he or the object had discharged a measure of stored energy from one to the other. Ace was uncertain which way round it went.
Without flinching, the explorer held up the box in triumph. ‘I came here to find Redvers Fenn-Cooper, the finest explorer in the Empire.
‘RFC,’ nodded the Doctor as the engraved initials on the box’s lid glinted in the gaslight.
‘I just knew he was close by. I am commanded to find him and rescue him from the clutches of that blackguard Josiah Samuel Smith.’ He turned away from his audience, spear in one hand, box in the other and marched away into the uncharted regions of the house.
Ace shrugged and looked at the Doctor. Just for a second she caught him watching her, before he smiled and set off in the explorer’s tracks.
Her sense of unease was reinforced. The Doctor was up to something, but then he was always up to something. He would probably call it weaving patterns on the loom of the universe; there were times when she thought she could make out what the patterns were. The Doctor was not the easiest person to be with, but Ace had learned that when his cards were closest to his chest, it was safest to stick as near to him as possible.
The glow in the eye of the watchful auk dimmed as Ace hurriedly tagged on behind the Doctor, reassured as she let him lead her into the shadows.
4
Gaslight Boogie
A crack of light widened into the gloom of the study, silhouetting Mrs Pritchard against the glow from the corridor outside.
‘Light!’ hissed the room’s occupant, shielding its eyes with a white-gloved hand. The housekeeper closed the door and approached the desk.
‘The new guest is installed in the drawing room as instructed, sir,’ she intoned.
Her shadowy master leaned back in his chair from the microscope. His voice rasped out, soft but cultured, like iced silk. ‘You’re slipping, Mrs Pritchard, and so are your staff. There are more strangers in the house.’
It was not apparent whether this information was being absorbed. The housekeeper’s blank stare betrayed nothing of her thoughts. Her master continued, ‘I have had to release the other specimen, which may delay them for a while. But where is Nimrod? He should be dealing with them.’
‘Nimrod has his other duties, sir.’
The truth delivered in such dull, sluggish tones only aggravated her employer further. Must he delegate everything himself? Of course he must. But a gentleman should never display his temper in front of mere servants.
He, Josiah Samuel Smith, had read it somewhere. He swallowed his pride and suggested that she set two further places for dinner.
‘Very good, sir,’ came the reply. Mrs Pritchard turned and left the study.
Josiah leaned forward and reached for the telephone.
There was no connection to be made, he simply turned a handle and heard a bell ringing at the other end of the line.
‘Come along, Nimrod, you Darwin’s delight,’ he muttered in irritation.
Nimrod had duties that Josiah was loath to interrupt.
They could be postponed, but not indefinitely. Indeed, of the entire household, only the manservant was reliable enough to perform these duties with any degree of competence. He was content to undertake the heaviest tasks, obeying his capricious master’s strangest whims without question. He even swept out the locked cell, whose occupant, a hapless brute, shredded its daily copy of The Times to make itself a nest.
There was cruel mockery in Josiah’s instruction that the prisoner should be extended this hospitality. Upstairs, Josiah, gratified in the certainty of the newspaper’s fate, perused the world events reported in his own copy from the comfort of his leather armchair like any other