Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [32]
When he reached the ground floor, the Doctor steered clear of the drawing and dining rooms for fear of another encounter with Ernest Matthews. Instead, he slipped into Josiah’s study.
As he rifled through the contents of the desk, he noticed a sturdy, gentleman’s walking shoe lying discarded on the floor.
‘If found, please return to the Reverend Ernest Matthews, Mortarhouse College, Oxford,’ he muttered as he examined the shoe.
There was a sudden click. The Doctor darted for cover behind the door as Gwendoline entered, still dressed in her dinner-jacket. At first the Doctor thought she was sleepwalking, for she almost glided across the room with a dreamy expression on her face.
Gwendoline knelt before a large chest of drawers and opened the top drawer. She revealed a tray of exquisitely coloured tropical butterflies, each one mounted on card.
After staring at them for a moment, she slid the drawer back into place and drew out the next one.
The Doctor moved stealthily out of hiding to observe ranks of mounted beetles, cockchafers and scorpions shining in their polished armour.
Gwendoline closed the drawer again and began to pull out the third and deepest compartment. As it slid out, the Doctor grimly surveyed the contents. It was somehow inevitable that Josiah’s collection of fauna should encompass human beings as well.
‘Butterflies, beetles... and bluebottles,’ he remarked aloud.
Gwendoline was unsurprised by his presence. She sat on the floor and smiled at the perfectly preserved specimen of a Victorian inspector of police. He lay in the drawer in his full dress uniform with his cape spread and pinned out like wings.
‘I think it’s my favourite in the whole collection,’ she said. ‘It’s all the way from Java.’
‘Java?’ asked the Doctor. He carelessly dangled the shoe from one finger.
Gwendoline hardly seemed to notice, although she nervously fingered her locket chain.
‘The Reverend Ernest Matthews will be leaving for Java soon;’ she said. ‘Perhaps he will see my father.’
‘Your father? Is he in Java too?’
Gwendoline took the shoe from the Doctor and studied it curiously. ‘Uncle Josiah sent him there because of what he saw in the cellar.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘I suppose it must be the fashion.’
The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘Gwendoline, do you know where Ace is? Only she can be rather explosive when her temper’s up.’
The girl’s attention had returned to the policeman in the drawer. ‘It’s so lovely,’ she said. ‘The way its wings catch the light.’
‘What’s in the cellar, Gwendoline?’ said the Doctor, firmly taking her arm.
She looked round at him, a picture of wide-eyed innocence, and said, ‘I do hope Ace hasn’t gone to Java yet.’
He scowled. ‘How convenient — only seeing what Uncle Josiah wants you to see.’
Gwendoline showed no sign of interest in this remark at all.
‘Frankly,’ he continued, snapping his fingers angrily in her face, ‘you wouldn’t notice the Albert Memorial if it landed on your foot. And if anything’s happened to Ace, I’ll drop it on your head!’
He stalked angrily out of the study. Selective hypnosis was just. the sort of crude device the Doctor had expected from Josiah. It was typical of the contempt in which Josiah held the humans he treated so cruelly as playthings.
Gwendoline was startled out of her reverie as the study door slammed. She quickly closed the drawer and hurried after the Doctor.
As he walked into the hall, the Doctor saw the group of maids waiting in ranks beside the pair of gates, which he assumed belonged to a lift. Mrs Pritchard was with the maids but there was no sign of Ace. The housekeeper laid aside her hunting rifle and fixed the Doctor with her eyes.
Her advance on the Doctor, however, was curtailed by a voice from the staircase above.
‘So there you are, Doctor. Have you considered my offer?’
The Doctor looked up at Josiah, who was descending to meet them.
‘To murder your enemy?’ I’m not