Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [33]
he snapped. ‘Where’s Ace?’
Josiah’s grin vanished into a threatening glare. ‘Be careful, Doctor. To cross me would be a serious error.’
Mrs Pritchard had closed in and was indicating the stair with all the charm of a smiling snake. ‘Miss Ace has already retired to bed, sir,’ she crooned. ‘Come and I will show you.’
The Doctor turned away from the unctuous apparition and was face to face with Gwendoline, who stepped up with a lit candle.
‘Here, Doctor, to light you to bed,’ she said. In lullaby tones she added, ‘Sleep well. Good night.’
‘Good night. Sleep tight. Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, otherwise known as Java!’ the Doctor chanted angrily, trapped between two assailants. ‘Well, not tonight, Josiaphine!’
He blew out the candle and broke free, heading towards the lift.
‘Your puppet show doesn’t fool me. Sorry to ruin your big hunt, but Ace is in trouble. She’s down this way I take it,’ he said, indicating the lift beyond the maids.
With one concerted movement, the servants turned and aimed their pistols at his head.
‘Five thousand pounds to lead this rabble?’ sniffed the Doctor. He turned to look at Josiah, at the blue veins pumping beneath the flaking, bleached skin of his temples.
‘You’d do better to spend it on a few lessons in etiquette.
And a clean jacket!’
With a sharp intake of breath, Josiah drew back his hand to strike the Doctor, but he was stopped by a tremor which ran up through the house and rattled its fitments.
Josiah, with a look of sudden fear, spun back to gaze up at the window above the stairs. A moment later, the stained glass began to hum and flare with patterns of light.
‘What’s it done?’ he cried, clutching at the banister to steady himself. ‘It’ll destroy us all!’
The maids stared round in confusion, desperately searching for instruction.
The Doctor seized his chance, pulled the Geiger counter from his pocket and held it to Josiah’s head. Dragging his prisoner back towards the gates, he yelled, ‘Get the lift!’
Mrs Pritchard nodded and one of the maids scrambled to obey.
With Josiah inside, the Doctor snapped shut the gate and grasped the lever. ‘Right, Josiah, let’s see what’s down the rabbit hole,’ he said. He pushed the mechanism into gear; the lift shuddered and began to clank downwards.
The Doctor had expected a torrent of abuse, but Josiah only stared at the rock walls of the lift shaft as they passed.
Deciding to let him stew, the Doctor concentrated on estimating their speed and the depth of their descent.
A dread of what awaited them at the foot of the shaft preyed on Josiah’s thoughts. If his worst fears were realized, then this meddlesome Doctor who was holding a weapon to his head was the least of his worries. All his work — everything he had achieved alone — could be swept away in a single gesture of burning tumult. But would it come to that? There was no word from Nimrod, but there were no further threats from the escaped creature until this sudden disturbance. Base as it was, the creature must be subject to the same instincts as all living animals.
Surely fear would prevent it from disturbing the core. Pray that it was so. Yet there were other possibilities too: if the Doctor’s brat of a companion had already discovered the secret chamber, there was no knowing what harm she might do, or what fate might befall her.
Josiah’s work had endured many insults and rebuttals, but he would not relinquish everything for which he had striven. His research had taken him further than any other published scientist. He would achieve his aim to catalogue every variety of living creature on the planet. Yet they sneered at him and refused to admit a newcomer through the portals of their societies and gentlemen’s clubs.
It was the fate of any great innovator to be misunderstood and ridiculed; he was no exception. He had no blood lineage, neither had he been to the right school.
He was an outsider, condemned to stare through the steamy window of Victorian respectability. But if there was a future, they would learn to change their attitudes just as