Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [33]
‘Well,’ I said turning to the others, ‘if you would all be so good as to wait elsewhere, the sergeant and I will see each of you in turn. In here. I intend running through the incident with each of you – for the sake of completeness.’
I watched Miss Seymour as I spoke, wondering what her reaction would be. In point of fact she failed to react at all, but out of the corner of my eye I saw George Wallace flinch. I turned to him.
‘Sir George, if you could stay first and enlighten us?’ He nodded weakly. His wife, taking the hint, gently shepherded Mr Hopkinson, Herr Kreiner and the elfin Susan Seymour from the room.
Before Wallace could move, I sat in the comfortably upholstered chair behind his desk. Second-guessing me as usual, Baker was already manoeuvring a chair into position beside Wallace. I took a large notebook and fountain pen from my pocket. Baker walked round to stand beside me, and as Wallace sat down I placed my elbows firmly upon his blotter, steepled my fingers and stared across the burnt-out equipment, waiting for him to start.
* * *
THE ACCOUNT OF JOHN HOPKINSON (5)
It took us several minutes to recover from the ordeal of the experiment, and then to varying degrees. Somehow, Simpson was there, helping Susan – pale and tense – to support Elizabeth and guide her towards the relative comfort of the drawing room. George and I carried the unconscious Catherine up to her room. Dr Friedlander went ahead of us opening doors. I left George and the Doctor to check her pulse.
When I arrived back at the conservatory, Simpson and Friedlander were talking in low voices by the shattered remains of the equipment. A single valve had survived, standing upright amongst the shattered remains of its fellows. The intricate wiring within the glass bulb contrasted with the devastated and tangled mass that surrounded it.
‘I was just saying, sir,’ Simpson explained as I entered, ‘that we really ought to move Professor Harries.’
He glanced across at the dead man, face down over the further end of the table – the furthest that we had been able to move him so far.
‘It doesn’t seem respectful to leave him like that,’ he added. I nodded.
‘The trouble is’, Kreiner said, ‘that the table is rather in the way.’
‘So I’ve just realised.’
I walked over and examined it closer, doing my best to ignore the stench of charred flesh from the other side.
‘And because of the trestles, we can’t lift it out of the way very easily,’ I added.
‘Too heavy, sir,’ said Simpson, who tapped the corner nearest him. ‘Oak top and trestles. Very unusual, but very heavy. Even heavier with all this on it.’ He gestured at the debris littering the middle. ‘Can we clear it all off?’
‘We could,’ I said slowly, ‘but it would take some time. Perhaps it would be best though. Then we can lift the top off and move this trestle.’
I gave it an experimental kick. It failed to move at all.
Wallace came in as we were preparing to sweep the first pile of blackened wires and broken glass on to the floor. There was no sign of the Doctor. Perhaps he was ministering to the ladies.
Kreiner again outlined the problem that faced us.
‘Best to keep it all together, though,’ George said, leaning over the mess, feeling around the edge amongst the soot and glass. ‘Ah, yes, here we are.’
He scraped some of the mess of black away and I could see that underneath was a lip of wood. The equipment had been mounted on a separate board – scarred and pitted now, even burnt through in places, but still intact.
‘My desk is pretty clear, and it should be big enough. We’ll put it in the study.’
Kreiner helped him to prise up the wooden board and Simpson opened the door to allow them to carry it out into the corridor.
The lights dimmed as they left, and Simpson glanced up at the bulbs, his concern assuring me that it was not my eyes that were at fault.
‘We’d better move the table then, sir,’ he suggested and I edged around it so that I could pull the body away and slump it into a chair. This meant