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'There's no point to what we're doing,' complained Remus.

That's right,' echoed Romulus. 'Why don't you tell us what this is about? The equations you've set us could be done by an idiot. You don't need us for this sort of work.'

Azmael nodded. Romulus was absolutely right. What they had been given to do was simply to test their cooperation and the accuracy of their work. Mestor had insisted.

'To be honest. I do not know what is intended for you. You must understand that I am also a prisoner. I must do as I am told.'

The twins weren't certain whether to believe him. 'Then tell us who your master is,' they said as one voice.

Cautiously, Azmael looked over his shoulder as though expecting to find Mestor listening. 'His name would mean nothing,' he said quietly. 'But understand that he is a creature of infinite ambition.'

Azmael glanced over his shoulder once more. 'He will use anything and anyone to gain his ends.'

'Including us?' said Romulus.

Azmael nodded. 'He requires the gift of your genius.'

'He shan't have it,' said Remus, cutting in. 'We shall fight him if necessary.'

As the boy spoke, a swirl of red light formed into a hologram of the most repulsive creature the twins had ever seen.

It was Mestor.

'Fight me!' his rasping voice boomed. 'Beware, boy ... So far, I have been prepared to put up with your childish obduracy. But no longer! Fail to obey me and 1 shall have your minds removed from your bodies and use them as I wish... Do you understand?'

Terrified, the twins nodded. As they did, the image of Mestor faded.

‘I did try to warn you,' said Azmael. 'Believe what Mestor says. He does not make idle threats.'

Lieutenant Hugo Lang lay prostrate on the floor of the TARDIS

console room, his wounds dressed, a pillow under his head and a blanket covering his body. He looked cosy and snug, which is more than the Doctor did.

Something was agitating him.

Peri watched, as the restless Time Lord paced up and down like a caged tiger, and feared what he might do next.

'Something's very wrong.' The Doctor's voice had changed slightly, his diction had become more precise. Peri wondered who he thought he was this time. 'As a rule, most deduction is elementary, requiring little more than the application of logic. But to be honest,'he continued, indicating Hugo, 'the current situation has me baffled. Something is very amiss, my dear Peri. I sense evil at work.'

'The lieutenant isn't evil.'

'I'm not talking about him.'

'Then who?'

'The person behind the reason that brought him here.'

Peri was not only becoming confused, but concerned. She didn't want the Doctor to become involved in yet more trouble.

'Can't we just leave?' she said plaintively. 'Whatever may be going on here doesn't concern us.'

'It certainly does.' The Doctor paused in his pacing. 'My very being exists to solve crimes. I have spent a lifetime developing my powers of observation. Married to my unerring sense of logic, I have refined the routine of criminal investigation to that of a science!'

Suddenly Peri knew who the Doctor thought he was: Sherlock Holmes. How long, she wondered, would it be before he was racing across the planet looking for Professor Moriarty?

'You must understand my need to get to the bottom of this business.'

How could she? The Doctor wasn't Sherlock Holmes, neither were they in Victorian London.

'Even as a child, my gift was well-developed. With the use of pure logic and observation I deduced where babies came from.'

Peri yawned, hoping it would distract the Doctor from his fantasy.

But if he noticed he didn't respond, continuing as though every word was true.

'My mother had always insisted that the stork brought babies, but living in a large city I found that difficult to believe, as the arrival of infants was frequent but the sighting of storks was very rare. In fact, it wasn't until the age of ten that I saw my first stork - and that was in a zoo!'

'So once and for all I decided to solve the mystery. Word had it that a baby was due next