• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 355 0

instructions were to wait, to guard the laboratory if necessary with his life, an order his controlled mind would not hesitate to obey.

The miller then crossed to the corner where his provisions were stored, picked up a flintlock pistol and started to prime it.

'How do you feel?' said the Doctor.

'Groggy, sore and bad-tempered,' moaned Tegan.

'Almost your old self!'

Tegan scowled at the Doctor. 'That's not funny,' she said. 'And why is he in such good spirits?'

Richard Mace was striding up and down the room as though he had just awakened from twelve hours' deep restful sleep. He turned and grinned his broadest cavalier grin and said, in his best, richest, plummiest voice, 'Madam! I am a man of iron.'

Seated next to Tegan on the floor, the Doctor looked up at the actor with tired eyes.

'More likely the electric charge I gave him from the powerpack. It's over-ridden the side effects of the bracelet.'

'Can't you do the same for me?'

'Too dangerous.' The Doctor scrambled to his feet. 'Exercise is much safer and just as effective.'

Tegan grasped the Doctor's offered hand and stood up. She felt dreadful, as though suffering from a bad dose of flu. 'Now what?' she groaned.

He rattled the chain connecting his handcuffs. 'First, I must lose these.'

'Never fear!' said Mace at his most theatrical. 'I am at hand.'

The Doctor and Tegan looked at each other, wondering what he meant. 'What can you do?' she said.

'Do you have some wire?' purred Mace. Suddenly he was in his element. He could do something positive. And when centre stage, he revelled in the enjoyment of his performance.

'Will this do?' said the Doctor, producing a safety-pin.

'Perfect!'

But never having seen a safety-pin before, he was surprised when it sprung open as he fiddled with it. As ever, his entrepreneurial mind instantly saw its potential. 'Interesting device,' he muttered as he turned towards the Doctor. 'Where did you get this?'

'I'll tell you later.' He held up his cuffs. 'Just release me from these.'

Mace straightened the pin, inserted it into one of the locks and started to work it around.

'Where did you learn to pick locks?' said Tegan.

Mace cleared his throat. 'I once knew a French acrobat. A charming man... although he couldn't tumble very well... Yet his skill with a piece of bent wire was phenomenal.' Steel rasped against steel as the actor continued to poke around inside the lock. 'Fortunately, he taught me his skill during the period of our acquaintanceship, which has enabled me to extricate my fee from the strongbox of more than one disreputable theatre owner.'

Suddenly there was a click and the cuff fell open.

'Voilà!'

'Wel done,' said the Doctor, relieved that Mace's skill, unlike his courage in adversity, wasn't all in his imagination.

Quickly Richard Mace freed the Doctor of the second cuff and then started on the lock of the door.

'Wouldn't it be quicker if you used your sonic screwdriver?' said Tegan.

The Doctor pointed at the twisted lump of metal.

'Then what about the pistol?' indicating Mace's flintlock.

'It would be heard,' said Mace, continuing to work on the lock.

'Can't you risk it?' Tegan was insistent.

'I'm nearly there!'

Tegan crossed to the door and peered over Mace's shoulder. 'It's impossible to pick a lock with a safety-pin.'

'I released the Doctor.'

Tegan was becoming annoyed that they were wasting time. 'Yes, but they were handcuffs. I'm talking about a door lock.'

Tegan picked up the pistol and handed it to the Doctor, who checked that it hadn't been damaged when dropped.

'For all we know, the Terileptil and the android have cleared off,' she appealed to the Doctor. 'We can't afford to give them any more time than is absolutely necessary.'

'You're right!'

The Doctor snapped closed the flash-pan cover. 'Stand back!' he said.

'Five seconds more,' demanded Mace.

The Doctor cocked the pistol as the actor continued to waggle the pin about in the lock.

'Stand back please.'

Reluctantly Mace moved away