Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [10]
The landlord, having served the drinks and nodded an agreement to the rooms, wasn‟t to be drawn on any subject.
The three old men at a corner table followed every move the Doctor and Sarah made, but refused to say a word, even to each other. Sarah was driven to distraction by their constant stares, feeling herself back in the presence of playground bullies.
The Doctor was trying to impress them into speech, first putting every one of the pub‟s six darts, three red, three yellow, into the bullseye of the dartboard, arranged in a circle of alternating colours; then making the tallest house of cards in the world out of beermats. It didn‟t work. Finally, Sarah could stand it no longer. She pushed back her chair, pleased to see a slight start of surprise on the faces of the sullen locals, and spoke loudly. „We‟re trying to find a friend of ours, Harry Sullivan. Has anybody seen him?‟
The locals looked at each other, but still didn‟t break their silence.
„We know he was here,‟ Sarah continued. „We left him here ourselves.‟
Still nothing. „Well, then, what can you tell me about Lady Hester Stanton? Godric? Lucinda Ryan? Rose Perry?‟ She struggled to remember the other names. „How about Mr Johnstone, Mr Bennett or Mr Abbot?‟
One of the old men, a leather-skinned, sunken-chinned ancient, rose from his seat, and left the inn without a backward glance. The Doctor swept his beermat structure to the floor and followed. After a parting shot of, „Thanks for all your help,‟ Sarah went too.
„Mr Perry! Mr Perry!‟ The Doctor was calling.
„How on earth do you know his name?‟ Sarah asked.
„He had a tear in his eye. Obviously a labourer of the soil, not likely to be connected to a Lady, or to have a wife or child called Godric or Lucinda. Just an educated guess.‟
„What about the men?‟ she asked.
„It was the tear of a father for a girl cut off in the prime of life.‟
„You Sherlock, you,‟ she said, rolling her eyes heavenwards.
„Mr Perry!‟
The old man stopped, and waited for them to catch up.
They could have caught up with him long before then, but Sarah thought the Doctor was leaving him space so that the decision to talk to them was his. Perhaps.
„What thur wanna know about our Rose?‟ the old man asked.
„We... well, we don‟t,‟ said Sarah, as it was to her he was looking. „I was telling the truth - part of it, anyway. We left a friend of ours here, a very close friend, called Harry Sullivan.
When we came back to... fetch him, we found that he was dead. And he seems to have died with a lot of other people.
Like your Rose. We just want to know what happened to him.‟
„I baint gonna tell strangers,‟ he said. „Not to give they reason to put I in St Sebastian‟s.‟
„Please,‟ Sarah tried appealing to his pity, „there must be something you can tell us.
„Try the Leffy house,‟ was all he‟d say.
„The what?‟ Sarah began. But her attention was already being torn away, as the Doctor began to stride off in a different direction altogether.
„Come on, Sarah! You heard the man. To the Leffy house!‟
The Doctor applied the Sherlock Holmes touch again, and tracked down „the Leffy house‟, assuming (rightly as it turned out) that it was not one of the cottages in a cluster near the inn, nor one of the outlying farms, but the largest house in the village, set someway back from the rest of the population.
Its name was actually „The Manor‟. The front door was opened by a butler, who Sarah just knew was shocked by her trousers (yes, women wore trousers in the thirties - but probably not nice girls), and by the Doctor‟s bizarre appearance. She expected him to tell them to go to the back door, like butlers did in books, and prepared to stand up for her equal human rights in entering through any door she pleased. Almost disappointingly, though, he didn‟t say anything of the kind.
The Doctor took charge. „Good afternoon,‟ he said, with a beaming smile. „We‟ve come to meet our friend, Harry Sullivan.‟
The words were like a physical blow; the butler staggered back.
„Ah, good, you were expecting us,‟ said the Doctor ridiculously,