Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire Part 5

'Demons from the pantheon of the Indian subcontinent,' Holmes replied tersely.

'Usually a.s.sociated with the wors.h.i.+p of Kali,' the Doctor added. 'Kali being the Indian G.o.ddess of death and destruction.'

'I thought you had been in India, Watson,' Holmes asked.

'I pa.s.sed through ten years ago on my way to Afghanistan,' I replied, 'but I confess I took little interest in the heathen ceremonies of the natives.'

The Doctor glanced over at me, and there was something dark and unpleasant in his eyes.

'G.o.d's in his heaven and all's right in the world,' he sneered.

I drew myself up to respond to the gibe, but Holmes interrupted, saying, 'And the books that were stolen: they were all a.s.sociated with this subject?'

'As you well know.'

As I watched the clash of wills between the two men I could not help but recall the words that I had written about Holmes some six years before, soon after the occasion of our first meeting. I had been drawing up a list of his interests in an attempt to more closely understand his character. I had jotted down, in no particular order, that he was well up on poisons generally, that he could tell at a glance different soils from each other, that his knowledge of anatomy was accurate but limited, that his knowledge of sensational crime and criminal law was immense and that he was an expert boxer, singlestick player and swordsman, but that he knew nothing of astronomy, philosophy or literature. At this point I had thrown the list away, crying: 'If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accomplishments . . .!' I could see something of the same thought process concerning the Doctor going through Holmes's mind.

'Perhaps we might be better employed,' the Doctor said finally, breaking both Holmes's and my train of thought, 'in examining the list of other visitors to the Library. Accepting that I am naturally a suspect, we should question the others as soon as possible. May I see the list?'

Holmes turned away to gaze out of the window onto the Baker Street bustle below.

'I retain an accurate memory of the names,' he said, 'and there is, therefore, no necessity to examine the list. Your own name appears, of course, Doctor, as does that of a Mrs Kate Prendersly of Whitefields Lodge in Deptford, an inmate of Broadmoor named Minor, a certain Baron Maupertuis, his manservant, Surd...'

'How do you know he is the Baron's manservant, Holmes?' I interjected.

'The address is the same, Watson,' Holmes said, pityingly. 'And since he is only referred to by a surname, without any qualifier, the conclusion is obvious.'

'Any other names?' the Doctor asked.

'A Professor Challenger, whose address is given as "care of the Royal Society".'

'And?' The Doctor's expression was carefully neutral.

Holmes's voice was level as he replied: 'No other names appear on the list.'

'Are you sure, Mr Holmes?'

'Do you accuse me of dishonesty, Sir?'

'How should I presume?' the Doctor murmured.

'Perhaps,' I ventured, sensing the sudden hostility between Holmes and the Doctor, but not understanding its cause, 'we should visit these people. Talk to them. Ascertain their reasons for visiting the Library. Perhaps some pertinent fact might emerge of which we are at present unaware.'

'A capital idea,' the Doctor said, leaping to his feet and rubbing his hands together gleefully. 'I'll start with Professor Challenger, Doctor Watson can tackle Miss Prendersly and you, Mr Holmes...' He was still smiling, but his eyes glinted coldly. '. . . You can choose your own suspects.'

'Since you yourself are still a suspect,' Holmes retorted, 'might I suggest that you accompany Watson to Deptford.'

'Very well.' The Doctor made for the door, picking a multicoloured umbrella from the umbrella stand as he did so. 'I'll hail a cab.'

He vanished from our rooms and scampered down the stairs.

'A rum character,' I observed.

'There is more to that man than meets the eye,' Holmes said. 'He may seem to be at times almost ridiculous, almost the fool, but he has a shrewd brain. Watch him, Watson. Don't let him out of your sight. I want to know everything he says and everything he does.'

'But why on Earth do you want to a.s.sociate him with this investigation?'

'I suspect that he will be a.s.sociated with it whether we want him to be or not. At least this way we get to keep a close eye on him.'

I moved to take my walking stick from the coat rack, and exclaimed, 'Not raining outside, is it Holmes?'

'Not for days,' he replied. 'Why?'

'There's some water in the bottom of the coat rack.'

He bent to examine it, and came up rubbing his fingers together.

'Not water, Watson, but oil.'

'Oil?' I reiterated stupidly.

'Indeed. Most singular.' He wiped his hands on his jacket. 'You had better not keep the Doctor waiting.'

'And what of you, Holmes? What are your plans?'

'I shall endeavour to meet up with Mr Jitter's opposite number,' he said, 'Mack Yeovil and I have crossed swords before, and so I think some form of disguise is called for.'

I discovered the Doctor sitting at the bottom of our stairs and conversing with our page-boy in a casual manner that I felt was unsuited to dealings with a servant. I curtly bade him accompany me, and whistled down a hansom almost immediately. As the cab trotted off he planted his umbrella on the floor, rested his forearms upon its handle and frowned. A melancholic expression shadowed his features, and I found myself wondering who he was and where he came from.

'Gallifrey,' he muttered.

'I'm sorry?'

'You were wondering where I came from.'

'That's astounding. How did you know?'

'Elementary.'

'Gallifrey . . . that sounds Irish.'

He looked sideways at me and said nothing.

The cab clattered through London, with us sitting inside in silence. I watched with confused feelings the loungers, shop girls, street-sweepers and dollymoppers who thronged the streets. It was so easy to see them as a backdrop: a featureless, characterless crowd of extras, called on stage as we came near and sent back to their dressing rooms as we pa.s.sed. Most of Holmes's cases were conducted amongst people of our own cla.s.s or above; it was rare, especially since Holmes's reputation had spread and my medical practice in Paddington had become established, that we mixed with people below our station. And yet the events of that morning were still clear enough in my mind that I knew these people must have lives, homes, families, desires and hates that I never usually gave any consideration to.

The aegis of the British Empire stretched across many foreign lands, but it occurred to me for the first time that the division between rich and poor in London matched anything to be found in Bangalore or Calcutta.

' "The poor always ye have with you",' the Doctor quoted in a doom-laden voice, and then sighed. 'Wherever I go, certain universal truths always hold. There is always evil, and there are always those with and those without.'

We were pa.s.sing across the bal.u.s.traded expanse of London Bridge now.

The Doctor's words set me thinking about the course my life had taken.

When I made the decision to be a surgeon I had wanted to relieve human suffering: a n.o.ble enough aim, I suppose, if a trifle naive. I joined the army for the same reason, but the Afghan War cured me of my youthful innocence. I quickly realized that human suffering was largely due to humans, and the meagre amount of relief I could give was like trying to bale out the ocean with a teaspoon. During the eight hours or so that the battle of Maiwand lasted almost two hundred of us had been wounded, and almost a thousand killed. I had contracted enteric fever, was invalided out, and drifted to London: depressed over the scale of misery, horror and ignorance I had encountered and powerless to do anything about it. I had fallen in with Holmes, but what had I achieved since our chance meeting and my decision to chronicle some of his adventures? We had returned various stolen sets of jewels to their rightful owners and averted a handful of scandals in high society. What was the point? How did this square with my youthful aims?

My mood when we drew up at our destination was not light.

Whitefields Lodge was a large, square house set in its own grounds and girt around with a low stone wall. It made quite a contrast to the regular run of houses in the locality; squat, dark terraces, snaking downhill to the Thames and relieved only by the tawdry glare of public houses on every corner. Raucous dockers' songs drifted through the late afternoon.

As we paid off the driver and crossed the road, I became aware that somebody was watching us. My instincts developed on the Afghan front and finely honed through years of working with Holmes - were jangling. I glanced around, trying not to attract attention.

'The shadow on the wall, to the left of the dilapidated house,' the Doctor hissed.

'You sensed it too?'

'Of course.'

All I could see in the lee of the wall was a jumble of upright sticks, bamboo I believed, and a sack of some kind; the detritus of some child's game, perhaps. The sticks had been arranged as a support, holding the sack some five or six feet above the ground. The sack swayed gently in the breeze. It looked as if it might be half full of water. If there was a human form hiding somewhere in the shadows behind that bizarre sculpture I could not say. I turned to move on. but at the sight of the Doctor's blazing eyes I stumbled and stopped. His gaze was fixed on that same patch of shadows. I turned to look.

The sticks and the sack were gone.

'Good Lord!' I exclaimed.

'No,' the Doctor whispered. 'Not a very good one at all.'

He s.h.i.+vered, and drew his coat tighter about his body.

'On with the motley,' he murmured, smiling hesitantly at me, then strode up to the front door as if he owned the place and rapped upon the door with the head of his umbrella. A maid left us in a room full of books whilst she took our cards in to her mistress. We sat, side by side, on an antimaca.s.sared sofa until Mrs Kate Prendersly swept into the room.

'Gentlemen,' she said softly, 'what can I do for you?'

We stood. I cannot speak for the Doctor, but for myself I was overawed. In an experience of women that encompa.s.ses many nations and three separate continents, I cannot recall seeing so striking a woman. Her hair was auburn and piled high in tresses. Her eyes were a smoky purple, matching the warm tones of her voice. She was dressed in a long blue skirt, with a peac.o.c.k jacket over a frilly white blouse. I felt envious of Mr Prendersly, wherever he was.

'We ah, that is -'

'May .I say,' the Doctor .interrupted, raising his hat, 'what a great pleasure it is to meet you. This house is lovely, and so close to the river as well. I love rivers, don't you? I do believe there's a pie-and-eel shop nearby Fred's, or is it Frank's? - no matter, in which I spent many a happy day in my youth, or perhaps somebody else's youth. Do you read a lot? I only ask because you have a great deal of books scattered around. Law books, aren't they? Are you studying?'

'Yes,' she said, and I could tell that she was struggling to suppress some deep emotion. 'For my husband's sake.'

'And your husband is dead?'

'Yes, how did you know?'

'The footprints outside. We have been the first men to walk from the gate to the door in some time.'

I reached across to pat her hand. She was really a most attractive woman.

'Patrick was killed in. . .' she sobbed, and took a tiny lace handkerchief from her sleeve '. . . the most terrible manner. He had been in London on business . . . he was the captain of a lighter, you see, and he had to go to Admiralty House . . . something to do with his licence . . . and he was making his way back through Trafalgar Square, and..'

She broke down in tears, dabbing at her eyes with the lace. I could fill in the rest of the story myself. The Trafalgar Square riots were still a fresh scar in the mind of every decent Englishman. The summer had been completely rainless. Sewage, instead of being washed away, had been left to rot in the streets. The heat had aggravated the unsanitary conditions. Squalor bred disaffection, disaffection turned to unrest, and unrest led to riots. Trafalgar Square had seen the worse: a mob of drunken and enraged loungers who destroyed property in a wild orgy of wanton behaviour. General Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner for Police in the Metropolitan Area, had taken it into his incompetent head to order a sabre-charge by the Life Guards. The riot became a rout, but at the cost of men's lives. It had been a black day for British justice.

'My dear woman,' I murmured, placing a rea.s.suring hand on her shoulder.

'He was just pa.s.sing through...' she wailed. 'He wasn't even involved! But he was wearing his uniform, and they mistook him for a policeman...'

'You said that you were studying for his sake? Is this studying connected to the Library of St John the Beheaded, in Holborn?'

She looked up at the Doctor, so surprised that she forgot she was crying.

'Yes, but how . . .?'

'There has been some trouble,' I said. 'Nothing that should bother you, but we need to talk to all the people who have visited the Library recently.'

'I was there last week: She looked more closely at the Doctor. 'In fact, I do believe that you were as well.'

She glanced over at me. A thrill ran through my nerves, a feeling similar to the descriptions written by those who have received shocks from electrical equipment.

'I am sure I would have remembered your face, Dr Watson, had you been there,' she said, and lowered her gaze.

'If you don't mind me asking,' I said, 'for what reason were you at the Library?'

'My husband was in fear of his life, even before he left for London that day,'

she said simply. 'He . . . ah!' She raised a hand to her heaving bosom.

'Excuse me, gentlemen, a touch of heartburn, I fear.'

'I am a doctor,' I said quickly. 'Perhaps . . .?'

'I am sure it will pa.s.s,' she said, and smiled slightly. 'But thank you for your kind offer. My husband, as I said, was in fear for his life. He talked of some plan that he had stumbled on, something hideous and important, but no matter how I pleaded, he would not tell me. 'Best not to know,' he said. She sighed. 'I believe that he was killed because of his knowledge. I believe that he was lured to Trafalgar Square and, under cover of the riot, he was murdered.'

Her plain statement caused s.h.i.+vers to run up and down my spine.

'And the Library?' the Doctor prompted.

'I said that Alexander would not talk of his discovery. That is not quite true.

He would have nightmares, and during them he would murmur words which were strange to me. When I was sorting through his possessions following .

. . following the riots, I discovered a members.h.i.+p card for the Library of St John the Beheaded. Such a macabre name. I had never heard of it, but scribbled on the back were some of the words I had heard him cry out. I presumed that he had been attempting to research them, and so I habituated it too.'

'And did you find anything?' I asked.

'No,' she said, and frowned, clutching again at her chest. Her face was redder than it had been when we entered. I ran through lists of symptoms in my mind, but I could make no specific determination without examining her more closely.

'Those words, do you remember them?' the Doctor asked.

'I'm not sure that I can,' she said. 'The librarian kept the card. They were more like groans than words.'