'And how do we know he is not a Bolshevik agent?' Oblonsky roared, his anger finally getting the better of him. 'I say we throw him into the street.' He leaned heavily forwards, scattering cutlery. 'Once we have determined how much he knows and who he is working for.'
'I'm no one's agent,' the Doctor said quietly.
'Gentlemen, please.' Sir George stood up, tossing his napkin down on his side plate. But Oblonsky paid no attention, continuing to stare malevolently at the Doctor and Rose.
It was Major Aske who calmed the situation. He cleared his throat, and said quietly, 'I doubt a Bolshevik agent, or any sort of agent, would be so bold as to invite himself to dinner and offer to explain your plans, Colonel. Repple and I are constantly alert to the possibility of spies, infiltrators, agents and assassins.'
Repple held up his hand as Aske finished speaking. 'The Doctor is obviously none of these. He and his companion may be able to help. Let us keep an open mind.'
Oblonsky leaned back, folding his arms, still angry. 'I am yet to be convinced.'
'Well that's a start,' the Doctor said happily. He raised his glass in a mock toast, then sipped at the wine. 'Mmm, 1917,' he declared.
'Not even close,' Sir George said. 'It's a 1921 claret.'
'I didn't mean the wine,' the Doctor said sternly. 'Though if I did I might tell you the grapes came from a small vineyard just outside Briancon. No,' he went on quickly enough for Rose to guess he had made this up, 'I mean the Russian Revolution.'
'It's not hard to guess,' Rose said, seeing their surprised faces. Not that she had actually guessed until now. Not that she had a clue really what he was on about. 'There are a lot of Russians here. The colonel, the Koznyshevs earlier.'
'And Lady Anna,' the Doctor added.
Anna nodded, her raised eyebrows the only hint of her surprise. 'I left in October 1917. With my husband and my young son.'
'Your first husband,' Rose said, and was pleased to see the Doctor raise an eyebrow as Anna nodded.
'I had met Sir George when he was at the British Embassy in Moscow. He was the only person I knew well enough to ask for help when I got to London.' She reached across the table and took his hand.
'So,' Rose said, keen to make the most of her success so far, 'we have some dispossessed Russians, and Repple here is a man who has lost his title and wants it back. You all want to kick out Lenin and co. and reclaim your lost lands, is that it?' She grinned, pleased with herself.
The Painted Lady clapped her hands together in apparent admiration.
'No,' Colonel Oblonsky said.
'Oh:
'She's close though,' the Doctor said. He grinned at her. 'Not bad.'
'Oh, cheers,' Rose muttered.
'She is right about me,' Repple said. He got to his feet and looked round. Aske sighed and turned away. But Repple ignored him. 'I shall not rest until I have reclaimed my birthright. No, not in Russia. Until the coup that took power from me, until I was branded a criminal and sent into exile, I was the Elector – the king if you will of Dastaria. When I return, the people will rise up and drive out the oppressors who have laid waste our homeland.'
'Sir,' Aske said quietly, 'we shall triumph. But we must take it gently and slowly. Tread carefully. Capitalise on what support and allies we have. Not draw unwanted attention.'
'We must help our friends too,' Repple said. 'I am sorry that we can do little save lend our support and our name to your enterprise, my friends. But Dastaria shares a border with Russia. Your cause is a noble one. What help we can offer, we shall – even from exile.'
'I fear it will be little enough,' Aske said quietly.
'It would seem,' Oblonsky said, 'that you have a way of eliciting information, Doctor. Perhaps you are not an agent of Lenin or Trotsky and their lackeys. But now you know it all.'
The Doctor nodded. 'Almost all. For any chance of success so long after the revolution, you must have a trump card. Something you can use to rally support. Enthuse the people.'
'Go on,' Sir George prompted.
'I think you intend to return to Russia with the heir to the throne.' He grinned suddenly. 'Am I right, or am I right?' The silence was confirmation enough. All eyes were now on the Doctor.
Except for Rose's. She looked round at the other diners, and to her surprise she saw that while Melissa Heart's mask was facing the Doctor, her eyes were angled towards Repple.
'Now,' the Doctor went on, 'the colonel here could be the rightful Tsar of all the Russias. But he's more of a military man. Loyal soldier, yes? Succession doesn't include women for all sorts of ill-informed medieval reasons. So, I suggest the Tsar is. . . Count Koznyshev, though he didn't fancy the pie.' He sat back like a conjuror awaiting applause. There was only silence. 'In the ballroom?' he added hopefully. 'With the Fabergé egg?'
But Rose could see it now. An odd snatch of conversation, a strange comment, rose in her mind: 'He wouldn't dare.' She must have gasped out loud, because everyone had now turned towards her. 'It's Freddie, isn't it?' she said. 'Freddie is the rightful Tsar of Russia.'
The rest of the story – details and loose ends – came out as they finished the meal. Anna – Anastasia – was a cousin of Tsar Nicholas II and also related to Queen Victoria. Her first husband had been a cousin of the late Tsarina. With the Tsar and his immediate family dead, together with countless other relatives, the ten-year-old Frederick was next in the line of succession.
Colonel Oblonsky had been head of the Tsar's personal guard, and he seemed to blame himself for the success of the revolution. The Koznyshevs were loyal supporters of the Tsar. Lord Chitterington had been there to offer the clandestine support of the British government – support which he stressed would not extend to military intervention, but which might just run to financial help and diplomatic introductions.
Repple again made it clear that he could offer little more than supportive words until he was restored to his own throne. Maybe he was hoping to return to Dastaria with the help and intervention of a restored Tsar. Even without knowing how history was destined to turn out, it seemed to Rose that the 'conspirators' could do little more than talk and plan.
'Why are you here?' Rose asked Melissa Heart after the meal, as they headed towards the drawing room to continue their discussions.
'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'it will be such fun. And I have got to know so very many people since I came to London.'
But fun or not, Melissa Heart declined to join the others in the drawing room. She made her apologies, and left them in the hallway. 'I can see myself out,' she assured Dickson, who was carrying through a tantalus containing two decanters of port.
Rose lingered a moment in the hallway before following the others. Melissa Heart watched her from behind her mask, as if waiting for Rose to leave before she did. The effect was unsettling. Rose turned to follow the Doctor into the drawing room.
As she did so, she caught sight of something on the stairs – the faintest of movements from behind the balusters that ran along the landing. She paused, peering into the gloomy distance. A hand appeared, just for a moment, above the rail. It waved. Rose glanced at Melissa Heart to make sure she wasn't watching, then she waved quickly back.
'Goodnight, Freddie,' Rose murmured as she turned to go.
With Melissa gone, and Anna retired to bed, there was only Sir George, Colonel Oblonsky, Aske and Repple left with Rose and the Doctor in the drawing room.
'I make no pretence that this will be easy, gentlemen, Miss Tyler,' Oblonsky declared. His accented voice was slightly slurred by the wine and port. 'It will be a long and difficult process and we are by no means ready to embark on a full-scale reinvasion of the motherland.'
Sir George nodded and clapped a friendly hand on the colonel's shoulder. 'We are under no illusions.' he agreed. 'I believe young Freddie will have reached maturity before we can help him reclaim his birthright.'
They've no hope, have they, Doctor?' Rose said quietly as they stood at the other end of the room, admiring a dark portr
ait of a serious lady.
'None,' he replied. He sounded genuinely sad. 'But it's good to dream. They're doing no harm.'
'What about the attack on Dickson?'
'Something else entirely, I think.' He frowned back at the woman in the picture. 'Dunno what, though.'
At the other end of the room, Repple and Oblonsky were deep in serious conversation. Aske drew Sir George to one side, closer to the Doctor and Rose. She heard him say, 'I wonder, Sir George, if you could spare me a few moments alone. There is something I wish to speak to you about. It is. . .' He paused and glanced over at Repple and Oblonsky. 'It is somewhat delicate.'
'The library?' Sir George suggested. The two men each nodded politely to the Doctor and Rose as they left.
Dickson had returned and was collecting empty glasses. The Doctor stopped him as he passed.
'Sir?'
'This evening – tell us again exactly what happened. As much detail as you can.'
If he was surprised or unwilling, he gave no sign. 'I heard a strange sound, saw a light coming from the yard. So I went to look.'
'Then what?' Rose asked.
He shrugged. 'A hand grabbed me from behind. Clamped over my mouth, turning me round. Then another hand was on my throat. It was cold, I remember. Very cold.'
'Cold as metal,' the Doctor murmured.
Dickson nodded. 'I struggled, but they were too strong. I could not break away. Then there was a voice, quiet, almost melodic. . .' He frowned into the distance as he remembered. 'Telling me that I had to answer questions. It asked me about Sir George and the guests due this evening, but before I could reply you came along.' He shrugged and took the glass the Doctor offered.
'Nothing else? No small detail you might've overlooked?'
'There was something odd, yes. A sound.'
The door opened again before he could go on. Sir George was looking grave, Aske apologetic, as they returned.
'I do understand,' Sir George said as they crossed the room. 'Unfortunate, but it cannot be helped.'
'You are very kind, sir,' Aske replied. 'Of course, anything we can do to help. . .'
"It is time we were going,' Repple announced.
Colonel Oblonsky saluted and Repple nodded in acknowledgement.
'Doctor, Miss Tyler,' Repple said as he came over, 'it is a short walk to the Imperial Club. Or we can call for a car if you would rather.'
'Short walk sounds great,' the Doctor said. 'I'll get my coat.' He froze, midway to the door. 'You hear that?'
'What?' Sir George asked, cocking his head to one side.
'I thought. . .' The Doctor frowned. 'Yeah, there it is again. Ticking.'
Rose could hear it too, now that the Doctor mentioned it. A low, dull clicking, barely audible. 'It's a clock,' she said.
'There is no clock,' Colonel Oblonsky replied quietly.
'That's right,' Sir George agreed. 'No clocks in the drawing room. There was one. It broke.' He shrugged, apologetically. 'Can't hear anything myself.'
'It's very quiet,' the Doctor said.
Aske and Repple exchanged looks. Both shrugged, not convinced.
But Dickson was standing alert and still. 'That's it, sir,' he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. 'That's what I heard. When I was attacked.'
'Must be coming from the hall,' Sir George said. 'There's the grandfather out there.'
'The hall,' the Doctor murmured, 'of course.' He put his finger to his lips, and went quickly and quietly to the door. He paused a moment, then yanked it suddenly open.
There was no one there.
'Tempus fugit,' the Doctor said.
THREE
The Doctor, typically, was more concerned about finding his jacket than the fact someone might have been listening at the door. Despite Dickson's assurances that he would ask the staff in the morning and he was sure it would turn up, the Doctor was quiet.
He walked the mile through the cold dark streets with his arms folded and a vanilla expression on his face. He said almost nothing. Rose offered to lend him her cloak, but he told her not to be daft.
'I'm not cold. It's the principle.' Bizarrely, he was also more upset about his jacket disappearing from the dining room than he had seemed at the loss of the TARD1S, though it might be some sort of displaced anxiety. And his sonic screwdriver was in the pocket. But Rose was with Dickson, who reckoned someone had simply tidied it away and the thing would turn up in the morning. Sir George, apologetic and polite, promised to have it sent over as soon as it was found.
But the net result was that the walk to the Imperial Club was rather subdued. Repple seemed lost in a world of his own, rather like the Doctor. Aske talked politely to Rose, wondering how well she knew London. He seemed interested to hear that she was going to the British Empire Exhibition, confessing that he had not been himself, but several of the people staying at the club had and proclaimed it to be a great success and very impressive.
The Doctor brightened when Aske pointed out a large, imposing building ahead of them as the Imperial Club.
'We have to be members?' he wondered.
'I shall vouch for you,' Repple announced.
'The club was established after the Great War as a focal point, a meeting place, for the dispossessed nobility of Europe and the Commonwealth,' Aske said. 'So many things ended in Flanders, not just here and in France and Germany but right across the world.'
'So many lives,' the Doctor reminded him quietly.
Aske nodded grimly, one hand thrust deep in his jacket pocket. "The ultimate sacrifice.'
'Such a waste,' Repple added. 'And it precipitated so much more. The Russian Revolution, for example. There will be so much more blood before all this is ended.'
'To answer your question, Doctor, you do not have to be members,' Aske said. 'Though if you desire to stay for more than a few days, then you will be expected to provide evidence that you are of noble birth, dispossessed by conflict.'
The Doctor nodded, sombre again for a moment. Any-thing's possible,' he murmured, staring into the distance.
'The Great War.'
'So who runs this place?' Rose wanted to know as Repple led them up the steps to the imposing double doors.
The doors opened for them, and a man in a smart doorman's uniform saluted. Repple nodded, and Aske saluted in return. The Doctor smiled and waved his hand in acknowledgement.
'Cheers,' Rose said.
The doorman closed the doors behind them, and took their coats.
'I don't have one,' the Doctor said glumly.
'Very good, sir,' the doorman replied.
'No, it's not.'
Aske caught the doorman's attention before the Doctor could continue. 'Is Mr Wyse still up?'
'You'll find him in the Bastille Room, sir.'
"Wyse runs the place, in effect,' Aske explained as he led them through the large foyer. Marble columns rose up to a vaulted roof, and a wide stone staircase curved up to the floors above. There were several corridors off from the entrance hall, all of them panelled with dark wood and hung with paintings and pictures. The corridor he led them through was decorated with woodcuts and watercolours depicting events of the French Revolution.
The Doctor paused to inspect one of the pictures. 'That's not right,' he told Rose. But he moved on without elaborating.
'Wyse is a resident here,' Aske was saying. 'I'm not sure exactly what his status is, but the staff seem to defer to him.'
They emerged into an enormous room. The wooden panelling continued round the walls to shoulder height. making it seem very dark, despite the many wall lights. A chandelier hung down in the middle of the room, sparkling like a cluster of stars in the night sky. A large fire crackled and spat in an enormous stone fireplace, on the opposite wall to the door they had come in by. Leather armchairs and small leather sofas were arranged round low tables so that each of the many seating areas was an island in the large room. At first glance the place seemed empty.
Then a head appeared round the back of one of the
armchairs. A hand waved. 'Evening to you,' a cheery voice called. 'Care to join me for a nightcap or whatever?' The head disappeared, and a moment later the man had got to his feet and emerged from the other side of the chair.
He was a tall, well-built man in his mid-forties with short brown hair that could have been better behaved. Like Aske and Repple, he was dressed in a dark suit. Unlike them, and to Rose's amusement, he was wearing a monocle. She hoped he would do that thing where the monocle fell out and dangled on a chain. But, to her disappointment, he pushed it firmly into place and regarded them all with interest.
'Well, what have we here?' the man declared as he looked at the Doctor and Rose. 'More refugees from the palaces and mansions of Europe, or just a couple of visitors, what?'
'You must be Mr Wyse,' the Doctor decided, striding through the furniture to shake his outstretched hand.
'Lord Wyse as a point of actual fact. But we don't stand on ceremony, dear me no. Just Wyse will do very nicely, thankee. Too many people like Repple here have lost too much for those of us with anything left to flaunt it in their faces.' He gestured for them to sit down. Rose saw that there was a chess set on a board on the table in front of where Wyse had been sitting, in the middle of a game.
'Oh, ignore my rather inept attempt to beat meself at chess, won't you?' Wyse said, smiling, and to Rose's ill-concealed delight the monocle did pop out of his eye and swing on a thin chain. 'And shift that dratted cat out of the way. Old Hector was sitting there earlier, and I think the thing likes the residual warmth.'
The cat that was stretched out on the sofa blinked its eyes open at the noise. It rolled on to its back and Rose watched its claws extend, curl, then retract as it yawned. It was a black cat, with a pale triangle of lighter fur under its chin. She reached down and stroked the pale fur, and was rewarded with a purr and the intense stare of the cat's deep glassy eyes. After a moment it stretched again, then leaped down from the sofa and slunk off under the chair where Wyse had sat himself down again.
'What's its name?' Rose asked.
'Oh dear, you've got me there.' Wyse smiled. 'Just call it "the cat" meself. Been here longer than I have, that cat. But speaking of names. . .'
Doctor Who: The Clockwise Man Page 3
