'Isn't that a bit young?'
'Oh, not really, miss. And me mum needed the money. I send home half my pay every week. I got two younger brothers and a sister, you see. So it all helps.'
Rose nodded. 'I suppose.' She could recall Gwyneth at the undertaker's in Cardiff had gone into 'service' when very young. Clearly things hadn't exactly moved on since the end of the last century.
'I'm glad I live in here, though,' Beth went on. 'We all have rooms in the other wing. Not allowed through here except when we're working, you see. Mr Crowther would have a fit if he caught us loitering about with nothing to do. But what with the rumours and everything, I don't go out more than I have to.'
'Rumours?'
'They say there's someone going about attacking people in service round here. Old Mrs Fewsham's maid was approached the other week by a stranger in a dark street and she fainted clean away. Mind you,' Beth said, thinking about it, 'she's like that. But then there was Mary from the Lawrences'. Week in hospital she got, and she can still barely talk. Says it was something horrible.'
'She can manage a bit then,' Rose murmured.
'Shadowy figures reaching for your throat and asking questions about the other staff and who you work for. . .' She shuddered at the idea. 'Don't bear thinking about.'
Rose shuddered too as she recalled the events of the previous evening – the shadowy figure and the marks on Dickson's neck. 'No.' she agreed, it don't.' It was time she got some food. Maybe the Doctor would have saved her a bacon sandwich. 'I'll leave you to do the Doctor's room,' she told Beth.
'Oh, I've been in there already, miss,' Beth admitted. 'But there weren't much to do. The bed's not been slept in.'
Breakfast was long gone, and the Doctor seemed more amused than sympathetic. He was sitting in the panelled room playing chess with Wyse. He had a finger raised in the air for silence even before Rose saw him, but she had no doubt it was for her benefit.
She slumped down on one of the leather chairs in the otherwise deserted room and watched as the Doctor mulled over various moves. A slight movement at the edge of her vision made her turn, and she saw that the cat was lying on the adjacent sofa. It raised its lazy head and regarded her with interest for a moment. But only a moment, then it lowered its head again and seemed to go to sleep.
Rose kissed the air in the cat's direction encouragingly. The Doctor spared her a glare, and she stopped. 'Sorry,' she muttered just loud enough for him to hear, though he ignored it.
Wyse caught Rose's eye, and winked. 'Think I've got him on the run,' he whispered.
The Doctor looked up at them, eyes narrowed. Then he returned his attention to the board. 'Oh, stuff it,' he decided, and moved a bishop forwards.
Wyse frowned. 'Or not,' he admitted.
'Breakfast?* Rose asked.
'Was great,' the Doctor told her. 'Bad luck.' He tapped the edge of the chessboard. 'Mate in three,' he finished glumly.
Wyse nodded. 'I'll find Crowther and have him get you some bacon and eggs,' he said to Rose.
'Thanks. But why not stay and finish him off first? If it's only three moves.'
Wyse smiled sadly. 'I'm afraid it's three moves until he finishes me off. Brilliant move there with the bishop, I have to say' He stood up and stretched. 'Right then, back in a tick.'
The cat mirrored Wyse's movements, stretching, getting to its feet and walking from the room in its long, easy manner.
'Having fun?' Rose asked.
The Doctor grinned. 'Yeah. Takes my mind off faceless killers and missing time machines. He's very good,' he went on, picking up Wyse's black king and examining it.
'Not up to your standard, though.'
'I dunno.' He put the king back, laying it on its side. 'He missed an easy way to beat me early on.'
'Giving you a chance?'
'I wonder. P'raps he felt sorry for me. I was going to return the favour just now, but I couldn't see a move that didn't leave my king exposed.'
'Except winning.'
'Winning's easy.'
'So, maybe he forced you to win.'
The Doctor considered this. 'Which is lots more difficult,' he decided quietly.
* * *
The chief steward, or whatever Crowther was, brought through a tray of breakfast for Rose. If he disapproved of her eating it off her lap, he said nothing. Rose couldn't believe how much she had missed bacon – something so simple, yet her mouth was watering in anticipation just at the smell as she lifted the silver lid from her plate. The poached egg looked good too, but she gave the black pudding a miss. There was toast, and a pot of tea, and cups for all three of them on another tray, brought by an unsmiling maid who seemed barely older than Beth.
'It's a rum do,' Wyse said when Rose mentioned the attacks that Beth had told her about. 'Don't seem to be any call for it. No clear motive. Very sad.' He shook his head. 'Repple was saying something about Sir George Harding's man being attacked last night, right outside his house. Terrible, terrible.'
'We were there,' Rose admitted through a mouthful of toast.
'Or perhaps it was Aske,' Wyse went on. 'Don't remember offhand.' He looked up, as if realising what Rose had said. 'You were there?'
'No big deal,' she assured him. 'Saved the good guy, fought off the baddies. The usual, you know.'
The Doctor was setting up the chessboard again. 'How many attacks have there been?'
Wyse was staring at Rose, surprised at her dismissive attitude. 'Six or seven, I suppose. That we know about, anyway. One fatality, otherwise men in service just rather frightened and shaken up. Even a couple of women, one scarcely more than a girl, poor thing. You wonder what the world is coming to sometimes, don't you?'
Rose glanced at the Doctor, smiling at the fact that they did not need to wonder, they knew. The Doctor smiled back. But it was fleeting, gone in a moment. 'What was Repple's interest?' he wondered.
'Or Aske's,' Wyse said. 'Those two are like those Shakespearean characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Can't always tell them apart. Or maybe I mean Hamlet and Horatio,' he decided. 'Got to remember the royalty aspect.' He leaned forward, grinning suddenly, and gave a huge wink.
'You're winking at me,' the Doctor said.
'Er, yes. S'pose I am.'
'So I assume Aske has told you that Repple isn't really the king in exile or whatever.'
Wyse sat back in his chair and regarded them both with interest. 'He has indeed. He tells everyone that, then swears them to secrecy. Just as Repple tells everyone he is indeed the rightful Elector of Dastaria.'
'But which of them is telling the truth?' Rose asked. 'Repple told us he's a prisoner.'
'Tell me,' Wyse said, 'was Aske listening when he told you this?'
'Is that important?'
'Oh yes, Doctor. You wanted to know which of them had told you the truth.'
'Yep.'
'Well, it sounds as if the answer is: neither of them.'
'So what is the truth?' Rose put the cover back on her plate – empty save for the slices of black pudding – and set down the tray on the table beside the chessboard.
'An excellent question, my dear. And I relate only what has been told to me, so I cannot directly vouch for its veracity either.'
'Get on with it,' the Doctor mumbled.
Wyse smiled affably at the interruption. "Very well, my friend. Now, I asked if Repple believed he could be overheard when he told you his story. I know from the story he chose to tell that the answer is yes,'
Rose nodded. 'He seemed to be going to tell us something last night, then there was a noise and he got nervous.'
'You mean his story varies depending who's listening?' the Doctor said.
'Something like that.'
'So is he or isn't he?' Rose demanded.
'That is the question,' Wyse agreed. 'And no, I'm afraid he isn't.' As he spoke, the cat jumped up into Wyse's lap. It purred contentedly, snuggling in and almost immediately going to sleep. Wyse rubbed at the cat's head with his knuckles.
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'So Aske told us the truth. It's all a delusion,' Rose realised.
'Well, that's not quite true either. You see, it's no delusion. Repple is in perfect mental health and he knows full well that he is no more the Elector of Dastaria than you or I.'
'So why lie?' the Doctor asked.
'Because Aske is the one with the delusions, and Repple wants nothing more than to humour his friend and allow him to continue with the life he believes he is leading.'
'Aske said he was treating Repple. That he's his psychiatrist or whatever.'
Wyse nodded. 'And that is his delusion. Aske believes himself to be a brilliant doctor of the mind, treating a friend who suffers from terrible delusions brought about, if I recall the story correctly, by a fall from a horse.' He looked from Rose to the Doctor and back again. 'It isn't Repple who believes himself to be something he is not and is aided and abetted in this by his friend. It is Aske.'
With that, Wyse excused himself. 'Time is marching on,' he said, 'and so must I.' He set the cat down on the floor. It opened a surprised eye, watching Wyse as he left, then slinking off after him.
'Doesn't matter,' Rose decided when he had gone.
'What doesn't?'
'Aske and Repple. None of our business really.'
'Interesting though,' the Doctor countered. Aren't you curious to know the truth?'
'You don't think we just heard it?'
'He said himself, it's just hearsay. Maybe Dastaria does exist – some out-of-the-way country lost between the cracks on the maps. Who knows?'
'Who cares?' Rose responded.
The Doctor's response to that, if he had one, was interrupted by Crowther. He coughed politely as he arrived to take Rose's breakfast tray. 'Excuse me, Doctor, but you have a visitor.'
'Really? Who?'
'It is a Miss Heart. She says you met last evening, sir. I'm afraid that since she has not been vouched for by a full member of the club, as you and Miss Tyler have been, she is only permitted so far as the public gallery. If you would follow me?'
'You coming?'
'And play gooseberry to you and the Painted Lady?' Rose said. 'It's you she wants to see, not me.'
'Jealous?' the Doctor asked innocently.
'I'll wait here and finish my tea,' Rose said. 'Don't want to cramp your style.'
The Doctor grinned.
'Such as it is,' Rose finished.
The grin vanished. The Doctor leaned forward and took Rose's hand. 'It's you that needs the fashion tips,' he said. 'Come on.'
'Beth didn't say anything about someone being killed,' Rose told the Doctor as Crowther showed them into the public gallery, off the main foyer.
'Beth?'
'The maid. You remember, you sent her to wake me up.'
'Oh yeah. Beth.'
'People hospitalised, traumatised, all sorts of other "ised"s. But she never mentioned dead-ised.'
'P'raps Beth doesn't know.'
The room was long and narrow, barely more than a wide corridor. One side was almost entirely taken up with large windows, the other had paintings hanging the length of it.
Down the middle of the room were various pieces of sculpture. Nothing modern, Rose noted. There were classical women looking as if they'd just got out of the bath, and heroic male figures with muscles – and everything else – rippling.
Melissa Heart was standing just inside the door, her back to them. She was admiring one of the statues, a woman poised with one arm in the air. Long sheetlike robes were sculpted round her, seeming to emphasise rather than disguise the female form. There was an odd similarity with Melissa Heart, standing there in her long, thin dress. She held a long, thin black cigarette holder to her mouth, trails of smoke wafting up towards the ceiling.
Rose wondered what the woman looked like under the mask. She imagined she was about to find out as Melissa Heart turned. But she was not. It was difficult to tell whether she was wearing thick white make-up with stylised red swirls painted on it, or whether this was another thin, face-tight mask. But whichever it was, her true features were once again shrouded in mystery.
The position of two of the red curls, lifting from the edges of the mouth, made it seem as if the woman was perpetually smiling. "Why, Doctor, and Rose. How kind of you to see me.'
'Yes,' the Doctor agreed simply.
'How can we help?' Rose asked.
'Oh, but you can't. At least, not just now. Not yet.' The emotionless mask continued to smile at them. 'But I can help you, I think.'
'Really?'
She gestured with the cigarette holder towards an upright chair standing against the wall close by. A dark leather jacket was draped over it. 'Yours, I believe.'
The Doctor all but leaped across the room and snatched up the jacket. He slipped it on. 'It fits!'
'I thought it might.'
'I mislaid it last night,' the Doctor said, his expression suddenly as unreadable as Melissa's.
'I had reason to call on Lady Anna this morning, and she asked if I would return it to you. I confess, I did rather relish the chance to renew our acquaintance.'
That's nice,' Rose said. She was rewarded with a brief glance from the blank face.
'You didn't happen to check the pockets, did you?' the Doctor said, rummaging inside them.
'Of course not.' Her voice too was devoid of expression.
'That's good.' He drew out the sonic screwdriver and held it up so she could see it clearly. 'Still, everything seems to be here.'
'How intriguing. What, may I ask is that?'
'Novelty corkscrew,' Rose told her.
'Or something,' the Doctor added. 'Found it in the street outside Sir George's. You don't know who might own such a thing?' He held out the sonic screwdriver, as if inviting her to take it.
'I really could not say.'
Melissa Heart reached out, but the Doctor pulled away his hand and slipped the device back into his jacket pocket. 'Thought not,' he said. 'Well, thanks. And bye.'
'We mustn't keep you,' Rose said. 'I expect you're busy.'
'Not at all.' If she was offended, there was no way of knowing. 'You must call on me some time. Both of you,' she added in a tone that implied she did not for one moment mean to include Rose. 'My house is not far away. Perhaps you know it? Anthony Hubbard's old house on Veracity Avenue.'
'We don't,' Rose said. 'We've not been here long.'
'You are travelling together?'
'We're inseparable,' the Doctor said.
'Then I shall leave you together. No doubt I shall see you again soon.'
'No doubt,' the Doctor echoed. 'Thanks for the coat. I must call in and thank Sir George and his wife as well.'
Melissa Heart hesitated. Only slightly, but enough for Rose to notice. She knew it would not have escaped the Doctor.
'I'm sure there's no need,' Melissa said, pausing in the doorway.
'I'm sure you're right,' the Doctor agreed. Because now they all knew that however Melissa Heart had got the Doctor's coat, it was not from Sir George or his wife.
'It is all circumstantial. The sonic device, the detected power, the fact they are always together.' Melissa Heart sighed behind her mask. The dark figure sitting beside her in the car did not reply. Her fingertips stroked down the pale surface of her mask. 'Damning, but not conclusive. Not yet. And I must be sure. To go through this, to suffer. . . And innocent people have died. Too many people. I cannot be responsible for more.'
Her eyes were burning behind the mask as she studied her companion's equally blank face. 'We need to be absolutely sure. There is a maid called Beth. I heard the girl say she spoke with her. This maid may know something. May even know which of them it is. I have a description from one of the other staff.' It had been easy to get – the pretence of a friend for whom Beth had worked. Was it the same girl – what did she look like? When did she finish for the day? So very easy.
The blank-faced figure listened to its instructions. It said nothing, and when Melissa Heart had finished, it bo
wed its head slightly in acknowledgement. As it moved, the staccato clicking of its mechanism was like the ticking of a clock.
FIVE
A brisk walk had cleared the cobwebs from Wyse's mind. He liked to walk through the familiar landscape of London. There was a faint mist in the air, the beginnings of a smoggy day to come. His breath came in brisk clouds of its own as he walked back towards the Imperial Club, his gloved hands clasped tightly behind his back and his head down in thought.
He was being followed, of course – he knew and accepted that. He ignored it, and concentrated on more urgent and immediate matters. But even these were sent scurrying from his mind when he saw the body.
Wyse had taken a shortcut down a back alley round to the rear of the club. The alley opened into a yard behind the building. The various staff came and went through the back entrance, so as not to have to go through the main members' areas. Wyse counted himself as almost staff. He was on first-name terms with them all. He had been here longer than any of them, even longer – just – than Repple and Aske. Him and the cat. He smiled at the thought.
And that was when he looked up, and saw the legs sticking out from behind the dustbins.
'Oh no,' he sighed, shaking his head and hurrying across the yard. The body was stretched out between dustbins and wall. One of the bins had been overturned, perhaps in a struggle, and debris from it littered the ground. What a way to die, he thought sadly – littered with old papers, apple cores, potato peelings. . . The cat gave a startled hiss at the sight and ran across the yard to take shelter by the door to the club.
'Crowther!' Wyse yelled. 'Anyone! Quickly, I need some help here.' But he knew that wasn't true. Beth was dead, he could see that – her throat crushed and bruised and her eyes staring up blankly at the clouds. Wyse reached out and closed them gently. He could hear the thump of running feet, the gasped comments and questions. 'So close,' he murmured. 'So close to the club.'
'Oh my. . .' The usually unruffled Crowther turned away, face as grey as his remaining hair, hand to mouth.
'Get a doctor,' Wyse said. 'No,' he decided. 'Get the Doctor.' If anyone could tell what was really going on here, the Doctor could.
They sat in their usual little island of chairs and sofas by the table with the chess set. Rose was pale and quiet, the image of the dead girl still imprinted on her mind. Beth's voice and nervous laughter still echoing in her ears.
Doctor Who: The Clockwise Man Page 5
