Doctor Who: All-Consuming Fire Read online

  Bernice snorted. I could tell that she wasn't taking Holmes seriously.

  'Who wants to move up to the restaurant car?' she asked. 'I could do with some food and a decent drink.'

  'And a new block of ice,' I added.

  Holmes checked his watch.

  'According to our schedule, the next station after this one should be some three hours away. That should give us enough time for a leisurely lunch.'

  I freshened myself up in the bathroom and emerged just as we were pulling into the outskirts of whatever cantonment or village this was. The train jerked as the engineer applied the brakes. The place looked deserted. Huts and hovels were empty, and the only signs of life were the pi-dogs pacing us as we approached the station. Far in the distance, half-hidden by the dust and the heat-haze, I thought I could make out the regular lines of a British Army fort with a flag hanging limply from its pole.

  We jerked again, and dropped to a crawl. The station crept closer and I could suddenly see where everybody was. The platform was alive with a churning crowd. Hordes of people poured out from the shaded area beneath the platform itself, careless of the approaching train. I shivered, reminded of a stream of cockroaches. A terrific gabble of voices in a Babel of languages assailed our ears.

  'Tahsa char, garumi garum!'

  Pahn biri! Pahn biri!'

  Hindi pani, Musselman pans' 'Beecham Sahib ki gooli!'

  I turned to Professor . . . to Bernice.

  'Did I hear the word Beecham?'

  'Indeed you did,' she replied. 'He's offering us some of Mr Beecham's little pills. Does that mean anything to you?'

  'Indigestion tablets!' I laughed.

  'Well, you learn something every day,' she murmured. 'But is it ever useful?'

  The train shuddered to a halt. Beyond our window a wall of faces watched us with no hint of decorum. We stepped out onto the station. It felt good to be able to stretch my legs. Holmes locked the door and the crowd cleared a way for us as we made our way along the platform towards the dining car.

  Beggars implored us for alms, sweetmeat sellers beseeched us to buy their wares and those Indians who were travelling onward from here in the third or fourth-class carriages bustled around with broken umbrellas looking self-important. Those unable or unwilling to pay for tickets on the train were climbing onto the roof, joining those who had been there since Bombay.

  Ahead of us a small cadre of British soldiers had disembarked and were trying to form up into some sort of order before marching off.

  Bernice dickered with an ice seller, then borrowed a key to the carriage from Holmes so that she could leave it to cool the compartment down. We found the dining car and secured a table in its cool, dark interior.

  'This may seem like a stupid question,' Bernice said when she joined us,

  'but how come we can find huge great blocks of ice at these one-horse towns in the middle of God's own oven?'

  'The Carres Ice Machine,' Holmes pronounced. He loved to show off. 'Most stations will have one. The device contains a cylinder of ammonia which is heated and then plunged into water. The liquid, confined in such a small space, absorbs heat from the metal and then the water in order to evaporate, causing the water to turn to ice. A most interesting device. I was involved in a case recently where a Mr Matthew Jolly was murdered with a Carres Ice Machine.'

  'I don't recall that case, Hohnes,' I said stiffly.

  'I believe I did draw some of its features to your attention.'

  The train quivered, and began to heave its vast bulk out of the station. For the first half of our journey, stationmasters had politely sought Holmes's permission for the train to leave their stations - something to do with him being the most senior traveller. Somebody more important must have joined the train at Gadawara, as we were no longer bothered by such requests.

  A great wail went up outside. I looked out of the window, only to find it blocked by a swarm of naked children who clung to the frame and gazed at us with imploring spaniel eyes. The stewards rushed up and down the aisle rapping their little knuckles with spoons until they dropped away, screeching.

  'Don't leave me in suspense!' Bernice said eagerly. 'What happened to Mr Jolly?'

  'His wife, Josephine, had purchased one of the devices some months beforehand. On the night in question, she waited until he fell asleep downstairs, as was his habit after drinking heavily, then manoeuvred the device so that his head was resting in the water. She then activated it'

  'You don't mean . . .?' She was aghast.

  'His brain froze whilst he slept. She waited until the water had thawed again and then moved the machine back to the pantry. He was found dead by the maid in the morning without a mark upon him.'

  Bernice shivered. 'What a way to go. Why did she do it?'

  'Every evening for ten years he had taken his false teeth out after dinner and hurled them at her. One day she finally snapped. I cannot find it in my heart to blame her. Knowing how much I get on Watson's nerves, I occasionally wonder if my last sight on this Earth will be of him standing at the foot of my bed with a syringe of cyanide in his hand.'

  I coughed to hide my smile.

  'And how did you detect the crime?' I asked, trying to deflect the conversation into a different course.

  'Mr Jolly had a glass eye. The rapid cooling, followed by the significant rise in temperature as the rising sun shone upon it, had caused it to crack.'

  'You're making it up,' said Bernice.

  At that moment a figure loomed into sight behind Holmes's back. I half rose from my seat. The figure clapped its hands on my shoulders and shook me.

  'Watson! Good God man, what on Earth are you doing here? Do you live on trains?'

  That florid face: that huge walrus moustache. A conversation about violins.

  'Warburton?'

  'The very same.'

  In amazement I cast my mind back to the Orient Express, where our adventure had started a few short weeks ago. Colonel Warburton had been one of the passengers. He and his wife had been on their way to . . .

  'Jabalhabad, wasn't it?' Holmes said casually. 'I remember you saying that you were the Resident there.'

  'Mr Holmes, good to see you again. Yes indeed, we've been back for a few weeks now. I left the memsahib sorting out the mess the servants had made of the bungalow and headed to Gadawara on business. I must say, I hadn't expected to find you here. On a case are you? The little lady will be pleased. I thought you were on your way back to dear old Blighty after that odd business with the other train. You never did tell us what that was about. Some secret assignation, was it?'

  I could see from Holmes's slightly glassy expression that he wasn't entirely sure which question to duck.

  'We find ourselves heading for Jabalhabad as well,' he said finally. 'Quite a coincidence that we should come across each other again.'

  'Mind if I join you?'

  Warburton eased his large frame into the seat opposite Bernice.

  'I don't believe I've had the pleasure,' he continued, extending a hand.

  'Colonel Warburton,' I blustered, 'this is . . . er, Miss . . . er Mister...'

  'Benny Summerfield,' said Bernice, shaking Warburton's hand. He winced slightly at her firm grip.

  'Pleased to meet you. Are you part of the mystery too?'

  Bernice smiled.

  'Aren't we all?' she said.

  The stewards came along then, and took our orders for lunch. We dined well and drank even better. Holmes and Bernice ordered copious quantities of weak whisky and soda: Warburton and I, old hands at the tropics, stuck with gin and tonic. Many was the toast to the Queen-Empress that afternoon. Warburton was eager to find out what we were doing heading for Jabalhabad, but Bernice was singularly skilled at turning the subject back to the Colonel's life in India. He told us about the Nizam of Jabalhabad, who ruled the small province to which Warburton had been posted as the representative of Her Majesty. God alone knows how it happened, but by the time lunch was over, Bernice had inve
igled Warburton into inviting us to stay at his bungalow and attend an official dinner - a burrah khana, or big feast, as Warburton called it - to be thrown by the Nizam in a few days time. Even Holmes was taken aback at the speed with which Bernice worked. I felt my admiration for her growing by leaps and bounds.

  Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield

  It's been a couple of days since I've made an entry. The Doctor's kidnapping threw me into a furious rage, most of which I took out on poor Watson. We decided that the best thing to do was to follow the plan and set off for Jabalhabad, there to try and trace the recipient of Maupertuis's boxes.

  We staggered off the train at Jabalhabad two days ago. I haven't had time to make an entry since then. The area is hilly and green, and a lot cooler than the plains. Have you ever heard of a heat rash? It's like lots of little pimples, all over your body, so close together that you can't slip a pin in between them. Itches like crazy. Thank God Watson's a medic.

  We've been spending our time trying to find those boxes. A couple of locals say they saw them being unloaded at the station, but after that the trail goes cold. Jabalhabad is a large place, and they could be anywhere.

  Colonel Warburton has been a brick (is that what they say in Victorian times? Slang is so ephemeral: here today, old hat tomorrow). His bungalow is a large, rambling, mud-brick building. It's thatched on top, has walls made of reeds covered in cow-dung and whitewash, rattan screens over the windows and muslin ceilings. I've always been good on materials. I'm sure there are things living up there: I can hear them moving round, and the muslin shifts from time to time as if something has rested its weight on it.

  We were introduced to Warburton's secretary: a thin, rather diffident man who held out his hand for shaking like a man might proffer a rather dubious anchovy. His name was Smithee. I decided straight away that I didn't like him: an impression reinforced at dinner yesterday when a kitehawk managed to swoop down and make off with the roast as it was being carried along the veranda from the kitchen to the dining room. The rest of us cursed and raved, but Smithee walked calmly out and took potshots at the bird with a revolver. It wouldn't have done any good - the food would have been inedible, whatever happened - but it seemed to make him feel better.

  I was getting ready for this bean-feast tonight up at the Great Panjandrum's palace, when I realized I was missing something. I'd 'liberated' a full set of evening wear from my disappointed suitor back in Bombay, and studied enough men one night to know where the cummerbund went, but somehow I must have dropped one of the cufflinks. I couldn't eat dinner with one sleeve dangling in the soup, so I decided to borrow one from Colonel Warburton. I wandered around the bungalow - which was TARDIS-like in its deceptively spacious interior - but couldn't find him. I popped out on to the veranda, just in case he was out there, and found his wife Gloria instead.

  Her hair was piled high on her head, and she was wearing a floor-length gown and white gloves up to her elbows. That didn't faze me: the archaeology of fashion was a minor interest of mine. What did surprise me slightly was the Indian bearer on his knees beside her with his hands under her gown.

  'Could I trouble you for a cuff . . : I said, and trailed off into silence. Don't get. me wrong - I'm no prude, it's just that all the research I've ever done on nineteenth-century Earth suggests that the British were sexually repressed to an incredible degree. The rumour that they put little skirts on piano legs is probably just a joke, but I did read once about a Victorian woman who had little suits made for her goldfish, and another one in France who set aside money in her will for clothes for snowmen. Faced with this scene, I had one of those moments I've started getting recently where, for a second, I don't know where or when I am.

  She must have seen my confusion and mistaken it for embarrassment.

  'Insecticide,' she confided. 'Keeps the mosquitoes out.' The bearer withdrew his hands, stood up and bowed to her. He was holding a large, syringe-like object. I could see faint wisps of a white, powdery substance creeping from beneath her hem.

  'How do you avoid the snakes?' I asked snappily. 'Use a mongoose?'

  She smiled and changed the subject.

  'My husband and Mr Holmes are taking a turn around the grounds. Was there something that I could help you with?'

  I smiled back.

  'No, thank you,' I said, turning to go.

  There was an explosion somewhere nearby. The sound was curiously dull and flat. I could smell an acrid, burnt odour. Cordite? Mrs Warburton and I looked at each other.

  I ran to where the sound had come from. It was the bathroom. There was nothing but an ominous silence in there now. I kicked the door in.

  Watson was sitting squeezed into the little hip bath. He was naked and held a gun. He didn't seem to register my presence. Instead, he was staring fixedly across the room. I followed his gaze.

  At first I thought two snakes were coiling furiously on the floor, over by the large wooden object that was euphemistically known as the 'thunderbox'.

  Then I saw the blood, and realized that he had shot a cobra in half.

  'Good shooting,' I said, noticing the rip in the muslin above his head through which the snake had dropped.

  Watson, realizing that I was there, grabbed for a towel to hide his modesty.

  'I'll see about getting that mongoose,' Mrs Warburton's voice sang out from the veranda.

  A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.

  We had taken a carriage up from the bungalow; Warburton, his wife, his secretary, Holmes, Bernice and myself.

  The outside of the building reminded me of an enormous wedding cake: all tiers and pillars and white surfaces edged with rose. Two other men had arrived at the same time as us. Warburton introduced us: one was a redheaded missionary named O'Connor and the other, Lord John Roxton, was hunting big game up in the hills. A man in long golden robes and a white turban met us beneath a huge scalloped archway.

  'I am Ghulam Haidar,' he said, bowing deeply to us. 'The Nizam bids you welcome.'

  Turning, he led us into a vast cloistered area whose lofty ceiling was held up by row upon row of the most impressively carved marble pillars. It was as if we had entered a forest of marble. I half expected to see a deer peering around one of them, or a squirrel running up it.

  We were escorted through cool corridors to a large room hung with embroidered material. A low table in the centre of the room was piled high with food of all descriptions. A man in his early twenties was sat on a large golden cushion. His robes were silken and flowed around him like a glossy waterfall when he moved. Jewels glinted in the fold of his turban, and a single emerald the size of an egg sat at its front.

  'Mr Holmes, I'm so pleased to meet you at last,' he said with a broad smile.

  Holmes, if he was surprised at the Nizam's urbanity, did not show it.

  Bowing deeply, he said, 'I am honoured to meet your Highness. May I compliment you upon your excellent grasp of our clumsy tongue.'

  Tir Ram laughed joyfully.

  'I was at Eton and Cambridge, Mr Holmes. I even speak Hindi with an accent now.'

  He shook our hands firmly, to the obvious displeasure of Ghulam Haidar.

  Shortly we sat cross-legged for the meal. I shall not dwell overmuch upon it. Silent servants waited on us. The food was unusual but not unappealing, and the drink flowed freely. Most Indian rulers are either Hindu or Muslim, but the Nizam seemed to have few religious injunctions concerning what he could or could not eat. I sampled yellow, red, green and purple rices, along with various spiced meats which were served swimming in butter and garnished with sultanas and almonds. Coffee was served between every course. Lord Roxton proved an interesting conversationalist, and gave me some tips on hunting tigers that I hope I will never need to use. He was a strange man: small and wiry, with a thin moustache and a small goatee beard.

  'An experienced man can tell from the blood marks where the animal is hit, young fellow my lad,' he said, leaning, forward and poking me i
n the chest for emphasis. 'If it's been hit in the lungs the blood will be dark red and frothy, if in the liver or near the heart it will be dark red, sort of port-wine colour, if you get my drift. If you're unlucky enough to bag it in the stomach the blood comes out pale and watery, and anywhere else it will be a fight red. Fancy a day's shootin' tomorrow?'

  Bernice seemed to be locked into conversation with Warburton's secretary, Smithee. She occasionally cast glances in my direction which started off as entreaties to rescue her and ended up as threats of physical violence if I did not. Holmes, Warburton and Tir Ram carried on a spirited discussion concerning the British public school tradition, and Mr O'Connor sat in silence for most of the meal. From what I knew of the byzantine complexities of British Empire etiquette, he was considerably further down the social scale than Warburton and, by extension, us. He obviously felt it.