'I'm not going to do it. You're a genius, aren't you? You must have some other way of finding him.'

'Alas, no.'

'I don't believe you.'

Sabbath shrugged. 'The Doctor has the most amazing gift for getting himself into unpleasant situations,' he said casually. 'I wonder what exactly is happening to him at this moment?'

'Whatever it is,' she blurted angrily, 'I doubt it's as unpleasant as having his heart ripped out.'

Sabbath's eyebrow went up. He lifted his glass. 'Touche.'

'Look.' She stood up. 'I'm sick of all this suave, Vincent Price crap. Are you going to help find him or not?'

'Certainly I am,' he said, unruffled. 'As soon as you bring me to the equipment in the TARDIS.'

'I won't do that.'

He spread his hands innocently. 'Then what can I do?'

She picked up her glass again. 'This stuff is priceless, right? I'll bet it's genuine Napoleon brandy.' She flung the liquid in the fire, which flared up with a hiss. 'To hell with you and your pretensions and your luxuries and your bull.'

She grabbed Fitz, who came awake startled, and marched out of the house.

Sabbath didn't look after them. He sipped his brandy and stared through half-closed eyes at the fire. In a few minutes, the Angel-Maker touched his shoulder.

'What is it you'll be doing now?'

'Oh, I'll give them a couple of hours to come to their senses. A very spirited young woman, Miss Kapoor, but not a stupid one. She'll realise she has no choice.'

'It's lovely she is.'

'Yes.'

'Is she the Doctor's woman?'

Sabbath laughed at the idea. 'The Doctor? He's practically a monk.' Then his face darkened. 'I've only known him to be close to one woman,' he said quietly. He took another, larger sip of brandy, and covered the Angel-Maker's hand with his own. 'But that was in another century, and the wench is dead.'

Fitz was sober by the time Anji got him back to the flat, and they discussed the situation unhappily.

'Sabbath's right, you know,' said Fitz after they'd gone around the issue for an hour. 'The Doctor couldn't have counted on his having finished his biodata thingy.'

'We only have Sabbath's word he hasn't finished it. Maybe he's lying. Maybe he even has other ways to find the Doctor he's not telling us about.'

'Well, the Doctor would have allowed for that, wouldn't he? I mean, he knows him better than anyone.'

She threw herself into an armchair. 'The Doctor's landed us in a mess again.'

'He's in a mess too, probably.'

'Which is a big part of why we're we're in a mess.' in a mess.'

Neither of them said anything for a while.

'Suppose there's any cake left?' Fitz asked finally.

'How can you think about cake now?'

'It would help me think about other things,' he said defensively. 'It's late, Anj. My mind's like glue.'

'Which differs from its usual state in what way exactly?'

Before he could reply, they heard the downstairs door open and shut, then a heavy tread on the stair.

'Guess who?' she said bleakly.

The door to the landing was open, and in a few seconds Sabbath filled it, wearing an elegant frock coat and carrying a top hat and gold-handled cane. He looked around the room. 'How ironic to pick the lock of this particular house.'

'Why?' said Fitz.

Sabbath just smiled infuriatingly. 'You've decided to let me into the TARDIS, of course.'

Fitz glanced at Anji.

'We don't have much choice,' she mumbled.

'Then let us proceed.'

The three of them just managed to squeeze into the lumber room with the TARDIS. Anji fitted the spare key in the lock and pushed open the door. 'Go ahead,' she said ungraciously. Sabbath stepped forward and stopped. 'Well, go on.'

'Something is preventing me,' he said coolly.

Anji and Fitz exchanged puzzled glances. Fitz ducked past Sabbath and through the door. 'No problem,' he called from the illusory darkness that shielded the console room from outside view.

'Try again,' Anji told Sabbath.

'I assure you,' he replied, an edge in his voice, 'I cannot move forward.'

Fitz popped back out. 'Want me to give you a shove?'

'No,' said Sabbath.

'What I think,' Fitz said helpfully, 'is that the Doctor's set up an exclusionary field keyed to your biodata readings: Only makes sense, doesn't it?'

'Yes,' murmured Sabbath. 'It's exactly what I would have done.'

'Oh, well, that's it then,' said Anji sarcastically. He turned his dark eyes on her.

'You're behaving very immaturely, Miss Kapoor.'

'I've seen your future, you know. In the 1990s. You're an opening act on the third-rate hip-hop circuit and your rap handle is Fatboy Phat.'

Sabbath stared at her in complete Incomprehension.

'Maybe I could go and get this thing for you,' Fitz put in quickly.

'Do you know what it looks like?'

'Well, no.'

'Have you any idea where it might be?'

'Erm, not really.'

'And how many rooms would you say the TARDIS has?'

'Ah, no idea, actually.'

Sabbath nodded and started back down the stairs. 'I need to get back to work.'

Chapter Sixteen.

The Doctor woke up with a plump, soft pillow under his head. This was a surprise. Also a nice change. Maybe he was dreaming. Certainly his mind was sliding from thought to thought in a careless, unedited manner that he associated with dreams. In which case, maybe he should just keep on with it. But even as he thought this, reality pushed in harder, and his body, heavy and sick-feeling, seemed to snap shut around his consciousness like a cage. He groaned and opened his eyes. They were dry, and stung; he blinked rapidly several times until he could see comfortably.

He was lying on an old four-poster bed. The room was plain, wainscotted about a third of the way up and whitewashed above that. There was a single window, a fireplace, and a wooden armchair. A washbasin and chamber pot completed the ensemble.

The Doctor got out of bed, rather slowly, and made his way to the window. It was chained shut, the frame too narrow for him to squeeze through even if he broke the panes. He rubbed the dirty glass with his palm and peered out over an expanse of rolling, treeless country, almost wasteland, covered with sparse grass and bracken. In the distance, against a lowering sky, loomed a tower of tumbled stones, a rock pile made by a giant.

'Dartmoor,' he breathed.

There was water in the basin. The Doctor drank some from his hands, then washed his face. Dimly, he remembered Chiltern coming at him with a hypodermic back in the autopsy room. They must have made the journey to Dartmoor by train Chiltern would have had to drug him again periodically on the trip. Had he travelled in a compartment as a very sick private patient with his personal physician, or in another damned box? His general stiffness made him suspect the latter.

He tried the door. Unlocked. He stepped into a long hallway illuminated only by a stained-glass window at the far end. Approaching this, he saw that it depicted a number of coats of arms on a dark blue ground. He didn't find one for the name Chiltern. Not a family home then. Probably bought when the line of the original owners died out or went bankrupt.

He descended an oak staircase with a heavy, ornately carved baluster. The lower hall walls were covered with linen-fold panelling, though the floor was uncarpeted flagstone. Cold In the winter, but then, whoever spent much time in their halls? He'd found that he usually ran through the ones he encountered.

The massive front door was locked. Above it was another stained-glass window, this one a depiction of the four seasons that the Doctor thought looked Flemish. Imported and added early this century, no doubt. Everything else he'd seen appeared to be Jacobean. The place had the uncomfortable, empty chill of grand seventeenth-century houses too much space, too little warmth.

He looked back along the hall. A door beyond the stairs that probably led to the kitchen and workrooms. And a door to either side. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo. He pushed at the left-hand door. Locked. Well, this was being made easy for him. He crossed to the right hand door and opened it.

The room he entered was sparsely furnished. Wainscotted walls with no pictures. Tall shelves with only a few books. A worn wing chair on the hearth. A threadbare Oriental rug. A few other old and neglected furnishings. Chiltern was seated at a table by the window, reading some papers. He looked up and removed his glasses. 'Ah, here you are. How do you feel?'

'Like I've been drugged and locked in a box.'

'Exactly the case,' said Chiltern. 'Do you want something to eat?'

'I'd like some water.'

'Help yourself.' Chiltern indicated a dented silver pitcher on a sideboard next to the door. The Doctor poured himself a glass and drank it, then poured and drank another.

'Who's running the shop?' he asked.

'If you're referring to the clinic, my able associate Mr Mayview. He often takes over my duties when I have to be away.'

'Nice to have good help. You're lucky you didn't kill me, you know. I sometimes react weirdly to drugs for human beings.'

'Yes, I thought of that, but there was no other way.'

'You know,' said the Doctor, 'I want want to help you. I keep telling you that, but it never seems to penetrate.' to help you. I keep telling you that, but it never seems to penetrate.'

'What are you doing here?' said Chiltern. 'On Earth?'

'I came for the waters.' The Doctor sensed a presence behind him and turned his head. O'Keagh. 'Oh, Mr O'Keagh, there you are. Tell me, how exactly did you kill Scale?'

O'Keagh put out a muscular hand and pushed the Doctor firmly into the middle of the room. Then he shut the door and leaned against it, arms crossed.

'He thinks I'm mad, doesn't he?' said the Doctor.

'I think you're mad,' said Chiltern. think you're mad,' said Chiltern.

'And yet you want my assistance.'

'Newton was quite mad. It doesn't necessarily affect the reasoning power.'

'I accept the compliment.' The Doctor's eyes went to the window behind Chiltern. The alienist followed his glance.

'I don't advise breaking out. The dog would track you down.'

'Dog?'

'An Irish wolfhound.'

'Of course. The hound of the Baskervilles.'

Chiltern frowned. 'Excuse me?'

'Oh, I forgot. Hasn't been published yet. Sorry.'

Chiltern stared at him for a minute, his head propped against his fist. 'Perhaps this was a mistake.'