He sighed sleepily, then blinked. A face was forming out of the smoke, or coming to him through the smoke, he wasn't sure which. Nor did it matter. It was an effect he was used to and he watched with detached, contented curiosity as the features slowly became clearer. A beautiful male face, like a Botticelli. Pale calm eyes. The smoke wreathed around the head and became tousled, light brown hair. From a great distance, Chiltern felt what might have been a little jolt of surprise. He knew the face.

'Hello,' said the Doctor.

'Doctor...?' Chiltern tried to sit up, or thought he did. 'Are you really here?'

'That depends,' said the Doctor.

'On what?'

'Which way you'd prefer it.'

The smoke thinned away completely, and Chiltern was relieved to see that the Doctor had brought his body with him, though he had exchanged his elegant velvet coat for a long, shabby, black garment that was too big for him.

'I wanted to talk to you,' said Chiltern.

'And here I am.'

'I'm not sure it matters if you're actually here or not. Just don't vanish.'

'Leaving my grin behind. No, I don't do that any more.' The Doctor certainly looked real enough, fine droplets of water shining in his hair as if he'd walked in out of the mist. 'What did you want to talk to me about?'

Chiltern dreamed for a moment. The Doctor waited, perfectly still, as if he'd been painted on the wall. After a while, Chiltern said, 'I wanted you to hypnotise me.'

'Why?'

'I think...' Chiltern looked slowly around at the dim, huddled figures. How had the Doctor got in? Why had they let him in? 'Do you want a pipe?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Why do you come here?' he said gently.

'To forget. No... to remember.'

'Remember what?'

'I don't know.'

'Is there something you don't remember?'

'I don't know.'

The Doctor looked down and his long, flexible mouth twitched. 'Yes,' he sighed. 'I understand.'

'Do you?'

'Tell me about your brother.'

This time, Chiltern knew, he definitely moved, propping up on his elbows. 'How do you know about him?'

'I heard.'

'My brother's mad.'

'I heard that too.'

'He's violent. Deluded.' Chiltern sobbed and buried his face in his hands. 'I keep him locked up.'

'I know that too,' whispered the Doctor.

'It's horrible,' Chiltern breathed between his fingers. 'My own brother! How could I?'

'What else could you do?'

Chiltern raised his wet face. 'I could cure him. I'm a doctor. Tell me,' He groped and found the Doctor's arm. It was reassuringly solid. 'Don't you think it's all physical? That the mind is wired, like a machine?'

'Something like that, yes.'

'It's in the flesh, you see in the flesh. Someday we'll be able to cure everything with an operation. In the future.'

The Doctor looked at him sadly. 'When did he go mad?'

'Very young, very young. We were so much alike, everyone said so. Then he changed. His mind withered. While I I prospered.' Chiltern's voice dropped to a whisper. 'It was as if I stole his life.'

'That's nonsense.'

'As if there had only been enough to make one person, and I sucked it all up. You know, twins kill each other in the womb. One absorbs the other. Or they're born with one strong and the other sickly, and the sickly one soon dies.

'You brother's madness came after you were born.'

'But still, still...' Chiltern fell back. The Doctor's face floated above him, remote yet sympathetic, an angel's face, something to confess to. 'Sometimes,' he whispered, 'I think there were three of us.'

'Three?'

'But he says there weren't. He laughs at me. He's always laughing at me, as if he knows something I don't.'

'What would that be?'

'The thing I've forgotten.'

The Doctor looked down at his clasped hands. After a moment he said, 'Perhaps I should speak to him.'

'No. No, it wouldn't be any good. He's quite mad. But I want you to help me me. Isn't that why you're here?' The Doctor nodded. 'I called you and you came.'

'In a manner of speaking.'

Chiltern stared at his eyes. He began to be afraid of them, as if he might fall in and fall forever, drowning...

'Who are you?'

'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'I don't know. Does it matter?'

'No.' Chiltern lay back, oddly relieved. 'I don't know who I am either.' The Doctor smiled reassuringly. Chiltern smiled back. 'You must hypnotise me.'

'I don't think this is the time.'

'No, no.' Chiltern grasped his arm again. 'This is exactly the time. Now, while the drug is working as well.' The Doctor shook his head firmly. 'Please. Take me back.'

'I'll take you back to the clinic.'

Chiltern let go of him. He said dully, 'You really are here, aren't you? You followed me.'

'I'd come up to visit you and saw you leaving.'

'Why had you come?'

'I wanted to talk to you about your brother. I still do. I'm willing to hypnotise you. But I'm not sure it's a good idea with the drug in your system.'

'Then when? Tomorrow?'

'The next day. Tomorrow, I'm going to Liverpool.'

'Liverpool?' Chiltern frowned in surprise. 'Whatever for?'

'Magic.

Chiltern dreamed again. The Doctor, in a splendid scarlet coat, was a magician, spreading a fan of cards in his long fingers. Only, Chiltern discovered as he drew one, these weren't playing cards but the fortune-telling kind. He held a picture of a tower being struck by lightning. It was extraordinarily well done: the lightning seemed to flash, and he could see the rain slipping down the rough wall of bricks. He squinted at those bricks for what seemed quite a long time before he realised that they were right in front of him and that his face was wet and cold and that the Doctor had his arm and was looking up at him with concern.

'Dr Chiltern...?'

Chiltern's lungs filled with clear, damp air. He turned and saw pavement and the rain-slicked street glistening beneath a streetlamp. 'We're outside,' he said in surprise. 'How long have we been outside?'

'Not long,' said the Doctor patiently, guiding him towards a cab. Chiltern looked at his damp hair.

'Did you leave your hat?'

'I forgot to bring it. Here.' The Doctor opened the door of the cab and in a minute they were both inside, out of the rain and headed back to Hampstead. Chiltern laid his head back against the seat and shut his eyes.

'How are you feeling?' said the Doctor's quiet voice.

'Sober,' said Chiltern tiredly. 'I recover with unwelcome alacrity. Do you know Poe? There's a story of his that begins with a description of coming out of an opium dream, something about "the bitter lapse into everyday life." That describes it nicely.'

' "The Fall of the House of Usher".'

'Yes. It's quite a fascinating piece, actually. The brother and sister are two parts of the same mind, you see, and the house is the skull that contains them. When he tries to bury her, she returns and then the house cracks and collapses. A metaphor for madness.'

'An interesting reading.'

'One that suits my profession,' said Chiltern drily. He opened his eyes. The Doctor was sitting huddled into a shadowy corner. Light from the passing streetlamps periodically hit his face and made his eyes glint like glass. Chiltern found the effect fascinating. He watched it for a while.

'How are you feeling?' the Doctor asked again.

'Well,' Chiltern replied placidly. He felt wonderfully calm, almost sleepy. And safe.

'Would you like to talk?'

'Yes.'

'Shall we talk about the past?'

Chiltern hesitated. Somewhere, fathoms deep, a current tolled some broken bell of warning. His breath shortened. He felt sweat at his temples.

'It's all right,' said the Doctor, and Chiltern caught again the gleam of his eyes. What jewel were they the colour of?

'Yes,' he agreed.

'Yes,' repeated the Doctor. 'Let's go back. What's the first thing you remember?'

There was a long silence, somewhere on the edge of which the horse's hooves clattered noisily, competing with the drumming rain. Watching Chiltern's face, the Doctor saw it slowly stiffen into blankness. There was no fear there, or pain. There was no expression at ail. The Doctor felt something cold at the base of his neck. He leaned forward. 'Are you still there?'

'Yes,' said Chiltern distantly.

'What's the first thing you remember?'

'What's...?'

'The first thing.'

Another long silence. The Doctor watched the periodic street light pass across Chiltern's motionless features.

Chiltern said, 'There isn't anything.'

The Doctor looked out of the cab window. A passing streetlamp turned the darkness into wet shards of light. He pulled his coat tighter around him; it was a chill night. Over the decades, he'd used hypnosis to help people into some dark places. But he'd never guided anyone into nothing, and he wasn't going to start now. Abruptly he leaned over and lightly touched the back of Chiltern's hand, The alienist blinked at him, confused. 'I'm sorry. Was I away again?'

'Just for a moment.

'Ah.' Chiltern rubbed the back of his neck. 'I don't remember.'

'No,' said the Doctor.

Chiltern wanted him to come in for a nightcap, but the Doctor pleaded an early train. Chiltern was sorry. He could have used the company. He always felt a bit queer after opium, a little disoriented, sad. And at night, when it was mostly quiet, he was aware of how large the clinic's house was, how ancient and full of secrets. He'd never even been through the whole place; possibly there were rooms that for centuries hadn't known light. His own office, outside the warm circle of lamplight on his desk, seemed vast in its darkness. In the gardens, the rain rattled on the brick walks and whispered in the trees.

Chiltern put his face in his hands. He'd had a sudden lurching moment of uncertainty. He'd been brought up in a relatively modern house in Chelsea. Why, for a moment, had he remembered being a child in a house more like this one? A huge, draughty, shadowed place, set in... moorland? He stared helplessly out at the night Yorkshire? Dartmoor? He'd never even visited either. It was an awful thing, this sensation that his mind was a platform balanced on a single strut like a see-saw, something that might tilt and let him slide off into... what? What was beneath the surface of his own mind? Perhaps, he thought drily, hypnosis wasn't such a good idea after all.

The click of a latch made him look up sharply. The door swung open an inch or two, revealing a slash of darkness. Whoever was on the other side was apparently hesitant to enter. 'Who is it?' he said impatiently and then, in surprise, as the person slipped in, 'Miss Jane.'

'Please excuse me,' she muttered, head lowered. She'd attempted to put her hair back up, but not very successfully. A thick coil of it had come loose and snaked over her shoulder. He stood up.

'Are you all right?'

'Yes. I just couldn't sleep. She raised her face. Chiltern didn't think she looked well at all. He came around the desk.