Doctor Who: Players: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Dicks, Terrance

  As both the Doctor and von Ribbentrop knew perfectly well, King Edward VIII, formerly the fantastically popular Prince of Wales, had only recently succeeded to the throne. Even so, the crowning ceremony had been mysteriously delayed.

  It was rumoured that the reasons were not unconnected with the King’s long-standing attachment to a twice-divorced American woman called Wallis Simpson, although nobody in society could understand what all the fuss was about. Royal mistresses, after all, were part of a long and honourable tradition. All the new King had to do was marry some understanding European princess and produce the necessary two sons, the ‘heir and spare’, and he and his Wallis could go on as before…

  As befitted his superior rank, von Ribbentrop was granted his audience first.

  Patiently the Doctor awaited his turn. He didn’t expect to be kept hanging around for long. The new King was rumoured to be bored by his formal constitutional duties, and liked to get them over with as quickly as possible.

  Sure enough, von Ribbentrop emerged from the throne room only a few minutes later. He paused before the Doctor, as if compelled to explain the shortness of his time with the King.

  ‘Not the formal visit,’ he said. ‘One wouldn’t wish to intrude at a time of mourning. Nor, of course, to appear to be remiss in introducing oneself.’

  The Doctor bowed. ‘My own dilemma exactly. I am glad to see, by Your Excellency’s presence, that I took the correct decision.’

  Von Ribbentrop visibly glowed under the Doctor’s flattery. The Doctor guessed he knew little of South America, but was always anxious to befriend any potential ally of the Reich.

  He bowed stiffly in return. ‘A great pleasure to meet you, Doctor. I hope you will attend one of my little soirées at the German Embassy?’

  ‘I should be honoured, Excellency. I am currently residing at the Ritz, as I am between abodes. My ward, Miss Brown, is staying with me at present. I wonder if she might also…?’

  ‘I will arrange invitations for you both.’

  Von Ribbentrop bowed again and left.

  ‘The King will see you in just a moment, sir,’ said the aide. He paused. ‘I feel I should point out that His Majesty is new to his royal duties, and has many obligations.’

  ‘My dear chap,’ said the Doctor cheerfully. ‘If the German Ambassador only gets three minutes, I should imagine I probably rate about thirty seconds!’

  The Doctor walked forward into the throne room, where a slight, fair-haired figure stood by the throne, dwarfed by a group of tall, uniformed court officials.

  ‘Ah, Doctor Smith…’ said a husky, pleasant voice.

  A handshake, a charming smile, a few kind words, and the Doctor was out in well under his thirty seconds…

  While the Doctor went about his business, Peri went about hers – shopping! She’d been told not to stint herself, but to draw freely upon his apparently limitless credit. After all, she was supposed to be a millionaire heiress, he reminded her. She had an image to keep up!

  Now, thoroughly shopped out, Peri lay stretched out on an enormous sofa, surrounded by boxes, bags and parcels of all shapes and sizes, listening to the sound of running water from the adjoining bathroom.

  Lazily, she reminded herself to get up soon and check if the bath was full. Not that there was any great hurry. The baths at the Ritz were enormous, you could practically swim in them…

  She had just kicked off her shoes and was wriggling her aching feet in the air when the Doctor returned. It was so odd seeing him dolled up in tail coat and top hat, the multi-coloured nightmare of his usual attire safely locked away in the TARDIS wardrobe.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ she said idly. ‘Buckingham Palace?’

  The Doctor tossed his topper onto a table and sprawled into an enormous armchair. ‘That’s right! Is that my bath you’re running?’

  ‘No way!’ She sat up, taking in what he’d said. ‘You haven’t really been to the Palace, have you?’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Presenting my credentials to the King as Honorary Consul for Santa Esmerelda.’

  ‘The King?’ Peri stared at him.

  ‘That’s right. Charming man, Edward.’

  ‘Well, what’s an Honorary Consul?’

  ‘A sort of low-grade, cut-price ambassador.’ He smiled. ‘I gave the President of Santa Esmerelda some help a few years ago. The revolutionaries were about to shoot him and I persuaded him to liberalise his programme. Lower taxes, a health service, that sort of thing…’

  ‘Flush sanitation?’ Peri cheekily inquired.

  The Doctor ignored her. ‘He’s very popular now. He was so grateful he made me Honorary Consul to Great Britain for life. You never know when that sort of thing will come in handy!’

  The Doctor stood up.

  ‘I’ll just go and have that bath, then.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, go and run your own!’

  The Doctor pouted. ‘Is this the thanks I get for offering you opulence the like of which you’ve never seen?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Peri, throwing a cushion at him. ‘If you will go to see the King and not take me!’

  ‘It was protocol, Peri! A semi-official visit!’ He smiled benignly. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be on the official diplomat list now. I imagine we’ll be invited to a reception or a royal garden party before long. Oh, and by the way, I’ve found us a house, nice little place in Mayfair.’

  Peri wasn’t listening. ‘A royal garden party? I don’t think I’ve got anything to wear!’

  The Doctor waved a hand at the boxes and parcels. ‘You amaze me!’

  Peri looked at the boxes and parcels too, trying to remember what was inside them. ‘I haven’t even unpacked half this stuff yet. But I really don’t think –’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the Doctor, dismissively. ‘You can always go shopping again tomorrow.’

  Peri was staring at a green striped hat-box beside the door. ‘That’s odd!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That box – it’s from Harrods.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I went to Harrods yesterday. I thought they’d delivered everything the same day.’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘Perhaps that one got left behind and has only just caught up!’

  ‘And it’s a hat-box,’ Peri went on. ‘I didn’t buy any hats at Harrods. I must’ve picked up someone else’s –’

  The Doctor got up waving a hand for silence. He went slowly over to the hat-box and knelt beside it, putting his ear up against it, listening.

  ‘Did you buy any clocks at Harrods by any chance?’ he asked Peri, his face grave.

  Peri shook her head.

  Suddenly the Doctor stood up, picked up the hat-box very carefully, and strode rapidly through the bathroom door.

  Seconds later, Peri heard a loud splash, and gave a startled yelp as the Doctor hurtled back into the room and took a flying leap at her on the sofa. It toppled over, and the Doctor and Peri went backwards, ending up on the floor behind it.

  Peri disentangled herself from the Doctor. ‘What the hell are you –’

  ‘Sssh!’ said the Doctor imperatively, peering over the back of the upturned sofa.

  Cautiously Peri did the same.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘You see?’ said Peri. ‘There’s no need to panic, Doctor. It was probably just –’

  There was a muffled boom from the bathroom, and the Doctor grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down.

  Steam and smoke gushed into the room, followed by a miniature tidal wave as the contents of Peri’s enormous bathtub flooded across the floor. Alarm bells started ringing somewhere in the hotel, and there were shouts and the sound of running footsteps.

  The Doctor stood up, righted the sofa with a single heave, and sat on it cross-legged, beckoning to Peri to join him.

  She looked at him in alarm.

  ‘Shouldn’t we get out of here?’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ said the Doctor gently. ‘I don’t think there’s any dange
r of fire, not with all this water about. And we’re scarcely likely to drown!’

  They sat and watched the water rippling across the carpet.

  ‘Quite a pretty effect, really,’ said the Doctor.

  Suddenly the door to the suite was flung open, revealing the sallow figure of Antoine the under-manager, with what looked like half the hotel staff crowding the corridor behind him.

  ‘What is it, Doctor Smith?’ gasped Antoine. ‘What has happened?’

  The Doctor waved towards the flooded carpet.

  ‘Antoine,’ he said sadly, ‘I’m afraid we shall have to leave your hotel. The suite is comfortable, the beds are excellent, and the cuisine superb. The plumbing, however, leaves a lot to be desired…’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  INVITATION

  WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL was building a wall.

  He was in the garden of his country house, Chartwell Manor in Kent. What he liked to do most of the time was to eat and drink, to smoke his cigars, and talk – about politics, history, art, literature, any of the hundred-and-one subjects that interested him. He liked to write. He already had a formidable number of books to his credit. When he felt tired and drained, he liked to paint, here at Chartwell or in the south of France.

  But when things were going badly, when he felt tired and angry and despairing, he built walls. Something about the mixing of the mortar, the careful and laborious placing of the bricks, the steady rising of the wall itself, brought him a kind of solace.

  As he worked, Churchill’s mind drifted back over his life. Sometimes it seemed a very long life indeed.

  He was sixty-one.

  He thought of his escape from prison in the Boer War, of his flight from that mysterious chateau in the Great War.

  He had served for a year on the Western Front, fighting in the trenches with the Scots Fusiliers and ending up as a Lieutenant-Colonel.

  A year later he had returned to Parliament, feeling that by risking his own life in battle he had, at least to some extent, purged the shame of the failed Dardanelles attack. Moreover, his friends told him, and he knew in his heart that it was true, that he could make a far greater contribution to the war effort in the Government than in the trenches.

  He had helped to pioneer the development of the tank, the war-winning weapon that eventually freed the troops from the hell of the trenches, and ended the war as Minister of Munitions.

  After the war, for many years, his political career had prospered. He had held most of the important Cabinet posts, including that of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now, however, in the mid-1930s, Winston Churchill’s career was in decline. He had quarrelled with his party leaders, and had been out of the Cabinet for many years. His unpopularity with the Conservative party, and in particular with its leaders, was made worse by the fact that Winston Churchill had found a cause.

  Ever since Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Churchill, and Churchill alone, had raised his voice in repeated warnings about the Nazi menace, about the dangers of German rearmament. But nobody wanted to know. The only result had been the virtual end of his political career.

  Perhaps it was time he accepted the inevitable and retired. He could write and paint – and build walls.

  He sighed, and put another brick in place.

  A slim, beautiful woman in her early fifties came down the long path from the house towards him. She was Clementine Churchill, Winston Churchill’s beloved Clemmie. They had married in 1908 and, as Churchill said, lived happily ever after. Clemmie was strong-minded enough to manage him, and intelligent enough not to let it show.

  She was also the only one who dared to disturb him when he was in this kind of mood.

  As her shadow fell over him, he looked up and grunted. ‘Well?’ Despite his gruffness, his eyes were twinkling. As always, the mere sight of Clemmie made him feel better.

  ‘Colonel Carstairs is here, dear,’ she said.

  ‘Bringing me more disastrous news, no doubt. I don’t think I want to see him!’

  After their escape from the chateau, Carstairs had joined Churchill’s staff. He had remained in the Army after the war, transferring to Military Intelligence. Now he was one of the many unofficial helpers who kept Churchill informed about the state of England’s defences.

  ‘You and Jeremy are having drinks on the terrace,’ said Clemmie placidly. ‘Come along!’

  Churchill came along.

  Churchill put down the sheaf of documents, his face bleak. He took a long swig of brandy, drew hard on his cigar, and sent a cloud of blue smoke into the afternoon air.

  ‘You are sure of these figures?’

  The tall, lean man on the other side of the little table gathered up the papers and put them back in his briefcase. He was in civilian clothes, in mufti as soldiers called it. His visit to Chartwell was unofficial, possibly even illegal.

  ‘Absolutely sure, sir,’ Carstairs said in answer to Churchill’s question. ‘I checked with Anderson at the Air Ministry and Wigram at the Foreign Office, and all our sources agree.’

  Churchill thumped the table with his fist, making the ashtray jump.

  ‘Already we begin to lose our advantage. In a year, two years at most, their air force will be superior to ours, in both number and quality of aeroplanes. Their army too is expanding… We have the Navy to hold them in check, but if they gain superiority in the air… I tell you, Carstairs, step by step that madman Hitler is preparing for war.’

  ‘I know, sir,’ said Carstairs quietly. ‘So do most of the leaders of the Armed Forces. It seems that the only ones who don’t know are the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. If only they’d make you Minister of Defence…’

  ‘Baldwin is a fool,’ growled Churchill. ‘He is determined to keep me out of the cabinet at all costs. Few are willing even to contemplate the possibility of war.’ He sighed. ‘It is understandable. The horrors of the last conflict are still too close, but dangers are not overcome by ignoring them. And all the time we do nothing, our enemies are plotting against us…’

  The Doctor and Peri left the Ritz within hours of the explosion. By a good deal of fast talking, and an offer to pay the cost of repairing the shattered bathroom, the Doctor persuaded the manager not to call the police.

  ‘No point in attracting a lot of bad publicity for the hotel,’ he pointed out. ‘Or for Santa Esmerelda. Far better to tell the guests an old boiler exploded and hush the whole thing up.’

  The manager agreed. He expressed great regret at losing two of his most distinguished guests – but Peri had the distinct impression that he was relieved to see them go. So too was Antoine the under-manager, who seemed to have been badly shaken by the explosion.

  The hired Rolls was big enough to take the Doctor and Peri and all their newly-acquired possessions to their new home. It was a short enough trip, up to the far end of Piccadilly and a sharp right turn into Mayfair. The Doctor had hired an elegant little town house in Hill Street.

  ‘Belongs to a rather impoverished Duke,’ he explained as the Rolls Royce turned off Piccadilly. ‘Went shooting on his country estate and shot himself in the foot. He’s staying down in the country till his foot gets better and everybody stops laughing at him. He was glad to let the place out, servants and all.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be if he knew his new tenants were prime terrorist targets all of a sudden,’ said Peri. ‘I still can’t believe they slipped a bomb in our room. What was that all about, Doctor?’

  ‘As I keep saying Peri, I’m not sure; said the Doctor a little irritably. ‘Still, suffice it to say, it was certainly a reaction of some kind.’

  ‘To what?’ asked Peri, snorting. ‘My shopping?’

  ‘Doubtful, I agree,’ said the Doctor. ‘So it must be me. What have I done since we arrived? I’ve been to the bank, and I’ve been to Buckingham Palace and met old Ribbentrop and the King. Why should that make anyone want to blow me up?’

  ‘Perhaps someone who doesn’t care for name droppers?’ Peri inquired sweetly. Th
en she sighed. ‘In any case, are you sure that’s what they wanted? If that bomb was meant for you, it was a bit misplaced. I’m the one who would have opened that hat-box, and that makes me far more likely to be the target!’

  ‘That’s a very good point,’ said the Doctor thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think it was a terribly serious assassination attempt, not really. It wasn’t even a very big bomb. I think it was meant as a warning to me – a warning not to interfere.’

  Peri shuddered. ‘So they were prepared to risk killing me, just to warn you?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Charming,’ said Peri broodingly. ‘What a gentle world you’ve brought me to. Do you think they’ll send any more warnings?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said the Doctor, brightly. ‘In any case, I’ve taken a few precautions.’

  The Rolls turned into Hill Street and and drew up outside an elegant house. A silver-haired butler appeared on the steps to welcome them, and showed them inside.

  In the small but well-appointed hall, a line-up of servants stood ready for their inspection.

  ‘My name is Rye, sir and madam,’ said the butler. He nodded towards a round-faced older woman in a black gown. ‘This is Mrs Danvers, the cook-housekeeper, and these two girls are Emily and Martha, the maids. The gentleman from the agency arrived a short time ago. I hope everything is satisfactory? His Grace only keeps a very small staff here in town.’

  The Doctor glanced quizzically at Peri. ‘What do you think? Will we be able to manage?’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ said Peri. In theory she disapproved of people having servants. But it was surprising, and rather worrying, how soon you got used to people looking after you.

  The maids took them upstairs to their rooms, which were as quietly luxurious as the rest of the house. The chauffeur brought up Peri’s luggage, and one of the maids began unpacking her things. Watch out for any stray hat-boxes, Peri thought.

  She wandered over to her bedroom window and looked out into a small, high-walled garden. There was a flash of movement in the corner of her eye. Peri caught a glimpse of somebody moving in the dense shrubbery.

  ‘Doctor!’

  The Doctor came out of a room further down the hallway. ‘What’s up, Peri?’