‘Yes?’ The voice was like a bark. The butler, though short, was of enormous bulk, like some Greco-Roman wrestler squeezed into a tailcoat. I could see nothing of his face, but his starched shirt front strained tightly over his chest as though threatening, at any moment, to pop open.

‘I have travelled from London expressly to see Madam Vastra,’ I said. ‘If you’d be so kind as to announce me, my good man.’

‘Whom should I say is calling?’

I reached into my waistcoat and produced my card.

A hand reached out form the gloom to take it. A three-fingered hand. This was followed by the butler himself. I received a confused impression of a great, toad-like visage, the eyes small and mean-looking, the mouth a hideous gash. A monster! Another one!

And then, I fear, I rather let myself down. Just as when Madam Vastra raised her veil, I think I must have fainted. Certainly, a cold chill ran through me and large black spots blossomed before my eyes …

I became aware that I was lying down and that a cooling breeze was wafting over my face, though I kept my eyes closed. A voice sounded close by, that same, short, gruff bark. ‘It asked for permission to enter and then it fell over. What are we to make of it?’

‘I imagine Mr Thursday wants to know what progress we have made.’ Another voice, recognisably that of Madam Vastra. I risked a peek. She was sitting across from me, holding up the photograph I had brought to her. I was lying across the butler’s massive knee and he was fanning me with a rolled up copy of the Woman’s Realm. ‘The question is,’ Vastra continued. ‘How did the Doctor’s image come to be preserved on a dead man’s eye? It is a scientific impossibility.’

She glanced down at her pocket watch and scrutinised it with her glittering lizard eyes. ‘I wonder how Jenny is getting on.’

The butler leant forward excitedly, banging my head against the corner of a Morocco table.

‘If she hasn’t made contact by nightfall, I suggest a massive frontal assault on the factory, Madam! Casualties can be kept to perhaps as little as eighty per cent.’

‘I think there may be subtler ways of proceeding, Strax.’

The butler sank back and pulled my head closer to his lap with ill grace. ‘Suit yourself.’

*

EXTRACT FROM DATA CORE – 7900 – XVL COMMANDER STRAX