– but it was too late. The pyramid began to totter and, with a great cry, the daft bloke fell over the acrobats, landing with an ungainly thump on the stage.

A great press of people rushed forward onto the stage and Billy Skittles come out from his little box to usher us back.

‘Please! Please! Make room! Make room! This ain’t Balaclava!’ he protested.

I’d like to say the mob was concerned for the chap’s welfare but it was just as likely they wanted to see if he’d ended up a pile of brains and shattered cartilage on the bare boards.

The tweedy fella looked OK, if a bit winded. He was a very striking looking cove, with sparkling little eyes and a long face that put me in mind of a handsome horse. His dicky bow had come undone and he sat up, looking a bit dazed.

I went to help him up but suddenly another arm shot out in my place. It belonged to Madam, standing by my side, helping the stranger to his feet and lifting her veil just a fraction.

‘Doctor!’ she cried.

He peered at her and a huge grin split his face. ‘Vastra!’ The fella re-tied his bow tie and grinned. ‘This is a bit of luck!’

Disappointed that he had survived, the crowd began to melt away.

‘This,’ said Madam, laying a gentle hand on my arm, ‘is Miss Jenny Flint.’

The Doctor leapt to his feet and waved a long, bony hand at me. ‘Hello! Lovely to meet you!’ he said, then put his arm round Madam’s shoulder and under the gaggle of the remaining mob whispered, conspiratorial-like: ‘There’s something very funny going in this theatre.’

Chapter the Second

‘Mr Gideon Mortlock Presents Himself’

Madam had told me all about the Doctor of course. How he’d found her after she’d been disturbed from her slumbers by workmen digging a new extension to the Underground. How he’d convinced her that she really didn’t need to wreak revenge on us ‘upstart apes’ for taking away her world and that she might find life in London not too bad after all. And so it had proved, her taking to it like an ichthyosaur to water – so to speak. After that, they’d been in a number of scrapes together. I recall how, one summer evening, Madam had pulled out a great sheaf of papers from her travelling trunk and took me breathlessly through some of them. ‘The Affair of the Cringing Jesuit’. ‘The Matter of the Mahogany Wasp’. ‘The Curious Case of the Inconsequential Widow’. ‘Now there was an adventure!’ breathed Madam, the firelight sparkling in her eyes. ‘Six months of hard work from Scotland to Ecuador – and an alien consciousness at its evil heart!’