Part One
[Cellar]
(In an Victorian household, a small lift takes the housekeeper and maid up to a part of the house which is kept secluded. They walk along a short round tunnel to an open area with a table in the middle. Curtains are around the walls apart from a closed door at the far end where the housekeeper speaks through a panel)
PRITCHARD: I've brought you your dinner and your copy of the Times.
(The maid puts the dinner tray on the floor while Mrs Pritchard uses a stick to lift another panel at the bottom of the door, then the maid quickly pushes the tray through and backs away. In the room something howls)
[Entrance hall]
(Another servant scurries downstairs to answer the front door bell. She lets in a clerical gentleman with long sideburns.)
MATTHEWS: Tell your Master that the Reverend Ernest Matthews has arrived. Well? This house is Gabriel Chase, is it not?
GROSE: Yes sir, but, excuse me sir, as I understood it, you would not be arriving until this evening.
MATTHEWS: Madam, my patience has already been sorely tried by the interminable journey from Oxford.
GROSE: Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. But you see, well, we don't get many visitors, you see.
MATTHEW: Apparently not. Now kindly inform Mister Smith, if he is at home, that I have answered his summons and am waiting.
GROSE: Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. This way, sir.
[Attic]
(The Tardis materialises in a corner of the room.)
ACE [OC]: Professor, thirty second penalty.
DOCTOR [OC]: Just get on with it. It's all part of the initiative test.
(A rocking horse's eyes glow and fade as Ace comes out from behind the Tardis.)
ACE: You're still a lousy parker. Hey, play time.
DOCTOR [OC]: Well?
ACE: It's a laboratory. Oh no, could a nursery, but the kids would have to be pretty advanced. And creepy.
DOCTOR [OC]: Be concise.
ACE: It's well safe, Professor. (Ace picks up a mechanical toy and plays with it.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Oh, very succinct.
ACE: It must be Earth.
DOCTOR: You tell me.
ACE: This equipment's prehistoric. I like the toys, though. (The Doctor gets on the rocking horse.) Oh, those things are pretty sick. I can't stand dead things. Must be Victorian.
DOCTOR: It's a surprise.
[Entrance hall]
(The grandfather clock ticks towards six o'clock. The servants hurry out of various doorways.)
GROSE: It's all right, my dears. Don't worry. Our day is done. We shan't stay here a moment longer. And heaven help anyone who's still here after dark.
(Mrs Grose lets the two maids out through the front door then leaves herself, locking it behind her. Most peculiar.)
[Attic]
(Ace looks at the contents of a small cupboard.)
ACE: Nothing much in here. Alum, borax, carbon tetrachloride.
DOCTOR: Let me guess. Benzine, arsenic, boring things like that.
ACE: Yeah. Nothing volatile or explosive.
DOCTOR: No, they're all used as preservative agents in the art of taxidermy.
ACE: Urgh. Gross!
DOCTOR: Did you know Darwin suffered from seasickness?
(Ace investigates an early type of candlestick telephone.)
ACE: What I need's a phone card.
DOCTOR: It's odd, that, considering his origins.
ACE: Professor, how'd you dial out on this thing?
DOCTOR: Ace! Don't touch that!
ACE: Why not? It's my initiative test.
DOCTOR: You'll give us away. These days, trespassers end up in Newgate.
ACE: The prison?
DOCTOR: Yes. It took me three weeks to try and get out the last time. Now give me that phone. Get off.
JOSIAH [OC]: Who's there?
DOCTOR: Er, sorry, wrong number.
[Drawing room]
JOSIAH: Using a telephone, Reverend Matthews? Surely you're far too fastidious a creature for such demonic apparatus.
[Attic]
DOCTOR: Well, now that you've so successfully drawn attention to our presence, there's only one thing for it.
ACE: Go and introduce ourselves properly.
DOCTOR: Victorians are sticklers for etiquette.
ACE: This isn't a haunted house, is it, Professor? I told you I've got this thing about haunted houses.
DOCTOR: Did you tell me that?
ACE: Yes!
DOCTOR: How many have you been in?
ACE: One was enough. Never again.
[Drawing room]
(The clock strikes six. Two panels in the entrance hall wall open and four housemaids come out. A young woman is staring blankly at the fire when a man puts his hands on her shoulders)
JOSIAH: I think you should go a greet our guests, my dear.
[Corridor]
(Ace and the Doctor hide from the prim maids.)
ACE: We used to go to museums on school trips. It was always don't touch, don't wander off, don't give the school a bad name. We still did it, though.
DOCTOR: The front door's this way.
(Ace spots a stuffed bird on a side table.)
ACE: Hello, what's your name? You got stuffed and it wasn't even Christmas.
DOCTOR: Ace.
ACE: See you later.
[The Doctor spots a small sliver stuff box on the carpet.]
DOCTOR: What do you make of that?
ACE: Don't know. Whose initials are RFC?
DOCTOR: It's your initiative test.
ACE: So I'm asking the questions. When was the Royal Flying Corp invented?
DOCTOR: Ah, the name wasn't thought up until 1912. I can get you a badge if you like. Ask me another.
(The Doctor gets a gizmo out, then moves Ace's hand away from the little box.)
ACE: Who's RFC? Professor, I'm only looking.
DOCTOR: Looking's one thing.
(He puts away his first gizmo and gets out a second. Click, click, click.)
ACE: It's radioactive.
DOCTOR: Very slightly.
ACE: Is it safe?
DOCTOR: There is no safe level.
ACE: What about RFC?
DOCTOR: Well, let's hope he abandoned it before he came to any harm. (Someone lowers an African spear between them.) Zulu assegai. Quite lethal. (It is being held by a blond man with a moustache.)
REDVERS: Where did you find it?
DOCTOR: Here. I wouldn't touch it if I were you. This is my friend Ace, and I'm the Doctor.
REDVERS: I'm a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
DOCTOR: Really? So am I, several times over.
ACE: Is it your snuffbox?
REDVERS: Please, young lady, you're barely dressed.
ACE: Who's undressed?
DOCTOR: Excuse my young friend. She comes from a less civilised clime.
ACE: What do you want me to do, wrap up in a curtain?
DOCTOR: Be quiet, noble savage. I'm sure in Central Africa you've seen far grislier sights than Ace's ankle.
ACE: He can't see my ankle.
DOCTOR: Well, your boots, then. You're a big game hunter, I take it.
REDVERS: I am, but I've seen nothing that equals the atrocities that are rumoured about this house.
ACE: Is this the surprise, Professor? Because I'm not impressed.
REDVERS: I must say, I'm very grateful to find an ally, Doctor.
DOCTOR: You are?
REDVERS: You have given me the proof I needed.
DOCTOR: The snuff box.
ACE: Don't touch it!
(Redvers picks up the snuff box.)
REDVERS: This is the first substantial evidence that I have found. I came here to find Redvers Fenn-Cooper, one of the finest explorers in the Empire.
DOCTOR: R F C.
REDVERS: I just knew he was in this house. I am commanded to find him and save him from the clutches of that blackguard, Josiah Samuel Smith.
(The eyes of the stuffed bird watch them leave.)
[Entrance hall]
(One of the new maids comes out of the lift with Mrs Pritchard. The other two are lined up on the main staircase. Reverend Matthews comes out of a room.)
MATTHEWS: Are you aware that I have been ringing for attention since before six o'clock? I demand to see your master immediately. This insolence has gone far enough. If I leave now, madam, Mister Smith will regret the consequences. The condemnation of the Royal Society can be ruinous. So be it.
GWENDOLINE: Reverend Matthews, you must forgive us for keeping you waiting. I am Mister Smith's ward.
MATTHEWS: You are Gwendoline, are you not?
GWENDOLINE: Yes, sir. My guardian was most concerned that you'd been kept waiting, but be assured he'll join us shortly.
[Trophy room]
(Stuffed animal heads mounted on the walls, the articulated skeleton of a small, long-tailed ape, and a cabinet with a cups above a rack of guns.)
REDVERS: Josiah Smith invited Redvers here. Redvers is his sternest opponent and..
ACE: One of the finest explorers in the Empire.
DOCTOR: And he hasn't been seen since.
ACE: Perhaps he got lost on the way.
REDVERS: Henry Stanley found Doctor Livingstone. I shall find Redvers Fenn-Cooper.
(Redvers, for it is he, puts the assegai away with the guns. The Doctor checks him over with the Geiger counter.)
REDVERS: Damn tsetse flies.
DOCTOR: How long did you say he'd been living in this house?
ACE: Can we go now, Professor? The whole place gives me the creeps.
DOCTOR: I thought it might.
ACE: Well, he's a head case. The house is like a morgue. Everything dead.
(Redvers points a rifle at Ace and the Doctor)
[Cellar]
(A hunched butler is talking into a candlestick-style telephone.)
NIMROD: Very good, sir, I understand. I shall be with you shortly. (He is not quite homo sapiens, judging by the heavy brow ridges. He goes to the locked door.) Poor silent brute.
(Nimrod leaves, and an eye looks through a peep hole.)
VOICE: Not silent now.
[Trophy room]
REDVERS: Redvers had some stories. The pigmies from the Eluti forest lead him blind fold for three whole days through uncharted jungle. They took him to a swamp full of giant lizards like giant dinosaurs. Do you know, young Conan Doyle just laughed at him. Huh. Well, there's Doctor's for you.
DOCTOR: That wouldn't be a Chinese fowling piece, would it by any chance?
REDVERS: We're two weeks out of Zanzibar. I must find Redvers!
DOCTOR: Tell me what else you found.
REDVERS: Nothing!
DOCTOR: Describe it. It's all right, I'm a Doctor.
REDVERS: Yes, there was light.
DOCTOR: A bright light?
REDVERS: Burning bright in the heart of the interior. It burnt through my eyes into my mind. It had blazing, radiant wings!
(Redvers levels the gun at the Doctor's head, and Ace makes a dive at him.)
ACE: Doctor!
(Redvers moves and she goes flying over a table. The Doctor backs away to the curtains.)
REDVERS: Once, when Redvers was in the Congo, he faced a herd of stampeding buffalo head on. He raised his gun and with one single bullet.. (The Doctor dodges aside, pulling the curtain aside to reveal Redver's reflection in the window.) Ah, there you are, old chap. Redvers, I've found you. What have they done to you? You look like a ghost.
ACE: Is it really him?
DOCTOR: His mind's snapped. He's seen something too big to handle and snuff out. A light. I think we'd better go get some help.
ACE: That'll blow our cover. All right, all right.
(Ace opens the door and Mrs Pritchard enters with two maids and the butler.)
PRITCHARD: Fenn-Cooper, where have you been?
DOCTOR: How do you do, I'm the Doctor and this is my friend.
PRITCHARD: We've been worried about you.
REDVERS: Poor old Redvers. Poor old chap.
(Mrs Pritchard takes the snuff box from Redver's pocket while a maid takes the gun.)
PRITCHARD: Come along.
(Mrs Pritchard twists Redver's arm up behind his back and marches him out of the room.)
DOCTOR: We don't want him hurt.
REDVERS: No, not the interior! Please, I don't want to go back to the interior!
(They leave with Redvers and the gun, closing the door behind them.)
ACE: You don't have to twist his arm like that!
NIMROD: A most unfortunate mishap, sir. I trust you and the young lady are not hurt? The gentleman has fits of distracting behaviour and must for his own safety be confined.
ACE: She didn't have to hurt him.
DOCTOR: My friend, Ace and I..
NIMROD: My master, Mister Smith asks if you will join our other guest in the drawing room.
ACE: (sotto) Professor, is this an asylum with the patients in charge?
DOCTOR: Given a chance it could be Bedlam. Thank you, er?
NIMROD: Nimrod, sir.
DOCTOR: Nimrod. Thank you Nimrod. We would be delighted.
(The Doctor hands his umbrella and hat to Nimrod)
[Drawing room]
GWENDOLINE: But Uncle Josiah is a good man, and a great naturalist too. You'll see when you meet him.
(Nimrod shows in the Doctor and Ace.)
MATTHEWS: Ah, so you finally condescend to meet me, sir. I am grateful for your hospitality.
DOCTOR: How do you do. How nice of you to come.
MATTHEWS: Good grief.
DOCTOR: Oh, this is my friend Ace.
MATTHEWS: I see that all the stories about you are true. You have no shred of decency, even parading your shameless wantons in front of your guests.
ACE: Does he mean me, Professor?
MATTHEWS: I have it. This is some experiment related to your mumbo-jumbo theories. Perhaps she'll evolve into a young lady.
ACE: Who are you calling young lady, Bog brain?
DOCTOR: No such luck. Quiet, Eliza. Now be a good girl. I'm making some small talk.
NIMROD: Ahem. If I might explain, sir?
DOCTOR: Ah, Nimrod, yes. There's still some tea in the pot if you'd like to go and get a couple of cups. Thank you very much.
(The Doctor gives a large tooth to Nimrod.)
NIMROD: The fang of a cave bear! A totem of great power.
DOCTOR: Yes. Thank you, Nimrod.
(The Doctor eases Nimrod out of the room and closes the doors.)
GWENDOLINE: Sir, I think Mister Matthews is confused.
DOCTOR: Never mind, I'll have him completely bewildered by the time I'm finished.
ACE: I'll help.
DOCTOR: [to Gwendoline] We've had some trouble with our carriage and Ace can't go to dinner dressed like this.
ACE: Who says?
DOCTOR: So I wonder if you have any appropriate apparel that she may borrow?
GWENDOLINE: Gladly, Professor. Come, Alice. You can borrow a dress of mine.
ACE: It's Ace, actually. Thanks anyway.
(Gwendoline and Ace leave. Lightning flashes above the big house.)
MATTHEWS: Now, sir.
DOCTOR: Yes, let me guess. My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie.
MATTHEWS: You are a worse scoundrel than Darwin.
(Josiah Samuel Smith enters, wearing dark glasses and with cobwebs or dust on his shoulders.)
JOSIAH: Light!
(The lights around the room dim.)
DOCTOR: Ah, Josiah Samuel Smith, I take it. Dust to dust. I'm The Doctor and this is..
JOSIAH: The Reverend Ernest Matthews, Dean of Merton College, Oxford. Your servant says welcome to Gabriel Chase.
MATTHEWS: Josiah Smith. Now perhaps you'll account for your theories.
DOCTOR: Fascinating moths.
JOSIAH: I recently made a study of these moths. Even in a single species there can be a wide variation of colouring from countryside to town. I'm certain they're adapting to survive the smoke with which industry's tainting the land.
MATTHEWS: Darwinian claptrap.
JOSIAH: Nonsense, you say? I had hoped to find you more adaptable.
DOCTOR: Yes, adapt or become extinct, Ernest.
MATTHEWS: No one asked for your opinion, sir.
DOCTOR: Nevertheless, I suggest you concede to my wisdom and button it.
MATTHEWS:I beg your pardon?
DOCTOR: Why don't you just read Darwin instead of condemning him.
[Gwendoline's room]
(While lightning flashes, Redvers is sitting on bare floorboards wearing a strait jacket. The snuff box is on the floor nearby. It opens and a bright light fills the room.
ACE: Come on, something's happening.
GWENDOLINE: Wait, I can't wear this.
ACE: Of course you can.
[Outside Redver's room]
(Gwendoline and Ace are wearing men's evening dress. Mrs Pritchard is standing guard with a candle as Redvers screams.)
GWENDOLINE: Mrs. Pritchard, what's happening?
PRITCHARD: The door is jammed.
ACE: Here, let me have a try. (But Pritchard is in the way.) Okay, stand back.
(Ace prepares to kick the door.)
DOCTOR: That's no way for a Victorian lady, gentlemen to behave.
ACE: I'm no gentleman.
JOSIAH: Well, Gwen, this a metamorphosis.
GWENDOLINE: It was Ace's idea. (Redvers screams.)
JOSIAH: Nimrod, the door.
(Mrs Pritchard gives Nimrod the key. As she walks away past Smith, her candle flares and he flinches in pain.)
DOCTOR: Stay back.
(The door to Redver's room is opened and the bright light glares out, making Smith recoil.)
DOCTOR: (to Ace) Cover your eyes!
[Redver's room]
NIMROD: I'm sorry, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Redvers, what did you see?
REDVERS: Poor old Redvers. He was so frightened his hair turned completely white. He went quite mad, you know.
NIMROD: We must leave, Doctor!
DOCTOR: But he may need help.
[Outside Redver's room]
(Mrs Pritchard pulls Ace back by her hair.)
ACE: What's happening, Professor?
PRITCHARD: This way, please.
ACE: Ow!
[Drawing room]
DOCTOR: I wanted to see him.
PRITCHARD: Out of the question.
JOSIAH: He will be well taken care of.
ACE: I bet. (to the Doctor) What was that light? He was so scared of it.
NIMROD: Doctor, I can personally assure you that Mister Fenn-Cooper is being made comfortable and will come to no harm.
DOCTOR: Only the madmen may see the path clearly through the tangled forest.
NIMROD: You have the wisdom of the greatest elders of my tribe, Doctor.
JOSIAH: Nimrod, you have duties to perform.
NIMROD: Sir.
(Nimrod and Mrs Pritchard leave.)
ACE: He's a Neanderthal, isn't he?
DOCTOR: Yes. The finest example I've seen this side of the Stone Age.
[Cellar]
(Nimrod presses one of six buttons on the table and all the curtains rise to reveal a curved wall and a granite console in front of a glowing golden oval wall screen. Nimrod kneels before it. Something approaches from behind and hits Nimrod with a stick, knocking him down. An eye watches through a peephole.)
VOICE [OC]: Did that hurt? Good. Now open door.
[Dining room]
(The servants stand around the walls as the course finishes.)
ACE: I still haven't worked out where this place is.
MATTHEWS: And I am still waiting for an explanation for your blasphemous theories.
ACE: What theories?
DOCTOR: Darwin's theories. They turned 19th century science on its head.
ACE: Is there a free lecture thrown in with dinner?
DOCTOR: Yes, that was always his specialty.
ACE: Do we take notes?
MATTHEWS: Mister Smith disputes man's rightful dominion over the forces of nature.
JOSIAH: I hope you have a taste for calves' brains, Doctor.
MATTHEWS: Instead he maintains that mankind itself should adapt to serve nature or become extinct.
JOSIAH: Well, sir.
(A telephone rings outside.)
JOSIAH: Oh, pray excuse me, sir.
(Smith leaves.)
MATTHEWS: Infernal telephonic machines.
ACE: Let's ring out for a takeaway. Anyone fancy a curry?
DOCTOR: I know a nice little restaurant in the Khyber Pass.
[Study]
(Smith answers the telephone.)
JOSIAH: Nimrod! What's going on? I told you not to ring me now. Nimrod, are you there?
VOICE [OC]: I escaped.
JOSIAH: It's learned to speak.
DOCTOR: Having trouble with your connections? Perhaps I can help.
ACE [OC]: Doctor!
DOCTOR: On the other hand, I have an emergency of my own. Excuse me. Time to emerge.
(Mrs Pritchard enters by the opposite door, and the Doctor leaves the same way.)
JOSIAH: Mrs Pritchard, a problem has arisen. Ask Ernest Matthews to join me in here.
PRITCHARD: Very good, sir.
(Mrs Pritchard crosses the room to the door to the dining room.)
JOSIAH: Then no one is to disturb us.
ACE [OC]: Doctor!
[Entrance hall]
ACE: Doctor, where are you? I want to talk to you!
DOCTOR: Ace! What's the matter?
ACE: Face-ache Matthews in there says this house is Gabriel Chase.
DOCTOR: So?
ACE: It was all falling down last time I saw it in 1983. You tricked me! This is Perivale!
(Two maids enter and Ace runs up the stairs. He follows her.)
DOCTOR: Ace!
[Trophy room]
DOCTOR: Ace.
ACE: It's true, isn't it. This is the house I told you about.
DOCTOR: You were thirteen. You climbed over the wall for a dare.
ACE: That's your surprise, isn't it, bringing me back here.
DOCTOR: Remind me what it was that you sensed when you entered this deserted house. An aura of intense evil?
ACE: Don't you have things you hate?
DOCTOR: I can't stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations. Terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls.
ACE: I told you I never wanted to come back here again.
DOCTOR: Then there's unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty.
ACE: Too right.
DOCTOR: We all have a universe of our own terrors to face.
ACE: I face mine on my own terms.
DOCTOR: But don't you want to know what happened here?
ACE: No!
DOCTOR: You've learned something you didn't recognise when you were thirteen.
ACE: Like what?
DOCTOR: The nature of the horror that you sensed here.
ACE: It's alien.
[Drawing room]
JOSIAH: Ernest, pray sit down. I'm afraid that something unforeseen awaits my attention. I shall have to ask you to indulge me a little further.
(Nearby, Gwendoline is singing to piano accompaniment.)
GWENDOLINE [OC]: I don't know what it is about my..
MATTHEWS: Having come so far, sir, I have no intention of leaving until I've gained full satisfaction.
JOSIAH: Then we're in accord. Mrs Pritchard, see to it that the Dean's time passes as quickly as possible.
(Mrs Pritchard puts some liquid from a bottle onto a lace-trimmed square doily.)
PRITCHARD: Very good sir.
(She puts the cloth over Matthew's face as Smith laughs)
[Music room]
GWENDOLINE: (singing) That's the way to the zoo, that's the way to the zoo. The monkey house is nearly full but there's room enough for you. Take a bus to Regent's Park, make haste before it shuts. Next Monday I will come and bring you such a lot of nuts.
[Trophy room]
GWENDOLINE [OC]: That's the way to the zoo.
DOCTOR: Come back to dinner, Ace.
ACE: When I lived in Perivale, me and my best mate, we dossed around together. We'd out-dare each other on things. Skiving off, stupid things. Then they burnt out Manisha's flat. White kids firebombed it. I didn't care anymore.
DOCTOR: I think you cared a lot, Ace.
ACE: That's when I came over the walls of the house. This house. I was so mad, and I needed to get away. It was empty, all overgrown and falling down. No one came here. But when I got inside it was even worse. I didn't know then. It was horrible!
(Smith enters quietly.)
DOCTOR: Tell me what you saw.
JOSIAH: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Tell me, Ace.
(Ace runs out of the room.)
ACE: Excuse me!
(Josiah closes the door after her.)
JOSIAH: I must speak with you.
(Ace runs downstairs and notices the lift standing open. Mrs Pritchard watches her get inside and operate it, and smiles.)
JOSIAH: I need your help, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes. It can't be easy being so far away from home, struggling to adapt to an alien environment.
JOSIAH: My roots are in this house. I'm as human as you are.
DOCTOR: Yes.
JOSIAH: I'm afflicted with an enemy, a vile and base creature pitted against me. It's waiting for me now. I believe that you can assist me in defeating it.
(Smith offers the Doctor a bundle of white bank notes.)
DOCTOR: I'm not interested in money. How much?
JOSIAH: Five thousand pounds to rid me of the evil brute.
DOCTOR: (whistles) Now that's what I call Victorian value. But I'm still not interested in money.
[Cellar]
(The lift reaches the bottom and Ace gets out. Mrs Pritchard closes the panel to conceal it at the top and bottom. Ace realises she is trapped, and moves forward to explore. She sees Nimrod still lying on the floor.)
VOICE [OC]: There's a new scent in the dark. There's a warming, pulsing, racing blood! Smells like ratkin.
(Another curtain moves aside and human sized insects in evening dress stagger out.)
VOICE [OC]: Wake up. Move yourselves. Come on. Ratkin's come to visit. Come on, move, move. Run, ratkin, run. Better get away.
(Ace runs into the tunnel.)
VOICE [OC]: Fetch!
ACE: You don't frighten me! Doctor!
VOICE [OC]: Ratkin! Ratkin! (The stuffed birds start squawking.) Ratkin!
