Izzy / Narrator [vo] :
After a night and day of intensive study, Watson called on Holmes the next evening.

[Holmes is in a chair, wearing a dressing gown, with her head still bandaged.]

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Good job I don't believe the papers. They say you're dying.

Ace / Holmes :
What do they say I've got this time?

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Pig's Oblivion Nervousness.

Ace / Holmes :
Weird. I'd've thought you only got that if you were a pig.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Or maybe it's only if you're oblivious?

Ace / Holmes :
Anyway, you've learned all the porcelain stuff... I hope.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Cyclical dates, hallmarks, dynasties, you name it. And all the great people. Hung-wu and T'ang Yin and so on.

Ace / Holmes :
Fine. Give me that box on the mantelpiece, would you?

[Watson hands it over. Holmes opens it, revealing a delicate little saucer of the must beautiful deep-blue colour.]

Ace / Holmes :
It needs careful handling, Watson.

[She throws it to Watson, frisbee-style. Watson makes a desperate dive and just manages to catch it.]

Ace / Holmes :
It's Ming dynasty. A complete set would be worth a king's ransom.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
What do you want me to do with it?

Ace / Holmes :
You're gonna pose as a porcelain collector. You've got a set of these saucers, and you wonder if the Baron's interested in buying them.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
How much do I want for them?

Ace / Holmes :
I said. A king's ransom.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
I can't exactly say "One king's ransom, please," can I? He'd ask what sort of King I had in mind. How about if I suggest an independent valuation?

Ace / Holmes :
Yeah, that'd do.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
By the way, where did this saucer come from?

Ace / Holmes :
Sir James said it's from his client's collection.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
I bet he said he wanted it back in one piece, too.

Ace / Holmes :
Yeah, he did. So try not to drop it, OK?

[Baron Gruner's outer study. Through the window can be seen a gravelled courtyard, lined with statues. Some of the statues have their hands over their faces.

The Baron himself is standing in front of a huge case of antique porcelain. There is a discreet knock on the door, and a footman (Pte Ross) ushers Watson in.]

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner [turning, a small jug in his hand] :
Pray sit down, Doctor. Do you not think this little Tang specimen is exquisite? It is, of course, absolutely priceless. [He throws it to one side; it bounces several times before rolling undamaged into a corner.] Have you the Ming saucer with you of which you spoke?

[Watson hands it over. The Baron sits down at the desk, dons his brainy specs and examines it carefully. Watson, in turn, studies the Baron closely.]

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
He was certainly a remarkably handsome man, with large, dark, languorous eyes which might easily hold an irresistible fascination for women.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner [vo] :
Thanks. Don't happen to feel irresistibly fascinated yourself, do you?

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
Hey!

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner [vo] :
Just a thought.

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
In age I should have put him at little over thirty, though his record afterwards showed that he was nine hundred and forty-two.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Very fine indeed. And you say you have a set of six. But I'd like to know how they came into your possession.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Does it matter?

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Of course it matters. Supposing I bought them and then it turned out they weren't yours to sell?

Shou Yuing / Watson :
I'd pay you back, of course.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Or maybe you'd have vanished and I wouldn't see you again.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
If you want to be like that, fine. I thought a connoisseur like you'd be interested, but if you're not I'll sell them to someone else.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Who told you I was a connoisseur?

Shou Yuing / Watson :
You've written a book about porcelain, haven't you?

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Yes, I did. Have you read it?

Shou Yuing / Watson :
... No.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Well, if you don't read it and leave at least five gushing reviews for each chapter I'm not going to talk to you any more.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
You can't be serious.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
That's rich, coming from you. I wonder just how serious a connoisseur you are.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
What's that supposed to mean?

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
Tell me something about the Emperor Shomu.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
He took the throne in 715...

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner :
So far, so good.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
... and he invented the game of Freecell.

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner [pulling off his glasses] :
Ha! Got you! That's complete rubbish, but it's been on his Wikipedia page for months. I put the "citation needed" tag on it myself. You're not a porcelain collector at all. [He jumps to his feet.] I bet Sherlock Holmes sent you to spy on me. That wasn't very bright at all, my fine infiltrator. You won't find it as easy to get out as—

[He rummages in his desk, then hears something. He opens the door behind him, and dashes through. Watson is two steps behind him. In the inner study, the window is open, and Sherlock Holmes is making her exit through it. She holds up the notebook in triumph.]

Ace / Holmes :
See you later, alligator.

[She disappears into the laurel bushes. As the Baron gives chase, Kitty suddenly jumps out from the shrubbery, and throws liquid in the Baron's face. With a scream of agony, he falls to the ground. Kitty makes good her escape as Shou Yuing rushes over to assist.]

Shou Yuing / Watson :
What did she do? What was that stuff? [She picks up the bottle that Kitty dropped.] "Potions of death. Available at all good chemists." Doesn't mess about, does she?

Tenth Doctor / Baron Gruner [writhing in agony] :
It was that hell-cat, Kitty Winter! She'll pay for that if it's the last thing I do! I'm the Time Lord Victorious! She's going to spend the next million years peeping out of the corners of mirrors!

[Shou Yuing bends over the Baron, trying to administer first aid.]

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
The features which I had admired a few minutes before were now like some beautiful painting over which the artist has passed a wet and foul sponge. They were blurred, discoloured, inhuman, terrible.

[Sure enough, the Baron's face is beginning to glow and distort with regeneration energy.]

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
I was relieved when his family surgeon, closely followed by a specialist, came to relieve me of my charge.

[The regeneration runs its course. As always when the Tenth Doctor becomes the Eleventh, explosions go off around the room for no clearly-discernable reason, reducing several cabinets of irreplaceable porcelain to glittering dust and painted fragments. As the regeneration fades, Rory and Martha rush in and lead the Baron away.]

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
An inspector of police had also arrived, and to him I handed my real card.

[Amy, dressed in her policewoman costume, comes in. Shou Yuing delves in her pocket, finds a scrap of paper, scribbles on it, and hands it to her.]

Amy / Inspector :
What a mess. [She picks up the saucer, which seems to be about the only piece of porcelain to have escaped the destruction.] This is yours, isn't it?

[She holds it out. As she does so, Violet de Merville descends on a bungee cord, snatches it out of her hand, and disappears upward.]

Amy / Inspector :
Blast. I should've known. [She speaks into her radio.] Calling all cars. Calling all cars. Get after a flying bus with a posh English thief at the wheel. [She looks up.] Don't worry, Miss, I've notified the Flying Squad. She won't get away from us this time.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
That isn't a real radio, is it?

Amy / Inspector :
Nope.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
And there's no chance I'll never see that saucer again.

Amy / Inspector :
None.

Shou Yuing / Watson [vo] :
Then I left that house of gloom and terror. Within an hour I was at Baker Street. Holmes listened with horror to my account of the Baron's transformation.

[221B Baker Street.]

Ace / Holmes :
Serve the old beggar right. [She holds up the notebook.] Here it is. His lust diary. If this doesn't break off the marriage, nothing will.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
So that was your plan all along?

Ace / Holmes :
Yeah, send you in to keep him talking while me and Kitty nipped round the back to get the book. I didn't realise she'd got other plans.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
What, she was carrying a bottle with 'potions of death' written on it and it didn't ring any warning bells?

Ace / Holmes :
I didn't notice it.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Fat chance. You notice everything.

Ace / Holmes :
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, I sent for Sir James. Let's see what he's got to say for himself.

[With a flicker and a crackle, Sir James appears.]

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Did you get it?

Ace / Holmes :
Yeah, listen to this. [She opens the book.] "Cameca. She could do some amazing things with a pot of chocolate. Dumped her, but I've still got her brooch as a souvenir. Gemma Corwyn. I love a naughty nurse. Came to a sticky end. Queen Elizabeth I. Ooh, she was a goer." And so on and so on. [She leafs to the end.] "To do. Violet de Merville. Have ordered socket wrench and the latest Atomic Kitten CD."

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Disgusting. Anyway, I'll have that, if I may.

[Holmes tosses him the book, which he catches.]

Dream Lord / Sir James :
And the saucer?

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Violet de Merville nicked it.

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Such carelessness. Really, it doesn't surprise me in the least. I shall go and retrieve it from her at once.

Ace / Holmes :
Oi! Before you get any bright ideas about creeping off...

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Yes?

Ace / Holmes :
Let's talk about your client for a moment.

Dream Lord / Sir James :
What about him?

Ace / Holmes :
There's no such person, is there?

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Of course there is. I've told you: it would be a breach of confidence to reveal his name.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
I bet it's the King. All that stuff about a king's ransom. And the way the Baron talked about the saucer. He must have known it came from the Royal Collection.

Ace / Holmes :
That's just what Shortarse here wants you to think. Look, he's in this 'cos he wants to take the Doctor down and steal his lives.

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Which I did — or rather, tricked you into doing. One down, ten to go.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Hang on, you mean this was all a set-up?

Ace / Holmes :
Of course it was. Think about it. The Doctor treating Rose like dirt? Rose wanting revenge on him? This isn't about what the Doctor's really like. It's all about how he sees himself. If it wasn't for this bloke mucking about with everything, you'd have Harry Saxon as Gruner and Lucy Saxon as Kitty. QED.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
How can you be sure?

Ace / Holmes :
'Cos I know what it's like, having love interests die on you all the time. Mike Smith, Captain Sorin, all those blokes in the New Adventures...

Dream Lord / Sir James :
I see you do have some glimmers of detective ability. And here I am, the villain of the piece. [He flickers again, appearing on the far side of the room in a Snidely Whiplash costume and a waxed moustache Baron Gruner himself would envy.] It's a fair cop. You got me bang to rights. What are you going to do about it?

Ace / Holmes :
Blow ourselves up. Then we wake up in reality.

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Ace, are you sure about this?

Ace / Holmes :
No, but I'm doing it anyway. Look, the proper story's finished and I haven't blown anything up yet.

[She delves under her chair, and produces two grey cans with pins in the top. She pulls the pins out.]

Dream Lord / Sir James :
I hope you've got some memorable dying words lined up.

Ace / Holmes :
They can wait 'til I'm actually dying.

Dream Lord / Sir James [turning to Watson] :
And what about you? No parting gift for the world? No final declaration of forbidden love?

Shou Yuing / Watson :
Depends if I'm allowed to get a word in edgeways.

Dream Lord / Sir James :
Yes, I do see the problem there. Whatever you've got to say, you'd better say it in the next five seconds. Three. Two. One.

[Crash zoom on the can, as its timer reaches zero.]

Izzy turned the page.

"That... seems to be it," she said, sounding puzzled.

"But it can't end like that!" Victoria protested, sounding on the verge of tears. "We don't know if Sherlock Holmes is going to escape!"

"Of course she'll escape," the baby Ainley Master said. "She's Sherlock Holmes."

"But I don't see how."

"Bet you we won't find out. Sherlock Holmes will just come back and say she's indestructible."

"That's stupid..."

Izzy, finding that the conversation had ended up exactly where it had started, closed the book and turned her attention to the distribution of juice and biscuits.

*

Much later, when the children had left and Izzy was making a last tour of the premises before locking up for the night, she came to a halt before the storytelling chair. She folded her arms, and addressed the empty air.

"I know you're there."

There was a flicker, and the diminutive, malevolent figure of the Dream Lord was sitting in the chair. He was wearing a tatty XKCD T-shirt, ragged jeans, grubby trainers and a disdainful expression.

Izzy gave him her sternest look. "If I asked why you're here, would I get a sensible answer?"

"Cower now, brief mortal," he replied. "For I am the Lord of Dreams, 'gainst whom no lock may hold and blah blah blah. Come off it, you can guess what I want. We're Outside: ideas have substance here."

"You want to kill all the Doctors," Izzy said wearily. "And then steal their lives and become the Valeyard or the Ripper or whatever you're calling yourself this week. You know it won't work, don't you? The effects of a story only last as long as the story itself."

"Ah, such certainty about matters you know so little of." He leaned closer. "But, Isabelle, we don't have to be enemies. I can make all your fantasies come true." He paused as if listening. "Yes, even the one you're trying not to think of at the moment, you naughty girl. I'd make it easy for myself, if I were you."

Izzy's reply was short and pungent.

"Fair enough. No skin off my nose. If I had skin, or a nose." He vanished, and reappeared some distance away, wearing a striped jersey and a beret. "Au revoir, ma cherie."

With his usual flicker and the sound of birdsong, he was gone.

Izzy didn't feel the least bit reassured.

Acknowledgements

• "Doctor Who" characters belong to the BBC.
• "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• This Time Round was created by Tyler Dion.
• Look Who's Talking was created by Imran Inayat.
• Storytime was created by BKWillis.
• All diseases mentioned in this story are the product of the random disease generator at seventhsanctum.com.