Mickey / Narrator [vo] :
At eleven the next morning, Holmes and Watson walked across the moor — again — to visit Holdernesse Hall.

[The entrance hall, Holdernesse Hall. Susan / Holmes strolls through the front door; a few moments later, Rose / Watson limps in and collapses onto the nearest chair.]

Susan / Holmes :
Feeling better today?

Rose / Watson :
Worse. I don't think I've ever been this stiff. We must have walked fifteen miles yesterday.

Susan / Holmes :
Oh, at least. Didn't you enjoy it?

Rose / Watson :
I hated every minute. And another six miles today.

Susan / Holmes :
Never mind. It'll get easier the more long-distance walking you do.

Rose / Watson :
I don't want to do any more ever again.

[Turlough / Wilder enters.]

Turlough / Wilder :
Oh, it's you again. What do you want this time?

Susan / Holmes :
We want to see the Duke.

Turlough / Wilder :
Out of the question. This news about the death of the German master has upset him deeply. He will not leave his room.

Susan / Holmes :
Then I'll go to his room.

Turlough / Wilder :
He's confined to his bed.

Rose / Watson [grabbing him by the collar] :
Listen to me, you weasel. I've had to walk six long, painful miles across the moor today to see the Duke. And I'm not going away until he sees us. And if you try and stop us [she leans close and drops her voice to a whisper] I'll fill your head with the Time Vortex and turn you to dust. Slowly.

[Turlough / Wilder goes pale and runs off.]

Susan / Holmes :
Would you really have turned him to dust?

Rose / Watson :
No. Your Granddad took the Vortex out of me.

Susan / Holmes :
So you were bluffing.

Rose / Watson :
Yeah, but he didn't know that, did he?

[The Duke's study. Susan / Holmes and Rose / Watson are sitting in armchairs. Ood Sigma / The Duke enters, accompanied by Turlough / Wilder.]

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
Good morning.

Susan / Holmes :
I think I could speak more freely in Mr. Wilder's absence.

Turlough / Wilder :
If you're going to try poisoning my employer's mind against me—

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
It will be all right. Leave.

Rose / Watson :
Yeah, you tell him.

[Turlough / Wilder reluctantly departs.]

Susan / Holmes :
Now, when Dr. Huxtable called me in, he said you were offering a reward. Five thousand pounds for anyone who will tell you where your son is?

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
Exactly.

Susan / Holmes :
And one thousand pounds to name the person holding him captive?

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
Exactly.

Susan / Holmes :
This would include anyone conspiring to keep him where he is, as well as the original kidnapper?

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
It would.

Susan / Holmes :
Then I think I've just earned six thousand pounds. The boy is, or was last night, held at the Fighting Cock Inn, two miles from here.

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
And whom do you accuse as the culprit?

Susan / Holmes :
You. You met him at the inn last night. I saw you through the window.

Ood Sigma / The Duke [not turning a hair, because he hasn't got any] :
That is unfortunate. Does anybody else know?

Susan / Holmes :
Only Watson here.

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
Then I will pay you six thousand pounds each. You will hold your tongues.

Rose / Watson :
Hang on. I'm not covering all this up. What about that man you had murdered out on the moor?

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
That was not me. I did not know. James did not know. The man Hayes is to blame.

Rose / Watson :
Aha. You said "James did not know." So he's mixed up in all this.

Susan / Holmes :
But he isn't the murderer.

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
No. The murderer has escaped.

Susan / Holmes :
Actually, the murderer was arrested last night in Chesterfield. I telegraphed the police there last night and they sent me a message this morning saying they'd got the man. Now, if you want to avoid a scandal you must tell us all you know.

Ood Sigma / The Duke :
This is not the case.

[All the doors open. More Ood advance into the room, their eyes red.]

The Ood :
You know too much. You must die. We apologise for the inconvenience.

[Susan / Holmes and Rose / Watson back away into a corner.]

Susan / Holmes :
You don't happen to have any of that Time Vortex left?

Rose / Watson :
Nope, not a sparkle. Don't fancy ripping your body open and zapping them with your life force, do you?

Susan / Holmes :
Wherever do you get such far-fetched ideas?

Rose / Watson :
Or perhaps you could just tell them to die and watch them keel over? I thought all your people could do that.

Susan / Holmes :
Well, we can't. You'll be saying next that if we fall from a great height we can relax our bones so we don't get reduced to jelly when we hit the ground.

[They're now hard against the wall. The Ood are nearly upon them, their translator globes held out.]

The Ood :
You must die. You must die. Have a nice day.

Rose / Watson :
What if you kissed me?

Susan / Holmes :
What?! How would that help?

Rose / Watson :
I dunno, but it's amazing how often you can't solve a problem without snogging someone these days.

Susan / Holmes :
That's it! Rose, you're brilliant!

[She puts her hands on Rose's face, one on each side, as if for a big smooch.]

Rose / Watson :
Now just a moment. I didn't mean—

[Susan / Holmes closes her eyes. A wave of luminous yellow energy bursts from Rose's head and washes through the room. All the Ood fall down.]

Rose / Watson :
Oh, my head! [She drops to her knees, clutching her head.] That really hurts. What did you do?

Susan / Holmes [talking at top speed, and sounding suspiciously like someone else] :
Oh, a simple defence that uses the latent energy of the brain to spread a psychic dampening force over the area. Implanted by direct telepathic contact and triggered by any suitable threat.

Rose / Watson :
... What's going on? Why do you sound just like the Doctor?

Susan / Holmes :
I'll explain later. We've got a lot to do. Come on, up on your feet. Look lively. We need to find a proton flux initiator. [She rummages in the Duke's desk, and pulls out a beeping, flashing device.] And a fully armed and operational battle TARDIS. [She removes the head of a suit of armour. Marie is inside; she raises an eyebrow but does not speak.] Now, if I just do something very clever — and I am very clever — I can stop the reactor going critical, send the Green-Bellied Tiddletwirlers back where they came from, save the Universe and receive the grateful thanks of the peoples of Earth.

[Rose picks up a glass of water from the desk and throws it in her face.]

Susan / Holmes :
Oh! Oh. I needed that.

Rose / Watson :
What happened to you?

Susan / Holmes [starting slowly, but gradually accelerating] :
I'm not sure. It must all have a perfectly logical explanation. Perhaps when I made the connection with your mind I picked up a psychic trace from a previous contact you made with Grandfather, and when your defensive trigger went off the latent energy was amplified and brought on a full-blown case of mental conformation to the newly-formed template. Isn't it brilliant? Molto bene! Allons—

[This time, she gets the whole jug over her head.]

Rose / Watson :
That had better be the last of it, 'cos I haven't got any more water here.

Susan / Holmes :
Don't worry. I think I'm over it now.

Rose / Watson :
So can we get back to the story?

Susan / Holmes :
Well, I should really ask the Duke to explain his actions and pay us our fee. But he's a little bit unconscious at the moment. Perhaps you could throw some water over him.

Rose / Watson :
I told you, I used it all on you.

Susan / Holmes :
I'll have to explain it all myself then. James Wilder the secretary was the Duke's secret son by another woman, and before you ask me how anything can cross-breed with an Ood and get you a Trion I'll remind you that this is Storytime and anyone can be the child of anyone else, and Wilder discovered this and became jealous of Lord Saltire because he was going to inherit all the estates and Wilder would get nothing, so Wilder decided to kidnap the boy and demand that the Duke leave the estate to him if he wanted to see his son alive again, so when the Duke wrote to his son

[she dashes to the desk, and mimes writing]

and put the letter on the hall table to be posted

[she runs to a table and mimes putting the letter thereon]

he slipped a note in telling the boy to meet him in the woods near the school that evening. And he cycled over there

[she jumps on a chair and mimes cycling]

and told Lord Saltire to climb out of his window at midnight and a man with a horse would take him to meet his mother, and then Hayes went there at midnight with a pony and the boy took the bait and went with him and the German master rode after them and Hayes struck his pursuer a fatal blow with his stick, like that,

[she snatches up an ebony ruler and brings it down on a huge freestanding vase, shattering it to atoms]

and took the boy away to the Fighting Cock Inn and locked him in the upstairs room, but before Wilder could make his ransom demand we discovered the body

[She kneels down on the rug and puts her hands to her cheeks in pretended horror]

and we informed the police

[She gets up and starts running to and fro again]

and the Duke got to hear of it and taxed Wilder with his crime and Wilder hurried off to the inn to warn Hayes and tell him to get clear, and then when it got dark the Duke followed and he met his son in the upstairs room

[She jumps onto the desk]

and agreed with Wilder that the boy would have to stay there until Hayes was safely away. And then, Colonel Mustard and Mrs White ran to the ballroom, but the door was jammed, so Professor Plum went to get the dagger from the dining room—

[During this speech Watson has been rolling up balls of paper and dropping them into the waste-paper basket. She now drops in a lighted match. Smoke fills the room, alarms blare, and a deluge of water pours from the sprinkler system. Marie, still in the armour, materialises an umbrella above her head.]

Susan / Holmes :
Oh, did I go again?

Rose / Watson :
Come on, let's get out of here before those Ood wake up.

[The moor, not far from Holdernesse Hall. Holmes and Watson, both still dripping wet, are shivering in the wind.]

Susan / Holmes :
Well, I think that rounds the case off quite nicely.

Rose / Watson :
We never got that twelve thousand pounds.

Susan / Holmes :
It isn't as if we'd have kept it when the story ended.

Rose / Watson :
Yeah, I suppose not.

Susan / Holmes :
Let's get going. It's only six miles back to the school.

Rose / Watson :
That is not what I wanted to hear.

[They start walking into the distance, their voices getting further away.]

Rose / Watson :
So who came up with the idea of horseshoes that left cow tracks?

Susan / Holmes :
Wilder, I think.

[A pause.]

Rose / Watson :
You know, I'm sure we've forgotten something.

Susan / Holmes :
Yes, so am I. I wonder what.

[They are now silhouettes on the horizon.]

Rose / Watson :
Can't be anything too important.

Susan / Holmes :
I'm sure you're right.

[The upper room at the Fighting Cock Inn. Lord Saltire sits on a rough bed.]

Adric / Lord Saltire :
Hello? Shouldn't someone have sent a footman to fetch me by now?

[The view pulls back, showing the Fighting Cock Inn, the moor, the North of England, the Earth.]

Adric / Lord Saltire [vo] :
Is anyone there? Hello?

"That story," little Adam said, "didn't make any sense at all."

Mickey was privately inclined to agree, but certainly wasn't going to criticise a story he'd just been telling. Fortunately, he didn't have to answer.

"It was funny!" baby Sarah countered. "Specially when Sherlock Holmes kept getting water thrown at her."

"And when Watson fell over in the gorse bushes," baby Ace added.

"And when Holmes kept talking so fast no-one knew what she was saying."

"And when Watson sat on the suitcase, and it broke."

"And when Doctor Huxtable fell over..."

Mickey closed the book, and sat back in relief.