Leaving the Doctor and Alf to examine the room, the woman had gone off to fetch her records. The Doctor was infuriatingly thorough in his examination of the room, but even he had to admit he was stumped.

‘And where’s the landlady got to?’ Alf enquired.

‘Let’s find out,’ the Doctor replied.




The Doctor knocked on the door. ‘Madame?’ he called. The door was quarter-opened, and a suspicious eye peered out.

The Doctor smiled his most charming smile back. ‘Have you found those records relating to Mr Hallward?’

‘Hallward? There is no one here of that name. What is your business here?’ the woman asked.

‘As I explained earlier, I’m a doctor visiting to advise on Mr Hallward’s condition. What do you mean there is no one here of the name Hallward?’

‘My English may not be too good, but I’m sure I said that right. There is no Hallward here.’ The landlady spoke slowly, emphasising each word.

‘But earlier you said…’

The woman swung the door open wider and stared intently at the Doctor and Alf. ‘Earlier? I’ve never seen you before! Now, if you have nothing better to do than waste my time…’ While the Doctor and Alf exchanged confused glances, the woman closed her door firmly.

‘What happened to her?’ Alf wondered. ‘Maybe she took a side-trip through the twilight zone after she left the room?’

‘There is something very wrong here, Alf. That woman appears to have forgotten everything to do with Basil Hallward. We need to prompt her memory somehow. What could we… I know, Hallward’s card!’

The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the small white rectangle. ‘See, here’s the name and this address.’ He tapped the writing on the card with his index finger, and as he drew his finger back the print came away with it, leaving a string of black that stretched and broke.

On the surface of the card, the remaining print was running down the tilted face towards the ground. And then the card warped in the Doctor’s hand, dissolving and running through his fingers and dropping towards the floor. As it fell, the substance changed to a mist and dissipated.

Alf looked up at the Doctor. ‘What the hell just happened?’

‘The card. It wasn’t real. It was… something else. Ectoplasm? Something insubstantial that seemed real for a while.’ He turned his hand over, looking for any trace of the card. There was none. He met Alf’s gaze. ‘This is more serious than I thought. Whatever is happening here is extremely dangerous, and it is centred on Oscar Wilde. We need to get back to him now.’




Nick groaned himself awake.

‘Bloody hell,’ he swore, a hand automatically clutching at his temple. ‘What the buggery bullocks hit me? And did I get a chance to hit it back?’

‘Drinking absinthe for the first time often has the effect of being run over by a carriage,’ a voice somewhere above and to Nick’s right said, sympathetic amusement colouring its rich tenor tones. ‘But one soon becomes accustomed to it. As for the rest…’ The voice paused before resuming in what wasn’t quite the same light tone, though it sounded like it wished it could have been, ‘I really couldn’t tell you about the rest.’ Nick opened his eyes to find a concerned Oscar Wilde watching him from a nearby easychair. ‘How do you feel now?’ the writer continued, his voice soft with worry.

Nick blinked, bringing the author into better focus. ‘Like someone’s using my head as a tap dance stage,’ he replied honestly. ‘But hey, a minute ago it felt like the whole sodding cancan line, so that’s an improvement.’ The smile flickered across Wilde’s face again, and he reached out to take Nick’s hand and give it a gentle squeeze. Nick looked around, taking in his surroundings, and realised they were back in Wilde’s hotel room, and he was lying on the chaise longue, and there was daylight outside.

‘What happened?’ Nick asked. ‘Everything’s pretty fuzzy after the café.’

‘Let us simply say the absinthe didn’t agree with you,’ Oscar said smoothly. ‘Shall I ring for some tea or coffee? Would that help?’

Nick shrugged. ‘Dunno, but it probably couldn’t hurt.’ He stayed on the chaise longue while Wilde made arrangements for coffee, and when Wilde rejoined him, settling his tall bulk in the easychair situated near the chaise, Nick asked, ‘So did we find out any more weird stuff last night or not?’

‘Well, we did have another run-in with some characters of mine,’ Oscar seemed to be picking his words carefully, but Nick was still in too disoriented a state of mind to take much notice of it. ‘But I didn’t think of anything else extraordinary that’s happened recently, if that’s what you’re asking, dear boy. You will be all right?’ The older man looked guilty, and Nick hastened to reassure him.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said stoutly. ‘I’ve had worse hangovers than this, really. If you think absinthe’s bad, you should try the Ossoban Soul Killer!’ He looked around the room again, trying to find a new topic with which to change the conversation. At that point the coffee arrived, and Wilde thanked the man who brought it - it looked like the same man who’d been on desk duty yesterday when the Doctor, Alf, and Nick himself showed up - before taking the tray and its things over to Nick.

‘Shall I be mother?’ Oscar asked with a smile, and at Nick’s answering smile poured the coffee into two small cups. Nick sat himself up gingerly, wincing only once or twice, and gratefully took the cup of steaming liquid proffered by the writer. He blew on it carefully before taking a sip.

‘Much better,’ Nick said with a sigh. ‘Ta, Oscar.’

‘My pleasure, Nick,’ Oscar replied and took a sip of his own drink.

Nick tried again to recall what had happened last night, and felt a twinge in his legs, where the implants were situated. He laid a hand on his left leg, putting the coffee cup down with the other one and breathed out a single word. ‘Shit.’

‘Nick?’

‘I just remembered what happened.’

Oscar paused, then settled his own cup down on the table by his chair. ‘I’m sorry, Nick. I thought it best if you remembered on your own.’ The writer blinked. ‘I’m not sure exactly what I remember myself…’ he added in a murmur, more to himself apparently than to Nick.

‘Shit,’ Nick repeated and stood up abruptly. ‘We’ve gotta find the Doctor. Tell him what happened.’

‘Nick -’

‘Come on, Oscar!’ Nick looked down at the still-seated writer. ‘This is serious, mate! This isn’t just some wandering lost little girl; I could’ve been killed!’

‘Do we know that for certain?’ Oscar looked frightened by the possibility that his own characters could do this, and Nick forced himself to sit down and stay calm. ‘Surely it was all an illusion, something intangible and incapable of actually causing physical harm.’

‘I don’t know,’ Nick replied, ‘that’s why I want to find the Doctor. He’ll know what’s going on. Or at least, he’ll be able to figure it out.’

‘We don’t know where he is,’ Oscar pointed out reasonably, taking another sip of his drink. ‘However, apparently he and your other friend dropped by here yesterday evening. They left a message that they’d come back today.’ Oscar looked at him sympathetically. ‘It would therefore be best to wait here for them. Agreed, Nick?’

Nick nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Fair enough.’