Chapter Twenty-one: Death Comes as the End

Rose kept the Doctor's hand firmly clasped in her own as they walked together through the TARDIS. Even though the dress she wanted to wear had been in the wardrobe room that afternoon, she knew it would be waiting for her in their room when they arrived. After their narrow escape with the poison, she wasn't in any hurry to let the Doctor out of her sight.

The Doctor's presence sharpened over the bond, comforting Rose. "I'm fine," he reminded her as he pushed their door open. "Nothing some ginger beer and a jolt of electricity couldn't cure."

Rose finally cracked a smile, then grimaced when the Doctor bent down to brush his lips over her forehead. He stank of ginger beer and anchovies. "Get cleaned up," she directed, pushing him gently towards the ensuite.

He unzipped her dress first, then stripped out of his soiled suit and tossed it in the laundry on his way to take a shower. A moment later, she heard the water turn on, and she turned her attention to her own appearance.

Rose hung the lavender dress up in their wardrobe, then pulled out the crimson flapper evening gown. She loved the teasing feel of the fringed skirt as it brushed against her knees, and she did an experimental turn in front of the mirror, watching it flare out around her legs before settling back down.

Her hair floated back down around her shoulders, and she tilted her head and studied her expression in the mirror, picturing the best ways to twist it up in the current style. A moment later, the incongruity of it all struck her. she was dressing up to go to a murder mystery dinner, except there had been two actual murders.

Remembering how close they'd come to a third murder— well, if you could call it murder if the victim regenerated—her smile disappeared and she sat down at her vanity to do her hair and makeup.

The shower turned off while she was pinning the last twisted strand of hair into place. "So, is this typical behaviour for a Vespiform?" Rose asked when the Doctor entered the room.

"Absolutely not," he said, his voice certain. He opened the wardrobe and pulled out a clean suit and Oxford. "I've been trying to work out what went wrong with this one, actually, because usually they're peaceful and interact well with other species."

"Hmmm…" She carefully set a red velvet and rhinestone hairband on her head. "Well, this one certainly isn't playing well with others."

The Doctor tucked his shirttails into his trousers and zipped them up, then reached for a tie. "No, it's not."

Rose draped a long strand of beads around her neck, then stood up as the Doctor pulled his jacket on. "Let's go solve a murder mystery, Doctor." His eyes sparkled, and she laughed with him as she took his arm.

Night had fallen when the Doctor and Rose walked back to the house, and clouds had rolled in, obscuring the moon. Rose shivered when a cool wind brushed over her bare arms, and the Doctor shrugged out of his jacket and rested it around her shoulders.

"It doesn't exactly go with that dress you're wearing," he said, glancing down at the knee-length red skirt he could still see. "But it'll keep you warm."

Rose slid her arm through his. "Thank you, Doctor. So. What's the plan?"

"I'm going to nip down to the kitchen once we're inside and make a slight amendment to dinner," he told her. "Then we'll see what happens from there."

Greeves blinked when they appeared at the front door, and the Doctor took advantage of the butler's momentary confusion to slip away after Rose handed his jacket back. It was a bit harder to sneak into the kitchen and dump pepper into the soup, but eventually, he achieved his goal. Piperine was toxic to insectoid lifeforms all over the universe, including the Vespiform. Now all that remained was to see who reacted when they learned they'd been poisoned.

He returned to the main floor just in time to follow Jenny into the dining room. To his surprise, she gave him a quick hug and whispered, "I'm so glad you're all right." The Doctor looked over her head at Rose as he squeezed Jenny in return. The notion that he actually had a family hadn't quite set in, but moments like this kept reminding him.

A bolt of lightning lit the night sky as the footmen served the soup, punctuated by a crash of thunder, and the Doctor took that as his cue to begin. "A terrible day for all of us. The Professor struck down, Miss Chandrakala taken cruelly from us, and yet we still take dinner."

"We are British, Doctor," Lady Eddison said quellingly, a glass of wine in one hand. "What else must we do?"

Rose snorted. "Easy for you to say, your ladyship. No one tried to poison your husband this afternoon." Lady Eddison flushed, but offered no apology.

The Doctor reached for Rose's hand under the tablecloth and squeezed gently. "Quite right, Rose," he agreed. "Although that did give me an idea."

The vicar paused. "And what would that be?"

"Well, poison," he said matter-of-factly. "Drink up."

He watched with barely controlled amusement when spoons stopped in mid-air as those words sunk in. Even Jenny and Donna looked uncertain, while Rose was trying to conceal her smile.

After letting the words linger, unexplained, he added, "I've laced the soup with pepper." The sighs of relief were audible, and the Doctor paid attention to who started eating again.

"Ah, I thought it was jolly spicy," Colonel Curbishley said jovially.

Seated just the other side of Rose, Roger was still staring at his soup. The Doctor narrowed his eyes and focused on the young peer.

"But the active ingredient of pepper is piperine, traditionally used as an insecticide." He looked away from Roger and scanned the rest of the room. "So, anyone got the shivers?"

Thunder crashed and a gust of wind blew the windows open, extinguishing the candles and plunging the room into shadow. Although it added to the atmosphere of the moment, it made it quite a bit harder to see who had stopped eating.

And underneath the sound of the storm…

"What the deuce is that?" the colonel demanded.

"Listen, listen, listen, listen," the Doctor insisted, pointing his finger at the ceiling. If you listened closely, you could hear a faint buzzing mixed in with the wind.

"No, it can't be."

The Doctor's eyes widened and he looked at Lady Eddison, illuminated in stark relief by a bolt of lightning. She was staring up at the ceiling, and the expression in her wide eyes resembled recognition more than shock or confusion.

How could she know what that sound is?

Something about the whole scenario bothered him, but before he could work out what it was, Agatha stood up and turned towards the buzzing.

"Show yourself, demon."

Her challenge seemed to spur everyone into action, and the Doctor groaned as he lost track of who was where—and more importantly, who was still human and who was not.

"Nobody move," he ordered uselessly. "No, don't! Stay where you are."

Another flash of lightning revealed the murderer in their midst, buzzing in midair in front of the window. The Doctor's strategy shifted when the danger was evident, and he waved at the crowd, encouraging them to take cover.

"Out, out, out, out, out, out!" he cried. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Greeves usher Donna and Jenny into the butler's pantry. He reached for Rose, but she'd already stood up and tugged Roger to his feet.

"Come on, Roger," she shouted as they followed the butler's example.

The Doctor took Agatha by the elbow and pushed her into the crowded space.

"I say!" Roger tugged his arm free and straightened his dinner jacket. "Was it really necessary to manhandle me like that, Mrs. Tyler?"

Rose put her hands on her hips. "Oi! I could've let you get murdered, if you'd rather?"

They could still hear buzzing out in the dining room, and Rose grabbed Agatha's wrist and pulled her back when she stepped towards the door. "Does everyone want to die?" she asked acerbically as the Doctor pulled a sword from the wall. "This is part of the Doctor's plan to reveal the murderer's true identity. Let him work."

Donna pointed her thumb over her shoulder at Greeves. "Well, we know the butler didn't do it."

"Then who did?" the Doctor asked as he unsheathed the sword and led the way back into the dining room.

The first thing Rose noticed was that the buzzing had stopped. The second thing was Colonel Curbishley, lying on his side in front of his overturned wheelchair. She tipped the chair back up, then lifted the older man back into it with the vicar's help.

The electric lights came back on as they worked, and Rose was relieved to be able to see everyone clearly when she turned back around.

At the head of the table, Lady Eddison clutched at her necklaces as she reached for her drink, but suddenly her eyes widened and she put both her hands to her chest.

"My jewellery," she gasped. "The Firestone, it's gone. Stolen."

Something else had caught Rose's eye. "I think you're lucky that's all you lost," she said, pointing at the Roger's place at the table.

Gasps filled the room. The plate was broken, and a sharp kitchen knife pierced the table.

"Oh well… I…"

Rose glanced up at Roger, whose face was now as white as his cravat."You should go lie down," she told him sympathetically. Roger blinked at her, then nodded slowly and shuffled towards the door.

"Oi, what's your name?" Donna gestured at the footman. "Davenport, right? Well, Davenport, why don't you go with him, make sure there's nothing he needs?"

A grateful smile stretched across Davenport's face, and he was halfway to the door before he realised he hadn't gotten permission from his actual employers. When he turned around, Lady Eddison was still clutching her beaded necklace and staring at the table in disbelief, so his gaze swung to the colonel instead.

The colonel's features tightened, but he waved towards the door. "Might as well let you go—you'll be useless for anything else if I don't." Davenport didn't need any further invitation, and he was gone in an instant.

"That's not entirely cricket, is it?" Reverend Golightly said. "After all, we still haven't figured out who the murderer is, and until we do, everyone is a suspect."

Jenny pointed at the large chef knife protruding from the table. "I think Roger was the next intended victim, which would mean he can't be the murderer," she pointed out.

"Excellent point, Jenny," the Doctor agreed.

"Unless he purposely did that to eliminate suspicion," the reverend pressed.

Rose shook her head. "Of all of you, Roger was the only one who had an alibi for the time of Professor Peach's murder. Not to mention, he was with us in the butler's pantry."

The Doctor stepped forward before the reverend could argue further. "You do have a point, however," he said. "There's still a murderer at large. Why don't we all reconvene in the drawing room in ten minutes? I think it's time we got to the bottom of this."

Once dismissed, the party left the dining room quickly, not keen to be so close to an attempted murder scene. The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Rose, but she shook her head and sat down beside the still-trembling Lady Eddison.

The Doctor nodded, then gestured to the door. "Shall we, ladies?" he said to Agatha, Jenny, and Donna.

A flash of lightning blinded him for a moment when they reached the drawing room. The storm outside matched his tumultuous mood. His plan to unmask the killer had backfired—if it hadn't been for Rose's quick thinking, they would have had another dead body on their hands instead.

"We must figure this out, Doctor." Agatha sat down on the couch and stared into space over her clasped hands. "Two murders, and a third attempted, and we are no closer to unmasking the killer."

"I know," the Doctor said sharply, then repeated it, his voice softer. "I know."

He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels in front of the fireplace. There was something he was missing…

"Well, I'm glad Roger didn't die, for Davenport's sake," Donna said. "At least at the end of all this, they'll still have each other."

The Doctor nodded absently, his mind already on other details. "This thing can sting. It could wipe us all out in seconds. Why is it playing this game?"

"Every murder is essentially the same," Agatha explained, and the Doctor looked over at her. If anyone could make sense of murder, it was Agatha Christie. "They are committed because somebody wants something."

Rose slipped into the room before he could ask what a Vespiform would want. "Lady Eddison is taking some of her tonic, then everyone should be here in ten minutes."

"Did you enquire after the necklace?" Agatha asked.

Rose joined the Doctor by the fireplace, and he automatically wrapped an arm around her waist. "Lady Eddison bought it back from India. It's worth thousands."

India. Everything centred on Lady Eddison's trip to India, but there was still something just out of reach.

Rose looked up at him. "Have you figured something out, Doctor?"

"Almost." He ran his hand through his hair. "So, Lady Eddison went to India several years ago."

"Forty," Rose supplied. "That's what she told me, at least."

"That's what Greeves said too," Donna added.

The Doctor took a breath to rein in his impatience at being interrupted. "All right. Forty years ago, Lady Eddison returned from India, indisposed, and quarantined herself in a room until she recovered."

To his surprise, a sudden flash of understanding hit Rose, and he watched as she, Donna, and Agatha exchanged a speaking glance. "What?" he demanded. "What is it?"

"Oh, she didn't quarantine herself, Doctor," Agatha corrected. "She was confined until she gave birth."

Jenny opened her mouth, but Rose shook her head before she could ask the innocent question she could see on the tip of her tongue. They could explain twentieth century morality and cultural norms to her later.

The Doctor stared unblinking at them for a long moment, processing that fact and fitting it in with what he already knew. "So the paper, the one that said maiden…"

"Birth certificate," Agatha confirmed. "I didn't put it together myself until you said she came home indisposed."

The Doctor thought quickly. Agatha had said murders were committed because someone wanted something, and wanting revenge after being abandoned as a baby was certainly a valid motive. But who… He did the maths and landed on the answer in seconds. If Lady Eddison's child was forty years old, then the vicar was the only possible suspect. He reviewed their first meeting with the vicar and nodded—the vicar who had been raised in an orphanage, of course.

"Right." The Doctor crossed the room to sit down across from Agatha. A plan was rapidly forming in his mind, but he couldn't execute it by himself. "Then I think I know who the murderer is, but we'll need your help to expose them, Agatha. Because you're the expert when it comes to slowly unveiling the secrets of a group of suspects."

Agatha glared at him and shook her head firmly. "I'm not. I told you. I'm just a purveyor of nonsense." She rested her chin on her hand in a posture of defeat.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no." The Doctor shifted closer to her. "Plenty of people write detective stories, but yours are the best. And why? Why are you so good, Agatha Christie? Because you understand. You've lived, you've fought, you've had your heart broken. You know about people." A glimmer of curiosity broke through Agatha's downcast expression, and he knew she was already writing the scene in her mind, thinking about how they could reveal the killer. "Their passions, their hope, and despair, and anger. All of those tiny, huge things that can turn the most ordinary person into a killer. Just think, Agatha. We need a classic denouement, a la Poirot, and no one writes those better than you."

Agatha straightened up and looked at the Doctor, her blue eyes bright and confident. "You want me to reveal the secrets of this house, the way Poirot would?"

"Yes!"

She nodded. "Then let us begin. The stage is set; bring in the players."

As if on cue, the door opened and Greeves wheeled in Colonel Curbishley, followed by Lady Eddison, Reverend Golightly, and Miss Redmond. Rose, Donna, and Jenny sat down to the right of the fireplace while the Doctor paced in front of it.

"I've called you here on this Endless Night because we have a murderer in our midst," he began once everyone was situated. With all eyes on him, he raised his eyebrows dramatically, then threw them a googly, turning suddenly and pointing to Agatha. "And when it comes to detection, there's none finer. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Agatha Christie."

The Doctor sat down in the empty spot on the couch beside Rose and let Agatha take centre stage in front of the fireplace. She paced once, then turned on the guests, her face set with determination.

"This is a Crooked House. A house of secrets."

The Doctor watched the members of the party squirm under Agatha's knowing gaze. Lady Eddison especially fidgeted with her glass when secrets were mentioned, and he nodded slightly.

"To understand the solution, we must examine them all," Agatha continued. "Starting with you, Miss Redmond," she said, turning away from Lady Eddison at the last moment to look at the youngest member of the party.

All eyes turned towards Miss Redmond, filled with surprise and suspicion. The Doctor frowned; what secrets did Agatha think the young socialite was hiding?

I told you she was lying about something earlier, remember? Rose reminded him.

Miss Redmond fidgeted with a game piece she'd picked up from the bridge table. "But I'm innocent, surely?" she said, her voice a little too bright.

Agatha raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. "You've never met these people, and these people have never met you. I think the real Robina Redmond never left London. You're impersonating her."

Panic flared in Miss Redmond's eyes, and she shifted in her seat. "How silly. What proof do you have?" she challenged.

A ghost of a smile crossed Agatha's face. "You said you'd been to the toilet."

"Oh, I know this," Donna said. "If she was really posh, she'd say loo."

Agatha ignored Donna and picked up the lock pick case from the coffee table. The Doctor groaned softly. Of course—he'd forgotten all about the Unicorn in the middle of figuring out the wasp.

"Earlier today, Miss Noble and I found this on the lawn, right beneath your bathroom window."

Miss Redmond turned away from Agatha and the damning evidence and took a sip of her wine.

"You must have heard that Miss Noble was searching the bedrooms, so you panicked. You ran upstairs and disposed of the evidence."

"I've never seen that thing before in my life."

The Doctor had to admire her determination to brazen the situation out, even though her guilt was obvious to everyone in the room.

"What's inside it?" Lady Eddison asked.

Agatha opened the case and showed the tools to everyone. "The tools of your trade, Miss Redmond. Or should I say, the Unicorn."

Gasps filled the room, and even though the Doctor had asked Agatha to run the show for exactly this reason, he still marveled at her ability to reveal the secrets, one at a time. She held the room in the palm of her hand, and she didn't even realise it.

"You came to this house with one sole intention. To steal the Firestone."

"Oh, all right then," Miss Redmond—or whatever her name was—said, a Cockney accent coming through her practiced posh voice. "It's a fair cop. Yes, I'm the bleeding Unicorn." She stood up and sauntered across the room, glaring at all of them. "Ever so nice to meet you, I don't think. I took my chance in the dark and nabbed it." She pulled the Firestone out of her bra, then looked at the Doctor. "Go on then, you knobs. Arrest me. Sling me in jail." She tossed the necklace across the room at the Doctor, then put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin defiantly.

Why'd she throw it at me? he wondered as he caught the stone.

Rose patted him on the knee. Because you told everyone you're from Scotland Yard, love.

Ah. Right.

"So, is she the murderer?" Jenny asked.

"Don't be so thick." The Unicorn leaned against the back of Colonel Curbishley's chair and scowled at them. "I might be a thief, but, well, I ain't no killer."

"Quite," Agatha agreed. "There are darker motives at work. And in examining this household, we come to you, Colonel."

Again, she shifted her gaze from Lady Eddison to her true quarry at the last moment, and the Doctor shook his head in admiration. Each time she stared at her ladyship, the older woman's poise slipped a little bit further. He looked at the colonel, wondering what Agatha had sussed out about him.

Curbishley cast a frantic gaze at his wife, who looked back at him with wide eyes. "Damn it, woman," he growled at Agatha. "You with your perspicacity. You've rumbled me." He put his hands on the arms of his wheelchair and stood, without a hint of difficulty.

"Hugh!" Lady Eddison gasped. "You can walk. But why?"

Curbishley smiled sadly at her and took her hand. "My darling, how else could I be certain of keeping you by my side?"

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"You're still a beautiful woman, Clemency. Sooner or later some chap will turn your head. I couldn't bear that."

Lady Eddison pressed his hand to her forehead, and the Doctor rather thought the colonel hadn't given his wife enough credit—though he could certainly relate to the belief that his wife deserved far better than him.

Rose poked him in the side. Stop it, she ordered, and he smiled and shrugged sheepishly.

"Staying in the chair was the only way I could be certain of keeping you," the colonel concluded. "Confound it, Mrs. Christie." He pulled his hand away from Lady Eddison and wheeled on Agatha. "How did you discover the truth?"

Agatha shook her head slightly. "Um… Actually, I had no idea. I was just going to say you're completely innocent."

"Oh." The colonel gaped at her.

"Sorry," Agatha apologised, in that awkward British way of apologising for things that were not their fault.

"Well. Well, shall I sit down then?" Curbishley asked.

Agatha nodded. "I think you better had."

"So he's not the murderer," Donna stated.

"Indeed, not."

The Doctor thought the moment had finally come, and he handed over the Firestone. A glimmer of a smile appeared on Agatha's face as she took it from him.

"To find the truth, let's return to this." She held it up and the gem at the centre of the heart-shaped locket flashed with purple fire. "Far more than the Unicorn's object of desire. The Firestone has quite a history. Lady Eddison."

The Doctor dropped his chin and studied her ladyship, noticing the trembling hands wrapped around the glass tumbler.

"I've done nothing," the lady insisted, her voice breathless.

"You brought it back from India, did you not? Before you met the Colonel."

Lady Eddison's eyes watered before she closed them, and a pang of sympathy flashed over the bond from Rose. The Doctor squeezed her hand. There's no way to catch the killer without exposing her secrets, he told her regretfully, and she nodded.

Agatha continued, relentless. "You came home with malaria, and confined yourself to this house for six months, in a room that has been kept locked ever since, which I rather think means…"

Lady Eddison set her glass down on the table. "Stop, please," she begged, her voice thick with tears.

"I'm so sorry," Agatha said sincerely. "But you had fallen pregnant in India. Unmarried and ashamed, you hurried back to England with your confidante, a young maid later to become housekeeper. Miss Chandrakala."

A ripple of shock had gone through the colonel when Agatha revealed his wife's secret, and finally, he found his voice. "Clemency, is this true?"

Lady Eddison shook her head and her throat moved as she swallowed back tears. "My poor baby. I had to give him away. The shame of it."

"But you never said a word," her husband protested.

"I had no choice." Lady Eddison picked up her glass again, but her hands were shaking so badly that the ice clinked against the side of the glass. "Imagine the scandal. The family name. I'm British. I carry on."

The Doctor watched her take a drink, and he knew it was his turn. "And it was no ordinary pregnancy."

Lady Eddison's eyes widened. "How can you know that?" she whispered.

"Excuse me Agatha, this is my territory." He looked up at Agatha quickly, and she nodded. Then he looked back at Lady Eddison. "But when you heard that buzzing sound in the dining room, you said, 'It can't be.' Why did you say that?"

She shook her head. "You'd never believe it."

"The Doctor has opened my mind to believe many things," Agatha said as she sat down.

Lady Eddison took a deep breath and started her story. "It was forty years ago, in the heat of Delhi, late one night. I was alone, and that's when I saw it. A dazzling light in the sky."

The Doctor nodded; that would have been the Vespiform's ship, breaking atmosphere.

"The next day, he came to the house. Christopher, the most handsome man I'd ever seen. Our love blazed like a wildfire. I held… nothing back," she said, delicately referring to the intimate relationship that had obviously developed between herself and the Vespiform. She took a drink to compose herself before continuing the story. "And in return he showed me the incredible truth about himself. He'd made himself human, to learn about us. This was his true shape."

"He was a Vespiform—a human-sized wasp," the Doctor stated, and she nodded.

"I loved him so much, it didn't matter," Lady Eddison said, near tears again. "But he was stolen from me. Eighteen eighty-five, the year of the great monsoon. The river Jumna rose up and broke its banks. He was Taken at the Flood. But Christopher left me a parting gift." She gestured to the necklace Agatha still held. "A jewel like no other. I wore it always. Part of me never forgot. I kept it close, always." Her tears finally overflowed.

Miss Redmond snorted derisively. "Just like a man. Flashes his family jewels and you end up with a bun in the oven."

The Doctor cast a sidelong gaze at Reverend Golightly, who appeared slightly ill at the story behind his own conception.

"A poor little child," Agatha said, repeating Miss Chandrakala's dying words. "Forty years ago, Miss Chandrakala took that newborn babe to an orphanage. But Professor Peach worked it out. He found the birth certificate."

"So she killed him?" Jenny asked.

"I did not," Lady Eddison said indignantly, her voice throbbing with tears.

"Miss Chandrakala feared that the Professor had unearthed your secret," Agatha continued. "She was coming to warn you."

"So she killed her," Donna guessed, and Rose's shoulders started shaking from repressed laughter at the commentary coming from their two travelling companions.

"I did not," Lady Eddison repeated.

"Lady Eddison is innocent," Agatha said, ending that line of questioning at last. Lady Eddison heaved a shuddering breath, and Agatha turned to the Doctor. "Because at this point, Doctor…"

Rose leaned back against the couch to watch as the Doctor jumped to his feet and started pacing in front of the fireplace. He was all manic energy as he switched into lecture mode, and oh, she loved it when he was like this.

"Thank you. At this point, when we consider the lies and the secrets, and the key to these events, then we have to consider"—He pivoted and pointed at Donna—"it was you, Donna Noble."

Donna nearly spat out one of the nuts she'd been eating. "What? Who did I kill?"

Rose's amusement finally broke forth in a few stifled chuckles. She turned to look at Donna and Jenny, who were both watching the proceedings with wide eyes. "No, Donna. It's you who's pointed out the vital clue, right from the start. This whole thing is being acted out like a murder mystery."

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed, turning to Agatha as he spoke. "Which means it was you, Agatha Christie."

Agatha stared at his pointing finger. "I beg your pardon, sir?"

"I don't think she killed them," argued Jenny.

The Doctor nodded. "No, she didn't. But she wrote. She wrote those brilliant, clever books. And who's her greatest admirer? The Moving Finger points at you, Lady Eddison."

"Don't. Leave me alone." Lady Eddison took another sip of her drink and cowered in her corner of the couch.

Rose raised her hand before either Jenny or Donna could comment. "No. She didn't kill them. Just listen."

The Doctor smiled at Rose, then looked back at Lady Eddison. "Last Thursday night, what were you doing?"

"I was…" Lady Eddison sniffed. "I was in the library. I was reading my favourite Agatha Christie, thinking about her plots, and how clever she must be. How is that relevant?" she asked as she set down her crystal tumbler.

"Just think," the Doctor prodded. "What else happened on Thursday night?"

There was a lull in the conversation while the Doctor turned towards Reverend Golightly and waited for him to realise he was the focus of his attention now.

The vicar blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"You said on the lawn, this afternoon. Last Thursday night, those boys broke into your church."

"That's correct." The vicar nodded. "They did. I discovered the two of them. Thieves in the night. I was most perturbed. But I apprehended them."

"Really?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow and looked down at the man, skepticism pouring off him. "A man of God against two strong lads? A man in his forties? Or, should I say forty years old, exactly."

"Oh, my God." Lady Eddison gasped as she looked at her son for the first time.

"Lady Eddison, your child, how old would he be now?" the Doctor asked.

She tore her gaze away from the vicar to nod at the Doctor. "Forty. He's forty."

"Your child has come home."

The vicar was squirming under the scrutiny of the whole group. "Oh, this is poppycock," he insisted, but his laughter was forced.

"Oh?" The Doctor rocked back on his heels, then bounced lightly on his toes. "You said you were taught by the Christian Fathers, meaning you were raised in an orphanage."

Lady Eddison stared at the vicar, someone she'd welcomed into her house without even knowing who he was to her. "My son. Can it be?"

The lines around the vicar's mouth tightened, and the Doctor glanced at Rose. She nodded once and slid further down the couch, away from the Vespiform.

He looked back at the vicar then and pressed his point. "You found those thieves, Reverend, and you got angry." The Doctor stepped towards the vicar as he launched into the full explanation of what had happened Thursday night. "A proper, deep anger, for the first time in your life, and it broke the genetic lock."

The tension on the vicar's face eased, but to the Doctor's trained eye, he looked like a man resolved to stay his course, not one who had decided to give it up. Be ready to run, Rose, he told her, glancing from her to Jenny and Donna sitting behind her. All three of them nodded, and he turned back to the vicar, the entire exchange having taken barely five seconds.

"You changed," he continued. "You realised your inheritance. After all these years, you knew who you were." He spun around and picked up the Firestone. "Oh, and then it all kicks off, because this isn't just a jewel. It's a Vespiform telepathic recorder."

The vicar's gaze focused on the stone, a frown furrowing his brow. The Doctor walked closer to the door as he waved the stone around, hoping to push the vicar into changing, but also hoping to keep his attention focused on himself, so the rest of the party would be safe.

"It's part of you, your brain, your very essence. And when you activated, so did the Firestone. It beamed your full identity directly into your mind." He leaned down on the back of the couch. "And, at the same time, it absorbed the works of Agatha Christie directly from Lady Eddison. It all became part of you. The mechanics of those novels formed a template in your brain. You've killed, in this pattern, because that's what you think the world is."

The Doctor walked around the corner of the couch and sat down on the end table. "It turns out, we are in the middle of a murder mystery." He looked at the author. "One of yours, Dame Agatha."

"Dame?" she repeated, and the Doctor remembered they were still at the beginning of her career, long before she received honours.

"Oh. Sorry, not yet."

"So he killed them, yes?" Donna asked.

"Definitely?" Jenny added.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes."

Anger blazed in the vicar's eyes, but he managed to keep his voice even. "Well, this has certainly been a most entertaining evening."

No one shared the vicar's pathetic attempt at laughter, and Lady Eddison in particular looked at her son with mute horror.

The vicar swallowed and shook his head. "Really, you can't believe any of this surely, Lady Edizzon."

The Doctor stood up and took a step towards the vicar. "Lady who?"

Irritation flashed in his eyes. "Lady Edizzzzon."

"Little bit of buzzing there, Vicar," the Doctor said, pointing at his own throat.

"Don't make me angry." The vicar stood up and moved to stand behind the couch.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Rose and the Doctor shared a smile when the thought came to them at the same time.

"Why? What happens then?" the Doctor challenged.

While the vicar let go of all his self-control, Rose carefully got up and motioned for Jenny and Donna to come stand with her in front of the fireplace. If she was right about what was going to happen next, they would want some space between themselves and the killer.

"Damn it, you humans," he spat out, his Ss turning to buzzing sounds, "worshipping your tribal sky gods. I am so much more. That night, the universe exploded in my mind. I wanted to take what was mine. And you, Agatha Christie, with your railway station bookstall romances, what's to stop me killing you?"

Lady Eddison reached for the vicar as a purple glow spread across his face, clearly recognising the early stages of transformation from her time with Christopher. "Oh, my dear God. My child."

"What's to stop me killing you all?" A cloud of purple smoke veiled the vicar for a moment, and when it dissipated, he had transformed into his wasp form. The buzzing was the only sound he made now, and his wings flapped furiously.

"Forgive me," Lady Eddison sobbed, reaching for her son.

Colonel Curbishley grabbed her and pulled her back, with the assistance of Greeves. "No, no, Clemency, come back. Keep away." The two men shielded her with their own bodies, staring the Vespiform down with fear in their eyes. "Keep away, my darling."

Rose didn't protest when the Doctor shifted to put his body between the Vespiform and herself, Donna, and Jenny. How are we going to take care of it in this form, Doctor? she asked as the wasp floated over the couch.

It was Agatha who spoke, though. "No. No more murder." She held the Firestone over her head. "If my imagination made you kill, then my imagination will find a way to stop you, foul creature." She turned and ran from the room.

Well, not like that, the Doctor said as they ran after her, the Vespiform hot on their heels. What's she thinking?

Oh, you know, Rose told him, taking his hand as they ran down the hallway. She's feeling guilty for something that isn't her fault.

"Wait, now it's chasing us," Donna shouted as they rounded the corner by the stairs and spotted the open door. They all sped up and burst out into the open air, where it was thankfully not storming any longer.

"Close it, close it!" Jenny panted as she and Donna pulled the doors shut.

"That's not going to hold it," Rose muttered as they ran towards the drive, looking for Agatha.

A horn caught their attention, and Agatha drove by in a shiny car. "Over here!" she shouted as the Vespiform broke through the doors, buzzing outside after them. "Come and get me, Reverend."

"Agatha, what are you doing?" the Doctor shouted, looking from the author to the murderer and back.

Agatha shook her head. "If I started this, Doctor, then I must stop it." She drove off before he could protest further, and after only a moment of hesitation, the Vespiform followed her, clearly deciding she was his true objective that night.

The Doctor gritted his teeth. "You're right, Rose," he admitted. "That's… that's really annoying." He spun around and spotted another car. "Come on." The four of them climbed into the automobile and followed after Agatha and the Vespiform.

"You said this is the night Agatha Christie loses her memory," Donna pointed out.

Rose shook her head quickly. "Time is in flux, Donna."

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed. "For all we know, this is the night Agatha Christie loses her life and history gets changed."

"Where's she going, though?" Jenny asked.

Up ahead, Agatha took a turn marked 'Silent Pool.' "The lake," the Doctor said. "She's heading for the lake. What's she doing?"

Beside him, Rose stiffened, and the Doctor looked over at her. Something about the setting had triggered a memory, but she hadn't put her finger on what it was yet.

When they reached the lake, Agatha had already gotten out of her car and was holding the Firestone over her head. "Here I am, the honey in the trap." She waved the stone back and forth, and the Vespiform swayed slightly in midair, tracking the movements of the stone. "Come to me, Vespiform."

"She's controlling it," Donna realised.

The Doctor jumped out of the car and ran towards the shore and Agatha. "Its mind is based on her thought processes. They're linked." He looked from the stone to the Vespiform.

"Quite so, Doctor." Agatha's voice was eerily calm. "If I die, then this creature might die with me."

Comprehension swept over Rose. You said Agatha's car was discovered by a lake, she told him. This is it—this is what causes her to lose her memories.

He nodded to show that he understood what she was telling him, then he looked at the Vespiform. If it would just… stop killing, they could take it back to the Silfrax galaxy where it belonged. "Don't hurt her," he shouted, darting in between the wasp and Agatha Christie. "You're not meant to be like this. You've got the wrong template in your mind."

Donna eyed the wasp carefully, but the creature didn't seem to be swayed by the Doctor's argument. "It's not listening to you." She thought back to the story Lady Eddison had told, then she snatched the Firestone out of Agatha's hand and threw it into the lake. Someone was going to die tonight, and it wasn't fair for it to be Agatha, who still had sixty novels left to write.

The Vespiform buzzed over their heads and dove into the lake after the jewel. It disappeared beneath the surface, and the water bubbled and frothed with purple light.

Donna sighed and nodded. "How do you kill a wasp? Drown it, just like his father."

The Doctor looked at her, the stark lines of his face making his wide eyes stand out. "Donna, that thing couldn't help itself."

Donna looked up at the Doctor, hardly able to believe his protest. Did he actually think they should have let Agatha sacrifice herself? If it had been Rose holding that pendant, he wouldn't have hesitated to take it and throw it in himself.

"What was she supposed to do, Dad?" Jenny countered, before Donna could say a word. "It was the only way to save Agatha."

After a moment, his shoulders slumped and he nodded. Donna smiled gratefully at Jenny, then they all looked back at the lake.

"Death Comes as the End," Agatha said solemnly, "and justice is served."

"Murder at the Vicar's Rage," the Doctor mused. Rose and Donna groaned, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Needs a bit of work."

"Just one mystery left, Doctor." Agatha turned and looked up at him. "Who exactly are you?"

Before he could come up with some kind of answer she might believe, Agatha doubled over, one hand on her back and the other clutching her stomach. The Doctor caught her before she could fall, then glared out at the water.

"Oh, it's the Firestone," he said through gritted teeth. "It's part of the Vespiform's mind. It's dying and it's connected to Agatha."

Donna looked frantically from the author she admired so much out at the lake, hoping that something would happen to save her life. Agatha glowed purple for a few moments, and Donna had almost given up when Agatha Christie slumped back into the Doctor's arms, unconscious. The light and bubbling in the lake stopped, too, and she suspected the Vespiform had met its watery end.

An owl hooted into the eerie silence, and Jenny crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed her hands over her arms. "What just happened?" she asked.

"He let her go," the Doctor explained. "Right at the end, the Vespiform chose to save someone's life."

"And now we know how she got amnesia." A gust of wind blew a hair into Rose's face, and she pushed it back over her ear before continuing. "The trauma of the brief connection and near death wiped her mind of everything that happened."

The Doctor nodded. "The wasp, the murders."

Donna sighed. "And us. She'll forget about us."

"Yeah, but we've solved another riddle," the Doctor said, smiling his cheer-up smile. "The mystery of Agatha Christie. And tomorrow morning, her car gets found by the side of a lake. A few days later, she turns up in hotel at Harrogate with no idea of what just happened. No one'll ever know."

"Hmmm… I wonder how she gets to Harrogate when her car is still here?" Rose mused, a smile on her face as she tapped her finger against her chin.

"Back to the TARDIS then?" Jenny suggested, the first to climb back into the car.

"Back to the TARDIS," the Doctor agreed as he carried the unconscious mystery novelist to the car and placed her carefully in the backseat.

Twenty minutes later, they landed outside a posh hotel in Harrogate. The Doctor set Agatha down on a bench and pressed a hypospray to her neck.

The medicine woke her up right away, and she quickly scanned her surroundings. Fear crossed her face when she didn't recognise them, and Donna felt a pang of remorse that they couldn't explain things to her. But she'd been lectured about changing timelines enough times to know not to suggest it.

"Where am I?" Agatha asked. "How did I get here? Who are you?"

The Doctor slipped his hands into his coat pockets. "I'm afraid I can't answer the first two," he said honestly. "We were just taking a stroll when we spotted you and realised you were asleep. My wife," he nodded at Rose, "insisted we stay until you woke up."

Agatha turned to Rose. "Thank you. I don't… I wish…"

Rose pointed to the hotel behind them. "I'm sure there's someone in there who could help you," she suggested. "Maybe they have a telephone you could use to call someone."

The lines tightened around Agatha's mouth, and Donna realised she must still remember about her husband.

"Thank you," the author said stiffly, getting to her feet. "I appreciate all you've done, but I must… I need to make some calls."

They nodded, and once she'd gone a few steps, they walked back to the TARDIS, which was only fifteen feet away, parked in a tree-lined avenue.

Donna was the first to turn around to watch Agatha leave, and then everyone else did. Watching the woman she'd befriended in the course of the day walk away, dazed and confused, was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. She wouldn't make it worse by making Agatha think they didn't really care about her at all.

Agatha reached the stone steps leading to the hotel and glanced back at them. They nodded once, and she shook her head, then climbed the stairs and walked out of their lives.

"But there's one thing I don't understand, Dad," Jenny said as they turned to leave for the final time. "You said Agatha Christie's disappearance was a huge mystery, but all those people were there."

Donna nodded quickly. "That's right. Why didn't Lady Eddison, or the Colonel, or any of the staff say anything?" She pursed her lips. "Never mind the staff," she said immediately. "They were probably afraid they'd get the sack. But everyone else?"

Rose snorted. "You're forgetting, Donna. They're aristocracy. Lady Eddison went forty years without telling anyone she had a son—do you think she's going to admit that her son was a half-wasp alien creature who committed two murders?"

The Doctor nodded. "And the Unicorn does a bunk back to London town. She can never even say she was there."

Donna sighed. It figured that everything would wrap up nice and tight. "What happens to Agatha?"

"Oh, great life," the Doctor assured her. "Met another man, married again. Saw the world. Wrote and wrote and wrote."

Out of the corner of her eye, Donna saw Rose unlock the TARDIS and follow Jenny inside. She wasn't quite ready go to yet though, and the Doctor seemed to understand.

"She never thought her books were any good, though. And she must have spent all those years wondering."

The Doctor wrapped an arm around Donna's shoulders and hugged her briefly. "Most authors I meet feel that way," he said quietly. "Genre authors especially, since for some reason, you humans have this notion that mysteries and romance novels and science fiction don't matter as much as the so-called literary fiction."

He turned towards the open TARDIS doors, grateful that Donna allowed herself to be led. Rose was showing Jenny how to set the coordinates and ready each control panel of the TARDIS for dematerialisation, and he took just a moment to appreciate the sight of his bond mate and daughter working side by side before he turned back to Donna.

"I don't know why you think genre novels—mysteries that reveal the darkest side of human nature, or romances that show lovers slowly putting aside their selfishness to form a relationship—I don't know why you think those matter less than a stuffy novel written by a professor in a dusty office."

"Agatha, though," Donna began, but the Doctor shook his head as he tossed his coat over a strut.

"The thing is, I don't think she ever quite forgot. Great mind like that, some of the details kept bleeding through. All the stuff her imagination could use. Like, Miss Marple."

Donna shook her head. "I should have made her sign a contract."

"And, where is it, where is it, hold on. Here we go." Meeting a giant wasp with Agatha Christie had triggered a visual memory, and he pulled up a piece of the grating and retrieved a wooden chest. "C," he explained as he opened the lid. "That is C for Cybermen, C for Carrionites, and Christie, Agatha," he said, pulling out a Cyberman chest plate, the captured Carrionites, and a bust of Caesar, before laying his hands on the novel. "Look at that."

He held up the paperback. It was a facsimile of the 1957 edition of Death in the Clouds, which featured a wasp on the cover.

Donna's eyes lit up. "She did remember."

"Somewhere in the back of her mind, it all lingered. And that's not all." He handed the book to Donna. "Look at the copyright page."

She flipped open the front cover, and a moment later, her jaw dropped. "Facsimile edition, published in the year five billion!"

"People never stop reading them. She is the best selling novelist of all time."

To his surprise, Donna's face fell, and she dropped the novel. "But she never knew."

"Well, no one knows how they're going to be remembered," the Doctor pointed out. "All we can do is hope for the best. Maybe that's what kept her writing. Same thing keeps me travelling. Onwards?"

"Onwards."

Rose watched Jenny turn the gravitic anomaliser as the Doctor and Donna stood up. Jenny bit her lip and looked at her. "That's it… isn't it?"

"Listen to the TARDIS," Rose encouraged. "She knows how to fly herself better than anyone—what's she saying?"

Jenny squeezed her eyes shut, and her nose crinkled up in concentration. The Doctor wrapped an arm around Rose's shoulder while they felt their daughter talk to the ship.

A moment later, her blue eyes flew open. "She's ready!"

"Then go ahead, Jenny." The Doctor nodded at the dematerialisation lever.

Jenny grabbed it and shoved it upright with a flourish, then threw her hands up in the air and spun in a circle when the lights in the console room flashed as the TARDIS left nineteen twenty-six behind. Rose laughed when the young woman hugged her tight.

"Thank you!" Jenny whispered. "Oh, thank you!" Then she twisted away and hugged the Doctor, and then Donna, before dancing down the corridor to her room.

Donna shook her head, but before she could follow Jenny out of the console room, Rose snagged her for a hug of her own. "You are brilliant, Donna," she said.

Donna stiffened slightly and pulled back. "Why do all of you keep saying that?" she demanded. "We all know I'm not brilliant, so stop patronising me."

Rose blinked. "Donna… you really are. You saw the crucial clue tonight before anyone else did. For once, our experience blinded us to the truth of what you were saying—it really did mean something that all those murders were just like something Agatha would write. We wouldn't have seen that without you, though."

The Doctor moved around the console to join them. "And on the Ood Sphere, who was it who figured out why the Ood are so peaceful? 'They're born with their brains in their hands,' you said. You remind me of Rose, the way you see things I completely miss."

Donna blinked and her forehead wrinkled. "But…"

Rose shook her head. "No buts. You are brilliant, Donna Noble."

The room was silent for a moment, then Donna pointed in the direction of her room. "I'm… I'll just… Good night," she muttered finally, then nearly ran down the corridor.

The Doctor sighed when she disappeared. "I don't think we convinced her."

"Not yet, but we're getting there. She didn't insist that she's just a temp this time."

Rose looked up at the Doctor. "You know, everyone else has turned in early." She turned towards him and tugged lightly on his tie.

His eyes darkened at the sultry note in her voice, and Rose held her breath as she waited for his response. "Care for a little challenge, love?" He stroked her right arm with a barely-there touch, stopping to tease the sensitive skin of her inside elbow.

She bit her lip and nodded, nonchalantly she hoped.

Judging by his smirk, she didn't quite manage it. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. "I'll race you to our room. The first one there gets to undress the other."

Rose spun around and took off down the corridor, but a moment later, the Doctor ran past her. She tried to put on more speed, but she was no match for his long legs, and he was leaning against the door waiting for her when she reached their room.

"I've been waiting for my chance to get you out of that dress ever since I first saw you in it," the Doctor said, his voice a low rumble. He pushed the door open and stepped inside before she could dart past him to claim the prize.

Rose played with the long string of beads she wore. "Have you?" she asked, already feeling breathless after only one innocent caress and some light teasing.

The Doctor rested his hands on her hips and pulled her to him before kicking the door shut with his foot. "Oh, yes."

Rose put her hands on his chest. "Well, you won, Doctor. I'm all yours." She looked up at him through her eyelashes and licked her lips.

He groaned, and a moment later, Rose sighed in relief when he finally kissed her. His tongue slid into her mouth without hesitation, and the minty fresh taste reminded Rose of her earlier edict.

You brushed your teeth, she commented when he flicked his tongue over the roof of her mouth.

Someone told me I couldn't kiss her until I had, he reminded her. He scraped his teeth over her bottom lip, then soothed it with his tongue. That was all the motivation I needed.

The Doctor ran his hands up and down her back as they kissed, before finally resting them on her bum and pulling her snug against his body. Rose huffed; it was so close to the feeling she wanted, but there were too many layers of clothes between them.

But when she tried to shove his jacket off his shoulders, the Doctor broke the kiss and put six inches between them. "Doctor?" Rose tried to go on her tiptoes and capture his lips again, but he dodged her intent.

"I won our little contest," he reminded her, his low, raspy voice feeding the desire that was building in her gut.

Rose swallowed the teasing challenge that rose to her lips. If she said anything to indicate how desperate she was, he would only slow down.

Of course, the Doctor already knew, and his nostrils flared as Rose's desire throbbed low in her belly. A moment later, she felt his hand slide up her back and grab the tab of the zip. He pulled it down at a torturously slow pace, letting his fingers brush against her bare back as he went.

"Turn around, love."

Rose obeyed his hoarse whisper, and he rewarded her by pushing the wide straps off her shoulders. The slinky red dress slid down to the floor, and then she felt his hands on her body, stoking the embers of desire into a blaze.

The hand on her stomach pulled her closer, until she could feel the hard lines of his body pressed against her back. She moaned when his hot breath hit her ear. "Do you know what I'm going to do next, Rose?"

"I've got a pretty good idea, yeah." He nipped at her earlobe for that cheek, and Rose groaned his name.

"I'll have to find some way to surprise you then," he murmured.

A hand in the small of her back pushed her towards the bed, and Rose obediently lay down and scooted back against the pillows. The quick, economical movements of the Doctor as he stripped his own kit off spoke volumes about how turned on he already was, and Rose shivered beneath his intense gaze.

Dozens of images flashed across the bond as he climbed onto the bed. "Oh yes," he said when the carnality of the suggestions had her arching into his telepathic touch. "I think this definitely calls for a surprise."