will be permitted to go on about their business. My guess is
that the investigation will take a little longer.'
'But,' said Bingo, 'that can't be!'
'I fear it is going to have to be. It shouldn't be too much of
a problem. As far as we can tell, no strange ship left here last
night or this morning. The shuttle is, regrettably, cancelled,
of course, but another craft should be along in a week or two
and I'm reliably informed that all passengers on the Gargantua
will be offered similar berths on the Gigantique, her sister
ship. Terraphiles and customers on the Historical Tour will
not be charged any extra, since this comes under the terms
of the insurance taken out on booking the tickets. Passage
will simply be transferred for everyone else. No one will be
out of pocket. Luckily, there are plenty of seats available on
the Gigantique and, since she's a sister ship of the Gargantua, there will be no change of amenities.'
Bingo was shaking his head. 'No, no, no, no,' he said. 'Not
a chance. Don't you understand?'
'I understand that the Law must take her course,' declared
his uncle, a little grimly.
'I think what your nephew is trying to let us know,' said
the Doctor, getting up from the table and dabbing at the
corners of his mouth with the ends of his napkin, 'is that
the Gargantua is due to dock above the planet Flynn in the
Miggea system on the Sagittarian Rim in time for our team to
play the final games in the Great Tournament. The Gigantique
will arrive in Miggea about three weeks too late to play the
Tournament! This means little, I know, to the average traveller
who might otherwise be delighted at the chance of spending
another fortnight or so on this lovely and picturesque planet,
but for those of us anxious to get our first crack in a quarter
of a millennium at the famous and mysterious Silver Arrer,
it's pretty bad news. The Tourists, who did not accept Lord
Sherwood's kind invitation to stay here, will merely have to
play the Visitors. You take my meaning?'
'Hmm,' said Sir Rupoldo, upon whom the full import of
the news was in fact dawning. 'I do indeed. This is pretty
frightful, I have to say. I mean, we were very much expecting
to win the Arrer back from the Tourists this time. Oh, I
say, gosh!' He pondered this for a moment. 'Oh, this is a
calamity.' He turned to a mystified Mrs Banning-Cannon. 'I
don't suppose you'd be willing, dear lady, to postpone this
investigation on the word of the Toumamentors that they'll
return here once...' Her expression went a little further than
merely answering this question for him. 'Ah, well, no, I see
you're rather determined...'
He cast a pleading look around the room at the team, at
anyone else who might help, at pretty much every creature,
alien or human, present. 'Or that whomever pinched the darn
- the valuable hat - would own up to the theft on the chance
that Mrs Banning-Cannon would kindly drop charges...'
'Certainly not!' snarled that formidable lady. 'I did not
think I would have to remind everyone that my husband's
company owns this planet.'
At which all involved gave vent to what could only be
described as a collective groan.
Chapter 7
A Close Study of Timetables
I N WHICH CASE, I'LL bid you good morning!' exclaimed the officer,
his kindly face full of concern. 'I have to say, young Bingo -
Lord Sherwood - what a shame this is and how we are going
to be unable to enjoy the final friendly game in the Gentlemen
versus Tourists match, but worse than that how utterly sick-
making it is that our own great team is to lose its crack at the
ancient Arrer. This puts a wholly different character on the
situation. One might almost think our rivals pulled this stunt
merely to keep us out of the matches. This is a bad day for
our tournament, gentlemen. Bad indeed.'
'Not a great one for those of us who take their millinery
seriously, either,' declared Mrs B-C, attempting to get some
perspective on the situation.
They all stared at her in frank astonishment. H'hn'ee, the
centaur put down his bucket of cereal and tried to stop his
hoof from stamping heavily on the carpet. He had worn his
special indoor slippers, of course, but his hoofs still made a
bit of a noise. Equally, his neighbour, a Judoon, heard himself
issue a noisy snort.
'By the Medici Stars!' exclaimed Uff Nuf O'Kay, the canine
wotsit keeper. 'If I could get my teeth into whatever catty—'
He realised that Masher Dubloon, the skunkoid fielder, was
sitting across from him. 'I mean whatever rotter...'
Masher looked up with a quiet smile. 'Perhaps we should
all put our hands into our pockets and come up with a reward
for the hat's return?'
This was a dig at O'Kay, who was notoriously tight-fisted.
But Mrs Banning-Cannon found the idea attractive.
'I am certainly prepared to pay a ransom.'
The Magistrate-Inspector, who was leaving the dining
room, paused for a moment and then continued on, as if he
had heard nothing. While he would normally hold the law to
be above such offers, he would have allowed almost anything
that helped restore Mrs B-C's hat and allowed the Gentlemen
to continue on their way aboard the Gargantua.
The Doctor and Amy were peering approvingly out of
the wide windows at the castle's wonderful lawn which
fanned confidently down to pretty much the entire catalogue
of colourful and aromatic flowers, rising in serried ranks as
far as the first line of blooming cedars and giant marigold
borders near the edge of the ornamental lake. Under a warm
sun, the water glittered like polished steel.
'I'd almost imagined we'd been sabotaged,' murmured the
Doctor to his friend. 'It's crucial for us to get to Flynn and win
that Arrow or who knows what havoc Frank/Freddie Force
and his mirthless Antimatter Men will create? I wonder if the
thieves have any idea what they are doing.'
'Well, Doctor, you haven't exactly filled me in with any
further details.'
He turned away from the view. 'I don't think I can yet.
All I know is what I was told. And I'm not entirely one
hundred per cent sure of that...' Then addressing the other
breakfasters he said:
'I think paying a ransom's an excellent idea. It might have
to be a pretty big sum, though.'
'I'll put in a million,' offered Mr Banning-Cannon. He, at
least, was safe in knowing what the hat was worth on the
market.
There came a chorus of offers for various amounts.
'We should bear in mind,' the Doctor pointed out, 'that the
culprit is almost certainly one of us and could have used some
sort of timemobile to steal the hat. Or an anti-gravity device,
which would be obvious from its characteristic smell.'
'Anti-gravity?' croaked Mr Banning-Cannon unable to
resist darting a quick, enquiring glance at Lord Sherwood.
'And this smell? Why so?'
'It's a bit like... burnt seawater. It's characteristic of
displaced tempelectrons - the smell given off by most devices
employing anti-gravity.' The Doctor moved into the middle
of the room. 'We know that the hat was especially heavy
and could only sit easily on Mrs Banning-Cannon's head
if it had the necessary anti-gravity device set in its crown. I
assume the thief knew this and so sneaked into Mrs Banning-
Cannon's boudoir armed with one of those hand-held things
they use to stock shelves in those big DIY stores. You know
- you must have seen them. No? Anyway, never mind. Then,
having guided it to an open window, he could have used the
"floater", as they're called in the trade, to manipulate the hat in its hatbox out of the window to a waiting accomplice. A
light air-car could have been standing by to receive it, and
Bob's your uncle.'
'Eh?' Bingo looked up startled. 'Uncle Bob?'
'Gosh, that's amazing!' exclaimed Hari Agincourt. 'Brilliant
powers of deduction, Doctor, I have to say. But now we need
to know who had the resources. Anti-grav operators aren't
cheap and neither are air-cars. If it's off-planet that means
someone or some company got it there, so it's unlikely to be
the work of just an ordinary sort of cracksman. Yet they would
not have been able to move in and out of the place without
raising an alarm if they weren't known to the household, and
as you know we all went through recognition checks with
the android staff when we got here. Nobody missed a check,
did they, Mullers?' He turned to the android butler.
'All guests were introduced to staff, sir,' the dignified and
kindly android became operational only when addressed.
And both staff and guests were all accounted for. A
breakdown of that system hardly seems likely, sir.'
'Anyway,' the Doctor became animated. Amy loved it
when he brought his detective skills into play. 'That's almost
certainly how it was moved. But how and where is the thing
hidden? Well, unfortunately that's a lot harder to work out. So
we have to work out who to work out where. Motive? OK, the
hat's valuable, but there are loads of valuable things around
here to steal. So why pinch it? It's not the most portable object,
is it? So, let's assume there's no specific financial motive - in
which case we're back at the fundamental question.'
'Which is?' Mr B-C prompted.
'Why would someone pinch a hat?'
'It's an original!' declared Mrs B-C. 'A Diana of Loondoon
original! No two are alike. I can think of several collectors
who would give a fortune to own one they don't have.
They're like antique paintings. In fact, Diana included an
entire original Rembrandt print in one of her latest models.
She's an artist. The Rembrandts became her trademark for
a while. At other times she used Picasso, Emin, Coca Colon
- all now in museums. She takes whatever materials inspire
her, although I believe the "Phobos" life-size hat she made
for Lady Mars was commissioned. Many considered that
ultra-vulgar. I don't know. Perhaps it is, a little. It could only
be worn with the help of six anti-gravs, not one. Happily
this wasn't the real Phobos, which long ago crashed to the
surface of Old Barsoom.' She almost smote her forehead as
inspiration dawned on her like sunrise over the Pink Alps of
Caladon.
'Lady M is so competitive - of course!' Mrs Banning-
Cannon sat up suddenly, knocking over a glass of Vortex
Water. 'She could have stolen it. She's rich enough. She owns
Intergalactic Air. We can't move to make an Earth-like planet
without their atmosphere plants.'
'Did she want that hat?' asked the Doctor, sounding
slightly surprised.
'Oh, you know, we're great rivals.' Her mascaraed eyes
became two small black slugs as Mrs Banning-Cannon eased
her features into the semblance of a smile. Her lip gloss
gleamed like fresh blood. 'But she would have to wear it,
wouldn't she? I mean, that's what hats are all about, becoming
a talking point. So all she could do is spend her money on
another Diana creation. That's how I'd challenge her and I'm
certain that it's how she'd challenge me. Perhaps it was stolen
for the precious stones and metals...'
'Except,' said the Doctor, 'a job of this kind just wouldn't
be profitable to an ordinary thief. Even if the equipment were
hired, you'd only just about break even. And if the anti-grav
stuff and shuttles were factored in, it would still be running
at a loss. No, I think there's something else going on here.'
'Doctor, if we can't get the hat back in less than twenty-
four hours, we're done for.' Hari Agincourt was striding up
and down beside the long breakfast sideboard. Clearly he
was highly agitated about the chance of never playing the
match. 'You saw them, Bingo. Any ideas?'
'Um,' said Bingo. 'Wish I could say I had actually seen
'em. But little more than a glance...'
'I was out of the room for less than five minutes, Lord
Sherwood.' Mrs Banning-Cannon could not find it in herself
to speak harshly to the young man she had selected for her
future son-in-law. 'You heard something, surely?'
'Um. Yes. I heard a sort of hissing noise. Like a cobra, you
know, or one of the larger vipers and I-I.. .'
rooms and were just in time to - to...' the Doctor coaxed.
'To look for them. They must have been hiding. But when
I turned round they...'
'They were heading back towards your rooms? So you
gave chase and they escaped through your window,' Flapper
Banning-Cannon kindly reminded him. Her own private
theory was that poor Bingo had over-exerted himself on her
behalf and was now having to deal with his friend Hari's hurt
dislike because Hari had refused to understand that Bingo
had simply been recruited by Flapper as a kind of stalking
horse - or did she mean sacrificial goat - or, no, it was some
other sort of goat - a sheep, maybe? A Judas lamb? Was that
it? Ah, well. It would either come to her or it wouldn't. She
uttered the jaunty sigh of a girl who viewed her educational
opportunities as having had to be endured as politely as
possible; now they were behind her, she felt that they could
call quits and go their separate ways.
'Absolutely right,' said Bingo gratefully. 'Pretty much
exactly how it went.' He darted Flapper a look which to her
said 'Thanks for being a pal', but which to Hari said 'You do
this because we're in love'.
'The hat and its box were still there?' asked the Doctor.
'No. That's the funny thing,' said Bingo, conscious of the
close attention he was receiving from both Banning-Cannons
and the Doctor and glad to be able to tell the truth. 'I didn't
see it anywhere!'
'So while you checked the other rooms of Mrs Banning-
Cannon's suite, they made thei
r escape with the hat?'
suggested Flapper.
At this, Hari turned his back to them and stared ferociously
out of the window at a lawn and a lake which must have
been wondering what they had done to inspire such ire.
'Pretty much about it, Doctor, yes.' Inwardly Bingo was
writhing, aware that because of his own selfishness in taking
Mr Banning-Cannon up on his offer, he had let down his
own side with a vengeance. Also, he had let down Hari. And
Flapper. Given different circumstances he might have begun
keening wildly but he was of old English stock. He contented
himself by keening silently within.
If only he had thought of the consequences for a moment!
He wanted so badly to tell the truth. He had scarcely told a
lie since he was 7, when he had pinched a jar of strawberry
jam from the kitchen cupboard then tried to blame Cook and
a housemaid for the crime, forgetting that, since both were
androids, they had no taste for human food at all. He shut
his mouth tightly when he remembered that moment. He
ought to have realised then that he didn't have the brains
or personality to be a master crook. And now his story
was thinner than a Copernican gas cloud. If it weren't for
Mr Banning-Cannon backing him up and the Doctor also
apparently trying to help him out, he would have been up
the creek and crying for a paddle. As it was, he could see
himself making all sorts of slips when actually talking to the
peelers. He shuddered. Not only would he lose Lockesley
Hall, he would spend years on a prison planet pumping
water for the tankers of Aqua Supplies to sell for vast profits
to the mining worlds and the desert planets which were not
worth terraforming.
In a different set of circumstances, his best friend Hari
would have sensed his anxiety by now and come to stand
beside him, but Hari was standing meaningfully elsewhere.
At the far end of the room.
Bingo would have confessed everything if it would have
done any good. The fact was there was little to confess. He
hadn't stolen the bally hat. All he was guilty of was planning
to steal the hat. If other thieves hadn't actually pipped him,
he would, of course, have something to tell all those people
who now stood facing him and whose lives he hadn't actually
ruined. Some other rotter had done that. He wished he could