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DOCTOR WHO
CITY OF DEATH

Written by
As David Agnew, Douglas Adams and Graham Williams


(Overlap from 'Leonardo? The paintings went down very well.')

Part Three

[INT. Louvre's Salle des États]

(ROMANA and DUGGAN navigate the dimly lit gallery. ROMANA carries a torch.)
ROMANA: I thought the Louvre was meant to be well-guarded.
DUGGAN: It is. It just looks as though every alarm in the place has been immobilised. A fantastic feat.
ROMANA: The count's got some clever technology here as well.
(The torch beam reveals a guard lying prone on the floor. ROMANA bends down.)
DUGGAN: There's another alarm been immobilised.
ROMANA: You've got a pretty cynical attitude to life, haven't you, Duggan?
DUGGAN: Well, when you've been around as long as I have... How old are you, anyway?
ROMANA: Hundred and twenty-five.
DUGGAN: What?
ROMANA: (as she stands and notices that behind five vertical laser beams there is no painting on the wall) It's gone!
DUGGAN: The system around it should be absolutely impregnable [sic]. It can't be turned off!
ROMANA: Well, someone seems to have managed it somehow.
DUGGAN: But the only way that you can get into that painting is to...
(He approaches and demonstrates, touching one of the beams. An alarm bell sounds.)
DUGGAN: Hell's bells!
ROMANA: That's what it sounds like. Let's go!
DUGGAN: Split up. We'll meet back at the caff.
ROMANA: But how do you suggest we get out?
DUGGAN: See that window?
ROMANA: Yes.
(DUGGAN takes a run up and barges through it off-screen.)

[INT. Hidden room]

(KERENSKY prowls around the cellar. He climbs into the walled-off area and comes upon the paintings, which he examines briefly.)
KERENSKY: (throwing up his hands) Mona Lisas.
(He then sees SCARLIONI, unconscious, and checks the wrist for a pulse. When he touches the count's forehead, the man wakes slightly and mutters.)
SCARLIONI: Doctor, will you explain to me exactly how you come to be in Paris 1979 and...

[INT. Da Vinci's studio]

TANCREDI: ...Florence fifteen hundred and five? (pauses) I am waiting, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Well, I do flit about a bit, you know.
TANCREDI: Through time?
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose so.
TANCREDI: How, precisely?
DOCTOR: I don't know. I don't seem to be able to help myself. There I am, just walking along minding my own business, and pop! I'm on a different planet or even in a different time. But enough of my problems. What are you doing here? (He stands.)
TANCREDI: I will tell you. The knowledge will be of little use to you, since you will shortly die. (he sits) I am the last of the Jagaroth. I am also the saviour of the Jagaroth.
DOCTOR: Well, I mean, if you're the last of them, there can't be that many about to save, can there? J-Jagaroth?
TANCREDI: You've heard of us?
DOCTOR: Jagaroth. I think it was on one of my trips. Yes, you all destroyed yourself in some massive war. Wait, when?
TANCREDI: Four hundred million years, I think, is the figure you're looking for.
DOCTOR: Is it really? How time passes. So what are you doing here?
TANCREDI: Surviving - the prime motive of all species. We were not all destroyed. A few of us escaped in a crippled spacecraft and made planetfall in this world in its primaeval time. We found it uninhabitable.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, four hundred million years ago, it would have been a bit of a shambles. No life to tidy it up. No life...
TANCREDI: We tried to leave, but the ship disintegrated. I was fractured. Splinters of my being are scattered in time. All identical, none complete. I am not satisfied with your explanation. How do you travel through time?
DOCTOR: Well, as I was saying-
TANCREDI: What is that box?
DOCTOR: What box?
(TANCREDI points to the TARDIS parked behind his shoulder, just beyond a mostly-open curtain.)
TANCREDI: That box.
DOCTOR: That box? I don't know. I've never seen that box in my life. Ah-aaaah!
(He stops and looks at a painting, which faces away from us initially.)
DOCTOR: The original, I presume? Completed in 1503. It's now what, 1505, and you're getting the old boy to do you another six, yes? Which you then brick up in a cellar in Paris for Scarlioni to find in four hundred and seventy-four years' time. That's a very nice piece of capital investment.
TANCREDI: I can see that you are a dangerously clever man, Doctor. I think it's time we conducted this conversation somewhat more formally.
DOCTOR: Oh.
TANCREDI: Hold him here while I collect the instruments of torture. If he wags his tongue, confiscate it.
DOCTOR: How can I talk if you confiscate my-
TANCREDI: You can write, can't you?
DOCTOR: Yes.
(The SOLDIER again makes his point felt, as TANCREDI leaves.)
DOCTOR: (whispering) He's mad, isn't he? (normal voice) Must be a tough job humouring him. You don't believe all that, do you?
SOLDIER: What?
DOCTOR: Well, Jagaroth spaceships. Isn't it? Isn't it?
SOLDIER: I'm paid simply to fight.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, I mean, quite honestly, when you think about all that... Jagaroth spaceships.
SOLDIER: When you work for the Borgias, you believe anything.
DOCTOR: The Borgias? Yes, yes, I see your point.
SOLDIER: As I said, I'm paid to fight.
DOCTOR: Yes. As I said, I see your point.
(The DOCTOR holds up his hand to give himself a little space, then removes a small instant camera from his pocket. The SOLDIER makes a noise and backs away slightly.)
DOCTOR: No, no, it's all right, all right. Come on now. Smile. (as the SOLDIER pulls his face into a grimace) Ha-ha. You can do it. There you are.
(The camera and flash does its thing.)
DOCTOR: There we are. Here we are, look.
(The DOCTOR holds up the developing photograph.)
DOCTOR: Isn't that nice? Isn't that nice?
(The SOLDIER approaches for a better look, and the DOCTOR clouts him in the jaw and places his limp form in the chair, patting his shoulder.
He fetches a felt-tip pen from his ever-helpful pocket and writes 'This is a FAKE' on each of six wooden panels. He adds the final one to the pile, face-down. Then, facing away from us at the desk at the window, he writes a note, whose contents he thinks aloud.)

DOCTOR [OC]: Dear Leo. Sorry to have missed you. Hope you're well. Sorry about the mess on the panels. Just paint over; there's a good chap. See you earlier. Love, the Doctor.
(He holds a mirror to the note, which we now see. It is in the reverse writing for which da Vinci was known. The DOCTOR turns round, and TANCREDI has re-entered the room.)
TANCREDI: Just about to pop off through time again, Doctor? How very discourteous when I'd gone to all the trouble of fetching the thumbscrews. (He holds these up for our inspection, as the DOCTOR holds his thumb to his mouth.)

[INT. Hidden room]

SCARLIONI: Kerensky.
KERENSKY: Yes?
SCARLIONI: Where am I?
KERENSKY: In Paris, of course.
SCARLIONI: Paris.
KERENSKY: Yes.
SCARLIONI: (sitting up) A dream. Perhaps a dream.
KERENSKY: Who, who are you?
SCARLIONI: I am who I am, Kerensky. I am the one who pays you to work. Now, to it. Time is short.
KERENSKY: But your face...
SCARLIONI: (raising his hands to his face and smoothing it) Do you pick a quarrel with my face, Kerensky? Beware I do not pick a quarrel with yours. I may choose instruments somewhat sharper than words.
KERENSKY: Who are the Jagaroth?
SCARLIONI: So, no dream. The Jagaroth. You serve the Jagaroth. Now work!
KERENSKY: It's the Jagaroth who need all the chickens, is it?
SCARLIONI: (laughing) Chickens! You never cease to amaze me, that such a giant intellect could live in such a tiny mind.
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth!
SCARLIONI: I must think. I must have time to think.
KERENSKY: What have you been making me work for? I thought we were working to feed the human race.
SCARLIONI: (scornfully) The human race. We are working for a far greater purpose, on a scale you could no conceive. The fate of the Jagaroth is in my hands, and you will work for my purpose, willingly or unwillingly.

[INT. Notre Dame Brasserie]

(ROMANA sneaks into the café, which is obviously closed. She casts the torch beam around. We then hear breaking glass. DUGGAN reaches through his handiwork and opens the back door. They rendezvous at the bar.)
DUGGAN: I thought these places were meant to be open all night.
ROMANA: You should go into partnership with a glazier. You'd have a truly symbiotic working relationship.
DUGGAN: What?
ROMANA: I'm just pointing out that you break a lot of glass. (She places drinking glasses next to him.)
DUGGAN: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
(Illustrating his point, he breaks the neck of a bottle of red wine, in order to pour her a glass.)
ROMANA: If you wanted an omelette, I'd expect to find a pile of broken crockery, a cooker in flames, and an unconscious chef.
DUGGAN: Listen, I get results.
ROMANA: Do you? The count's got the Mona Lisa. (They sit; she has her glass of wine, he the bottle.)
DUGGAN: Yeah, all seven of 'em. You know what I don't understand?
ROMANA: (laconically as she takes a sip) I expect so.
DUGGAN: There are seven potential buyers and exactly seven Mona Lisas.
ROMANA: Yes.
DUGGAN: Yet six of them have been sitting bricked up for centuries.
ROMANA: What, buyers?
DUGGAN: No, Mona Lisas. How did the count know where they were? How did he know where to get them?
ROMANA: Taxes the mind, doesn't it?

[INT. Laboratory]

(SCARLIONI throws some papers down onto the workbench.)
SCARLIONI: You will now see the true end product of your labours. This is what you will now produce for me. Look at it.
KERENSKY: But Count, this, this machine is precisely the reverse what, of what we, of what I have been working on.
SCARLIONI: But you will agree that the research you have done under my guidance points equally well in either direction.
KERENSKY: Yes, yes, it does. It means increasing the very effect I was trying to eliminate.
SCARLIONI: Precisely.
KERENSKY: But the scale of this is fantastic. Count, what you are trying to do, this is monstrous beyond imagining.
SCARLIONI: But you will do it.
KERENSKY: No! A thousand times no.
SCARLIONI: What?
KERENSKY: Even if I wanted to, I could not.
SCARLIONI: Oh? Why is that?
KERENSKY: Equipment on this scale, (taps the papers) power on this scale, it would cost millions and millions. Even you, Count, could not afford such things.
HERMANN [OC]: Excellency!
(He enters the cellar with a painting-shaped parcel wrapped in twine and brown cloth.)
HERMANN: Excellency! The Mona Lisa is no longer in the Louvre!
SCARLIONI: Ha ha! Excellent, Hermann, excellent.
(They unwrap the painting as KERENSKY watches from the foreground.)
HERMANN: The moment the news breaks, sir, each of our seven buyers will be ready.
SCARLIONI: (laughing) And how much money will this bring us, Hermann?
HERMANN: About a hundred million dollars, sir.
SCARLIONI: Continue with your work, Professor. Enjoy it, or you will die.
(KERENSKY raises his hand to his throat.)

[INT. Da Vinci's studio]

(The SOLDIER is about to turn the screw of the thumbscrews, and the DOCTOR shouts.)
TANCREDI: I haven't started yet.
DOCTOR: I know. It's just his hands are cold.
TANCREDI: So sensitive. I think we're in for a little treat.
DOCTOR: All this is totally unnecessary.
TANCREDI: You make it necessary. You will not tell me the truth.
DOCTOR: I've changed my mind. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being tortured by someone with cold hands. What is it you want to know?
TANCREDI: Excellent. I want to know how you travel through time.
DOCTOR: It's simple. I'm a Time Lord.
TANCREDI: And the girl? (the DOCTOR prepares to say something) The truth.
DOCTOR: Well.
TANCREDI: Time is running out, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What do you mean 'time's running out'? It's only 1505.
(The SOLDIER reaches for the torture device again.)
DOCTOR: All right, all right! I'll tell you. There is one thing I'd like to know is - how do you communicate across time with the other splinters of yourself?
TANCREDI: I am asking the questions.

[INT. Drawing room]

(SCARLIONI stares into the mirror, poking and prodding his face.)
COUNTESS: Why do you still worry, my dear? We've done it! We have the Mona Lisa. Why, think of the wealth that will be ours.
SCARLIONI: The wealth is not everything.
COUNTESS: Of course. The achievement. Yes, the achievement.
SCARLIONI: Achievement? You talk to me of achievement because I steal the Mona Lisa? Can you imagine how a man might feel who has caused the Pyramids to be built, the heavens to be mapped, invented the first wheel, shown the true use of fire, brought up a whole race from nothing to save his own race?
COUNTESS: What are you talking about? No-one can achieve everything.
SCARLIONI: I do not ask for everything. I ask for but a single life and the life of my people.
COUNTESS: Are you feeling all right, my dear?
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth.
SCARLIONI: Yes.
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth.
SCARLIONI: I'm feeling quite well. Please leave us.
COUNTESS: Us?
SCARLIONI: Me. Leave me.
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth! Scaroth.
COUNTESS: Are you sure there's nothing I can do?
SCARLIONI: Go! Go!
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth.
SCARLIONI: Scaroth.

[INT. Da Vinci's studio]

JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth. Scaroth.
DOCTOR: Are you all right?
TANCREDI: Continue. The interface of the time continuums is unstable, I know that. Tell me, tell me something useful.
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth!
TANCREDI: Wait!
DOCTOR: Right-o.
TANCREDI: No, not you. Continue, Doctor.
(The SOLDIER is paying attention to TANCREDI, who seems almost drunk and is swaying, so the DOCTOR raises the thumbscrews to his mouth and releases his thumbs by using his teeth.)
JAGAROTH VOICES: Scaroth!
TANCREDI: A moment!
DOCTOR: Is he often like this?
SOLDIER: I'm not paid to notice.
(TANCREDI moans, and his head rolls back as he staggers a bit. The DOCTOR has undone the thumbscrews and attaches them to the soldier's sword. He runs for the TARDIS as the SOLDIER notices and gives chase.)
TANCREDI: Yes, I know.
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth!
SOLDIER: (running back to TANCREDI when confronted with a locked TARDIS door) Captain!
TANCREDI: I know. Leave us.
SOLDIER: Us?
TANCREDI: Me. Leave me!
SOLDIER: (clearly unsettled) Sir. (He makes his exit swiftly.)
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth!
TANCREDI: I'm coming. Yes.
JAGAROTH VOICES [OC]: Scaroth! We are here. Together we are Scaroth. I am Scaroth.
(An Egyptian face is superimposed on his, then a primitive human, then his Jagaroth face, then others.)
SCAROTH [OC]: Me, together in one. The Jagaroth live through me. Together we have pushed this puny race of humans, shaped their paltry destiny to meet our ends. Soon we shall be. The centuries that divide me shall be undone. The centuries that divide me shall be undone.
TANCREDI: The centuries that divide me shall be undone!

[INT. TARDIS console room]

(The DOCTOR watches him on the scanner.)
TANCREDI [on scanner]: The centuries that divide me shall be undone.

[INT. Da Vinci's studio]

TANCREDI: Undone! (He raises his hands to his head.)
(The TARDIS dematerialises.)

[INT. Drawing room]

SCARLIONI: So, the Doctor has the secret. The Doctor and the girl.

[INT. Gallerie Denise Rene]

DOCTOR: (emerging from the TARDIS, once it materialises) 'The centuries that divide me shall be undone'? I don't like the sound of that.

[INT. Notre Dame Brasserie]

(The café is now open. ROMANA has a coffee. DUGGAN is still sleeping, on the next table over.)
ROMANA: (sighs) Your coffee'll get cold.
(DUGGAN jumps to his feat and draws his gun. This sends his coffee flying.)
DUGGAN: What?
ROMANA: Here, have some coffee. (She sighs and walks over to hand him hers.)
DUGGAN: That's it. (He puts the gun away and sits.)
ROMANA: What?
DUGGAN: I'm washed up. I'm sent to Paris to find out if anything odd is happening in the art world and what happens? The Mona Lisa gets stolen under my nose. 'Odd' isn't in it.
ROMANA: I'm going to leave a note for the Doctor. I really think we should go and get it back, don't you?
DUGGAN: Yeah, but which one? I've seen seven. What am I going to see today, half a dozen Eiffel Towers lying about?
ROMANA: The real Mona Lisa. The original.
DUGGAN: Well, how do you account for the others?
ROMANA: Well, perhaps you're right. Perhaps Scarlioni has discovered a way to travel in time. Yes, perhaps he went back in time, had a chat to Leonardo, got him to rustle up another six, came forward in time, stole the one in the Louvre, and now sells all seven at enormous profit. Sound reasonable?
DUGGAN: I used to do divorce investigations. It was never like this.
ROMANA: There's only one flaw in that line of reasoning as far as I can see.
DUGGAN: There is?
ROMANA: That equipment of Kerensky's wouldn't work effectively as a time machine.
DUGGAN: It wouldn't.
ROMANA: You can have two adjacent time continuums running at different rates.
DUGGAN: You can.
ROMANA: But without a field interface stabiliser, you can't cross from one to the other.
DUGGAN: You can't.
ROMANA: I'm just guessing. Come on, let's get back to the chateau, where at least you can thump somebody.

[EXT. Outside the Louvre]

(The DOCTOR runs the whole way and approaches two GENDARMES on the front steps of the Louvre.)
DOCTOR: Well, what news?
GENDARME: Sir, it is very grave. The picture of the Mona Lisa has been stolen.
DOCTOR: What?
(They show the DOCTOR inside.)

[INT. Louvre's Salle des États]

(The DOCTOR clears his throat and enters the room, where GENDARMES are dusting for fingerprints and taking measurements. The DOCTOR taps the GUIDE on the shoulder, and she starts audibly.)
DOCTOR: Excuse me. Ah, it's you. Did you notice two people trying to stop that painting from being stolen last night?
GUIDE: Excuse me, monsieur?
DOCTOR: Two people. One was a pretty girl. And a young man, fair hair. (she responds jumpily to his every move) He was always hitting. Ssssh. Were they here?
GUIDE: No, monsieur, no. But I think you should speak to the police.
DOCTOR: Sssh. No time. I've got the human race to think about. (she is befuddled rather than jumpy now) Sssh. The human race.

[INT. Notre Dame Brasserie]

(The DOCTOR starts running back through the streets. The television set at the bar is covering the theft and shows an image of the painting.)
TV: The stolen picture, probably the most famous in the world, was painted in fifteen hundred and three by Leonardo da Vinci and is of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo...
CUSTOMER: I'll see you.
DOCTOR: Patron, you remember those two people I was in here with yesterday? We kept being held up and attacked. Smashing things, eh? You don't happen to know where they went, do you? (shakes his head) No. They can't have been mad enough to go back to the chateau.
(He slaps Romana's note into the DOCTOR's hand.)
DOCTOR: Thank you. (reads) Dear Doctor, gone back to the cha-. Thank you. (He leaves.)

[INT. Drawing room]

(HERMANN has ROMANA and DUGGAN at gunpoint, with their hands up.)
HERMANN: As soon as the alarm sounded, Excellency. He was halfway through the window, and she was outside. I thought you might wish to speak to them, so I called off the dogs. They cannot be professionals.
SCARLIONI: My dear, it was not necessary for you to enter my house by, we could hardly call it stealth. You had only to knock on the door. I've been very anxious to renew our acquaintance. In fact, I was almost on the point of sending out a search party.
DUGGAN: Listen, Scarlioni.
SCARLIONI: I'm speaking to the young lady. You have some knowledge which could be very useful to me.
DUGGAN: You'd better not touch her, Scarlioni.
SCARLIONI: Oh, do be quiet.
ROMANA: I'll look after myself, thank you.
SCARLIONI: Please, do sit down. Oh. (He gestures for her to lower her hands.)
(DUGGAN has lowered his. HERMANN gestures with his gun, and DUGGAN raises them again.)
SCARLIONI: Now, I understand you have some highly specialised knowledge which could be of immense service to me.
ROMANA: Who, me?
SCARLIONI: I'm speaking of temporal engineering. I am told that you are a considerable authority on time travel.
ROMANA: Well, I don't know who could have given you that idea.
SCARLIONI: Your friend the Doctor let it slip.
ROMANA: The Doctor? But he's in, er-
SCARLIONI: Yes, Florence, sixteenth century. That's where I, we met him.
DUGGAN: Can anyone join in this conversation, or do you need a certificate?
SCARLIONI: If he interrupts again, Hermann, kill him.
HERMANN: Sir.
SCARLIONI: Perhaps you'd care to come downstairs and examine the equipment in more detail?
ROMANA: And if I refuse?
SCARLIONI: Oh, must we go into vulgar threats? Let us just say that I shall destroy Paris, if that'll help you make up your mind.
ROMANA: And am I supposed to believe you can do that?
SCARLIONI: Well, you won't know until you've seen the equipment, will you? Bring him.
HERMANN: Yes, sir.
(He obeys, as we cut briefly to the DOCTOR in the streets.)

[INT. Laboratory]

DUGGAN: Can he?
ROMANA: What?
DUGGAN: Destroy Paris?
ROMANA: What, with this lot?
DUGGAN: Yeah.
ROMANA: No trouble. Blast the whole city through an unstablised time field.
DUGGAN: You don't seriously believe all this time travel nonsense, do you?
ROMANA: Do you believe wood comes from trees?
DUGGAN: What do you mean?
ROMANA: It's just a fact of life one's brought up with.
SCARLIONI: You're beginning to appreciate the truth of my words then, are you?
ROMANA: That you can destroy Paris? Yes.
KERENSKY: Why all this talk of destruction? What are you doing with my work?
SCARLIONI: Professor, I shall show you. Would you care to examine the field generator?
(KERENSKY steps into the middle of the apparatus.)
SCARLIONI: You will now see, my dear, how I deal with fools.
KERENSKY: No, not that switch!
(KERENSKY's body becomes contorted in the field's yellow lights. ROMANA grimaces as he ages and dies. DUGGAN looks on, aghast. When KERENSKY becomes a skeleton. SCARLIONI gives a little pleased smile.)


The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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