The Devil's Hoofprints (audio story)
- You may be looking for The Devil's Footprints (audio story).
The Devil's Hoofprints was the second and final story in The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Eight. It was written by Robert Valentine and featured Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor, Sadie Miller as Sarah Jane Smith and Jon Culshaw as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Publisher's summary
Long ago, in Devon in 1855, a mysterious event occurred. Overnight, during a terrible blizzard, thousands of hoofprints appeared in the snow. The tracks led on for miles...and no-one ever identified who or what caused them.
Many years later, the Doctor, Sarah and the Brigadier have come to Devon themselves, to visit a controversial scientific establishment in the wake of a mysterious death and rumours of strange occurrences in the vicinity.
But things are just about to get much, much stranger. Because they’re about to uncover the origins of the Devil’s Hoofprints...but is this one mystery that should have remained unsolved?
Plot
Part one
Two security guards investigate a sound that one believes is probably a rabbit being caught by a fox or owl and are attached by a creature, one of them being killed. A nearby experiment, coordinated by Mr Chilton, is shut down by a technician due to the sounding of the perimeter alarm, angering Mr Chilton. He picks up the telephone and hears of the tragedy outside, exciting him as he now knows that his technology works.
The Doctor and Sarah arrive outside the Dewer Tor Superconductivity Lab in the TARDIS and pick up an energy residue on the Doctor's pocket spectrometer. They walk to a nearby village and meet the Brigadier at the Wild Hunt, an inn where he is lodging, and learn that UNIT have been called in regarding the death at the lab. Sarah asks Olive Plymtree about it; she tells them that the older folks believe that it is the Devil, but she thinks it is simply due to a dispute about the lab being built in an area known for natural beauty.
The Doctor, Sarah and the Brigadier travel by Jeep to the lab and meet with Mr Chilton, who feels like he might have once met the Doctor and knows Sarah's name. He gives them a tour of the lab, showing them where they test and develop superconductive materials at just above absolute zero, roughly the same temperature as deep space. Currently, they are experimenting on a new alloy of Mr Chilton's own devising. He changes the subject to the supposed monster who killed the security guard, claiming that it is likely a story propagated by the environmental lobby.
To prove that the death had nothing to do with the experiments, Mr Chilton invites the Doctor, Sarah and the Brigadier to stay and observe the next one from the control centre. The Doctor detects the strange particle signature on his spectrometer again and asks about the new alloy, which Mr Chilton admits is actually a coil of pure hadesium. The Brigadier's men contact him about the destruction of the perimeter fence by an invisible creature and the Doctor tells Mr Chilton to shut the experiment down. He refuses and draws a gun when the Doctor tries to do it himself, but the Brigadier wrestles with him and tells the Doctor and Sarah to go.
The Doctor and Sarah run and manage to get outside before the lockdown. They head to the TARDIS in order to return for the Brigadier, but the hadesium particles interfere with the dematerialisation circuit and prevents them from arriving in the lab. The TARDIS initiates an emergency shift and they materialise in the very same spot, but long before the lab was built; to save the Brigadier, the Doctor says that they must find the source of the particles in the past, which he finds is 9 February 1855.
As it is snowing, Sarah puts on the fur coat that the Doctor sometimes wore during his previous incarnation. The pair find a set of hoofprints leading from the Dewer Tor and are shot at by Sir Basil Hexworthy, who is hunting with his dogs and threatens to kill them if they move.
Part two
to be added
Part three
to be added
Part four
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor - Tim Treloar
- Sarah Jane Smith - Sadie Miller
- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Jon Culshaw
- Chilton - Barnaby Kay
- Sir Basil Hexworthy - Robert Daws
- Reverend Monty Woolsgrove - Derek Griffiths
- Mrs Plymtree / Olive Plymtree / Technician - Carolyn Seymour
- Icewalker - Nicholas Briggs
References
- The Doctor has a pocket spectrometer, which he invented.
- Sarah is officially writing a piece for the Metropolitan on how South Devon is "the new Majorca".
- The Doctor claims that Sir Walter Scott is an old friend of his.
- "Dewer" is a local word for the Devil.
- Hadesium is a dangerous element not found on Earth.
- In 1855, Queen Victoria is on the throne, the Crimean War is raging and Lord Palmerston has just become Prime Minister.
- Sir Basil's firearm is a muzzle-loaded, two-groove, double rifle made by Dickson of Edinburgh.
- Reverend Woolsgrove states that the footprints have been found as far north as Coombe Tracey, which was a fictional Dartmoor village in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
- Sarah wears the Second Doctor's fur coat to keep warm in 1855.
Notes
- Robert Valentine's inspiration for this story came from the PG Tips 'Unexplained Mysteries of the World' tea card collection entry on the Devil's Hoofprints.[1]
- The Big Finish Productions Short Trip The Devil's Footprints by Penelope Faith is based on the same historical incident, although that story is set in January 1850.
Continuity
- Sarah wears the Second Doctor's fur coat. (TV: The Abominable Snowmen)
External links
- Official The Devil's Hoofprints page at bigfinish.com
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