Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders

only as the Doctor, propped the case on her knee, and began to
write....
Many thousands of miles away, another ex-member of UNIT
crouched motionless in a darkened cellar. From his hiding place
at the top of the steps, he was watching a little group of robed
figures, sitting cross-legged in a circle around an intricately
drawn symbol. Candles stuck into old wine bottles illuminated
the weird scene with a flickering yellow light.
The men in the circle were chanting in low guttural voices,
accompanying themselves with the regular clash of cymbals.
They swayed to and fro as if hypnotised.
The watching man shivered in the darkness. An atmosphere
of brooding evil filled the cellar, and it was growing stronger. In
the centre of the chanting circle a shape was beginning to form...
Near the watcher’s face, a spider’s web suddenly vibrated with
life as the spider ran quickly to its centre. The watcher leaned
forward for a better view and the silky, sticky strands of the web
brushed his face. He shuddered away from their touch and
jumped back, knocking over a wine bottle at his feet. just as the
chanting was rising to a peak, the bottle rolled down the steps,
and smashed on the floor with an appalling crash.
The chanting stopped dead. The robed figures sprang to
their feet. Some of them ran to the head of the stairs – but the
watcher was gone.
Outside, in the gardens of the big old country house, Mike
Yates, formerly Captain Yates, one-time member of UNIT, onetime
assistant to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, ran through the
darkness towards his car. He was more frightened than he had
ever been in his life.
The little group in the cellar had been thrown into a panic.
They gathered round their leader, a middle-aged man with
haggard, bitter features. His name was Lupton.