Serpent in the Silver Mask (audio story)

Serpent in the Silver Mask was the two hundred and thirty-sixth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by David Llewellyn and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Matthew Waterhouse as Adric, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka.

Publisher's summary
You are cordially invited to Argentia, the galaxy’s most exclusive tax haven, to attend the funeral of mining magnate Carlo Mazzini. The memorial service will be followed by music, light refreshments, and murder!

Carlo’s heirs have come to say their final goodbyes (and find out how much they’ve inherited) but when a masked killer begins picking them off one by one, Argentia goes into lock-down, closed off behind its own temporal displacement field.

Can the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric apprehend the murderer before Argentia – and everyone on board - is forever cut off from the rest of the Universe?

Part one
The Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric arrive in the TARDIS on Argentia, with the Doctor on a mission to get diothanine crystals so he can make a new sonic screwdriver. They run into some trouble with a robot and Superintendent Galgo but after a quick DNA scan they are approved to attend the funeral currently being hosted for the deceased Carlo Mazzini, a wealthy billionaire industrialist who ran an interplanetary mining company called The Mighty Mazzinis and who was an inhabitant, having recently passed away. The four split up and converse with the guests, most of them his family who are eager to know how much they have been left in Carlo's will. The will is eventually read, and Carlo's entire estate is bequeathed to his son Angelo Mazzini, much to the shock of the other guests and especially to the rest of the Mazzini family, as his father and he were not too close. Angelo is then escorted to a sink pod to contact his accountant about the news to settle matters, and the Doctor secretly follows, explaining that they're likely to find the diothanine crystals nearby there as they are used for sink pods and brings Adric with him but makes Nyssa and Tegan stay behind so as not arouse the suspicion of Superintendent Galgo, who has been keeping an eye on them the whole time.

The Doctor and Adric find the enterance to the mine stores of the diothanine crystal and the Doctor goes in while Adric keeps watch. Adric, however, ends up seeing Angelo, while using the pod, murdered by an assailant wearing a silver mask and a black hat. They call Superintendent Galgo, who heavily suspects them, however, they find the ashes of Angelo, likely to have been killed by and the result of an incineration beam and confirmed by a DNA scan, and the whole of Argentia is put on temporal lock-down with no time-travel ship or device able to transport anyway away from the current zone. Tegan talks with Joe Mazzini, whom she met earlier, who says he thinks he knows who killed Angelo, given they were missing during the party after the will reading. They find the Doctor but before Joe can say the Doctor already guessed that he suspects Francesco Mazzini who is mysteriously absent. Joe simply reaffirms that was his guess. Meanwhile, Francesco, having discovered the death, contacts some people about a deal since he is now next in line for the inheritance but is killed by the assailant. The Doctor, Tegan and Galgo find his dead body, leaving Nyssa and Adric to walk around and eavesdrop. Just then, Tegan looks up to discover a sort of reptilian arthropod is directly above her, and the Doctor warns her to stay still...

Part two
to be added

Part three
to be added

Part four
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Davison
 * Adric - Matthew Waterhouse
 * Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
 * Tegan - Janet Fielding
 * The Mazzini Family - Samuel West
 * Superintendent Galgo / Zaleb 5 - Phil Cornwell
 * Sofia Cozzi - Sophie Winkleman

Continuity
to be added