The Mysterious Mr Wylie: Wonky Inn Book 6 Page 11

  Silvan turned to me with excitement. “But think about it. We know the forcefield had been breached. What if someone had managed to do that and take something of value.”

  “The thing that Guillaume was trying to hide.” That made perfect sense. “I wonder what it was.”

  Florence dropped a spoon with a clatter and startled I glanced up. She was gazing over towards the door behind me, the one that linked to the back passage.

  “Where on earth did you come from?” she asked.

  Three heads swivelled as one. William Wylie had appeared in the doorway, dressed as always in his smart, slightly dated suit.

  “The thing that Guillaume was trying to hide? It was Gorde’s Gimcrack,” he said. “And I’ve been trying to find it for over a century.”

  “Gorde’s Grimcrack?” I asked.

  “Gimcrack,” Mr Wylie repeated, correcting me.

  “That was his name, wasn’t it? Gorde.” This gimcrack had been named after him?

  Mr Wylie strode into the room. Monsieur Emietter regarded him with suspicion, as he did all strangers who entered the kitchen while the chef was going about his work.

  “It was. Guillaume invented the Gimcrack and it was named after him.”

  “And what is a gimcrack when it’s at home?” I pressed.

  “I really can’t say, I’m afraid. That’s classified information.”

  “I see.” I was disappointed not to be able to find out more.

  But Silvan wasn’t so easily rebuffed. “I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s something to do with time travel. Given Guillaume was a time-travelling wizard and a gimcrack is some sort of thrown-together invention…?”

  Mr Wylie bristled at Silvan’s words. “Guillaume was a genius. The Gimcrack wasn’t exactly thrown together like some shoddy children’s kindergarten model concocted from cereal boxes. He took years to perfect it.” He walked over to the kitchen table and stared down at us. “He used to laughingly refer to it as his little trinket, but over the years he single-handedly perfected the invention that allows our order to travel anywhere at any time without adverse effects.”

  Silvan gazed up at Mr Wylie, completely intrigued. “How does it do that?”

  Mr Wylie folded his arms. “Like I told you, it’s classified.”

  Silvan sniffed. We were obviously at an impasse.

  “And this is the item that was removed from Gorde’s body?” I asked. “Assuming it was there in the first place?”

  As one we turned to look at Gwyn. She shuffled under our scrutiny. “I… I… I’m not sure. I don’t know what it looked like.”

  Mr Wylie turned to me. “I believe you have my briefcase?”

  The blasted briefcase. “I do. It’s been difficult to lose. And believe me I did try on several occasions.” I turned for the door. “Give me a minute.”

  I dashed up the back stairs to my office, half expecting the briefcase to have disappeared, but it remained where I’d stowed it, safely under my desk. I picked it up, light as a feather, and ran back down the stairs once more, where the others waited for me, the only sound in the kitchen, Monsieur Emietter’s rapid chopping. He’d switched from carrots to celery now.

  I placed the briefcase on the kitchen table and stood back as Mr Wylie flipped the clasps. Of course, it looked empty once more, but with just a tiny flick of a finger Mr Wylie unveiled the contents. He rummaged among what was there but couldn’t find what he was looking for. A firmer wag of his finger and yet more items appeared, the briefcase brimming with a variety of weird items.

  “Double-layered magick.” Silvan nodded in approval. “Nice.”

  The corner of Mr Wylie’s mouth tilted up. “Thank you. It takes years to perfect.” He held up a gold contraption, about the size of the palm of my hand. It looked something like a large alarm clock, but with the innards on the outside. Coils, springs and cogs had been neatly crafted together around a central glass window around two inches in diameter.

  Mr Wylie pressed a button and the small window began to glow sky blue.

  “Gorde’s Gimcrack,” he showed Gwyn. “But this one is mine.”

  “Wow,” Silvan exclaimed, and I smiled in amusement. I could sense his desire to get his hands on it from where I was standing.

  Gwyn nodded her confirmation. “Yes. We left a little machine like this with him. And no, it wasn’t there when his body was recovered.”

  Aghast, I turned to Mr Wylie. “So it was stolen!” I indicated Silvan. “We found that the forcefield had been interfered with.”

  Worry scored deep lines in Mr Wylie’s face. “Could you pinpoint when exactly?”

  “No,” Silvan replied reluctantly. “There was so little time. I would say thirty to forty years ago, but the magick that repaired the rift made a good job of hiding that detail.”

  “Probably on purpose. If you’re going to steal a time-travelling machine, you don’t want fellow time-travellers to come and interrupt you while you’re doing it. If that happened, they would have the knowledge after the fact.” Mr Wylie steepled his fingers. “I’d been hoping I could target the precise moment the Gimcrack was stolen.”

  “To go back and prevent it happening?” Silvan nodded his understanding, his face grim.

  “Exactly. And that’s why I’ve been attempting to make inroads in tracking it down in all of these years.” Mr Wylie squeezed his own Gimcrack and the blue light brightened through the glass.

  “Wasn’t it rather dangerous leaving your gimcrack in the briefcase?” I asked. “At the airport, at the coach station, at the post office. What if someone else had found it?” I asked.

  Mr Wylie looked coy. “But they didn’t, did they, Alfhild? You’ve looked after it extremely well. I couldn’t have asked for a better guardian.” I couldn’t help but feel this was a jibe at Gwyn who hadn’t—in the end—been able to keep Gorde’s Gimcrack safe. I frowned.

  Silvan intervened before I could rebut Mr Wylie. “What do you intend to do now?” he asked.

  “I think you’ll find that’s my business and not yours,” Mr Wylie replied politely, snapping the clasps of the briefcase and snatching it up with his left hand. He brandished the Gimcrack in his right, pressed a button again and the light blinked. “Good day to you.” With one sharp pale blue flash, he vanished, leaving everyone in the kitchen blinking into the vacuum he’d created.

  Silvan raised his eyebrows and sank bank on his seat. “Well, well, well. That was interesting.”

  “Wasn’t it?” I glanced at poor Gwyn, looking more miserable than ever. “Don’t worry, Grandmama. You couldn’t have known Gorde’s Gimcrack would be stolen. This is not your fault. None of it is. Mr Wylie was unfair to insinuate such a thing.”

  “Agreed,” said Silvan.

  “Do you think so?” Gwyn asked. “I let my old friend down. There’s no getting away from that.” She whirled around and apparated out of the kitchen. I stared into the empty space where she’d been and hoped she wouldn’t stay away for long this time.

  Meanwhile Florence had started to pour cake batter into the baking tins on top of the work surface. For some reason she’d created a blue mix. The colour reminded me of Wylie’s Gimcrack.

  I took a seat opposite Silvan and met his gaze. His black eyes sparkled as he studied my face. “The little cogs of your mind are whirring noisily, Alfhild. What a student you are. Your suspicion does you credit.”

  I scowled at him. Trust him to take the credit for my negative thoughts. “Something’s not right.”

  Silvan nodded. “My instinct, too.” Behind him, Florence slammed her cake pans into the oven and startled me. Silvan, as always remined icy calm. “There’s more to this than meets the eye.”

  Later, carrying a mug of hot chocolate and a Sunday newspaper supplement up to my bedroom, I made preparations for a stress-free hour or so, relaxing before attempting to drift off to sleep. Mr Hoo occupied his usual place on my twisted iron bedstead, and I stroked his head before lighting a candle and turning my duvet do
wn.

  As I perched on the side of the bed to pull off my shoes and stockings, Mr Hoo began to flap his wings. Given his wingspan of around three feet, you can imagine the amount of breeze he created.

  “What’s up, fella?” I asked and turned to soothe him, but this seemed to make him worse.

  “Are you alright?” I asked in alarm, reaching for him once more, but as I did so, he shot away from me and headed for the window. Whenever Mr Hoo took up residence in the bedroom, I left the window open. I only ever closed it if he was out hunting and the weather had turned inclement. Now it stood partially ajar, but not wide enough for him to exit gracefully while he was in such a tearing hurry. He thunked against the glass and then fell head first out of the window.

  I shrieked and rushed forwards, unlatching the window all the way and leaning out, scared to death of what I would see.

  “Mr Hoo? Mr Hoo?” I called in panic. It was difficult to make out much in the darkness, but I thought I could see his little body on the ground beneath my window. “Noooooo!”

  I abandoned everything and rushed out of my bedroom. “I’m coming!” I called as I clattered down the stairs, slipping the last few and landing awkwardly on the hard floor of the back corridor. Picking myself up I chased through the bar and then out of the front door. I pelted along the front of the inn and found Mr Hoo perched on the side of an old water trough we used as a planter, watching me.

  “You scared me to death!” I scolded. “Are you alright? Let me check you over.” I moved closer to my feathered friend and he fluttered away.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, genuinely perplexed. “Are you hurt?” I slid forwards and he took to the wing, soaring through the air and onto the lawn, where he landed gracefully and turned to regard me with his orange caramel eyes.

  “You’re behaving peculiarly.” I ventured out onto the lawn towards him. As I drew close, he moved off again, settling about twelve feet away. I paused. Ahead of us lay Speckled Wood. Mr Hoo did not appear to be hurt, or even stunned. He could make it to Speckled Wood by himself if he really wanted to.

  A lightbulb went on in my brain. “Do you want me to follow you?” I asked.

  “Hooo-oooo. Hooo ooo hoo. Tw’it.”

  I shook my head at him. “Alright I’m coming. And I’m not a twit.”

  I didn’t have a torch, so I had to navigate through the wood by the light of the moon. Fortunately, it was a clear and dry night and there was enough light for me to remain on the path. Mr Hoo flew from branch to branch ahead of me, sometimes circling back if I fell behind. He could fly much faster than I could stumble over the roots of trees.

  The very air in the wood teemed with life tonight. The marsh had been cleansed by Vance with the natural assistance of some wonderful thunderstorms and cloudbursts during the course of the summer. Speckled Wood itself began fairly high up in the hills above Whittlecombe, and as a result rainwater had flushed through the system easily enough as it ran down the paths and gullies, diluting the toxic nature of the chemicals planted at the source of our freshwater springs. As I walked into the wood, I was delighted to feel the steady pulse of a healthy living beat beneath my palm when I lightly trailed my hand across the front of the trees’ trunks.

  After a few minutes of half-walking-half-jogging in pursuit of Mr Hoo, I realised he was leading me to the clearing. I slowed down to a more comfortable pace and watched where I was putting my feet. The last thing I wanted was to turn an ankle.

  We had almost arrived at our destination when I sensed the presence of another. Not unduly alarmed I reached inside my robes for my wand, freeing it as a precaution. The chances were that Finbarr and his pixies were out and about tonight. He preferred walking the perimeter of my property at night and sleeping during the day.

  But Finbarr wasn’t why Mr Hoo had led me out here, was he?

  I halted, listening intently. From somewhere behind me came a muffled curse.

  Silvan.

  “Hey?” I called softly and heard the shuffle of feet speeding up slightly as he walked through dead leaves. I peered into the darkness until I could make him out. Silvan’s preference for all-black clothing made him difficult to spot in the dark.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when he drew level with me.

  He leaned closer until I could smell the faint scent of whisky, and something else, a slight spice. His eau-de-cologne. Pleasant.

  “Following you,” he whispered conspiratorially, and I pushed him away.

  “How did you know I’d left the inn?”

  Silvan laughed gently. “Everyone in this wretched village knows you left the inn after all that kerfuffle you were making.”

  I giggled. “I was in a bit of a panic, admittedly.”

  “What happened?”

  I pointed up ahead to where Mr Hoo waited on a branch, his bright eyes staring in our direction. “Mr Hoo gave a great dramatic performance, pretending to fall out of the window.”

  Silvan snorted.

  “Hooo ooo. Hooo ooo,” Mr Hoo returned in answer, and we joined him at the edge of the clearing in the centre of the forest.

  “So now what?” I asked, turning around slowly and scanning the shadows.

  “We wait, I suppose. There must be a reason why Mr Hoo wanted you here.” Silvan made himself comfortable on a bench, patting the space beside himself. After a moment I joined him.

  We didn’t have to wait long. A sudden flash of blue light announced Mr Wylie’s return. His greeting, “Good evening,” originated in the air above us, and then he stepped of the blackness—seemingly from nowhere—and joined us.

  “You brought us here?” I blinked in surprise.

  Mr Wylie smiled. “With the help of Mr Hoo.”

  “Hmm.” I regarded my feathered friend with suspicion. Whose side was he on?

  “Why all the cloak and daggers, my friend?” Silvan asked. “Not that I mind a little skulduggery, but generally I’m the one at the heart of it, not the one on the outside.”

  Mr Wylie lifted his right hand. He was still carrying both the Gimcrack and his briefcase. “I apologise for not being clear and upfront about my plans, but I had to be sure we weren’t being spied upon.” He indicated the clearing. “In discussion with Mr Hoo this seemed the most secure location.”

  “Is that so?” I asked and Mr Hoo wobbled his head.

  “I need your help,” Mr Wylie said.

  Silvan grunted. “You could just ask for it. I’m sure Alfhild would oblige.” I favoured my dark friend with a warning look, but he simply smirked at me. “You love helping people, Alf. Admit it. You’re naturally a good Samaritan. You like to get involved in anything and everything.”

  I couldn’t deny I’d had plenty of adventures since arriving at Whittle Inn.

  “And you’re incredibly nosy,” Silvan finished.

  I decided to ignore him. “How can we help you?” I asked Mr Wylie.

  “I’d like you to assist me in my attempts to track down Gorde’s Gimcrack.”

  “Wouldn’t we be better off searching for that back at the inn?” I asked and Mr Wylie shook his head.

  “No. I’m afraid its long gone from there.”

  “So—”

  “Take my arm, Alfhild, if you wouldn’t mind.” He held out the arm that was holding the briefcase and I pocketed my wand so that I could reach out to hold him at the elbow with my right hand. “And Silvan, if you could catch a hold of Alfhild?” Silvan grinned, his eyes glinting with mischief as he laced his fingers through mine. I went to wrench my hand from his in annoyance, when suddenly the world lurched to one side and I was glad to be holding on to anything.

  I heard Mr Hoo squawk in alarm and then the woods spun around me, slowly at first and then faster and faster, the landscape melting into an amorphous dark mass. My ears popped and my stomach heaved as the floor seemed to drop away and stars exploded around me, and then thankfully there was nothing.

  I blinked.

  Lights flashed in the corner of my
vision, and my stomach churned with motion sickness.

  “Here. Here. Take this.” Someone was waving something in front of my nose and I weakly batted them away.

  “It’s okay, Alf.” Silvan’s voice, gentle, his hand landing on my shoulder. “Take a good sniff of this.”

  I inhaled. Ginger. Bergamot. Or freshly cut grass.

  The spinning began to slow, and Silvan’s face, etched with concern, came sharply into focus.

  “What—?” I groaned.

  “Some form of time travel, I’d guess,” Silvan said, patting my arm. “Are you feeling better?”

  I clutched at my head. “Whoa. No. I wouldn’t want to do that more than once.”

  Silvan shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. “You’re obviously not a natural time traveller. I’m afraid we will have to do it again because we’re going to have to get home at some stage.” He stood and moved away from me, but I struggled to follow him with my eyes, my vision seemed to be fading in and out of focus.

  Then a vision in saffron appeared in front of me, holding out a beaker of steaming liquid. “Drink this. It will help to settle your stomach and clear your mind.”

  I looked up. “Mr Wylie?”

  “The very same.” He had removed his suit and donned robes, the same as those we’d seen on Guillaume’s body when we’d found him, except these were new. Clean. Crisp. The multi-colours at the hem bright and sparkling. “Welcome to my home.”

  I looked around, curious as to where someone like Mr Wylie would live. We appeared to be inside a large glass igloo. Above our heads a zillion stars sparkled in a deep, denim blue sky. They snatched my breath away with their sheer impossible infiniteness.

  “That’s quite a view,” I said, catching a sense of the shaky wonder of it in my own voice.

  Mr Wylie laughed. “Drink.”

  I took a couple of sips of the liquid in the beaker. Again, the taste of ginger with lemon and something else. He was right. My head began to defuzz and the churning sensation in my stomach calmed down. Eventually when I figured I could walk without falling over, I pushed myself to standing.