The Mysterious Mr Wylie: Wonky Inn Book 6 Read online

“Maybe Florence has it,” Charity said. “I can’t find her.”

  No doubt Florence was holed up somewhere watching Witchflix. “I’ll find her,” I said and nodded as Charity left.

  I made a half-hearted attempt to straighten my desk again, and while doing so uncovered the copies of the photos that George had given me.

  I picked up the one of Gwyn with the man I assumed had been her husband and the two strangers. I laughed, startled. Now that I’d met him in the flesh so to speak, I could see that the man to the immediate right of her was indeed Mr W Wylie.

  But how could that be? The photo had been taken a century ago. The Mr Wylie I’d met hadn’t aged a bit, but he patently wasn’t a ghost either.

  It made no sense to me.

  I moved through into my bedroom to extract my orb from its box in the wardrobe, my rapidly cooling bath all but forgotten.

  I had a few calls to make.

  I relaxed back into the soft leather chair clutching the pretty cup and saucer Mr Kephisto had offered me along with a handful of custard creams.

  “And you say you haven’t seen him again?” The elderly wizard was asking me. We were sitting in his attic room, surrounded by tomes and tomes of his research. Leather-backed books with gold lettering. Cardboard folders containing hundreds of pages of handwritten notes. Journals, diaries, account books, scrapbooks, boxes of photos or lithographs, original art and prints. Mr Kephisto was a one-wizard encyclopaedia of everything to do with the witching and wizarding world. As Wizard Shadowmender had told me when I’d contacted him through the orb the previous evening, if Mr Kephisto couldn’t help me, then no-one could.

  I shook my head, feeling solemn and oddly guilty. “No. It’s been two days and there’s been no further contact from him.” I dunked one of my biscuits. “I feel bad. He claimed that the bones we found in the room belonged to his friend, but he didn’t give me any details.” I munched thoughtfully. “It’s an awful thing to find out one of your friends has been killed. And in that way? I feel desperately sorry for him.”

  Mr Kephisto reached over to take the photos I’d placed on the table between us. “You can’t blame yourself, Alf. You had nothing to do with the death of the man.” He lapsed into silence for a few moments as he studied the photos. “Your grandmother was a fine-looking woman.”

  “She still is,” I said, swallowing a mouthful of deliciously flavoured vanilla crumbs.

  “We always used to say James Daemonne had fallen on his feet when your great-grandmother agreed to marry him. He was a bit of a rogue was James.”

  In the process of lifting the cup to my mouth I paused in stunned silence and gazed at Mr Kephisto. What was he saying?

  “I… You… What?”

  “Just that she could have had her pick of any witch or wizard in the country, but she chose to leave London and come to Devon to be with James at Whittle Inn.” He smiled, lost in his memories. “Mind you, they threw a great wedding party. The pair of them were immense fun.”

  “You can’t possibly have been there. That was… like… a hundred-and-something years ago.”

  “One hundred and two if I remember correctly.”

  I replaced my cup onto the saucer with a clatter and my tea sloshed over the edge. “I don’t understand. I mean… I know you’re old… but you can’t be that old.”

  He’d alluded to his age before, but I’d never really taken any notice.

  “Trust me. I’m a lot older than you think.” He smiled. “I belong to a magickal order of guardians and it is our purpose to live long lives. Extremely long lives. But this isn’t about me.” He tapped the photo. “This is about these people. I knew your great-grandparents when they were alive. I’m delighted to still know your great-grandmother now. But I didn’t know these two men.” He gazed at the photo again, as though imprinting the image on his brain. “Or rather, I don’t know them.”

  I don’t know them? Continuous tense?

  I struggled for a second. “You’re suggesting that—like you—they’re still alive?”

  “Presumably this man,” he indicated the chap on the far right of the photo, “is not. This may well be the friend that Mr Wylie alluded to.”

  We were grasping at straws.

  “Is Mr Wylie a member of your order of guardians?” I asked.

  “No.” Mr Kephisto paused, gazing at me though the round lenses of his spectacles. I watched the cogs of his mind turn. He returned the photo to me and I studied it as he stood and went to his bookshelves, running his fingers gently along the spines, row after row, until eventually a slim dark-blue volume pushed itself out, away from the wall, the gilt lettering on the spine glowing. He plucked the book from his place and returned to his seat, the hardboard cover falling open, and the pages flipping quickly over—all of their own accord—as he scanned the contents.

  At last he peered back up at me. “I’m going to hazard a guess that your Mr Wylie is a member of the Cosmic Order of Chronometric Wizards.”

  Cosmic Order?

  I pursed my lips, a million questions forming there, but I was unsure which one to ask first. Eventually I settled for, “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “No reason why you should have,” Mr Kephisto replied cheerfully. “I’m certain they prefer it if no-one knows who they are.”

  “But they live a long time? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not at all.” Mr Kephisto consulted the book in front of him again. “Far from it. They live a normal span—usually between sixty and a hundred years.”

  Hadn’t we already established that the photo had been taken an extremely long time ago? This was making no sense. “But…”

  Mr Kephisto grinned at me, a mischievous smile that brought a sparkle to his eye and caused his little round cheeks to flush adorably. “Chronometric Wizard is the clue here, Alf.”

  Chronometric. Chronos? Something to do with time? Coupled with the word cosmic, the realization came like a bolt out of the blue. “Time travel? Mr Wylie is a time-travelling wizard?” I couldn’t quite believe that.

  “That’s my theory.” Mr Kephisto nodded in satisfaction.

  I leaned forwards, depositing my cup and saucer on the table, splashing more tea in the process. “What else does your book say about them?”

  “There’s not a great deal of information here. It was written by an investigative journalist on The Celestine Times about thirty years ago. He drew on a number of sources for his information but reading between the lines, not much is evidence based or backed-up with detailed sources.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “They’re a small order of perhaps a hundred or so men and women, handpicked from graduates of The University of Somerset’s Faculty of Witchery and Magick. They travel backwards and forwards in time to… ah… let’s say create or repair certain situations.”

  “Create or repair? Meaning what exactly? They change time.”

  “You could say that, I suppose.”

  “Isn’t that a bit dangerous? I mean you change one small thing and it has a knock-on effect on everything else.” It could spell disaster.

  Mr Kephisto nodded. “It is highly specialised work and wouldn’t be trusted to the likes of you and I, Alf.”

  I frowned at his insinuation—wholly just of course—that I was a bull in a china shop most of the time. Magickal interference would probably not be my strong suit.

  “Mmm.” I exhaled noisily. “And I would imagine such magick could be open to abuse. If someone wanted to alter time and they managed to get their hands on a member of the order and threaten them with something, bully them, coerce them or whatever…” I trailed off.

  “Which is why they are highly secretive, and why your Mr Wylie is so jumpy I imagine.”

  “So, what did he leave behind at the inn? And why can’t he find it?” I ran my hands through my hair. “He seemed desperate.”

  “That’s why you’ve got to help him if you can, Alf,” Mr Kephisto gently reminded me, and I nodded.r />
  “I’ll do all I can.”

  “Take a seat, love.” The desk sergeant indicated some grubby benches behind me. “He’ll be down in a minute.”

  After finishing with Mr Kephisto in Abbotts Cromleigh, I’d hopped on the bus heading into the city of Exeter and then made a change to drop back down towards the coast and Whittlecombe. Jed’s van, my current preferred mode of transport, had been left with the garage to have the rear axle attended to. That would be as a result of all the potholes in Devon’s roads, no doubt. What was that line in The Beatles’ song about holes filling the Albert Hall? The potholes in Devon could fill the Millennium Stadium.

  In any case, the lovely mechanics at Whittlecombe Garage had promised to return the van quickly, but probably not till the morning.

  The Land Rover I’d taken from Piddlecombe Farm had been returned there a few days before I left on my holidays. I couldn’t bear the thought of having The Mori’s vehicle anywhere near my beloved wonky inn.

  But seeing as I’d found myself in Exeter, I decided to take a detour to the police station where George was most frequently based. I hadn’t bothered calling ahead. If he wasn’t here if wouldn’t matter. It was a simple ten minutes out of my day. I just had a few questions to ask him and it would save him the trip to Whittlecombe if he was busy.

  I perched on the bench, watching people as they came and went. Some making enquiries about lost property, others enquiring about making a complaint of one description or another. I listened in, while pretending to study my phone and trying not to giggle, as one woman complained vociferously about her neighbour’s cat pooping on her lawn.

  I looked up as the door to the side of the counter opened. There was George. He seemed taken aback to see me there. Perhaps the desk sergeant had not passed on my message after all.

  “Alf?”

  “Hi.” I stood with a smile as he sloped towards me, but my smile froze in place as I saw who was following closely behind him. Stacey.

  His ‘friend’ Stacey from the emergency call centre. Stacey who had helped him to alter his appearance for the Psychic Fayre. Stacey who had taken selfies of the pair of them as she planted a kiss on his cheek. Stacey who had known he had a girlfriend but still pursued him regardless.

  I touched the reassuring ancient wood of the wand in my pocket and contemplated turning Stacey into a cockroach but perhaps George read my thoughts because he hurriedly stepped between us.

  “Alf!” he repeated. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Obviously,” I said and leaned slightly sideways, peering around him so I could scowl at Stacey. She had the decency to blush and turned hurriedly to the desk, to engage the sergeant there in conversation.

  “We were just going to grab a bite up the road. Would you like to come?”

  The man was crazy. I’d rather have sacrificed my first born to the God of snow and ice—and everyone knows how much I hate snow and ice—than spend time watching Stacey cosy up with ‘my’ George. Ha!

  “No, no. I’m fine thanks,” I replied, working on making my tone light and carefree while trying to unclench my teeth. “Dinners to cook, inns to run. You know how it is.”

  “Always busy.” George smiled and took my arm. I resisted the urge to pull away. “How is everyone? Gwyn? Charity? Florence?”

  “Very well.” I nodded.

  “Zephaniah? Luppitt? Monsieur Emietter?”

  Was he going to name them all? “Busy. We have a full house at the moment. Monsieur Emietter is concocting a special French supper this evening.”

  “Oh, lovely.”

  “A frogs’ legs starter, I believe.” I met George’s eye and he blanched slightly.

  “Right.”

  “Right.” I repeated and pulled my arm away.

  “Alf…” he tried, but I held a hand up.

  “Like I said, I can’t stay long. I just have a couple of questions for you.”

  George, looking thoroughly miserable, nodded and folded his arms. “Okay.”

  “Did you find a cause of death on the skeleton?”

  George shook his head. “No. I think we’ll be recording an open verdict on that one. We really have nothing to go on. The skeleton is intact with no visible injuries to the bones. There was no damage to the clothing, either, just deterioration of the fabric due to the length of time it had been interred.”

  “He wasn’t killed violently then?”

  George shrugged. “That’s hard to say. He may have been stabbed—although there is no indication from the clothes that that’s the case. And there’s nothing to suggest that a knife met a bone. He could have been poisoned. That’s a potential line of enquiry, but I think forensic examination of the hair will probably rule that out, too. I think we can also say he wasn’t strangled or shot, and he wasn’t hung.”

  “Could he have been bricked up in that space and left to die of starvation?”

  George frowned and shook his head. “You do have the slightly macabre imagination of a detective, Alf,” he replied with a wry grimace. “Either that or you’ve been hanging around me too much. I would say that no, he was dead when he was placed there. There’s no evidence he tried to claw his way out. No marks on the wall. It’s not definite, but it seems unlikely.”

  That was a relief. I relaxed a little. “And still no identification?”

  “No. There was nothing among the bits and pieces we removed from around him that helped us at all.” George glanced around to make sure we weren’t being listened to, then leaned closer to me. “What about you? Anything you can share?”

  “I have a potential lead on who he may be,” I replied cagily. “Or I would have, but the person who can help me keeps disappearing.”

  “Gwyn?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t seen her for days, but she’s in a right tizz about this whole thing and I’m sure she knows more than she’s letting on.”

  George regarded me with interest. “Someone else then?”

  “Yes,” I spoke carefully and gave him a meaningful look. “But I can’t say any more.”

  “Alright.” He rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then dropped his gaze back to me with those soft blue eyes that I loved. “When you can, you’ll fill me in, yeah?”

  “I will,” I promised.

  “Good. We’ll get together for another drink soon, shall we?”

  I looked over his shoulder at Stacey and curled my lip.

  “Alone,” he said. “I’ll come alone.”

  With both Gwyn and Florence missing for the evening dinner service, Charity and I were run off our feet. Although I’d been lying to George when I said I had a full house at the inn—The Throne Room was still out of commission after all—we did have plenty of guests to attend to in the aftermath of the bank holiday weekend. Using Finbarr to help with service was out of the question. I needed someone constantly looking to the perimeter of the inn and ensuring the spells used to keep Whittle Inn safe from the attentions of undesirables such as The Mori remained as powerful as when they’d first been cast.

  Besides, wherever Finbarr went his pixies invariably followed, and I was in no mood for corralling a bunch of mischievous little miscreants who insisted on running riot around the dining tables and grabbing food from my guests’ plates.

  Been there, earned that particular badge.

  I’d roped in Ned to help behind the bar, so that Zephaniah could help me clear tables and bring out food and drinks, but it wasn’t his favourite job. He was an outdoorsy type ghost, was Ned, more at home tending to dahlias and begonias than measures of gin or the proper amount of head allowed on a pint of lager.

  At 9.30 pm I left Zephaniah and Ned to look after the bar and sent Charity off duty, too. She looked exhausted, and I felt pretty weary myself. But as I climbed the stairs to my room, I kept going when I reached my landing, up the next flight and the next, until I arrived in the attic, determined to hunt down Florence and Gwyn.

  Florence was easy enough to loc
ate. We had converted part of the attic at my father Erik’s instigation. He had mentioned to me, quite forcibly as it happened, that eternity is quite a long time, and it gets boring. Given his predilection for playing games on the lawn in the summer, it was no surprise when he suggested a club room of sorts for all of Whittle Inn’s ghosts to share.

  It had been straightforward enough to create one. There had been a billiard table in pieces left abandoned in the attic for decades, so I had that put together and the baize recovered. We filled a cupboard with board games, and there were plenty of packs of cards, some that had been around for over a century and shuffled like slices of toast. There were books and crafts, a gramophone and a stereo, and there was a television.

  Florence had parked herself in front of the television with the sound down, watching yet another episode of The Great Witchy Cake-Off, while many of the other ghosts chattered around her.

  “Captain on the deck,” Luke Riley, a 1920s sailor announced, and pretended to pipe me aboard. I gave him a look and a few of the other ghosts in our vicinity giggled. Florence however didn’t even look up.

  “How’s it going, Florence?” I called, and walked purposely between her and the television.

  “Oh, Miss Alf!” She finally noticed me and quickly jumped up, brushing down her skirts, ash and soot falling towards the ground but evaporating before they could meet the wooden floorboards. I’d heard the expression square-eyed before for people who watch too much TV, but I’d never seen it in practice.

  Until today.

  I gestured at the television. “Florence, we talked about this.”

  “I know, Miss.” She looked shamefaced. “It’s just—”

  “Yes?”

  “I have so many ideas. I’d love to try them out.”

  I shrugged. “So try them out, Florence! I’ve a huge kitchen downstairs and an inn full of hungry supernaturals. Many of them with a sweet tooth. Including me. What’s to stop you?”

  Florence grimaced. “I’m not sure Monsieur Emietter…”

  Ah there it was in a nutshell. Monsieur Emietter had always been a tyrant in the kitchen, although truth to tell he had a heart of gold. The problems arose because he didn’t speak English and nobody at the inn spoke any French.