AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It wasn’t far now to the old alchemical laboratory. Unless I was mistaken, it must be just around the next corner. So I slowed down. “Afraid of me? He throttled me without even touching me, and since he can read thoughts, he knows perfectly well that I am terrified of him, not the other way around.”
“He throttled you? Without touching you?” Mr. George had stopped and was staring at me. He looked shocked. “Dear heavens. Gwyneth, why didn’t you tell us about this before?”
“Would you have believed me?”
Mr. George passed the back of his hand over his bald patch and was just opening his mouth to say something when we heard footsteps coming and a heavy door slammed shut. Mr. George looked alarmed—more alarmed than I’d have expected—led me around the corner in the direction from which the sound of the door had come, and took a black scarf out of his jacket pocket.
It was Falk de Villiers. Gideon’s uncle and Grand Master of the Lodge, walking energetically along the corridor. But he smiled when he saw us.
“Ah, there you are. Poor Marley has just been ringing up to the house to ask what had become of you, so I thought I’d take a look.”
I blinked and rubbed my eyes, as if Mr. George had only just taken the blindfold off, but that was obviously an unnecessary bit of playacting, because Falk de Villiers didn’t even notice. He opened the door to the chronograph room, once the old alchemical laboratory.
Falk was maybe a year or so older than my mum and very good-looking, like all the members of the de Villiers family I’d met so far. I always thought of him as the lead wolf of the pack. His thick hair had gone gray early and made an intriguing contrast with his amber eyes.
“There, you see, Marley? No one’s gone missing,” he said in a jovial tone to Mr. Marley, who had been sitting on a chair in the chronograph room and now jumped up, nervously kneading his fingers.
“I only … I thought that, to be on the safe side…” He stammered. “I do apologize, sir.…”
“No, no, we’re glad to know that you take your duties so seriously,” said Mr. George, and Falk asked, “Where’s Mr. Whitman? He and I had a date to see Dean Smythe over a cup of tea, and I was going to collect him.”
“He’s just left,” said Mr. Marley. “They said they really did have to meet him.”
“Right, then I’ll be off. I may catch up with him on the way. Coming, Thomas?”
After a brief sidelong glance at me, Mr. George shook his head.
“And we’ll see each other again tomorrow, Gwyneth. When you’re off to the great ball.” But halfway out the door, Falk turned again and said, as if casually, “Oh, and give your mother my regards, Gwyneth. Is she all right?”
“My mum? Yes, she’s fine.”
“Glad to hear it.” I must have been looking rather bewildered, because he cleared his throat and added, “Mothers who are on their own and working full-time don’t always have an easy life these days, so I’m pleased for her.”
Now I was intentionally looking bewildered.
“Or—or maybe she isn’t on her own? An attractive woman like Grace is bound to meet a lot of men, so perhaps there’s someone in particular.…”
Falk was looking at me expectantly, but when I frowned, puzzled, he looked at his watch and cried, “Oh, so late already. I really must be on my way.”
“Was that a question he asked?” I said when Falk had closed the door behind him.
“Yes,” said Mr. George and Mr. Marley at the same time, and Mr. Marley went scarlet. “Er,” he added, “at least, it sounded to me as if he wanted to know whether your mother has a steady boyfriend,” he muttered.
Mr. George laughed. “Falk’s right, it really is late. If Gwyneth is to get any homework done this evening, we have to send her back into the past now. What year shall we pick, Gwyneth?”
As I’d agreed with Lesley, I said as indifferently as possible, “I don’t mind. It was 1956 the other day—am I right, was it 1956? There were no rats in the cellar then. It was even quite comfortable.” Of course I didn’t breathe a word about meeting my grandfather in secret in the comfort of the rat-free cellar. “I managed to learn my French vocabulary there without trembling with fright the whole time.”
“No problem,” said Mr. George. He opened a thick journal, while Mr. Marley pushed aside the wall hanging that hid the safe containing the chronograph.
I tried to peer over Mr. George’s shoulder as he leafed through the journal, but his broad back got in the way.
“Let’s see. That was 24 July 1956,” said Mr. George. “You spent all afternoon there and came back at six thirty in the evening.”
“Six thirty would be a good time,” I said, crossing my fingers that our plan would work out. If I could go back to the exact time when I had left the room on that visit, my grandfather would still be down there, and I wouldn’t have to waste any time looking for him.
“I think we’d better make it six thirty-one,” said Mr. George. “We don’t want you colliding with yourself.”
Mr. Marley, who had put the chest containing the chronograph on the table and was now taking the device, which was about the size of a mantelpiece clock, out of its velvet wrappings, murmured, “But strictly speaking, it’s not night there yet. Mr. Whitman said—”
