Wizard Undercover

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Food poisoning?” Sir Alec stared into the slight fogginess of his private crystal ball. Splotze’s etheretics were acting up yet again, making the connection jittery. “Mister Dunwoody, are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be,” said his most promising and problematical janitor. “The thinking is that the crab puffs are the culprits. The head cook’s been off his game ever since Bestwick disappeared.”

Bestwick. A possible connection, then? “This cook. You don’t think-”

“No, sir, he’s not involved. At least, not on purpose. He just about collapsed when he was brought up from the kitchens and saw what had happened. Burst into floods of tears at the thought of his precious crab puffs ruined.” A snort. “Not to mention his reputation.”

“Tears, Mister Dunwoody, are not a foolproof indicator of innocence.”

“No, sir. But I made sure to read him, and I couldn’t sense anything to suggest he’d mucked about with dubious magics.”

“And you’re confident you’ve not been misled?”

Even with the unreliable etheretic connection, he could see something shift behind Dunwoody’s eyes. Honed instincts stirred, and he leaned forward.

“Mister Dunwoody?”

“Yes, sir, I’m confident. The cook’s not involved.”

A flat statement, lacking room for doubt. Still…

Disquiet not eased, he decided to let the moment pass. For now. “And you have no other suspects?”

“There was one,” said Dunwoody. “The palace secretary. But I’ve ruled him out too.”

“So where does that leave us, Mister Dunwoody? Was the food poisoning accidental, or a deliberate attempt to sabotage the wedding?”

“Sorry, sir,” Dunwoody said, shrugging. “ I can’t say yet. The investigative waters are a bit muddy. Turns out the cook’s been helping himself to the good stuff in the palace wine cellar. He’s hazy about the last couple of days.”

Just what he needed. “In other words, he could have allowed tainted crab meat into his kitchens, or tainted it himself through drunken carelessness.”

“Exactly, sir. And if it was tainted when it got here the next question is, did someone deliberately taint it beforehand? But if it was fine when it arrived, and the cook’s habits aren’t to blame, then that points to someone in the palace taking advantage of his drinking to tamper with the crab.”

Sir Alec pinched the bridge of his nose. Another thundering headache was brewing. “And how likely is that, d’you think?”

“ Well, sir, I suppose anything’s possible,” Dunwoody said. “But honestly? It all seems too complicated to me. That kind of plot’s got so many moving parts. An awful lot can go wrong with it.”

Very true. “A more immediate interference, then?

“Possibly,” Dunwoody said, sounding doubtful. “Only I couldn’t detect any leftover thaumaturgics in the State Dining room. And when Bib — I mean, Miss Markham — inspected the kitchen, she couldn’t sense anything out of place either.”

That sat him upright, a muscle spasming beside his left eye. “I’m sorry? Mister Dunwoody, are you telling me you’ve made Miss Markham an active part of this investigation?”

Dunwoody stared out of the fogged crystal ball, his slightly distorted expression defensive. “No, sir. At least, not exactly. It just made sense to let her look. I mean, she has had experience with thaumaturgical food tampering, remember?”

As if he could forget the cooking competition debacle. “That isn’t the point. The point, Mister Dunwoody, is that-”

Gerald Dunwoody held up his hands. “Sir, sir, I know what you’re going to say. But I can explain. Y’see, the thing is, Bibbie — Miss Markham, I mean — at the Servants’ Ball, she made friends with a kitchen maid who knows Bestwick. A very useful connection, sir. I’d have missed it. Anyway, it gave her an excuse to go down to the kitchens, sir, to see if this Mitzie was all right. And while she was down there, well, she had a little poke around, thaumaturgically speaking.”

“And was this her idea, Dunwoody, or yours?”

Dunwoody swallowed. “Hers. But Mel — I mean, Miss Cadwallader — she thought it was a good idea too. So. You know. I was outnumbered.”

“Outnumbered?” Astonished, Sir Alec stared at his man in Splotze. “Mister Dunwoody, you are an agent of the Ottosland government. You outrank them. Act like it!”

“All due respect, sir, but that’s easy for you to say,” Gerald Dunwoody retorted. “You’re in Nettleworth. Besides, it would’ve looked very odd, me wandering about the palace kitchens. But nobody questioned one maid comforting another.”

Unfortunately, Dunwoody had a point there. “Granted,” he said grudgingly. “However, do let me make myself perfectly clear. This is the first and last time Miss Markham insinuates herself into this investigation. She and Miss Cadwallader are useful bystanders. They are not participants.”

“ Yes, well, I’m sorry, Sir, Alex but I’d like to see you keep a lid on Miss Markham,” Dunwoody muttered. “ Or Miss Cadwallader, for that matter. She’s taking this personally, sir, and I can’t say I blame her. She was dreadfully sick, y’know.”

High-handed princesses taking things personally. Catastrophically talented witches poking about in kitchens. Pinching his nose again, he had to wonder if at last, in sending those two unconventional young women into the field, he’d not managed to outsmart himself.

He frowned at his agent. “You said this kitchen maid was friendly with Bestwick? How friendly, exactly?”

Dunwoody cleared his throat. “Friendlier than you’d like. Sir.”

Damn. He could already hear Frank Dalby’s cursing. “I see.”

“It’s hard to blame him,” Dunwoody added. “Four years is a long time to spend in a pantry. ”

“Bestwick wasn’t sent to Splotze to cavort with kitchen maids!” he snapped. “And if you can so easily forgive his lapse of good judgement, Mister Dunwoody, perhaps you’re not the right man for the job either!”

Silence, as Dunwoody blinked at him. “Sorry, sir.”

“Miss Cadwallader,” he said abruptly, angrily aware that weariness and frustration were betraying him into an unproductive shortness of temper. “How is she faring now?”

“She’s recovering, sir. Everyone is, who’s been sick.”

“Which begs the obvious question: who hasn’t been sick?”

Gerald Dunwoody’s misted, wavering expression darkened. “The Lanruvians. They didn’t touch the crab puffs.”

Of course the Lanruvians. Everywhere he turned, the elusive bloody Lanruvians. “Who else?”

“Leopold Gertz, Splotze’s Secretary of State. The Marquis of Harenstein, but it seems that’s because he has a cast iron constitution. According to Miss Cadwallader he was eating everything he could lay his hands on. A few political nobodies. Nearly everyone was afflicted, sir.” He grimaced. “It was a real mess.”

Sir Alec drummed his fingers on the desk. “So then, to sum up: we’re no closer to uncovering the source of the plot against the wedding than we were when you left.”

“No, sir.”

“And the Lanruvians have done nothing at all to make you suspicious?”

“They’re bloody unsettling, sir, but that’s hardly a crime.”

“Granted. But keep a close eye on them, Mister Dunwoody. They are not to be trusted.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the wedding tour. Does it continue as planned?”

Dunwoody almost smiled. “It does, thanks to Dowager Queen Erminium’s bullying. I don’t think there’s much that old battleaxe wouldn’t do to make sure the nuptials go ahead.”

“Then, Mister Dunwoody, I advise you to remain vigilant. Next time there’s an incident-and we must assume there will be a next time-we can’t expect to get off so lightly. You’re to use any and all means at your disposal to ensure the success of the Splotze-Borovnik wedding.”

In the foggy crystal ball, Gerald Dunwoody frowned. “Including what’s left of the grimoire magic?”

Careful, now. Careful. “If you must.”

Even the etheretic uncertainty couldn’t hide Dunwoody’s displeasure. “Really? So let me see if I understand you, sir. It’s too dangerous for Bibbie and Melissande to help me, but using the most lethal thaumaturgics we’ve ever met is fine and dandy?”

And now it was time to tread very lightly indeed. Gerald Dunwoody might well be the best weapon in his arsenal, but carelessly handled weapons had a tendency to go off at the most inopportune moments.

“I’d have thought the distinction would be obvious, Mister Dunwoody. While Miss Cadwallader and Miss Markham can be useful allies, clearly they are not amenable to your control. On the other hand, with every hour that passes, that remaining grimoire magic is becoming more and more an inextricable part of you-which means it is something you can control.”

Dunwoody’s face had gone blank. “You hope. Sir.”

“I am confident in your abilities, Mister Dunwoody. But if you find the notion disturbing, you can take heart from the fact that whatever hexes do remain might well help you to prevent a catastrophe in Splotze.”

“So you’re saying I should look on their acquisition as a happy accident?”

“I am saying, Mister Dunwoody-and not for the first time-that when life hands us lemons it is only prudent to make lemonade.”

Very slowly, Gerald Dunwoody nodded. “Prudent. Right. Any more useful advice, Sir Alec?”

Not even Frank Dalby had ever tried that tone on him. It was a tone to invite serious censure, if not outright dismissal. But Frank Dalby wasn’t a rogue wizard whose formidable powers had been augmented in ways that were, at the end of the day, unspeakable. Because of that, Gerald Dunwoody had to be permitted a little… leeway.

He offered his difficult agent a thin smile. “Use your best judgement. Be careful. Succeed. Thousands of lives are depending on you, Mister Dunwoody.”

Dunwoody raised an eyebrow. “And what would you like me to take care of in my spare time?”

“Your attitude!” he said sharply, because there were limits. And on that warning note, he disconnected the vibration and sat back in his chair.

Silence shrouded his office. It was late. Even Frank had gone home. Aside from two duty officers, he was alone in the building. Of course, if he went home he’d be alone there, too. But then it seemed more and more often, these days, that he felt alone in the middle of a crowd.

After a while, he slid from his chair, drifted to his office window and stared into the streetlamp-pricked darkness that was Nettleworth asleep. He’d seen too much, and done too much, to harbour any illusions or even much hope that the simple religious teachings of his childhood could ever stand against the evil he confronted every day of his adult life. But even so, he found himself harking back to that kinder, simpler time.

Gerald Dunwoody’s a good man, faced with a hard task. If there is a God in this sorry world of ours, He’d do well to keep that young man safe.

With a rattling chug-chug-chug the jalopy coasted to a halt in the deep kerbside shadows between lamp posts along the hushed, exclusive suburban Ott street. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Monk turned off the engine then squinted through the open driver’s side window. Please, please, let him have found the right place. Dodsworth had given him copious directions, but even so, having never been to the Blonkken embassy in broad daylight, let alone in the practically pitch dark, a mistake was entirely possible. And he couldn’t afford any mistakes.

Tickling at the edge of his potentia, a tug of familiar thaumaturgics. It felt like the hex he’d given Dodsworth to leave behind so he could get into the embassy undetected. To make sure though, because it was late and he was knackered and couldn’t be certain his potentia wasn’t playing him tricks, he took his little box of special hexes from the jalopy’s glove department and held it lightly in his hand. After a moment’s concentration he had his answer. Yes, the thaumaturgical signatures matched. He was in the right place.

And now that his eyes were accustomed to the fitful gloom, he could see in the distance the embassy’s back garden, tree-fringed and barricaded behind a high brick wall. Beyond that, if he squinted even harder, he could just make out the ambassadorial residence. It was well past midnight, and from the lack of lamplit windows in the ambassadorial residence it seemed fair to assume the occupants were by now conveniently asleep.

Perched on the back of the passenger seat, Reg chattered her beak. “All right then, sunshine. I’ve been wonderfully patient, but now I think it’s time you told me where we are and what we’re doing here.”

Holding up a finger, Monk continued to squint into the darkness. According to Dodsworth, his expert consultant, the Blonkken embassy wasn’t a big building. Two storeys only. For his purposes, its modesty was both good and bad. Faster to get around in, but not so much space to act as a cushion between the offices and the bedrooms. Probably fewer handy hiding places, too, should things go pear-shaped. Still, with any luck “Oy!” said Reg, and thumped him with her wing. “Have you gone suddenly deaf, or what?”

He glared at her, rubbing his head. “I wish you wouldn’t do that! How am I supposed to hex my way in there if you give me a concussion?”

“Hex your way in where? Monk Markham, where are we lurking?”

He couldn’t delay the moment of truth any longer. If he could’ve left her behind altogether he would have, because he knew, he just knew, the bird was going to kick up a stink. Except if he’d tried to leave her out of this she’d only have followed him. Like it or not, for as long as Gerald was off janitoring in Splotze, he and Reg were stuck with each other.

“Outside the Blonkken embassy.”

“The Blonkken embassy? Why in the name of-” And then Reg’s dark eyes widened. “Monk Markham, do you actually think we’re going to break into the Blonkken embassy?”

“Yes,” he said, torn between apprehension and defensiveness. “Well, I am. But don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

“Don’t worry?” The bird spluttered. “When it comes to you and your antics, ducky, all I ever do is worry! We can’t go staggering about a foreign country’s embassy in the middle of the night! What about the guards? If your Blonkken are anything like mine, then they’re very big on guards. You can bet your last bottle of brandy they’re tramping over the garden beds right now, looking for someone illegal to clap in irons!”

“Reg, I told you, it’ll be fine.”

“I beg to differ,” Reg retorted. “Now just you drive this jalopy back to Chatterly Crescent quick smart, before someone marches out here with a flaming torch, a pointy pike and a lot of bloody awkward questions!”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “But I can’t go home until I’ve had a good poke around in there. I need to see if I can find some incriminating documents that will prove they’re the ones up to no good in Splotze.”

Reg opened her beak to argue, had second thoughts, then tipped her head to one side. “And what makes you so sure Blonkken’s the villain here?”

“I’m not. In fact, I’d be shocked if it turned out Blonkken’s behind this wedding mayhem, but I need to keep an open mind.”

“Ha!” said Reg. “Your mind’s already open, sunshine. It’s so open I can hear the wind whistling between your ears!”

He glowered. “By all means, feel free to stay behind if you’re scared. But I’m afraid I have to-”

“Scared?” Reg chattered her beak again, furious. “I’m not scared, I’m dumbfounded. If this mad little expedition of yours goes arse over teakettle, and with you in charge of strategics that’s more than bloody likely, that mangy Sir Alec will personally string you up by your unmentionables!”

Monk winced. “Yes, well, we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen, won’t we?”

“We? We?” Reg fluffed her feathers in fresh outrage. “Who said anything about we? You never asked my opinion of your mad plan, did you? You haven’t even see fit to tell me what it is!”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think I had to. I assumed you’d jump on board, seeing as how I’m trying to get Gerald and the girls home again in one piece. But if I was wrong…”

Eyes gleaming, Reg rattled her tail so hard she nearly fell off the back of the passenger seat. “Forget it, my boy. That kind of soppy heartstring tugging might’ve worked on the other bird, but you are looking at a woman who let sentimentality fool her once, and won’t ever be fooled again. Got it?”

Swallowing, Monk stared at her. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just-for a moment there, I forgot…”

“That I’m not her?” Reg snorted. “Well. I suppose if I squint hard, and twist my head upside down, Mister Clever Clogs, I could see that might be some kind of compliment.”

Mister Clever Clogs. Ambushed by unexpected emotion, Monk blinked out of the window. The other Reg had called him that all the time, being sarky. But this was the first time…

Reg gave him another great whack on the back of the head. “Just so you know a therapeutic concussion is still on the cards!”

“Bugger it, Reg!” he protested. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that!”

“Tell me the plan and I’ll stop,” she said, sniffing. “All of it, mind you. Not the edited highlights.”

As plans went, he was pretty proud of this one. Especially considering his lack of janitorial experience. But Reg?

“That’s your plan?” the bird said, once he’d finished explaining. “Draft a geriatric door-opener to totter about what’s technically foreign soil slapping hexes in places you hope won’t get noticed, so you can slink in afterwards using your highly dubious counter-hexes and rummage through the privy paperwork of important men who don’t give a fat rat’s fart if your name ends with Markham? That’s your plan?”

Squashed as far away from Reg as he could get, which wasn’t anywhere near far enough, Monk cleared his throat. “Ah… yes? Yes, that’s it. Pretty much. Although I’m not sure slink is the right word. And I don’t see that it’s fair to call Dodsworth geriatric, either, when you-”

“Hell’s bells, you mad bugger! You don’t need me to concuss you, it’s clear as mud you’re concussed already!”

“Look-Reg-”

The bird flapped her wings like a scarecrow in a storm. “Don’t you Look, Reg me, you daft-you demented-I can’t believe you’d-without even discussing it? What raving loony let you out of the lab?”

“Blimey, Reg,” he said, deflated. “All right, so as plans go it might be a little bit tatty round the edges, but I didn’t think it was as hopeless as that.”

More dramatic wing flapping. “Ha! Says the man who thought opening a portal into another dimension was a nifty thing to do on a wet afternoon!”

Well, that was just plain mean. “All right!” he said hotly. “If you’re so bloody clever, Reg, if you’re such a janitoring mastermind, how would you go about uncovering secret information about the people on the Splotze-Borovnik wedding list when you don’t have a single solitary reason to go barging in asking pointed questions? Eh? Come on, then. Enlighten me. I am all ears.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry?” He leaned sideways. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch your answer, seems I’m a bit deaf from all that shouting and wing flapping. Or maybe it’s the concussion I didn’t realise I had. You’d do what, exactly?”

Reg looked down her beak at him. “Ha ha. Very witty. You’ll be the toast of your cell block in the Ott prison, I’m sure.”

“No, sorry, I still can’t seem to find the plan in that delightfully snarky reply.”

“Now you look here, Mister Markham!” said Reg, with a truly formidable rattle of tail feathers. “It’s all very well you jumping onto your high horse and waving your little fists about like a toddler in a tantrum, but that won’t undo the fact that what you’re proposing is ridiculously dangerous. I don’t care how much of a bloody thaumaturgical genius you are, or how many windows doddering Dodsworth left open for you, or what kind of clever hexes you’ve got stuffed down your unmentionables, you cannot go swanning about a foreign embassy as though you owned the bloody place. Being a Markham might save you out here, but in there-” She pointed her wing towards the embassy. “-you’re a nothing and a nobody and when they catch you they’ll hang you as a spy.”

“ When they catch me?” Monk shook his head. “Your faith is heartwarming, Reg. Look! I’m going to shed a tear.”

“You’ll shed more than tears when they’ve got you standing against a wall with a loaded First Grade staff pointed at your warm heart!” she snapped.

“I thought you said they’d hang me.”

“Hang you-shoot you-set you on fire! What difference does it make? The point is, sunshine, you’ll be dead!”

Monk slumped until his knees knocked the jalopy’s polished walnut dashboard. “Blimey, Reg. You really know how to take the fun out of things.”

With a softer tail rattle, the dreadful bird hopped down to his knee and fixed him with the sternest of stares. “You silly boy, this was never about fun. That’s always been your problem, Mister Markham. You’ve spent most of your life giggling as you skate over the thin ice. And because you’re a Markham, and a genius, and useful to the right sort of people, time and again you get away with blue murder.”

Appalled, Monk felt his heart thud. What is this? First Aylesbury, now the bird… “You make me sound like-like Errol Haythwaite!”

“No, no,” she said, impatient. “Errol Haythwaite’s a pillock. You’re just careless. And thoughtless. You get carried away.”

“In other words, I’m a tosser!” he said, still appalled. “I think that’s a bit bloody harsh. You don’t seem to realise, Reg, that working in Research and Development means I get told things. Dreadful things you’ll never read about in the Ottosland Times, or are even whispered about beyond our four walls. And then I get told, Toddle off, Mister Markham, and just make sure that doesn’t happen. So I toddle off and I bend the Laws of Thaumaturgics until you’d hardly recognise them and I come up with a way to make sure that doesn’t happen. Whatever the that is my superiors have stumbled across this week, at any rate. Next week they’ll stumble across something else, you can bet your next bowl of mince on it, Reg, and I’ll be expected to dream up some other outlandish hex or ridiculous gadget that’ll save us, yet again. Because I’m Monk Markham, aren’t I, and that’s what I do! So if I get a bit carried away giggling while I’m skating on your thin ice, well, I think even you’ll agree that giggling’s better than screaming!”

Reg blinked at him. “I never said you don’t make a valuable contribution to the causes of peace and international freedom, sunshine,” she said more kindly. “But if you’re looking for a bird who’ll hold her tongue when she sees a man merrily tripping down the wrong path, well, don’t look at me.”

“Look, Reg, you might be right,” he said. “This plan of mine might be the wrong plan. But it’s the best I can come up with on short notice. Sir Alec just tossed this wedding list thing into my lap and sauntered away. He’s like Uncle Ralph and the rest of them, he assumes I can pull a thaumaturgical rabbit out of my hat at a moment’s notice, every time. And so I have to, don’t I? Bloody Gerald’s up to his grimoire-enhanced eyebrows in trouble and he’s got my sister and my-my friend with him. I can’t leave them twisting in the wind.”

Reg looked down her beak again. “No. You can’t. But make no mistake-you breaking into foreign embassies using dubious thaumaturgics is a recipe for disaster.”

Monk thudded his head against the closed driver’s side window. “Then what am I s’posed to do?”

“You let me break into the foreign embassies for you,” Reg said promptly. “If your enterprising butler has left a suitably unimportant window open I can fly in and snoop about, and if anyone sees me it’ll be Oh dear, look at the poor little birdy, let’s shoo it outside.”

Oh, lord. “And what if there’s a closed door between you and the room with the information in it? What if what we’re looking for is stuck in a drawer? What then?”

“Well, sunshine, what I lack in opposable thumbs I make up for with guile and cunning,” said the bird. “And I expect you’ve got some clever hexwork stuffed down your drawers that’ll sort out any inconveniences like locks and closed doors and stuck drawers and what have you.”

Monk felt his spirits sink. Really? Just like that? The bird was as bad as Uncle Ralph and Sir Alec and the rest of them, taking his powers of genius for granted.

Although, now that he thought about it…

“Could be I do,” he said slowly. “A variation on something Bibbie came up with once. Just-be quiet a moment while I work it out.”

Amazingly, the bird did as she was asked. What a good thing he always carried a few blank hex matrixes with him wherever he went, on the principle that one never knew when a hex might come in handy. It took him a little under an hour to cobble together what he needed, and then rig up his handkerchief into a nifty sling that Reg could carry into the embassy, laden with the hexes he’d brought with him and the ones he’d just devised.

“So you’re clear on all of that?” he asked the bird, once he’d explained which hex did what. “Or d’you want me to run through it again?”

Jumped from his knee down to the jalopy’s front passenger seat, Reg stopped poking her beak through the differently coloured hexes piled onto his handkerchief and gave him a look. “D’you mind? I’m not a doddling geriatric butler.”

“Reg — ” And then Monk bit his tongue. If they got into another argument now they’d probably still be going at it hammer and tongs when the sun came up. “No, of course you’re not. Sorry.” He tied up the corners of the handkerchief, then leaned over to the passenger side of the jalopy and thumped down its window. “There you go. Now for pity’s sake be careful, because you might be more annoying than a pair of trousers full of ants but I bloody well refuse to lose you again.”

Eyes bright, the tricked-up handkerchief with its burden of hexes held firmly in her beak, Reg nodded. “Right,” she said indistinctly. “Now bugger off. I’ll see you back in Chatterly Crescent.”

What? “Reg-”

With a muffled curse, she spat out the handkerchief. “Blimey bloody Charlie, sunshine, must you always quibble? There’s nothing you can do from out here but find a way to bollocks things up, so go home. Do some dusting. You’re always after new experiences, aren’t you? Housework’ll have all the charm of bloody novelty!”

Defeated, Monk sighed. “Fine. I’ll go. Just… don’t hang about, all right? Because the longer you stay in there, the greater the chance of you getting caught.”

“Ha!” she said, and picked up the handkerchief again. “That’ll be the day.”

She hopped up onto the frame of the jalopy’s open window, rattled her tail… and launched herself into the quiet night. Heart thudding, Monk watched until he’d lost her among the shadows, then started the engine and chugged away down the street, towards home.