A Trail of Trickery

by Adam Frost

  “Julius, do that again,” Wily said.

  Julius looked confused so Wily walked across to the bed and twisted the bedpost. A panel opened in the wall at the other end of the room.

  Wily looked at Julius and then at the secret passage that had just been revealed.

  “Julius!” he cried. “You may have just solved my case!”

  “Your case!” Julius exclaimed. “If there’s a case to be solved, it belongs to me. And you’re under arrest for trespassing.”

  “Catch me if you can,” Wily said, dashing towards the secret passage.

  Sybil ran after him. Julius tried to follow, then realized that his right foot wasn’t completely thawed. He ran as fast as he could, dragging his partly frozen foot behind him.

  Sybil caught up with Wily and said, “I really SHOULD arrest you, you know.”

  Wily smiled and took out his torch, shining it into the gloom. “The ghost must have used these passages to move around the castle.”

  They found themselves crawling under a low beam and then climbing a narrow set of stairs. They emerged into a small room at the top of the castle’s highest turret.

  Wily could see clothes, documents and tools. He grinned. Somewhere in this room, he’d find the answers he needed – who was the ghost? Why had it haunted the Griffin Theatre?

  Wily looked more closely at the room’s contents. There were steel rings attached to one of the walls – had the room formerly been used as a dungeon? There was also a metal bar stretched across one corner of the room. It was screwed into the wall, about two metres from the ground. Underneath the metal bar was a pair of pyjamas. Wily picked them up and saw that the bottoms had elasticated ankles. That was odd. With pyjama bottoms, it was usually the waist that was elasticated.

  “Wily, over here,” Sybil said. “It’s an address book,” she said, “full of journalists’ names.”

  Wily read:

  “Winnie Wolf,” Wily murmured. “She wrote the story about the castle haunting.”

  “But why would a ghost want to tell journalists what he was doing?” Sybil asked.

  “And what’s the connection with Rome and Buenos Aires?” Wily added.

  Wily walked over to the window, his brain buzzing. What’s the connection? Why can’t I see the bigger picture?

  He looked out of the window and everything clicked.

  The PICTURE.

  There, on the opposite side of the valley, was a town with all of its lights blazing. He whipped out his phone and found the photo of the brochure that he’d taken in the Hapgood Hotels office.

  “That’s it!” he cried.

  He phoned Albert.

  “Albert, it’s me!” Wily said urgently. “Have you checked all the Hapgood guests?”

  “Yes, but I’ve come up with nothing.”

  “Forget the guests,” Wily said, “check the STAFF.”

  “The staff?”

  “Arlene Aardvark, Bruno Badger, the whole lot of them. The photo for their new brochure was taken in this castle.”

  Wily said goodbye to Albert and hung up.

  “Have you solved the case?” Sybil asked.

  “Almost,” Wily said. “I think I’ve worked out WHY the villain haunted the Griffin Theatre. He wants to transform it into a hotel. Roderick Rabbit and Vladimir Vole were just in the way. He did the same here. He haunted the building and it got a reputation for being cursed. The owners put it up for sale, but nobody wanted to buy it. So they sold it for a knockdown price to Hapgood Hotels.”

  “But hang on,” said Sybil. “Isn’t that a bit risky? Who’d want to stay in a haunted hotel?”

  “Nocturnal animals,” said Wily.

  “I don’t follow,” she said.

  “They’re not afraid of the dark, are they?” Wily said. “They LOVE the dark. Because they’re up all night, they know that ghosts aren’t real. The fact that a building used to be haunted wouldn’t bother them.”

  At that point, Julius appeared.

  “OK, Fox,” he barked. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw this at your head.”

  Wily glanced at the bottle in Julius’s hand. It was glowing faintly in the darkness.

  “Julius, where did you find that?”

  “I thought YOU were supposed to be the great detective,” Julius sneered. “It was in a concealed panel in the master bedroom. I was using it as a torch.”

  “Is there anything written on the bottle?” asked Wily.

  Julius reluctantly held it up. The label on the side read “Glo-fix 7”.

  “The final piece of the puzzle,” murmured Wily.

  “The final piece?” Julius snarled. “What’s the puzzle, then? Where’s the criminal?”

  “In London,” said Wily, “working for Hapgood Hotels.”

  “Not good enough,” barked Julius. “Your ghost story doesn’t make sense.” He clicked a handcuff on Wily’s wrist and attached the other cuff to one of the metal rings that hung from the wall. “You’re under arrest – and this time you’re staying that way.”

  Wily spent the next two hours trying to persuade Julius to let him go.

  He tried: “I need to catch the criminal by Saturday or my client will be ruined.”

  He also tried: “Come on, Julius. I didn’t do anything wrong. I promise not to freeze you solid again.”

  Nothing worked. Julius had called for a PSSST helicopter and they weren’t moving until it arrived. In the meantime, Wily was thinking about the case. He went through all the animals that worked for Hapgood Hotels. Badgers, aardvarks, possums… Eventually tiredness overwhelmed him and he dozed off.

  He was shaken awake by an almighty crash.

  Sybil raced to the window and yelled, “The workers are here – with a wrecking ball!” There was another crash. “They must be knocking down the tower!”

  She shouted to the workers below, but they were too far away to hear.

  “Uncuff me from the wall!” Wily shouted.

  “No way, Fox,” Julius said. “I’m not falling for your tricks.”

  “What tricks?” Wily yelled. “The tower’s falling down and they don’t know we’re here!”

  “You stay there while I give those workers a piece of my mind,” Julius barked. He sped off down the secret passage.

  Wily turned to Sybil. “He’ll never get to them in time. You’ve got to uncuff me.”

  Sybil looked over her shoulder to check Julius was gone, then whipped out her keys and undid the handcuffs.

  As Wily put the cuffs in his pocket, the crane whacked into the tower again, knocking Sybil and Wily to the ground.

  “Let’s try and put a stop to this,” Wily said, getting back to his feet.

  He ran to the window and pulled out his particle freezer. He aimed it at the animal in the crane. A blue streak jumped from the end of the gun, but it fizzled to nothing in mid-air.

  “He’s too far away,” Wily said. He put his hand in his pocket. “OK, here’s my second plan. I’ve got a hang-glider, but I think it will be too heavy for both of us.”

  He threw Sybil the disc. “You take it. Press the middle and it will spring to life.”

  Sybil looked down at the disc and up at Wily. “I’m not going without you,” she said.

  There was an ear-splitting crack, lumps of plaster fell down from the ceiling and Wily and Sybil were knocked over again.

  They scrambled back to their feet. “I reckon it will take one more swing to knock the turret over,” Wily said. “We haven’t got time to argue. You take the hang-glider, I’ll try to jump.”

  “No,” said Sybil. “I’ll jump, too.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Wily. “There’s no point two of us breaking our legs.”

  Sybil folded her arms and said, “Either we both get on the hang-glider or we both jump.”

  “You’ve made up your mind?” said Wily.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” said Sybil.

  They both stared out of the window at the ground far below.
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  Wily glanced at his particle freezer again. “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

  He held the hang-glider disc out of the window and pressed the button in the centre. Then he grabbed Sybil’s hand and leaped on to the hang-glider just as the wrecking ball hit the turret. The tower started to fall and the hang-glider dived towards the ground, with the falling tower hurtling after them.

  “Hang on!” said Wily.

  He turned the particle freezer round so it was facing behind him, then he set it to “thaw”. The rush of hot air acted like a blaster, sending the hang-glider forwards into the sky.

  They soared upwards, past the confused-looking crane operator and over the forest around the castle.

  “What about Julius?” Sybil asked anxiously.

  They glanced over their shoulders and saw a bulldog’s head emerge from the rubble, shouting. One of the workmen tried to pull Julius out, but ended up dislodging another pile of rocks and burying him again.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Wily. He hit “thaw” on the particle freezer, sending out more hot air and rocketing them higher into the sky.

  “How long to get back to London?” Sybil asked.

  “An hour or so,” said Wily. “Time to work out who my ghost is.”

  “I have to say,” Sybil said, “I can’t make sense of any of the clues. Upside-down pyjamas. Luminous chemicals. And your ghost with claws for hands and a high-pitched shriek. It’s hard to see any connection.”

  “What did you just say?” Wily replied.

  “I said, it’s hard to see any connection.”

  “It’s hard to see … it’s hard to see … IT’S HARD TO SEE! Of course!” He gave Sybil a kiss on the cheek.

  “The animal finds it hard to see!” Wily cried. “When he first attacked me, he used a cane to help him get around. We know he’s nocturnal. We think he can fly. He has talons for hands. Then there’s the pole attached to the wall. His pyjamas were below it. That’s where he sleeps … UPSIDE DOWN. Sybil, he’s a bat!”

  Wily phoned Albert immediately. “Bartholomew Bat – the head of Hapgood Hotels. Focus all your attention on him,” said Wily. “Where’s he from? Is he who he says he is?”

  “OK – but why?” Albert asked.

  “He’s my prime suspect,” said Wily. “He covers himself in glowing paint to appear like a ghost. He uses his high-pitched shriek to scare people. Then when everyone is frightened off, his hotel chain buy the building. He’s done it here in Catalina, and now he’s trying to do it at the Griffin Theatre, too!”

  “It sounds possible,” said Albert.

  “It’s either him or another bat,” said Wily, “but I reckon it’s him. Think about it. And that explains how he’s managed to unlock so many doors. He got into the Griffin Theatre. And into Vladimir’s dressing room. He got out of the London Eye cabin. He must have a key for every kind of door. In the hotel business, you need passkeys and service keys and skeleton keys.”

  “OK, I’ll check him out.”

  “We’re about to cross the Romanian border,” Wily said. “We’ll be with you in less than an hour.”

  He hung up and turned to face Sybil.

  But just as he was about to speak, he heard a whoosh from the ground below. They were above a large forest. A cloud of bats rose into the air.

  “Blast! We’ve got company,” said Wily.

  “When will they get to us?” Sybil asked.

  A bat dropped down in front of them. “We’re already here,” he hissed in a thick Romanian accent.

  “Let me guess,” Wily said, “a friend of Bartholomew Bat?”

  “How did you know?” the bat said. “He said that you might show up. He received a phone call last night saying that a strange fox had been seen on his property in Catalina. He called the police, but he thought you might escape. He said, ‘Look out for a fox in a long brown coat’. And here you are.

  “Usually,” the bat went on, “Bartholomew is a businessman. If people get in his way, he prefers to warn or frighten them away. But he wants you gone… For good.”

  As he said “good”, the bat grinned, revealing two sharp fangs.

  “A vampire bat,” Sybil shuddered.

  The bat spun sideways and tore a rip in the top of Wily’s hang-glider with his fangs.

  The wind fluttered through it and the hang-glider started to wobble violently.

  “Prepare for landing,” the bat hissed.

  Wily tried to grab his particle freezer, but he needed both hands to steer the glider.

  The other bats from the forest had now arrived. One of them whipped past and made another tear in the hang-glider’s fabric. Wily and Sybil were starting to drop.

  Bats were whirling above and below them in wide, shrieking circles.

  The chief bat prepared to dive for one final attack on Wily’s glider, but as he did so, Wily fumbled for the particle freezer, grabbed it and swung it round. He pointed it at the bat and fired. A blue flash zipped over the bat’s shoulder.

  “Missed,” sneered the chief bat.

  “Oh no, I didn’t,” said Wily.

  The bat looked up and saw that Wily had hit the cloud above him. It had turned into a giant block of ice and was thundering through the air. Wily pulled the glider back as the ice block hit the chief bat and his friends, pulling them down. Wily watched the cloud plummet, smashing into pieces on the ground below like a giant chandelier.

  Wily fired at two more clouds, which also crashed down, taking out more of the bats.

  The hang-glider was still just about airborne, but Wily needed to repair it fast. And it looked like the battle with the bats wasn’t over yet.

  “Wily,” said Sybil, “there’s one left.”

  Wily saw a small shape zooming towards them, its fangs bared.

  Wily blasted it with his particle freezer, but the bat simply dodged it.

  “Ow,” said Sybil. The bat had locked on to her arm and was trying to drink her blood!

  Wily lashed out and knocked the bat sideways, but Sybil had turned pale and let go of the hang-glider. She plummeted towards the ground.

  The bat was already zipping back towards Wily, its fangs gleaming, aiming for his neck. He suddenly remembered Julius’s handcuffs in his pocket. Quick as a flash, he clipped one of the handcuffs round the bat’s legs and attached the other cuff to the crossbar.

  The bat squealed in anger.

  Wily let go of the hang-glider.

  “See ya, sucker.”

  The hang-glider was diving towards the ground and Wily was falling, too. He could see Sybil below him. He put his arms flat against his sides, nosediving towards her.

  In a few seconds he caught up, grabbing her round the waist.

  She was still semi-conscious, murmuring to herself.

  They were hurtling towards a large lake. Wily spotted a waterfall and twisted himself and Sybil to face it. They were a few seconds away from hitting the water.

  With lightning speed, Wily aimed the particle freezer at the waterfall and fired, turning it into a giant ice slide. The ice spread down the waterfall and on to the lake, transforming it into a huge ice rink.

  Wily braced for impact, curling himself round Sybil. They hit the ice slide with a whoomph, slithering down it like they were on the world’s fastest sledge. When they reached the bottom, they zoomed across the giant sheet of ice.

  A hundred metres away, Wily saw his hang-glider – with the bat attached – dive into the middle of a forest. There was a loud crunch and a louder crash.

  Sybil woke up.

  “This case is strange,” she said.

  Wily nodded. “I know. Completely bats.”

  An hour later the PSSST helicopter arrived in Romania and picked them up. On the trip back, Sybil persuaded Julius not to arrest Wily.

  “He’s telling the truth, sir,” Sybil said. “Bartholomew Bat is a big-time criminal.”

  “I still don’t see how you can prove it, Fox,” Julius said. “You’ve got clues that point to a bat
haunting a castle, but no definite proof that it was Bartholomew.”

  “But those vampire bats…” Sybil began.

  “You know we need fingerprints or DNA to make it stick in court,” Julius interrupted.

  “How about a confession?” Wily asked.

  Julius stared at Wily and then growled, “That would work. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get one.”

  As soon as he got back to London, Wily headed for Albert’s lab and studied everything that Albert had found out about Bartholomew. He opened and closed pictures and documents on a giant screen.

  “So this is his life story,” said Wily.

  Albert nodded.

  “The story of how Bartholomew took over Hapgood Hotels from his father. His father was a scary character, but Bartholomew looked up to him,” Wily said, zooming into a black-and-white photo of a bat with large grey side-whiskers. “Then he got married, but his wife died in a mid-air collision with a kestrel, leaving Bartholomew angry and bitter.” Wily clicked on a photo of a young female bat with giant pink eyes.

  “He concentrated on his work instead,” Wily continued. “He gradually put his rivals out of business. Including his old friend, Billy Bison – who died of a broken heart after his last hotel closed down.” A picture of Billy Bison appeared on screen.

  “Finally he cooked up this ghost idea. Finding old buildings that could be turned into hotels. Scaring the owners, then using journalists to tell everyone the buildings were haunted. Then buying them cheap.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Albert said.

  “Albert, I know exactly what we need to do,” said Wily. “We need to beat him at his own game.”

  “Open a hotel?” asked Albert.

  “No, not that game,” said Wily. “The haunting game.”

  Wily made a video call to Roderick Rabbit. When Roderick appeared on screen, Wily explained who had haunted the Griffin Theatre and why.