The Mysterious Benedict Society (14 page)

“I’d been on my own for weeks,” he concluded, removing his glasses to wipe away a tear, “when I saw Mr. Benedict’s advertisement in the paper. That’s my story. You all know the rest. Now can we get on with the practice?”

After a short, unhappy silence, the others agreed, and Constance took up the flashlight. Her message went more quickly this time; it was a single word:
sorry
. The others were taken aback. Even Milligan, who had retreated to his roses and seemed not to be paying attention, raised his eyebrows.

“That’s okay,” Sticky said.

“Aren’t we a depressing bunch?” said Kate. “If we continue like this, we’ll have to start calling it
remorse
code.”

“What’s remorse?” asked Constance.

“Feeling sad about something you did,” said Reynie.

“Oh, do you feel sad, George Washington?” asked Constance.

Sticky twitched with irritation. “She was talking about
you
. And please don’t call me that.”

“I didn’t call you ‘that.’ I called you George Washington. Ask the others. They heard me. I definitely did not call you ‘that,’ George Washington.”

Kate sighed and muttered, “So much for remorse.”

“And what about Milligan?” Constance said. “Why is
he
so sad?”

All eyes went to their bodyguard, who had left off tending the roses and was oiling the gate hinges. He looked as if he could use an oiling himself — he moved quite creakily, and with a pronounced stoop, so that he truly seemed as old as he appeared in his disguise. He cast not a glance in their direction. Either he hadn’t heard the question or else was pretending he hadn’t. But Constance wouldn’t let this pass.

“Milligan! Come tell us why you’re so dreadfully glum!”

“Good grief,” said Sticky, “do you have to drag out everybody’s sad tales? Why don’t you leave him in peace?”

She wouldn’t listen, however, and after a few more stubborn requests, Milligan at last set down his oil can and shuffled over to them. “All right,” he said in a resigned tone. “I’ll tell you.”

The children all sat up straight.

“Several years ago,” Milligan began, “I awoke, blindfolded, in a hard metal chair. My hands and feet were cuffed together, a metal restraint held my head in place, and as I came awake, a man’s voice said, ‘This nut is a hard one to crack.’ Indeed I felt I
had
been cracked — I had a ferocious headache, I was hungry and exhausted, and for some reason my fingers and toes were stinging. Worse: When I tried to recall where I was, and how I had come there, I found I couldn’t.”

“Amnesia?” Reynie said.

Milligan nodded. “Apparently I’d received a serious blow to the head. I could recall nothing at all — not my past, not my purpose, not even my name. To this day I have no memory of who I am.”

“Then why did you say your name was Milligan?” Constance asked, almost accusingly, as if he’d lied to them.

“When I regained consciousness, it was the first name that flew into my mind. Perhaps it was in fact my name, but it didn’t
feel
like my name, if you understand me. It seemed to apply to me somehow, and to be important, and so perhaps it is my name, but I’m afraid I’ll never know.”

“What happened next?” asked Kate.

“Well, next I heard the same voice say, ‘Let’s rouse him again. I grow weary of this one.’ Then, shaking my arm, he said, in a very different, gentle tone, ‘Wake up, my friend, wake up,’ unaware I’d been awake long enough to have heard him discussing me like a cut of meat.

“Pretending to come awake, I said, ‘What? Have I been asleep? Where am I?’ To which he replied, ‘You’re safe; that’s the important thing. We’ve rescued you from certain death and are here to help you. Now, is it true you remember nothing?’

“I didn’t, of course, as I’ve told you. And apparently I had told the man this too. But as he now seemed to expect that answer and seemed intent on taking advantage of it somehow, I said, ‘On the contrary. I remember everything perfectly.’

“The man cried, ‘What? You’re lying!’

“‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry you find it so distressing.’

“Then the voice grew cunning and said, ‘If you remember so clearly, tell me why you are here.’

“‘I believe I’ll leave the telling to you,’ I replied.

“‘The sneak! You’re lying to us, you dirty —’ the man shouted, and then, strangely, all was silent, as if someone had clapped a hand over his mouth.

“After a while I said, ‘Dirty
what
? Please tell me — the suspense is killing me.’

“The voice returned, much calmer now. ‘It won’t be suspense that does it,’ he said. ‘If you don’t crack tomorrow, we’ll toss you into the harbor.’

“‘Well, I’m sure I would infinitely prefer that fate to the smell of your breath,’ I replied, upon which he struck me hard across the face and ordered me taken from the room.

“As it happened, that blow did me a good turn, for it loosened the blindfold. I had only just left the room when the blindfold began to slip, and though my captors didn’t realize it, I could soon see fairly well. Two men in suits were leading me along a stone passage. They moved slowly to accommodate my pace, which was hampered by my chain-cuffed ankles. As we walked, I studied my hands, still cuffed in front of me, and became aware that one was clutching something. Wonderingly I opened my fist, noticing as I did so that my fingernails had been bitten beyond the quick, so that my fingertips were raw. (This explained why they stung, and judging from the pain in my toes, my toenails had been bitten off as well.) In my hand I discovered a tiny device, rather like a twisted hairpin. To my great surprise I realized it had been fashioned from my fingernails and toenails. All this I must have done myself, but I had no memory of it.

“Imagine then how amazed I was to discover that I knew what the little device was for. I slipped it into the lock of my handcuffs (my fingers seemed to know what they were doing, though I did not), and just as we came to a stairway, I heard the lock spring — I’d picked it in less than a minute. Before they knew I was free, I had knelt down and cuffed the men’s ankles together. Then I hopped out of reach, and my captors, trying to pursue, fell on their faces. Before they could regain their feet, I had picked the locks on the ankle cuffs, snapped them onto the men’s wrists, and bounded down the stairs.

“After that, my getaway was fairly simple. I broke out into the darkness of a rainy night. I was pursued, of course, but I made my way through a hilly terrain until I came to a cliff overlooking the harbor. The water looked shallow and lay about a hundred feet below me, but as I had no other choice, I dove straightaway. There followed some troublesome business of swimming to the mainland while pursuers in boats tried to capture me with nets and hooks, that sort of thing. But I proved a good swimmer, and the rocks in the channel are terrible for boats. In the end I escaped.”

All of this had been spoken softly, without the least trace of excitement or drama in Milligan’s voice. But the children, listening, could hardly contain themselves, and when he’d finished, they burst forth with questions: How had he come here? What was he doing on Nomansan Island in the first place? It
was
Nomansan Island, wasn’t it? And those men in suits…

“Yes, it was the same men, the ones you saw in the maze. They weren’t sure where they know me from, but I certainly remember them. And yes, it was Nomansan Island — it was the Institute — that I escaped from. Why I was there I can’t say, but Mr. Benedict is convinced I was a secret agent, an employee of a government agency long since dismantled. I have no way of telling.”

“Maybe Mr. Benedict can find out,” Reynie said.

“It was that hope that led me to him,” Milligan admitted. “I’d spent months seeking information about my past, but no one believed my story, and no one had any answers. Finally I learned about a man worth meeting — not a government agent himself, but a brilliant man of mysterious purposes who always seemed to know more about everything than anyone else did. This, of course, was Mr. Benedict. But though he’s helped me make sense of what’s happened, and has earned my loyalty, the entire business is so extraordinarily secretive and complicated that I’ve long been convinced I will never learn anything about my past.”

“How awful,” said Reynie.

“Yes, it’s too bad,” said Sticky, though not quite convincingly, for at the moment he rather wished he couldn’t remember his own past, given the grief it brought him.

“Hey, does your amnesia have something to do with your silly disguises?” Constance asked.

Milligan clamped his straw hat more tightly on his head. “My ‘silly’ disguises are useful for other reasons, but yes, Constance, it would be unfortunate if some enemy from my past recognized me, but I couldn’t recognize him. It’s better never to be recognized at all.”

“So there’s really no hope your memory will return?” Kate asked.

“Oh, I suppose there’s some
slight
hope. Mr. Benedict has tried hypnosis and other treatments on me, all without luck. Still, he says it’s possible some significant event, or the appearance of an important object or person from my past, or some other unknown thing, might break down the door and let my memories out. I’m afraid, however, that I’m not much given to hope anymore.”

“If not for hope, what keeps you going?” asked Reynie, who had an ugly suspicion that there might come a time, and not so far away, when things would seem hopeless to
him,
too.

“Duty,” said Milligan. “Nothing else, only a sense of duty. I know the Sender is out to do harm. I feel obliged to stop him. Or at the very least, to try.”

“And do you think we can?” Reynie asked. “Do you think he can be stopped?”

In response Milligan only went back to his oil can. He did not look at the children again.

W
hen the children had studied Morse code until dots and dashes swam in their heads even with their eyes closed, Rhonda called them inside. It was early evening now, the light in the dining room window was a soft amber color, and all through the house the wooden floors, curiously enough, groaned and creaked like a ship at sea.

“That happens sometimes after a morning rain,” said Rhonda as the children took seats at the table. “Don’t worry, it’s a sound old house — we won’t sink.” She set several pages of notes before each of them. “Now that you understand your mission and have a good start on your Morse code, Mr. Benedict would like for you to understand better what we’re up against.”

The children’s ears perked up. There was more? Reynie began to flip through his papers, some of which bore faint smears of peanut butter.

“Number Two has summarized everything in these notes,” Rhonda said. “If you read quickly, you should be able to finish before supper. Mr. Benedict will come by in a little while to answer any questions.”

“He wants us to read
all
of this?” Constance said, as if she couldn’t believe Mr. Benedict’s nerve.

Rhonda only smiled and went out.

The children — all except Constance, who was too busy humphing — set to their notes. Sticky read so quickly that he seemed hardly to have started before he’d finished. He sat quietly, deep in thought, waiting for the others. Ten minutes later, Reynie had finished, too, and Kate, noting this, set aside her last few pages and asked the boys to fill her in.

What the children learned from the notes was this: The Institute on Nomansan Island generated all its own electricity using the power of the tides — an endless source of energy. The Institute’s tidal turbines were considered the best in the entire world; they were also capable of producing enough energy to power a
hundred
Institutes, let alone one.

These turbines had been invented by a man named Ledroptha Curtain, who, as a young scientist, had published impressive papers on a wide variety of topics — everything from tidal energy to mapping the brain — until abruptly the papers stopped. No one heard from him for many years. Then one day he reappeared and founded the Institute, apparently having turned his genius to matters of education.

There was no doubt: Ledroptha Curtain was the Sender. And yet about certain things there was quite a lot of doubt indeed. For instance, the hidden messages being sent from the Institute were broadcast only a few times each day, and on a very weak signal. But the tidal turbines should be able to produce an enormous amount of energy, much more than necessary to power the Institute — and certainly enough to transmit the Sender’s messages on a high-powered signal rather than a weak one. Why, then, had Curtain made his turbines so extravagant if he didn’t intend to use that extra power? And why did he send out his messages intermittently when he could be broadcasting around the clock?

“He’s been saving it up,” Reynie said, narrowing his eyes. “It’s what Mr. Benedict was trying to explain this morning. There’s something bad approaching. Some
new
thing —”

“The thing to come,” said Mr. Benedict, who had appeared in the doorway. With a nod of approval he joined them at the table, accompanied by Number Two. “It sounds as if you’ve finished the notes. I know they’re complicated — do you have questions about them?”

“I think I understand them pretty well,” said Constance. (The others looked at one another in disbelief.) “Right now, the hidden messages are sent at low power, several times a day, by the Sender — a man named Ledroptha Curtain. But his tidal turbines are extremely powerful, so it sounds like at some point he’s going to start boosting the strength of his messages.”

“Bravo, Constance!” Mr. Benedict said. “Well done!”

The other children scowled.

“Well done,
all
of you,” Mr. Benedict added, with a wink that made them feel a bit better. “Now, then, do you have other questions?”

“I do,” said Kate. “What happens when the Sender boosts the power?”

“We know only one thing for certain,” said Mr. Benedict. “With just a very slight increase, the Sender will eliminate the need for televisions or radios to transmit his messages — he’ll be able to broadcast his messages straight into everyone’s minds. Even those of us with an uncommon love of truth will no longer be able to avoid the broadcasts.”