The Prisoner's Dilemma (19 page)

“It’s Mr. Bane,” said Reynie in a choked voice, and realizing he was right Kate flung open the door and shone her flashlight in.

Mr. Bane sat in the middle of the floor, squinting in the powerful flashlight beam, his face a mixture of confusion and alarm. He tried to shield his eyes with one hand. “Was that Reynie’s voice I heard? Is that you, Reynie?”

“What are you doing in here?” Kate demanded, not lowering the light.

“And Kate, too,” said Mr. Bane, still squinting, his head turned away from the light. He took his jacket from beside him and held it up to block the beam. “Would you lower that flashlight? My head’s killing me.”

Kate shone the beam a few seconds longer—just to make a point—then lowered it and again demanded to know what Mr. Bane was doing in there.

“I… I’m not sure. They must have dragged me in here,” said Mr. Bane, looking around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “I… well, you saw me in the courtyard. I was completely taken aback, I’m sorry to say. I got mixed up and thought Ms. Plugg had run into the house. When I came inside, though, she wasn’t there. Then I heard the chamber guards shouting and ran up here to help. I followed noises down this hall. It was dark, and in my hurry I bumped right into a man with one eyebrow.”

The children exchanged glances.

“He was coming out of your room,” Mr. Bane said to Kate. “He pressed a handkerchief to my nose. It must have been dosed with something—I blacked out and only just woke up. When I heard you at the door I thought you might be one of them. But they’ve all gone, obviously, or you wouldn’t be poking around in the dark.” Mr. Bane climbed to his feet. “Now what’s happened? How are the others? How long have I been out?”

“You’d better report downstairs,” Reynie said. “People have been looking for you.”

“Well, you’re just full of answers, aren’t you?” Mr. Bane said coldly, and with a sniff he pressed past them and fumbled away down the hall without benefit of a flashlight. They shone theirs after him until they were sure he was gone, then went into the boys’ room.

“He’s lying,” said Reynie, going straight to the window.

“Of course he’s lying,” said Sticky. “He’s trying to cover for being a coward. I’ll bet he just ran up here and hid where he thought it was safe.”

“I don’t know,” said Kate. “Why bother lying to
us
? He’s never taken two seconds to speak to us before, so why start now? Maybe Crawlings really did knock him out, and he’s too groggy to think straight.”

“Or he’s hoping the more people he tells, the better his chances of being believed,” said Sticky.

Reynie watched Mr. Bane skulk out of the house into the backyard, where Mr. Benedict, Mr. Gaines, and several others remained in hushed but heated conversation. Flashlights moved about the yard and the dark lane beyond like fireflies on a summer night. Mr. Bane began his animated explanations, his voice rising to the window in a plaintive, unintelligible murmur. He was anxiously fiddling with his zipper again, having put the jacket back on.

“Tell me,” Reynie muttered, “when do you suppose is the best time to take off your jacket—right before you run inside to fight intruders, or right after you wake up in the dark, thinking they might be just outside the door?”

“His jacket
was
off, wasn’t it?” Sticky said.

“It’s hot up here,” Reynie said. “He was probably sweltering. And I think we surprised him. We were quiet coming down the hallway. Otherwise I’ll bet he’d have put it back on before we saw him.”

“Well, what else is new?” said Kate. “We knew we couldn’t trust that guy.”

Reynie felt he was missing something, but when he tried to concentrate he kept seeing that strange sequence of numbers and letters in his head. He decided to wait a bit and try again—sometimes answers came to him when he was thinking of other things—and in the meantime he and Sticky hurriedly packed their bags. Then they all went down to Kate’s room.

The door was open as she’d left it—no surprises this time—and with a quick sweep of her flashlight Kate verified the room was empty. “He might have told the truth about Crawlings,” she said, crossing to the window, “even if he lied about everything else. I did see Crawlings come out of the house, after all, and we all heard him tell Garrotte which direction we ran. He could have seen us from this window.” She went to her bed and dragged an overnight bag from beneath it.

“They were looking for us,” Sticky said. “We know that much already.”

“Yes, but doesn’t it seem they knew which rooms to search first?” Kate said, smoothing the bedskirt, which she had only very slightly disturbed. “It was only a few seconds before they came out after us.” Out of habit she glanced around for other things to tidy. Even in the dark she managed to locate a wrinkle in the rug, an errant scrap of paper, and a floor lamp Sticky had accidentally knocked crooked with his bag.

“Sorry,” Sticky said as she straightened the lamp (and put his bag in the hall). “So you think they ran directly up here? You think Mr. Bane told them?”

“I don’t know who else—” Kate cut herself off. Reynie was staring at her. “What, am I missing something?”

Reynie shone his flashlight at the scrap of paper in her hand. “What’s that, Kate?”

Kate looked down in surprise. “This? Oh, just a scrap I saw on the rug. I was going to throw it away…” She looked up again suddenly, her eyes wide. “But, hey, didn’t I—”

“Leave the rug spotless? Yes, you did. We stood right here and watched you.”

“So someone—”

“Crawlings!” Sticky said. “Remember how McCracken was always saying how careless he was?”

Kate turned her flashlight onto the paper. “Only a number here.
2100.
And looks like an
h
after that…”

Reynie went to the wastepaper basket. There were more scraps of paper inside. “He tore something up and threw it away!”

“And in the darkness he didn’t notice that he’d dropped a scrap,” Kate said.

Reynie pieced the scraps together on the rug. Some came from an envelope that had been unsealed with a letter opener (“Remember those letter openers?” Sticky muttered with a shiver) and bore on the front the single letter
C
, which they thought probably stood for Crawlings. The rest formed a note:
Rendezvous and search Abbot Edifice 2100 hrs.

“I think I see what’s happened,” Reynie said. “The Ten Men were carrying sealed instructions—to be opened in certain circumstances, maybe, or else just when they got here.”

“It makes sense,” said Sticky. “Mr. Curtain knew they couldn’t use radios or phones, and he doesn’t trust anyone to know all his plans ahead of time.”

“He was careful enough to be pretty vague,” said Kate. “I know ‘2100 hours’ is nine o’clock, and ‘rendezvous’ means to meet somewhere—but where? And who or what is this ‘Abbot Edifice’? Is it a person or a place?”

Sticky furrowed his brow. “It’s kind of both. An edifice is a building, and an abbot is the superior of an abbey or—”

“Slow down,” said Kate. “An abbey’s a kind of church, right?”

“It can be,” Sticky said, speaking slowly. “‘Abbey’ usually refers to a convent or monastery under the supervision of an abbess or abbot. But sometimes the church in one of those places is called the abbey, as well.”

“Okay!” said Kate. “So they’re going to meet up again at nine o’clock at a certain convent or monastery—”

“Definitely a monastery. The note says ‘Abbot,’ not ‘Abbess.’”

“A monastery, then, and they’re going to search one of the buildings,” Kate said. “But which monastery and which building?”

“Wait!” Reynie said, jumping to his feet. “A monastery is where monks live, right? So isn’t the abbot a monk, too? Mr. Curtain isn’t just being vague—he’s using code words!”

“Of course!” Sticky said. “So Abbot Edifice is code for—”

“The Monk Building!” Kate cried.

“But why search there?” Reynie said, his eyes darting back and forth. “Unless… Okay, Mr. Curtain must know that Mr. Benedict has a connection to the Monk Building. So maybe—if the Ten Men didn’t find everything they expected to find
here
—”

“Then Mr. Curtain’s instructions would send them to look
there,”
Kate said, and glancing at the wall clock (which fortunately was battery powered), she added, “in fifteen minutes! We need to tell Milligan!” And she dashed from the room.

Reynie and Sticky followed as quickly as they could, but Reynie stumbled over Sticky’s bag in the hall, and Sticky stumbled over Reynie, and by the time they got downstairs Kate was waiting for them, bouncing up and down impatiently. “We’re too late! He’s off with his sentries already!”

“What about Mr. Benedict?” Reynie said. “Or Rhonda or Number Two?”

“They’re all surrounded by officials, and Mr. Bane’s right there with them—and, oh, we don’t have
time
for this! It’ll take ages just to get Mr. Benedict by himself, but if the Ten Men are looking for something important, then we need to get there first!”

With a jolt of alarm Reynie realized that Kate meant to go to the Monk Building herself. But before he could argue how crazy this was, she held up the key Milligan had given her.

“I can take the secret passage! They’ll never see me. I’ll check the peepholes first, so if they’re already in the office I won’t blunder in on them—and if they
are
there I can spy on them!”

“Whoa, slow down, Kate,” said Sticky. “We need to—”

But there was no slowing her down. She was off to the front door before Sticky could finish.

Reynie said, “If we can’t stop her—”

“I know,” Sticky said, hurrying after her. “We’ll have to go, too.”

When they reached the front door Kate was halfway across the courtyard and heading for the gate. Striding along with her (though none too steadily) was the bedraggled Ms. Plugg. The police officers had moved off to usher neighbors back inside their homes, and the dazed chamber guards still sat on the steps. No one appeared to question what Ms. Plugg and her young charge were doing.

“... said you were to stand guard in the yard,” Kate was saying as the boys caught up to them. “And absolutely no one else is to know.”

“What is it you hope to find down there?” asked Ms. Plugg, who seemed grateful to have been given a duty.

“I can’t say, but it’s important! And you’re not to say anything or let anyone come down there. And we have to keep quiet ourselves—”

“We?” Ms. Plugg turned and saw Reynie and Sticky behind her. “Oh, hello, boys—”

“So don’t bother calling down to ask if we’re all right,” Kate continued, and when the guard’s brow wrinkled she added quickly, “Sorry, Ms. Plugg, I’d explain more, but we have to hurry! The car gets here in half an hour.”

“Half an hour,” Ms. Plugg repeated, and checked her watch. They were across the street now and hastening toward the cellar doors.

Sticky was pleading with his eyes for Reynie to stop them, and Reynie
wanted
to, yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it any more than Sticky could. All it would take was one word to Ms. Plugg about what Kate really intended. But then what? Confusion, argument, delay; the Ten Men would get there first; and then what might be their only chance to stop Mr. Curtain would be lost. Reynie couldn’t fathom living with that knowledge. So despite the warning bells in his head and the revolt in his belly, he held his tongue, and down into the cellar the three of them went.

“Glad you’re coming,” Kate whispered, “but you know I can’t wait for you. I need to run fast.” Holding her flashlight under her arm, she directed it at the metal door and inserted the key into the lock. “If I’m in trouble when you get there, you can hurry back here for help.” She turned to reassure them as the door swung open. “Don’t worry, though, I won’t be in trouble.”

“Wait!” Sticky said, jumping forward to catch her by the arm. He missed—she was already several paces down the secret passage—but she stopped and turned expectantly. “Your flashlight! Remember to turn it off before you go into the anteroom—if it’s dark in the office your light will show through the peepholes!”

“Gosh, glad you thought of that,” said Kate. “Thanks!”

And then she was gone.

It was more than a year since they had been in the secret passage, and the boys entered the dank, narrow, gloomy tunnel with no little trepidation. Their crisscrossing flashlights swept not just the floor but the walls and ceiling, too, annoying several spiders and centipedes into skittering retreat.

Reynie swallowed hard. “Ready?”

“Not really,” said Sticky, “but I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Together they counted to three, took a deep breath, and ran into the gloom after Kate.

R
eynie and Sticky stopped at the end of the passage to catch their breath, then again when they neared the top of the dark, winding, seemingly interminable stairs. It wouldn’t do to be panting and wheezing when they crept into the secret anteroom, located on the Monk Building’s seventh floor. Mastering his breath as best he could—knowing perfectly well that under the circumstances it would never fully settle, nor his heartbeat stop racing—Reynie kept up the count he’d begun in the back of his mind almost fifteen minutes ago. Almost fifteen minutes, but not quite. The Ten Men shouldn’t have arrived yet, which meant Kate should have had her chance to search the office. So why hadn’t the boys met her coming back in the passage? He feared he knew the answer, and a minute later Kate confirmed it.

“I stuck around to spy,” she whispered when the boys appeared at the top of the stairs. She was kneeling by the far wall of the anteroom, her eye to a peephole. She had set her flashlight on the floor lens-down, so that only a dim glow emerged from around its rim. Kate tapped the flashlight. “Don’t worry, I only turned that on for you two. I’ll turn it off when they show up.”

“When they show up?” Sticky breathed. “Are you out of your mind? Did you search the office or not?”

“There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Empty file cabinets, empty desk drawers. It’s all just for show. Or else the Ten Men got here early and took everything, but it doesn’t look that way. The place doesn’t look ransacked—just empty. I want to hear what they say when they discover the same thing.”