The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  “Okay,” Reynie said, rubbing his chin, “so they’re to meet in the square, by the statue, on the south side—I think we can agree that south is the opposite of north—and, well, I guess the opposite of noon must be midnight, right?”

  “We’ve done it!” said Kate. “We’ve figured out their rendezvous! Oh, and this is perfect—the observation deck of the Pittfall Building is on that square, and it gives a direct view of that statue! It’s even on the south side! If I go up there—”

  “You?” Reynie said.

  “Oh, well, Milligan then. Whoever. The point is you would be in a perfect spot to spy on their rendezvous without being seen yourself. It’s all glassed in with reflective windows and everything. We couldn’t have asked for a better setup! This is going to work out brilliantly!”

  It did seem perfect. The only catch was that no one knew about the rendezvous but them. Mr. Benedict still had not shown up, and midnight was less than an hour away. What if he was still asleep, wherever he was? What if he was awake but something had happened? What if he was trying to come to the library but was delayed? What if he wasn’t coming at all?

  After mulling these possibilities over, Kate jumped up. “Sorry, but I just can’t risk it! I can’t sit here and give up what may be our last chance to stop Mr. Curtain. I have to go! You three can tell Mr. Benedict everything when he comes. I’ll be careful, I promise!” She was already strapping her bucket to her belt.

  “You aren’t serious, are you?” Sticky said. “Oh, wait, it’s you—of course you’re serious.”

  “It’s only eight blocks,” Kate said. “I can be there in no time.”

  “Kate, I don’t feel right about this,” Reynie said.

  “I know, I know—you think you should come with me. Well, I won’t force you to stay if that’s how you feel. But we need to make tracks. Right now the Ten Men are probably still watching Mr. Benedict’s house, so this is absolutely the safest time to go. We’ll be less likely to bump into them on the streets, and we can be on the observation deck before they even show up.”

  “No… no, that’s true,” Reynie said. “I don’t think you should go alone, but… I don’t know, I can’t explain it, something just feels wrong. I don’t think any of us should go.”

  Kate hesitated. She trusted Reynie’s judgment, yet she was not one to be shaken from her course without good reason. “Look, if you can tell me why, I’ll stay. But if it’s just a feeling…” She shrugged. “Well, we’re all nervous, right? I’m nervous myself. But nothing could be safer than that observation deck. It will be dark up there, easy to hide, and if I leave right now no one will see me.”

  They were all looking at Reynie, waiting for him to explain his reluctance. But he couldn’t. There seemed to be a hundred things to think about at once, and he couldn’t pin down any of them. His only clear thought was that Kate was right, that this really might be their last chance. And what a chance! If our enemies learn his identity, Mr. Curtain had written, all is lost.

  “Okay, but please be careful,” he said at last. “I mean extra careful. Like if you were me and not you.”

  “You got it!” Kate said with a laugh, and she flew down the stairs without waiting for another word.

  “She didn’t even say goodbye,” humphed Constance.

  Reynie was staring after her in dismay. He had realized, an instant too late, that they hadn’t discussed what Kate would do afterward. Would she come back to the library? Would she wait there? And—the thought suddenly occurred to him—what if she didn’t get a good look at this secret contact? Would she try to follow the Ten Men? Surely she wouldn’t!

  But even as he thought it, Reynie knew better. Kate surely would. And she had purposely hightailed it out of the library before Reynie had a chance to talk her out of any such thing.

  “Should we go after her?” Sticky said, when Reynie had shared his concerns. “Maybe we could talk some sense into her, or cling to her legs or something.”

  “Even if she did follow them, I don’t see how dangerous it could be,” said Constance. “For all this talk about how careful he is, Mr. Curtain has been awfully careless. I think he’s gotten overconfident, don’t you? I mean, it’s ridiculous—couldn’t he have had his Ten Men learn some harder codes? Sure, we had to work a little, but it took us, what, a few minutes? He’s not working all that hard to cover his tracks.”

  “So are you saying we shouldn’t worry?” Sticky said. “I find that kind of hard, you know, since—”

  “Oh no,” said Reynie, in a tone of deepest dread. “Oh no, oh no! That’s it! What Constance just said—that’s it, that’s what’s been bothering me! Mr. Curtain isn’t being careful enough! Not at all! Finally everything makes sense, and oh—it’s the worst kind of sense! We have to go after Kate! She’s walking right into a trap!”

  This time, despite the rising feeling of panic in his gut, Reynie remembered to leave a better note. Scribbling as fast as he could, he explained everything to Mr. Benedict, folded the paper together with Mr. Curtain’s note, stapled them both closed, and ran out the front door of the library, where he did his best to explain himself to the startled security guard. He was forced to trust the man—he had little choice—but he kept his request simple: If someone came looking for the children, would the guard please pass along this note and say it was urgent? Then, just as Kate had done to Reynie minutes before, Reynie sprinted away before the confused man could argue.

  Sticky and Constance were waiting behind the library. He had told them he would explain everything, and so he did, speaking between gasps, for the three of them were running full tilt. The boys took turns giving Constance piggyback rides, and sometimes she ran on her own legs, but they all knew that even with their best effort they could never catch Kate. They only hoped to reach her before the Ten Men did.

  For Reynie saw now, in his mind’s eye, all the pieces of a puzzle that earlier he hadn’t even known existed. The first piece had been Mr. Bane’s odd behavior upstairs: Reynie realized now that Mr. Bane had been waiting to tell them privately—and them specifically—about Crawlings leaving the girls’ room. He’d needed to make sure they went in and discovered the torn-up note. No doubt the Ten Men had collared him and told him what to do.

  The second puzzle piece was the note itself: Yes, Crawlings was careless—and Mr. Curtain probably knew that the children knew this—but would he really have left those instructions in the wastepaper basket? Not without expecting them to be found.

  And then there was McCracken: He hadn’t seemed to expect to find anything in the Monk Building. He’d even said the office must be searched “if only as a matter of form.” In other words, the search had to appear to explain why they’d been there. That was their stated reason, Reynie thought grimly. But their real reason had been something quite different. It was the same reason that McCracken—normally so cautious—had not objected when Crawlings threw the wadded instructions away in the office. He’d even dropped the envelope to the floor himself.

  Breakable codes and findable clues. Everything had been done on purpose.

  Mr. Curtain knew what the children were like; he knew they would take risks to stop him if given a chance. And so—quite cleverly, careful not to overdo it—he had given them that chance, had left them a trail they couldn’t resist following. Hadn’t they overheard Crawlings and Garrotte saying that Mr. Curtain had another plan for catching them? Well, this was it. And most distressing of all was that it was still working. Kate was running right into a trap, and her friends were running right after her.

  “He had nothing to lose,” Reynie panted as they moved down a crowded sidewalk, keeping close together near the wall, “and everything to gain. He knows we’re Mr. Benedict’s greatest weakness—that’s how he sees it—and if he catches us he can use us to get what he wants. There was no reason not to try. He hasn’t even put himself at risk.”

  “So they were hoping to lure us to the Monk Building, but they didn’t know about the anteroom?”
Sticky asked, still trying to make sense of what Reynie was telling them.

  Reynie stopped to let Sticky take over carrying Constance, who suddenly seemed to weigh more than a piano. “If they had known,” he said, starting off again, “they’d have grabbed us right then, wouldn’t they? McCracken mentioned something about roofs—I think he had Ten Men hidden all around the building keeping an eye out for us. He was hoping we’d come running up the street. When we didn’t show, they knew to leave another clue just in case.”

  “But what if we had told Mr. Benedict?” Sticky asked.

  “Mr. Bane made it hard for us to do that, didn’t he? But I’m sure Mr. Curtain was prepared for that possibility. Maybe he even hoped for it. Maybe he hoped Mr. Benedict would fall for the trick, too, and walk right into his ambush. Those instructions didn’t leave much time to consider everything—just enough to make a snap decision and rush to the scene.”

  “Like Kate did,” Sticky said, his voice thin with strain. He hitched Constance higher on his back. “And we did.”

  “The first time we just got lucky,” Reynie said. “We could use the secret passage. This time we just have to hope we have enough of a head start.”

  However badly they needed that head start, it was hard work running on crowded sidewalks and trying to keep together, and they were soon forced to stop to catch their breath. Hands on his knees, Reynie looked up at the street signs. They were only four blocks from the square.

  Beside him, Sticky was just about to set Constance down when she cried, “I see Crawlings and Garrotte!”

  Reynie straightened abruptly, and the blood rushed to his head. Desperately trying to blink away stars, he followed Constance’s gaze. In a moment he spotted the Ten Men on the opposite corner, just about to step off the curb into the crush of pedestrians. They were laughing and talking, swinging their briefcases as if headed out to do something fun after a productive day at work. He glanced quickly around.

  “This way!” he said, making for a subway station entrance a dozen paces away, and Sticky, fairly stumbling, followed close behind.

  “Did they see us?” Reynie said as he hurried down the steps.

  “I don’t think so,” said Constance, who had been looking over her shoulder.

  It was very dark, and Reynie stopped at the first landing, unsure of his footing. His eyes were still adjusting to the gloom. Sticky dropped Constance beside him and fell gasping to his knees. Below them, far away from the shifting glare of a thousand headlights, the steps descended into even deeper darkness. Together they stared fearfully up at the open entrance. Seven or eight people filed past, jostling and bumping one another—and then Crawlings and Garrotte appeared.

  Reynie knew they would be almost impossible to see down here, yet he suddenly felt so sure of being spotted he could almost hear the Ten Men’s voices echoing down to the landing, “Oh, chickies! Here chickies!” But the men didn’t even glance in their direction, and an instant later had passed out of view.

  Reynie fell back against the wall. Sticky lowered his head to the floor. For a few moments the only sound they made was heavy breathing, and their only feeling was one of intense relief.

  Then Constance said, “Well, what do we do now? They’re ahead of us!”

  “Oh no,” Sticky groaned, hauling himself to his feet again. “I hadn’t got that far yet. What do we do?”

  “The next subway stop is the square,” Reynie said. He peered down the steps into the blackness. “And there’s no crowd down there. We might even move faster than we could on the streets.”

  “You mean run through a pitch-black subway tunnel?” Constance said. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’m starting to feel that way,” said Reynie. He had perceived a faint blue glow at the bottom of the steps, and without waiting for more objections he hurried down toward it. The tunnel was their only hope, but only if they moved now—and as fast as they could.

  “Come on,” Sticky said, grabbing Constance’s hand.

  The blue light turned out to be a subway system employee carrying an emergency glow stick. He was a pale, skinny man in a white uniform, and in the weird light he looked ghastly and strange, an apparition drifting up from the abyss.

  “Subway’s closed, kids,” he said as they approached. “I’m the last one out. What do you want down here anyway? Don’t you realize there’s a blackout? Subways don’t run in blackouts, you know.”

  “Can we have your glow stick?” asked Reynie quickly. “We’re scared and we don’t have flashlights.”

  The man seemed torn. He turned and looked back into the blackness out of which he had just emerged. “There’s a whole box of them on the platform. I was giving them out to the passengers. But to tell you the truth, it gives me the willies down there in the dark, and if you don’t mind—”

  “Thanks!” Reynie said, and to the man’s astonishment he snatched the glow stick and hurried down into the darkness with Sticky and Constance at his heels.

  “What? Oh, okay, uh, I’ll—I’ll wait for you here!” the man called after them. “Or actually—just, I’ll just be up there at the top of the steps. Where it isn’t so dark…”

  They paid him no attention. In moments they had ducked under the turnstiles and reached the station platform, where they found the box of glow sticks and helped themselves. Sticky lowered himself onto the tracks, and Reynie lowered Constance down to him, his arms trembling so much he almost dropped her.

  “I really don’t want to be doing this,” said Constance, staring into the blackness.

  “Just keep talking,” said Sticky. “Maybe that’ll scare the rats away.”

  Their passage through the black tunnel was frightening indeed, with their glow sticks casting faint, strange shadows, and noises of unknown origin sounding in the dark. And when, not far along the tracks, they came suddenly upon the abandoned train—like some monstrous creature lurking in the dark—they all cried out at once. They collected themselves and dashed past it, past car after empty car, expecting at any moment for someone or something to peer out at them through a window—or worse, to leap out at them. But they got beyond it, and indeed all the way to Ferund Square station, without incident.

  “We made good time,” Reynie puffed as they mounted the station steps. “We might just have a chance.”

  They had wheezed out their plan as they ran, and when they reached the street entrance they lost no time. Reynie knelt down, and Sticky helped Constance onto his shoulders. He stood up shakily, with Sticky supporting him, until Constance had a fairly decent view of the square. “See anything?” he gasped. “Or, you know, sense anything?”

  Constance was looking all around. “I don’t. But it’s so crowded…”

  “We’ll have to chance it,” said Reynie, already letting her down again.

  Into the square they plunged, weaving through people on the sidewalks, constantly looking over their shoulders, laboriously making their way through the crush to the Pittfall Building. The observation deck, three stories up, could be seen but dimly, a wide, windowed outcropping whose outline was barely evident against the starry sky. It had been designed to offer the best view of the historic square—high enough to position the observer above street-level obstacles, low enough to eliminate the need for coin-operated telescopes. But it might as well have been specifically designed as a trap. Because it was enclosed, there could be no shouted warnings to Kate. Nor would any cries for help be heard from inside it.

  At last, their hearts pounding, their lungs and legs burning, Reynie, Constance, and Sticky reached the front door of the Pittfall Building. It was the sort of door that could be locked only electronically, and since it had not been locked when the power went out (the building usually remained open until late) it was conveniently unlocked now.

  Conveniently, Reynie thought, if you were setting a trap for a certain headstrong girl. Upon passing through this door, in the weak glow of emergency lighting, Kate would have seen what they saw now: a hand-printed
sign at the security desk that said “Observation Deck Closed Until Further Notice” and another that said “Gone For Batteries—Back In 15 Minutes.” Kate would have been thrilled, Reynie realized—no need to sneak past the security guard or concoct some false explanation for needing access to the deck. She could just bolt up the stairs and get situated with her spyglass.

  Reynie headed for the stairs, propelled by urgency yet trembling with fatigue and a terrible mounting dread. They were exhausted, there was no time to rest, and the instant they reached Kate they must turn right around and run out again. Could they possibly make it? Would it be better to try to hide somewhere in the building? No, that would be faster, but then the Ten Men could simply block the exits and make a thorough floor-by-floor search. They had to get out.

  “I… can’t… keep… up,” Constance huffed from several steps below. She was struggling valiantly, using both her hands and feet to climb, but was hardly moving at all.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Sticky said, waving Reynie on. “We’ll wait for you here. Hurry!”

  Reynie didn’t waste breath answering—he had none to spare—but pressed on as quickly as he could. He had reached the second-floor landing now, only twenty more steps to go. It felt like a hundred, but at last he stood on the third-floor landing, staring at the door to the observation deck, its sign illuminated by a buzzing emergency bulb. He gathered himself—pushing away the frightening thought that he might be too late—and flung the door open. Instantly a flashlight shone into his eyes.

  “Reynie!” whispered Kate’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “A trap,” Reynie gasped. “We have to—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of shouting in the stairwell. A scream, a scuffling sound, a man’s voice crying, “She bit me! The naughty little duck bit me!” And another man laughing and saying, “Proper caution, Crawlings! Will you never learn? Come, Sharpe, give me a hand with Mr. Spectacles. Garrotte, you take this…”