The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

“Any thoughts?” Kate asked.

Reynie was scratching his head. “Mr. Benedict wrote that the world was her oyster, right? I think this oyster must have a pearl inside. The question is how we get to it. Maybe there’s some kind of internal mechanism. Try pressing on the crystal.”

Kate pressed the crystal. Nothing happened. She tried moving it up and down like a switch, then twisting it like a dial. The crystal was firmly set, however, and wouldn’t budge. She turned the globe, inspecting it carefully. There were no discernible seams, no secret hinges. Kate glanced down the corridor at Constance and whispered, “Do you think we have to crack it open?”

Sticky grimaced. “I hope not. She’s upset enough as it is.”

“Mr. Benedict wouldn’t do that to Constance,” said Reynie. “There must be some other way.”

“I could pry the crystal off with my knife,” Kate said. “Maybe there’s a hidden catch or something beneath it. We can have the crystal reset later.” She shrugged. “Assuming, you know, that we survive long enough.”

Sticky covered his face. “I hate it when you say things like that.”

“Can you do it without breaking the pendant or scratching it up?” Reynie asked.

“I think so,” Kate said. She peered closely at the edges of the crystal to see exactly how it had been set. “Wait a minute, there seems to be something . . .” She held the crystal right up to one eye and closed the other. “Whoa!”

Constance hurried back to them. “What? What is it?”

Grinning, Kate handed her the pendant. “That crystal’s not exactly what it seems. Don’t just look at it. Try looking through it.”

Constance covered one eye and held the pendant very close to the other. She started. “Whoa!” She jerked the pendant away, looked at it as if she’d never seen it before, then brought it close to peer into the crystal again.

The crystal, as the boys soon discovered for themselves, was a magnifying glass. Looking through it revealed a map of Holland hidden inside the pendant. The map was smaller than a postage stamp but perfectly legible when seen through the crystal. A bright red X marked a city called Thernbaakagen, and at the bottom of the map was the name of a hotel and a street address.

“I saw that city on the schedule board!” Sticky said. “There’s a train leaving for there in ten minutes!”

“Then it’s time to catch a train,” Reynie said.

As the members of the Mysterious Benedict Society hurried to catch their train, Jackson and Jillson — less hurried but every bit as purposeful — entered the station. With frowning faces they scanned the crowd. Neither was especially methodical by nature, and their search, at first, was haphazard. After a few minutes of fruitless looking, however, Jackson had the idea of starting at one platform and walking slowly along all the platforms until they reached the other side of the station. He told Jillson that this was what they would do.

“I don’t like being told what to do,” said Jillson.

“Maybe not,” said Jackson. “But you don’t like making decisions, either.”

“That’s true,” Jillson said, and she started walking, shoving aside a young businessman who dropped his newspaper and almost fell. “So you tell me what to do, Jackson, but you don’t tell me why. For the last time, why are we at the train station?”

Jackson ignored her. They had just come to the first platform. “You look that way, into the station,” he said, pleased with himself for having devised a system, “and I’ll look this way, toward the platforms.”

Jillson grunted and did as Jackson said, but after passing the first two platforms she still hadn’t sighted the wild-haired bespectacled girl they’d seen at the castle, the one who’d behaved so curiously and looked so familiar. Then she remembered that Jackson had never answered her question. “Hey,” she said, “tell me why we’re here or I’m going to club you.”

This time Jackson deigned to answer. “Because Benedict came here, Jillson. Don’t you remember? He and that nervous-looking woman came here on the same morning they went to the castle.”

“Of course I remember. But so what?”

“So they came and left without catching a train. And they never did catch a train. They left on a plane. Which means they were up to something at this station, Jillson, something other than catching a train.”

Jillson stared blankly at him. “That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Jackson said irritably. “Besides the castle, this is the only place in the city that we know is connected to Benedict. If we saw someone suspicious hurrying away from the first place, and we didn’t find her on the street, don’t you think we ought to look around the —”

As Jackson was talking they came to the next platform, where a train was about to pull away. The platform was empty now — all the passengers had boarded — except for one girl who leaped aboard the last car just as the train began to move.

A blonde girl with a bucket.

Jackson stopped in his tracks. “I just saw Kate Wetherall get onto that train!”

“So did I,” said Jillson, who’d forgotten that her job was to look away from the trains and into the crowded station. And because she wasn’t looking in that direction, she failed to see a businessman emerge from the crowd and come to stand behind her and Jackson.

This businessman was not the young fellow Jillson had shoved aside earlier. This businessman carried a briefcase, and he wore an expensive suit, expensive cologne, and two expensive watches — one on each wrist. Had Jillson seen this man earlier, it would never have occurred to her to shove him.

“Kate Wetherall,” Jillson was saying. “Well, well, well. It did look like her. But can we be sure? I don’t want to report it if we’re not sure. He hates it when we make mistakes, you know.”