“Who filed and recorded them?” Reynie persisted, glancing between Mr. Schuyler and Sophie. “May we speak with that person?”
Sophie looked at Mr. Schuyler, and Reynie understood. Obviously Mr. Schuyler was that person. And obviously he had not examined the maps.
“I cannot be expected to commit to memory everything I see!” said Mr. Schuyler in an exasperated tone. “I am quite busy with my duties here, children.” He rose abruptly from his chair. “In fact, I have duties to attend to at this very moment. Good day, all of you. I hope you will cooperate with the police. Please behave with the proper respect.”
“The police?” they all cried.
Mr. Schuyler smiled. “Oh, yes, you must wait here for them, of course. The police wish to question anyone in connection with the attack. You have asked to see these papers, so you must be questioned. Sophie, you
Sophie started. “Not yet,” she said with an apologetic look at the children.
“Not yet!” Mr. Schuyler exclaimed indignantly. “Very well, if
“I will do it right away,” said Sophie, hurrying to her desk.
Reynie leaped to his feet. “Please, Mr. Schuyler. Will you consider —”
But Mr. Schuyler wouldn’t let him finish. “No,” he said firmly. “I will not.” He turned and stalked past the librarian’s desk into one of the back rooms.
With the telephone in her hand, Sophie watched him go. She listened a moment, then turned to the children. “There is something wrong with this telephone,” she said quietly. “It is not working. I will try again in one or two minutes. Do you children wish to use the bathroom? It is downstairs.”
“The bathroom?” Sticky said.
Kate grabbed him and whispered, “She’s letting us go, Sticky. Move it.”
They went quickly to the door, pausing just long enough to cast grateful looks toward the young librarian.
“Thank you, Sophie,” Reynie whispered.
“Good luck, children,” Sophie whispered in reply. She watched them leave with an expression of great concern, no doubt wondering whether she’d done the right thing in letting them go. They were children, after all. Whatever they were doing, wherever they were going now — would they be safe?
It was a question shared by the children themselves.
And the answer was no.
The Phone Call, the money, and the Fateful Envelope
Reynie was confident now that Mr. Benedict and Number Two had gone to the island, wherever it was, and that Mr. Curtain had followed them there. Whether the children could follow them there, too, remained to be seen, but one thing was certain: if they failed, it would not be from a lack of hurrying.
“I’m sorry! I have to rest!” Reynie gasped, steering his bicycle off the road and into a patch of grass, where he shakily dismounted and flopped onto his back. His legs burned from calf to thigh, his lungs were heaving, and he could barely see for all the sweat stinging his eyes. They had been pedaling madly ever since they left the museum.
Hearing a strange, raspy sound nearby, Reynie wiped his eyes and turned his head to look. Sticky lay wheezing in the grass a few yards away, one leg under his bicycle, like a cavalry soldier whose horse had fallen on him in battle. Too winded to speak and too exhausted to dismount, he’d followed Reynie into the grass and simply let himself crash.
Kate came back to see what was the matter. She sat on her bicycle — by some miracle of balance she kept it upright without pedaling — and Constance sat in the basket. Both girls seemed disappointed.
“We need to hurry, you know,” said Constance, who otherwise wouldn’t have agreed to ride with Kate.
“I think . . . I’m done for,” Reynie panted. “You go on . . . without me.”
“Are you joking?” Kate asked, astonished.
Reynie nodded and hauled himself into a sitting position. He found he couldn’t breathe as well this way, however, and so he fell onto his back again. Constance frowned disapprovingly. Meanwhile, an old woman walking a miniature poodle had stopped to let the dog sniff at Sticky. Sticky could only blink at it and gasp. The old woman clucked, said something to the children in Dutch, and moved on.
The route from the museum to the hotel was a long, straight shot along a major thoroughfare, but to avoid attention (since the police might be looking for them) the children had kept to side streets. They were in a quiet neighborhood now. The patch of grass the boys had collapsed upon was actually a tiny park — a dreary one, unfortunately, scarcely larger than a parking space, with a single rotting bench and a single blighted elm tree.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kate said as the boys recovered. “What if Mr. Benedict meant for Thernbaakagen to be our last stop? What if he and Number Two took a quick trip to that island with the idea of returning before we got to the hotel? After all, he didn’t know about the island until he got here. It wouldn’t have been part of his original plans.”
Reynie had considered this but had kept the question to himself. He hadn’t wanted to discourage Constance. Sure enough, now that Kate had mentioned it, Constance’s troubled expression grew darker still.
“He may very well have tacked the island onto our trip,” Reynie said quickly. “In which case he’ll have left a clue at the hotel. And even if he hasn’t, we might be able to track down Han de Reizeger — the Benedicts’ friend. He’d be very old by now, but —”
