The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

“Oh, Milligan!” she cried. “Oh, Milligan, you’re here!”

Milligan was there, although he was rather difficult to see beneath the pile of jubilant children mobbing him in their excitement. And even when he had freed himself with a lot of hugging and head- patting and handshakes and smiles, Milligan resembled himself but slightly. His normally yellow hair was black, his blue eyes were brown, and his ears, strangely enough, seemed to have shrunk. His ruddy complexion was the same, and he possessed the same tall, lanky build, but at a glance he was hardly recognizable even to those who knew him.

“I thought you were another Ten Man!” Kate said. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you!”

“You were concentrating on the more immediate threat,” Milligan said. His eyes twinkled. “You sounded awfully fierce, by the way. Now listen, all of you, the police are coming and we can’t spare the time to deal with them. We need to make our exit. Quick now!” He took the Ten Man’s briefcase from Reynie, who handed it over with relief.

“The police are coming?” Sticky said.

“Quick now,” Milligan repeated, stepping over the Ten Man’s body.

“You’re just going to leave him lying here?” Constance said. “You aren’t going to tie him up or anything?”

Milligan turned to see Constance staring at the Ten Man on the floor, afraid even to walk past him. “Forgive me,” he said, coming back and picking her up. “Quick now, all of you. And please don’t make me say it again.” He carried Constance from the room.

At the end of the hallway the children could see a man’s feet sticking out through the elevator doors, which kept sliding shut, only to bump the feet and slide open again with a ding. Presumably the feet, shod in expensive black shoes, belonged to the Ten Man’s tranquilized partner.

“Couldn’t you have moved his feet out of the way?” Constance asked. “That ding is annoying.”

“True, but this way the police have to use the stairs,” Milligan said, leading the children in the other direction. They hurried down another hallway and at last to an open window, beyond which a fire escape descended into a side alley. Sticky took one glance out the window and reached for his spectacles. Milligan put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t look at the ground. Just watch your feet and keep moving. You’ll be fine. Kate, you go first and we’ll follow you.”

Just then they heard a door bang open, followed by the sound of officers (heavily winded from their climb up the stairs) storming into the other hallway. Kate vaulted the windowsill and led the way down the fire escape steps, down and down, flight after flight, until she leaped the last few steps and landed beside a parked car. Only then did she realize it was a police car.

“Get in, Kate,” Milligan called from above. “That’s our car.”

“A police car?”

“I borrowed it,” said Milligan. “Quick now, boys.”

Reynie and Sticky scrambled down the final steps of the fire escape and jumped into the back seat with Kate. Milligan put Constance in front with him. “Keep your heads down,” he said, reversing out of the alley. As he drove past the front of the hotel he murmured, “Three police cars. Good. And that woman in the lobby must be who called. She looks distraught. Small wonder there.”

“What woman?” Sticky asked, dutifully keeping his head down.

“One of the desk clerks. She called the police and told them she’d been bribed and threatened, and that some bad men were on the way to the hotel. She was afraid they were going to do something to a group of children there.”

“How do you know all that?” Constance asked.

Milligan glanced at her. She was sitting up straight in the passenger seat — unlike the others she hadn’t needed to duck — and Milligan frowned as something occurred to him. “You should be in a child’s car seat. It’s dangerous without one.”

Constance looked at him incredulously. “Are you joking?”

“A bit. Still, let’s do buckle up, everyone.” Keeping his eyes on the road, Milligan reached across and pulled down Constance’s seatbelt strap, which because of her height (or lack thereof ) ran diagonally across her face. She glared at him with her one visible eye.

“Feel free to adjust that,” Milligan said, giving her a lopsided grin. “Now, to answer your question, I knew what I did by listening to a police radio scanner. My Dutch isn’t perfect, but I know enough to do the trick. And luckily I was already in the neighborhood. The police had mentioned you on the scanner earlier today, too. They said you’d just left the science museum and should be brought into the station for questioning. You four have been busy.”

“I’m glad you found us,” said Reynie. “Things were about to get awfully unpleasant.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t catch up with you sooner,” Milligan said, the regret plain on his face. “Five minutes earlier and I could have spared you that encounter — and spared myself the worry. I was detained, unfortunately, or I would have met you the moment you came ashore in Lisbon. It didn’t help matters that you’re all so horribly clever. I can’t tell you how troubled I was to discover you weren’t on the train in Thernbaakagen.”

By now the children were all sitting up. Milligan was driving through a gritty warehouse district near the harbor. All but Constance, who was too short, could see the shimmer of the North Sea in the near distance.

“But how did you know we were on that train?” Reynie asked. “How did you even know we were in Lisbon?”

“It’s my job to know things,” Milligan said with a mysterious air. Then he shrugged. “Also, you left the travel journal Mr. Benedict gave you.”

“Oh!” said Kate. “Then we’re lucky we forgot it! I told you it was a good thing, Constance!”

“It was indeed,” said Milligan. “When I arrived at Mr. Benedict’s house, Rhonda had already discovered your