The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, page 29
I didn’t mean to!” Tai looked ready to burst into tears. “I couldn’t help hearing it when you were thinking about it, and so I was thinking about it, too, but I didn’t know she was listening! I’m sorry!”
Sticky and Reynie did their best to comfort him, hugging him and patting him and telling him that it wasn’t his fault and that everything would be fine. Tai badly wished to believe them, of course, and with an effort he held back his tears.
They found themselves, at long last, in Mr. Curtain’s security suite. They stood in a well-lit visitors area, separated from Mr. Curtain’s residence by a wall of glastanium. To the right was a modestly appointed kitchenette, beyond which lay the entrance to a bathroom. To their left stood a couple of chairs, a small sofa, and a desk with a computer on it. Rising from this desk and striding happily toward them now was Mr. Benedict.
His white hair as rumpled as his suit, his bright green eyes as lively as his nose was large and lumpy, Mr. Benedict was a most welcome sight. He greeted Reynie and Sticky with arms outstretched, and he instantly cheered up Tai with a wink and a joke about the pleasures of single-shoe perambulation.
“I know that word now!” Tai said with a laugh of recognition. Then he grew serious again. “Crawlings is outside, and he knows the code because of me.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Benedict rested a hand on Tai’s shoulder. “All will be well, dear boy.” He turned toward the wall of glastanium. “Ledroptha, you have visitors!”
“So I noticed,” replied the man, in a gruff voice remarkably similar to Mr. Benedict’s own, although with none of the warmth. “And here I’ve forgotten to set out tea and cookies.”
Mr. Curtain’s residence was, at present, far more dimly lit than the visitors area, and as a result the newcomers found themselves peering through their own reflections to find the source of that gruff voice. Indeed, the inner space was illuminated only by a night-light near the foot of a simple bed, upon which lay the shadowy figure of a man. (It was nighttime, after all. Nonetheless, the idea of resting on one’s bed in the midst of all this excitement was perfectly amazing to the visitors.) As they watched, the figure sat up and reached for a bedside lamp. With the click of a switch, Mr. Curtain appeared, glaring out at them from his bed. Except for his close-cropped hair and disagreeable expression, he looked exactly like his brother. He wore a pair of green plaid pajamas.
“Are you Mr. Curtain?” asked Tai. He knew the answer, of course, but in his nervousness he found he couldn’t resist asking.
“What do you think?” muttered Mr. Curtain, rising from his bed. He shoved his feet into a pair of green plaid slippers.
“I think you are! I’m Tai Li. I’m five years old.”
Mr. Curtain eyed him coolly. “Yes. Well.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Good for you.” His eyes traveled to the faces of Reynie and Sticky, who nodded politely for Mr. Benedict’s sake. Mr. Curtain grunted softly and said, “Time is annoying.” Then he looked past them, for even as he spoke, the security door was sliding open, and into the room came Crawlings.
The Ten Man had a curious and immensely creepy way of entering unfamiliar rooms: First his head eased into view—the bald pate, bone-white, and the face with a single eyebrow that twitched as his dark eyes roamed about—followed by his tall, slender figure in its black suit, which emerged in a stooped position, then seemed to unfold itself in the room. As he straightened to his full height and the fragrance of his expensive cologne filled the air, Crawlings drew through the doorway his long left arm, and with it the unfortunate woman known to them, so far, only as the Listener.
The woman was trying to shield her face with one hand, and she still struggled to free the other from Crawlings’s unbreakable grip. She was quite small—she seemed barely half Crawlings’s height—and wore a simple gray dress with tattered sneakers. Her hair, fine and black, with streaks of gray, fell just above her shoulders. Her skin was of an olive complexion, and when at last she lowered her hand and looked fearfully about the room, her features were so familiar that Reynie and Sticky glanced at each other in confusion, and Tai’s jaw dropped. Crawlings, his own glittering dark eyes drawn now to Tai’s face, began to chuckle.
“Well, well, well,” Crawlings said. “Do we see a family resemblance? How wonderful! It seems no surprise that certain things would run in the family, does it, Mr. Curtain? After all, isn’t it true that two of the greatest geniuses on the planet turned out to be identical twins?”
Mr. Curtain had stepped forward to the clear partition, the better to see what the others were reacting to. Glancing back and forth between the face of the little boy, who seemed pleasantly baffled, and that of the woman, whose large eyes now brimmed with tears, Mr. Curtain raised a bristly eyebrow but offered no comment on Crawlings’s observation. Instead he said, “Hello, Crawlings. Do remember your manners, won’t you? Not even a proper greeting after years apart?”
“Forgive me, forgive me,” Crawlings chuckled, shaking his head. “Hello, Mr. Curtain. Better? You must be pleased to see me, no? As for the rest of—TOUCH ANYTHING ON THAT COMPUTER KEYBOARD AND YOU WILL INSTANTLY REGRET IT!”
This last Crawlings had directed to Mr. Benedict, who had returned to his seat at the computer desk and who, in response to Crawlings’s shrieked command, leaned calmly back in his seat and laced his fingers together well away from the keyboard. He looked steadily at Crawlings and waited in silence. Indeed, they all waited in silence, for the Ten Man clearly believed himself to be in control of the situation and would abide no resistance.
“Now then,” Crawlings said, once more in a casual, affable tone, “what was I saying? Oh, we were speaking of seeing one another after years apart. I must say, look at these two boys. You, George—how is it that you’ve come to be so handsome? Is it the spectacles, perhaps? Naturally, I’ve always admired your one good feature”—with this, Crawlings ran a hand over his own smooth head—“but otherwise, well, I never would have guessed you had it in you. And as for you, Reynard—oh well, we can’t all be matinee idols, can we?”
“To answer your question,” Mr. Curtain said with more than a hint of impatience, “I am indeed pleased to see you, Crawlings. I trust the others are well? Will they be along soon?”
Crawlings uttered a disagreeable snicker. “Are the others well? Unless by that you mean well cooked, I daresay not, Mr. Curtain. No, I’m afraid I’m the only one in any position to help you, my dear old employer. But fear not! I’m more than up to the task. Here, you, make yourself comfortable on that sofa,” he said, directing the Listener to take a seat.
The poor woman did as she was told. She could not take her eyes off Tai, who returned her gaze with a look of sweet encouragement and, to her evident surprise, climbed onto the sofa and sat quietly beside her.
“I will allow that,” Crawlings said to Tai. “But if you wish to avoid unpleasant consequences, do not move again without my permission. Blink three times if you understand me.”
Tai, holding very still, blinked three times.
“Now then,” Crawlings said. “Here is how we shall proceed, Mr. Curtain. First you’ll explain to me how it is you intend for us to escape. I have the Salamander at my disposal, but between me and it stands an impenetrable barrier. Your letter suggested that you have your own way out, and I should love to hear about it.
“Next I’ll wish to discover the location of the cache of weapons you referred to in your letter, as well as—I shall even say especially—the location and nature of that most intriguing and mysterious one you mentioned. Once these things have been established, you can advise me on how best to free you from your sadly cramped chamber. How diminished your circumstances appear, I must say! What do you have in there—a bed, a desk, a chair? I suppose that door behind you leads to a bathroom? And that’s all? And to think that you used to consider yourself the future master of the earth!”
Mr. Curtain stared at Crawlings with hooded eyes. He was visibly clenching and unclenching his jaw. At length he said, “I was never one for luxurious accommodations, anyway, you’ll recall. It’s true I once enjoyed greater freedoms, however, and I should like to again. If you’ll—”
“Yes, yes,” Crawlings interrupted. “I know you wish to be freed, and I daresay you’re keenly interested in not succumbing to the poison you so boldly imbibed. Reynard, my dear, I assume you have the desired serum in that backpack of yours?”
Reynie nodded. “I’d like to—”
Crawlings held up a bony white hand. “Do not speak. Do not. Simply produce the serum.”
As Reynie slipped off the backpack and unzipped it, Crawlings turned again to Mr. Curtain. “How are you given things, anyway? Oh, I see, this clever drawer set into the wall. The metal flap opens and the drawer extends, as if I were making a deposit at a bank’s drive-through window. But what’s to keep you from reaching through and grabbing someone’s hand? Or yanking the drawer and mashing a fellow’s fingers?”
“It’s designed so that I cannot open it if your side is open,” Mr. Curtain said coolly. “And vice versa.”
“Clever indeed!” Crawlings said, his lone eyebrow twitching with emphasis. “And now for the serum.”
Sticky said, “It isn’t—”
“I said, no speaking!” Crawlings barked, and spinning on Sticky, he extended his hands, shaking his suit cuffs to expose his shock-watches. Sticky flinched—indeed, everyone in the room flinched—but then Crawlings took on a puzzled expression. No electrical hum filled the air.
“If I may,” Mr. Benedict volunteered, raising his eyebrows questioningly. When Crawlings looked at him, evidently willing to hear what he had to say, Mr. Benedict said, “When you entered this room, you passed through an electromagnetic field that temporarily disables any electrical devices on your person. I’m afraid your watches won’t function for some time. Also, if I may add, it was Reynie whom you instructed to keep silent, not George.”
Crawlings’s eyebrow drew inward at a slant. He tapped the crystal of one watch and held it to his ear, then repeated the action with the other. He sighed. “Another clever feature of the room,” he admitted. “And very well, Mr. Benedict, I take your point. George, I apologize for frightening you unnecessarily. When it’s time for you to be necessarily frightened, I’ll let you know. It won’t be long now.”
Sticky glared at him but said nothing.
Crawlings held out a hand to Reynie, his long arm seeming to stretch halfway across the room, and into that hand Reynie placed two stoppered beakers filled with pink fluid. Crawlings held them up to the light. “It looks thickish, I must say, and not a pleasing thing to swallow. But I will most gladly drink it down. Oh yes! Don’t look so surprised, everyone! You said yourself, Mr. Curtain, that if this serum worked its effects upon a supposedly ‘average intelligence’ like mine, why, then the floodgates of genius would be opened! Did you not?”
Mr. Curtain was stony-faced. “I don’t believe I used those precise words.”
“Well, we won’t quibble,” Crawlings said with a lopsided smile. “My point is, why should I bother negotiating terms with you? I have a telepath working for me whose abilities can and will be developed. In the meantime I can simply direct her to extract from you all the information I desire: your plan for escape, the matter of the weapons, and the formula of the serum itself. Ha! Do you not admire the brilliance of my plan? It’s as if I’ve already drunk the serum, is it not?”
Reynie raised his hand.
Crawlings, rolling his eyes, gave him nodding permission to speak.
“I ask you to consider,” Reynie said carefully, “that you could allow them to receive the antidote and still get everything you wish. Nothing else about your plan would need to change—you could still obtain all of that information and make your escape. You’d have the formula to the serum, right? So—”
“That’s enough,” snipped Crawlings, and Reynie fell silent. “I may not be a verifiable genius yet, but I don’t need you to spell out every little detail, young man. And the fact is that I have already considered what you say. Considered and rejected it. There are always so many things that can go wrong between now and later, you know. I prefer not to wait.
“My question now is this: Did you really bring enough for both brothers? One beaker each? Or did you intend to save only your precious mentor, in which case you expected him to drink both of these beakers? The answer matters, you see, for depending on the dose required to become a certified genius, I might actually let Mr. Curtain have what he needs to survive—for old time’s sake, you know.”
“You’re too kind,” Mr. Curtain growled.
“Now, let’s see,” Crawlings said, stroking his chin and studying Reynie’s and Sticky’s faces, which they were clearly endeavoring to keep impassive. “I don’t actually require any assistance in figuring out the answer to my first question. I’ve seen all of Benedict’s crew in action often enough to know that they cannot resist helping even those whom they despise. It appears to be some sort of mania. Therefore, you’re in luck so far, Mr. Curtain. As long as a single beaker is all I require for my own purposes, you’ll be more than welcome to the other. So, tell me, what is the proper dose for me?”
“You shouldn’t do this,” Mr. Curtain replied tersely. “What if I’m wrong about the formula? You shouldn’t risk making me your enemy in that case. You’ll need me.”
“Oh dear, I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Crawlings said. He pointed a finger directly at Mr. Curtain’s face. “I asked you what the proper dose is for me, and you had better answer me now. You know what I’m capable of, and I am holding all the cards here. What is the proper dose?”
“A single beaker,” Mr. Curtain said, narrowing his eyes. “Now do get on with it and pass me mine.”
“With pleasure,” Crawlings said, and with his teeth he ripped the stopper from one of the beakers.
“You’re not really going to drink that, are you?” said a small voice. “Not when you know that Mr. Benedict needs one, too?”
Crawlings pivoted slowly to level his gaze at the owner of the voice. Tai Li’s face looked up at him as if from the bottom of a well, so much smaller was he than Crawlings, and his big eyes were wide with innocent disbelief.
There are times when even the worst of men—the most selfish, the most vindictive, the cruelest of men—need only be confronted with the wisdom of small children to be reminded of the children they once were themselves; to be reminded, in short, of what it is to imagine a world of magic and kindness rather than a world of wickedness and violence.
This was not one of those times. Crawlings winked at Tai and drank the beaker down.
He shuddered, winced, gasped—and then laughed. For he had done it. He had become a genius. Except that Crawlings didn’t feel like a genius just yet, and the idea that came to him next, he knew, was no better than the idea of any common mortal. Still, it was an important idea, and he felt very pleased to have been its source. His eyes swiveled to the timid woman on the sofa.
“Tell me what he’s thinking,” Crawlings intoned. “For it occurs to me that of course he would say I needed only one beaker, because he wants the other for himself! Let’s just be sure about this, shall we? Tell me, and tell me quick—what is the proper dose?”
The sad woman, her face a mask of fear and confusion, did what the Ten Man instructed her to do. She stared intently at Mr. Curtain, who closed his eyes and shook his head as if in disgust, and then she said, very quietly, “Both beakers. I’m sorry, but both beakers. That’s what he’s thinking.”
“I knew it!” Crawlings roared. He jerked the stopper from the other beaker and flung it carelessly at Reynie, striking him on the forehead. As Reynie rubbed the painful spot, and he and Sticky looked on with expressions of helplessness, Crawlings gulped down the last of the serum. He turned and flung the beaker triumphantly at the wall, where it exploded into a thousand tiny pieces. He shivered and shook his head, and then he straightened to his full height and stretched his arms out wide. “Yes! Let the new era begin!”
Mr. Benedict rose from his chair. “Congratulations,” he said quietly to Reynie and Sticky. He shook their hands. “Very well done indeed.”
Mr. Curtain, with a look of disdain at Crawlings, went and sat on the edge of his bed.
“You are a wonderful young man, aren’t you?” Mr. Benedict was saying to Tai, and turning to the Listener, he said, “I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through. We’ll help you find your way, I promise.”
“Excuse me?” Crawlings said. He bugged his eyes at the others in the room. “Hello? Are you aware of what just happened?” He concentrated, waiting for his genius to kick in, the better to understand these mystifying reactions.
Reynie and Sticky shook hands and hugged, clapping each other enthusiastically on the back. They hugged Tai, too, and in soft voices began to offer assurances to the Listener, whose face, for the first time, showed signs of hope.
“I’m still here!” Crawlings shouted. “Everyone be silent!”
They all turned to face him. His chest was heaving. His eyes darted back and forth. He felt extremely agitated and confused.
“Tell me,” said Mr. Benedict, “can you lift your arms? I advise you to be seated at once.”
“Of course I can—” Crawlings began, but then he looked at his left arm, and then at his right arm. Both dangled unmoving. And indeed, he only managed to look at them by directing his eyeballs, for his head seemed unwilling to move as well.
“Be quick, my friends,” Mr. Benedict said, and Reynie and Sticky jumped forward to catch Crawlings before he collapsed. They eased him onto the floor, where he sat with his palms upturned, his knuckles near his knees, and his face a picture of bewilderment.
“But you said both beakers,” Crawlings said, directing his eyeballs toward the Listener. His voice slurred. “Wass it ssuppossed to be only one?”
“Oh, even one beaker was one too many, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Benedict.
