The Prisoner's Dilemma (16 page)

“I had the same thought,” Miss Perumal admitted. “I felt sure it would come out all right, but perhaps not without a nasty hullaballoo.” She turned as the children came into the room. “Hello, you three! Everyone fine? I assume you watched the proceedings just now.”

“Yes, and we’re looking for Constance,” Reynie said. “Have you seen her, Amma?”

“Not since she went outside,” said Miss Perumal—she checked her wristwatch—”almost an hour ago. Has she not come back in?”

“We haven’t seen her,” said Reynie. His heart, for no reason he could make out, had begun to speed up. “You gave her permission?”

“Certainly,” said Miss Perumal. “Rhonda had told me she was excused from lessons, and it’s finally nice out. She wanted to kick a ball in the backyard, and I—”

“Which guard is posted back there today?” Reynie asked, his heart beating even faster now.

“Mr. Bane. Why, what’s the matter, Reynie? You look upset. In fact, you all do.”

Reynie didn’t take time to respond. He turned and dashed to the stairs, his friends close on his heels. Kate, in fact, was about to leap past him—but then they saw Mr. Bane himself appear at the bottom of the stairs. They froze, staring, wondering what to do. Their thoughts were a wild jumble, and no one was thinking exactly the same thing, yet all of them—not two seconds before—had felt sure that Mr. Bane had done something wicked. Now here he stood.

“Um,” Kate said hesitantly as the man started up toward them, “Mr. Bane? Have you seen Constance?”

“Move aside,” said Mr. Bane, brushing past them none too gently. The children looked at one another in confusion, then turned and followed him. He strode briskly down the hall and knocked on the door of Mr. Benedict’s study. “We have a problem,” he said when the door swung open. “Constance Contraire has left the premises.”

M
r. Benedict was only asleep for a minute. Milligan never even let him touch the floor, but held him sagging in his arms while Rhonda dashed off to alert Number Two. Then like a suddenly animated marionette Mr. Benedict stiffened and sprang forward to stand on his own. He had scarcely opened his eyes before he began interrogating Mr. Bane, whose answers were simple enough:

After kicking the ball around the yard awhile—presumably to throw off suspicion—Constance had “accidentally” sent it rolling under the hedge, and complaining bitterly about the mud and wet grass she had wriggled under the hedge to retrieve it. When she didn’t emerge, Mr. Bane had called for her to come out. He had called several times, had thought she was being stubborn. She was known for being stubborn, wasn’t she? It had never occurred to him that her size allowed her to do what most people could not—squeeze between the palings of the iron fence beyond the hedge—or that she would ever choose to do such a thing. Why would she wish to leave the safety of the yard?

“When was this?” Mr. Benedict said curtly. He was in the hall now, headed for the dining room with Mr. Bane hurrying along beside him and the three children following behind. (Milligan, after a rapid, whispered exchange with Mr. Benedict, had already left.)

“I came up here the moment I realized she was gone,” said Mr. Bane.

“No, when did she first go under the hedge?” Mr. Benedict stopped outside the dining room and fixed the man with a piercing gaze. “Be sure of what you say, Mr. Bane. I see from your muddy knees that you did indeed kneel to look beneath the hedge, and yet I can tell you are choosing your words carefully. Now you had better leave off any excuses and tell me the exact truth whether you like it or not. How long did you wait before you went to check? Five minutes? Ten?”

Mr. Bane swallowed. He looked defiantly at Mr. Benedict, but only for a moment. Then he looked away. “About ten minutes, yes.”

Mr. Benedict stared at him, assessing his words. “Unfortunately, I believe you. You’ll notice, Mr. Bane, that I do not ask how loudly you called for Constance to come out. At the moment I have no time to watch you squirm and protest. You were negligent, and I—” Here Mr. Benedict hesitated. He took a breath, glanced probingly at the children, and in a slightly less cold tone said, “I should like to think that you’re sorry for it.”

Mr. Bane looked up, his jaw twitching. He coughed into his fist. “I am, of course. Very sorry indeed.” He did not look at all sorry, Reynie thought, but he did look as though he were trying to.

“You’ve done good work until now,” said Mr. Benedict stiffly. “I shall bear that in mind when I speak with your superiors.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Bane in a flat tone.

Mr. Benedict nodded. “And now, if you will please inform Ms. Plugg what has occurred, I shall take a moment to speak with my friends.”

Mr. Bane stalked off, and Mr. Benedict—after listening for the man’s footsteps on the stairs—led the children into the dining room. According to some privately understood arrangement, Number Two and Rhonda had assembled everyone in the house (not including the guards), and they all stood close together, talking agitatedly. On every face was an expression of deepest concern. Miss Perumal and her mother drew Reynie close as soon as they saw him; the Washingtons did likewise to Sticky. Moocho Brazos beckoned Kate over and stood with one huge hand resting protectively on her shoulder. Mr. Benedict raised his hands for attention, and everyone immediately fell silent.

“You know what has happened,” Mr. Benedict said, his words quiet and quick. “Constance has run away and is now in danger. Milligan is contacting his sentries and will notify those authorities we can trust, but I intend to begin a search right away. There is not a moment to lose.” He gestured toward the dining room table, where Number Two and Rhonda were already spreading a large map. “We shall designate different sectors to any of you willing to help search. I must remind you that anyone who leaves the house runs a risk.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Now please forgive my directness, but there’s no time for delicacy. Who will help?”

Every hand in the room went up, including the children’s.

“Thank you all,” said Mr. Benedict. “You children, of course, must remain here in the guarded house.” (The other adults nodded firmly at this, and the children lowered their hands, knowing this was no time for argument.) “The rest of us will be divided into search parties as follows: Miss Perumal, Moocho Brazos, and Mr. Washington will go with Number Two—you’ll be afoot. Mrs. Perumal, Mrs. Washington, and I will accompany Rhonda in the station wagon.”

The adults gathered around the table, where Mr. Benedict, a pencil in each hand, swiftly marked perimeters on the map as Number Two and Rhonda explained their search strategy. Reynie, Sticky, and Kate watched helplessly from across the room.

“Why do you think he put my parents on different teams?” Sticky murmured.

“For the same reason he separated Amma and Pati,” Reynie said grimly. “If something bad happens to one of them, we’ll still have one guardian left.”

Sticky’s eyes widened. He cast a worried look toward his parents.

“They’ll be fine,” Kate said reassuringly. “I’ll bet Mr. Benedict knew they would worry about that, so he just took care of the problem up front. That doesn’t mean he’s really worried himself.”

Sticky nodded, half-convinced, but his fingers twitched maddeningly nonetheless, and this time he couldn’t resist giving his spectacles a polish.

A final flurry of instructions at the table; the group broke up. The children were hugged and kissed and their shoulders were squeezed, and two minutes later they were alone.

Never had the house felt so empty. The three of them stood at the dining room window, looking down into the courtyard and the street beyond. Any minute, they said to themselves, they would see Constance come back through the gate and demand petulantly that Ms. Plugg let her into the house. Or the station wagon would pull up with Constance in back, arms huffily crossed. But after twenty minutes of staring they had seen only the occasional pedestrian or car, and Ms. Plugg in the courtyard pacing to and fro and speaking into her radio. Meanwhile the shadows were lengthening. It would soon be dusk.

Finally Sticky suggested they go up to his and Reynie’s room and look out the back. “At least it would be a change,” he said, and with gloomy nods they headed to the third floor. Their footsteps sounded unusually loud on the stairs, for the house was unnaturally quiet.

As Reynie and Sticky stood at their window looking down into the backyard (where Mr. Bane, like Ms. Plugg, was pacing and speaking into his radio), Kate busied herself by straightening their room. The boys’ room was not exactly a shambles, but compared to hers it was a disaster, with sloppily made bunk beds, socks on the floor, and every inch of the desk’s surface covered with newspapers, books, writing tablets, and whatever came out of their pockets at the end of each day. Kate felt grateful for the mess; she had desperately wanted something to do. The boys, for their part, were glad that her bustling about covered up their strained silence. Everyone was extremely upset and trying not to show it.

“I wonder which direction she went,” Sticky said at last. He pointed to the lane beyond the hedge-lined fence. “Either way, the hedge would have hidden her from Mr. Bane.”

“I’m not sure that mattered,” said Reynie. “Didn’t you get the feeling Mr. Bane knew what she was up to? And let her do it?”

“I sure suspected him of something,” said Kate, using her Swiss Army knife tweezers to pick up dirty socks and toss them into a hamper. “I didn’t know what, though.”

“I did, too,” said Sticky, “but then Mr. Benedict mentioned his muddy knees. So obviously Mr. Bane went to the trouble to look for her, right? I don’t like him, but if Mr. Benedict, of all people, is willing to drop his suspicions…”

“The muddy knees were a cover-up!” Reynie said, barely keeping the frustration out of his voice. He felt ready to lash out at the least thing. “Don’t you see? Mr. Bane handled it all so slyly. He knew Mr. Benedict would notice his knees, so he didn’t bother pointing them out himself—that would have seemed too obvious.” He shook his head. “And I don’t believe Mr. Benedict dropped his suspicions. He only pretended to. Did you see the way he glanced at us? Something’s not right.”

Reynie found he was clenching the edge of the windowsill so hard his fingers hurt. He loosened his grip and kept gazing into the backyard, avoiding Sticky’s eyes. He felt sure that eye contact with his friend would cause him to shout angrily or burst into tears—he wasn’t sure which. He suddenly realized he was terribly hot, and tearing his jacket off he fairly ruined the zipper.

“You’re right,” said Sticky after a pause. There was a tremor in his voice, and he was steadfastly avoiding Reynie’s gaze as well.

“Of course he is,” said Kate from the top bunk, where she’d been smoothing wrinkles from the covers. She vaulted the rail, twisted in the air, and dropped catlike to the floor. She was moving lightly and nimbly as ever, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, but this was simply how Kate always moved. Her voice was grave as could be. “Do you think Mr. Bane lied about her running off, then? You don’t think someone
took
her, do you? Mr. Benedict didn’t seem to think so. He organized the search parties, after all.”

“No, I think Mr. Bane was telling the truth—at least about those basic details—and I could tell Mr. Benedict believed him, too.” Reynie glanced down at the pacing figure of Mr. Bane, now chafing his hands against the evening chill, and then turned from the window with a feeling of revulsion. “I’m pretty sure she ran away. She was really upset and mixed-up. In fact, come to think of it, this business with Mr. Pressius must have felt an awful lot like her recovered memory.”

“Hey, that’s true,” said Sticky. “Some odious man working for Mr. Curtain intends to take her away? It’s very similar. But this time she had friends. She had
us.
So wouldn’t you think—”

“Maybe she left a note!” Reynie cried, and he ran to the desk, which Kate had just begun to organize. Already the pens and pencils had been gathered into a cup, the newspapers folded and stacked. “You’re right,” he said as he rifled through papers, “she does have friends this time, and maybe, just maybe…”

“I didn’t see one,” said Kate, wishing she had. “But you should double-check to be sure.”

Reynie did, and then Sticky did, too. There was no note. Still, the possibility lingered, and they decided to search the house—starting with the girls’ room, even though Kate hadn’t seen a note when she was tidying the room. This time they rummaged through Constance’s chest of drawers. But though they found lots of candy wrappers, four or five moldy muffin bottoms, and several reams of poetry (Sticky read through all of it in two minutes), there was no note.

Kate searched the closet. Hardly had she begun before she slapped her forehead and groaned. “Why didn’t I notice this before? Her old red raincoat’s gone! And her boots! She didn’t just throw a tantrum, she was getting ready to run away! If I’d realized that, we might have stopped her in time…” She fell silent, looking bitterly at an empty clothes hanger in her hand.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Reynie said. “We weren’t looking for clues, remember? We had no idea she was planning to leave.”

“
You’d
have noticed it. Even if we weren’t looking for clues.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Reynie. “But we do different things, right? Isn’t that why we’re a team?”

“I suppose,” said Kate, then forced a thin smile and said, “I mean yes. Anyway, let’s drop it. I’m just upset by this whole business, and standing here isn’t going to make it better. Let’s look for the note.”

There was no note to be found, however. They searched all the likely places, and some unlikely ones too, casting about for telltale scraps of paper. They searched for two hours and more. But there was nothing.

Nor was there any sign of the search parties, and it was long past dinnertime. Taking apples from the pantry, they bypassed the dining room (its empty table seemed strangely mocking to them now) and went back upstairs to eat them, hoping the boys’ bedroom would feel cozy enough to ward off the atmosphere of emptiness.