The Perilous Journey (40 page)

In a way, Mr. Curtain explained in a mocking tone, Mr. Benedict had done much of the work for him. He had but to take advantage when the opportunity arose. “My associates were ready to pounce the moment you strayed beyond your protection. But then I learned that you’d made plans for travel without disclosing the reasons to anyone. This, I thought, was suspicious behavior, and I determined not to apprehend you until I had learned more. And oh! What I learned was well worth the wait, don’t you think? Duskwort! The most precious plant imaginable! And you — of all people — unwittingly prepared to lead me right to it!” Mr. Curtain uttered a clipped screech of laughter that sounded like a hiccup.

“Ledroptha,” said Mr. Benedict, “why are you telling me this now?”

Mr. Curtain ignored him. Speaking directly to the children, he continued, “When I caught up with him here, I knew the duskwort was close by. Benedict and his assistant — I refuse to call her by her ridiculous code name — clearly intended to use this cave as a temporary laboratory. They had everything they needed: a comfortable location sheltered from the wind, a microscope, good lighting. To my great annoyance, however, I discovered that I’d arrived before they had gathered any of the plants for study. I could never have guessed their pace would be so tortoise-like! Here they were, ludicrously unaware of the duskwort’s precise location or even of its appearance — just sitting on their hands and waiting for some mysterious associate to contact them with the necessary information.”

Mr. Curtain gave Mr. Benedict a contemptuous glance. “Luckily,” he went on, “after wasting only a few drops of my truth serum, I realized the most efficient way to find this person would be to appeal to the protective instincts of Benedict’s friends. It was a perfect plan — no, a plan beyond perfection! I would receive the information I sought, then return to Stonetown in triumph! I would have the duskwort
and
my Whisperer! Can you imagine?”

The children shuddered. They could imagine only too well. Mr. Curtain’s dream was everyone else’s nightmare.

“Of course,” Mr. Curtain said, “I would have to revel in private. In public I would be compelled to grieve for my assistant, that poor nervous woman who would have failed to ‘escape’ with me. I’m sure you can understand why your friend couldn’t return with me — not knowing who I really was. No, I’m afraid she would have met her untimely demise at the hands of that cruel Mr. Curtain. Or else — I haven’t decided yet — she would remain his prisoner, hidden away somewhere in a far corner of the world, where all the government’s top agents would be dispatched to search in vain. This, of course, is why my men are tracking her down even as we speak. I may be undecided about her fate, but I certainly can’t have her running loose.”

“Ledroptha,” said Mr. Benedict gravely. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Mr. Curtain looked at him askance. “Oh, but I
choose
for it to be this way. And the arrival of the children has simplified matters. You asked a minute ago why I’m telling you all this now. The answer is that I needed to be cautious. I did not care to give you information you might use against me. You had already proven yourself too untrustworthy for my truth serum to be effective — you always managed to say something technically true but completely unhelpful. But that was when the serum was administered without — how shall I put it? — without additional
ingredients.
And now those ingredients are in my possession.”

Mr. Curtain took out his shiny silver gloves. The children instinctively recoiled. Grinning at their reaction, he patted the gloves against his knees. “I suspect that with the children here you’ll be more inclined to tell me what I wish to know. What say you, Benedict? Shall I put on my ‘kid gloves’?”

Mr. Benedict looked at his brother with an expression of profound concern. “Ledroptha, you can’t possibly —”

“Do not tell me what I cannot do!” Mr. Curtain shouted. He quickly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. After a long moment he opened his eyes again. “You can say what you please,” he said in a calmer voice, “but if your answers are not helpful to me, the children will pay the price.”

Mr. Curtain shot forward in his wheelchair — narrowly missing the children and Mr. Benedict — and retrieved a small vial and dropper from the nearby table. He spun the chair around and rolled over to Mr. Benedict. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

Mr. Benedict gazed steadily into his brother’s eyes. “How can I know that you won’t hurt the children anyway?”

“A fair question,” said Mr. Curtain, drawing a single drop of liquid from the vial. “Allow me to put your mind at ease.”

Mr. Curtain lifted the dropper, threw back his head, and let the drop fall into his open mouth. Instantly his eyes bulged and he wagged his head, as if he’d swallowed turpentine. “I promise,” he said, speaking quickly in a strained voice, “that if you tell me all I wish to know, I will not hurt these children. I’ll use the Whisperer to remove their memories of this event, and so they will be no threat to my plans and can live the remainder of their lives in safety. I will not offer you anything better, but that much, at least, I promise.”

The two men stared at each other, Mr. Curtain with a look of defiance, Mr. Benedict with an assessing, contemplative expression. At length Mr. Benedict started to speak, only to be interrupted by Constance, who shouted, “He’s lying, Mr. Benedict! That wasn’t the truth serum at all! He switched the vials while you were asleep!”

Mr. Benedict started, then looked visibly upset, as if he’d just received terrible news. In a voice so low only the children heard it he said, “I knew he was lying, dear girl.”

Mr. Curtain was staring at Constance in amazement. “Well, well,
well,
” he said in an appraising tone. “Now how could you possibly know I switched the vials?”

Constance stared back in dismay. She didn’t know how she’d known about the vials. She only knew that she hadn’t wanted Mr. Benedict to be fooled, and that her revelation seemed to please Mr. Curtain very much.

“I did switch them, but it was long before you arrived,” Mr. Curtain was saying, mostly to himself. His fingers drummed excitedly on the armrests of his wheelchair. “And yet you knew… you
knew.
Oh, my, what a useful little girl you are, Constance. I had no idea!”

“Ledroptha,” Mr. Benedict said quickly, “promise to leave her alone — no need for the serum — just make the promise, and I will tell you everything you want to know.”

Mr. Curtain smiled an oily smile. “I’ll make no such promise, Benedict. I will, however, promise not to harm any of the children for the time being — but only if you answer at once. That is my offer. Shall I put on my gloves, or… ?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. Benedict said. “Just make the promise.”

“I promise,” said Mr. Curtain. He gave Constance a sly look. “Am I telling the truth, my dear?”

Constance gazed fearfully at him, then nodded.

Mr. Curtain made a pleased murmur. He turned back to Mr. Benedict. “Now tell me quick, and no more games! Who is this person you spoke of ? And don’t you dare ask which person! You know who I mean: the one ‘extremely close’ to you — the only one who can secure the information for me! That’s exactly what you said! Now who is this person?”

Mr. Benedict looked frankly at his brother. “You.”

“Me?” said Mr. Curtain, taken aback. His eyes narrowed, and he put his hands over his mouth, breathing into them as if they were cold. It was evident he was attempting to stay calm. “What do you mean, me? How could I possibly secure this information for
myself
?”

“You could have done so at any time simply by letting us go, which was the offer I made you repeatedly,” said Mr. Benedict. “Had you released us, I would have revealed the information.”

Mr. Curtain threw his hands into the air. “But you said you didn’t know!”

“I said no such thing.”

Mr. Curtain’s wheelchair bucked forward, and with surprising agility he leaped from his seat and landed inches away from Mr. Benedict. He shook his finger in Mr. Benedict’s face. “And what if I had threatened to hurt your companion? You wouldn’t have revealed it then?”

“I most certainly would have,” said Mr. Benedict. “But it would still have been you who secured the information with your threats.”

“So you phrased it that way to prevent further questioning!” roared Mr. Curtain, finally understanding. “You knew I didn’t want to waste any more serum! You knew I wanted to save it!”

“That was my understanding, yes.” Mr. Benedict returned his brother’s furious look with a calm, inscrutable gaze.

The children watched hopefully. If Mr. Curtain was angry enough, he might fall asleep, and they could try to make an escape. Maybe…

But after only a moment of outraged quivering, Mr. Curtain relaxed. He smiled, nodded, and put his hands behind his back. His wheelchair came up behind him like a well-trained pet. “Good enough,” he said, taking his seat. “In the end, your treachery has worked in my favor. You must be terribly disappointed in yourself, Benedict. Now I shall have my duskwort
and
my Whisperer, and these children are proving useful as well….” He turned his wheelchair and cast a probing glance at Constance.

“Ledroptha,” said Mr. Benedict. “Shall I show you what I discovered now, or would you prefer to wait?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Curtain, turning eagerly back to him. “Show me at once.”

“I’ll need you to turn off the lights, then.”

“What?”

“The floodlights. Turn them off. There’s a control box on the table.”

“I
know
where the control box is,” said Mr. Curtain. “And I have left the lights on for good reason — so that nothing you did would go unobserved.”

Mr. Benedict gave him a patient smile. “I was aware of this, of course. But if you wish to see what I’ve been hiding from you, then off they must go.”

Mr. Curtain regarded him coldly. “Before I turn them off, do I need to make clear what punishments the children will suffer if this is an attempt to trick me?”

“I don’t believe such an explanation is necessary, no. I assure you I intend to do nothing at all while the lights are out.”

Mr. Curtain backed his wheelchair to the table and picked up the control box. He examined it carefully, then — just to be safe — rolled over and handed the box to S.Q., who’d been watching the proceedings in dutiful silence and at a dutifully safe distance. “Very well, Benedict. Let us hope you haven’t needlessly endangered your young friends. S.Q., flip the switch!”

S.Q. did as he was told, and the cave was thrown into perfect darkness. But the darkness lasted only a moment, for the walls, stalagmites, and stalactites soon began to glow with luminescent streaks of green.

“What you’re seeing is a form of translucent moss,” said Mr. Benedict. “It is what makes the rock appear slimy and wet in the light. In the darkness, as you can see, it is iridescent.”

For a long time Mr. Curtain sat in startled silence. Then he laughed. Softly at first, then louder and louder — and screechier and screechier — until the walls of the cavern reverberated with the great screeching peals of Mr. Curtain’s triumph.

The hours that followed were wretched ones indeed. Mr. Benedict and the children were compelled to watch as Mr. Curtain and S.Q. diligently scraped duskwort from every surface within reach. It was Mr. Curtain who had brought the black metal boxes stacked beneath the table, the children discovered. Although he’d had no idea of the plant’s appearance or location, he’d long been a scholar of the duskwort legends, and some years ago had secured — in a dark corner of the world — a scrap from an ancient book offering instructions for the transport and preservation of the fragile plant. Evidently nothing more elaborate was required than darkness, moisture, and a certain degree of heat, and Mr. Curtain had devised special containers to meet these conditions. Whenever he or S.Q. opened a metal box to slide in another layer of the precious moss, steam wafted out as if from a modern-day witch’s cauldron.

“To think,” said Mr. Benedict, watching his brother stretch to reach a high patch of duskwort on a stalagmite, “if we had worked together, Ledroptha, we might have accomplished a great deal. We each knew things the other did not.”

“And still do,” said Mr. Curtain, standing on the seat of his wheelchair to reach the duskwort more easily. (The wheelchair, in response to an unseen signal, eerily circled the stalagmite as if it had a mind of its own.) “But as you’ve now witnessed, I’m perfectly capable of making you reveal the things I desire to know. I see no advantage in ‘working together,’ as you put it.”

“The advantage,” Mr. Benedict began, “would lie in —”

“I do not care to hear any more of your opinions,” interrupted Mr. Curtain, peeling away a strip of slimy moss. “Foolish opinions distract me, and I have no time for distraction.”

“You do seem rather in a hurry,” Mr. Benedict observed.

“What did I just tell you about your opinions?” Mr. Curtain snapped. “Once again you betray your simplicity, Benedict. How do you think I have avoided capture if not from choosing never to tarry, never to linger? Take the present case: Even if I did not receive word from your Miss Kazembe, I fully intended to leave this island today.”

“And abandon the duskwort?” Mr. Benedict asked, sounding mildly surprised.

“Again, Benedict. Simplicity of thinking. I intended to leave S.Q., of course, to continue searching for it while I investigated the matter elsewhere. One way or another I would have found the duskwort, I assure you.”

At this, S.Q. paused in his work. From his stunned expression it was clear he’d had no inkling of this plan to leave him alone on a deserted island.

“As usual, however,” Mr. Curtain went on, “I have achieved my goals in the most efficient manner possible. Still, it never serves to stay in one place for long. Therefore I proceed, as always, with due haste.”

“If you’re in such a hurry,” Kate put in, “why don’t you force us to help you gather the duskwort?”

Mr. Curtain uttered his screechy laugh. “I have quite enough help, thank you, Miss Wetherall! And I should have quite enough duskwort even if I were compelled to leave most of it behind. No, I believe it’s better if you remain locked up.”