The children were appalled. It was a very disagreeable letter, and as Sticky finished quoting it — the rest was devoted to outrageous prices and noisy neighbors — Reynie wondered what Mr. Benedict must have thought of it. Knowing him, he’d probably found his aunt’s superior tone amusing; Mr. Benedict was not the sort of person to waste a good chuckle on indignation. But then again, Reynie reflected, he must have been disappointed to find yet another example of such unpleasantness in his family.
“I suppose,” said Kate when Sticky had finished, “they hid her letter because it mentions Han and the secret trip they were planning. They were being awfully careful.”
“Why not just destroy it?” Constance said. “A nasty letter like that! Why on earth would Anki keep it?”
Kate snorted with laughter. Of the few letters Constance had ever sent her, not one could be considered pleasant, exactly. “Probably for the same reason I keep your letters, Connie girl.”
Constance screwed up her face, uncertain if Kate’s comment was an insult or an admission of fondness. In fact, she rather thought it might be both.
Strictly speaking, Thernbaakagen lay not on the coast but beyond it. Like so many towns in Holland, it occupied land that the clever Dutch had reclaimed from the ocean. Bordered by the North Sea and crisscrossed by innumerable canals, the town seemed more water than land, and a great deal of its commerce depended on that fact. Fishing, shipping, and water transport had made Thernbaakagen, if not a large city, then at least a thriving, busy one, and the Hotel Regaal sat in the heart of its downtown.
Reynie, Sticky, and Constance could see the hotel sign from their busy corner two blocks away — but they weren’t looking at the sign. As they waited for Kate to return from a scouting run, they stood a short distance away from a snack cart, staring with watering mouths at all the food. The smell of fried potatoes, especially, made Reynie almost giddy with longing. But they had spent the last of their money on the bicycles.
One of those bicycles came barreling out of traffic now, ridden by a bespectacled girl with wild hair who hopped the curb and narrowly missed striking the snack cart. The owner of the cart leaped away, fearing for his toes, and said something in terse, disapproving Dutch.
“That’s what the old woman with the poodle said,” Constance muttered to herself, and Reynie, hearing her, realized she was right.
“I saw lots of well-dressed people with briefcases,” Kate reported, handing Sticky his spectacles and taking back her bucket, “but no Martina or S.Q. I think we’ll just have to chance it, don’t you?”
“I suppose we have no choice,” Reynie said, and catching the attention of the snack cart owner he asked if the man would keep an eye on their bicycles.
Upon hearing Reynie speak English, the man’s disapproving expression faded — as if for some reason he disliked Dutch children but found American ones tolerable — and he said gruffly that he would do so but that they must hurry; he could not spend his afternoon minding bicycles for children. Reynie thanked him, and with another curt nod the man handed Reynie a cone-shaped packet of hot, sliced potatoes — they resembled thick French fries — covered with a mayonnaise-like sauce. “I saw you looking,” he said. “Now go and hurry back.”
The children walked slowly toward the hotel, hungrily sharing the potatoes and keeping a wary eye on the people that passed them. The sidewalk was swarming with pedestrians, many of them in elegant, professional attire, and every time a businessman in a suit looked at the children their hearts skipped. Never had walking down a street been so nerve-racking. They were all relieved when they reached the hotel.
The Hotel Regaal had seen better days — its lobby furniture was rickety, its floors were scuffed, and a musty odor hung in the air — but despite having been upstaged by more modern hotels, it was doing its best to retain a semblance of past splendor. The rickety furniture was polished to a shine, the scuffed floors were immaculately swept, and the front desk clerks were well groomed and professional. One of them, an older man with slicked gray hair, said something in Dutch when the children came in. The other clerk, a frail, pallid, severe-looking woman with dark circles under her eyes, nodded her agreement.
“There it is again,” said Constance, frowning.
This time Reynie had noticed it, too — the phrase uttered first by the poodle woman and then the snack cart owner. The coincidence seemed too significant to let pass. With the others behind him, Reynie approached the clerks and asked if they spoke English. Instantly a look of understanding appeared on both faces.
“Of course we speak English,” said the gray-haired man, not unkindly. He had bright red cheeks and a goatee so thin and small it looked like a thumbprint on his chin. “And how may we help you children?”
“May I ask what you just said about us?” Reynie asked. “We’ve heard others say it, too, and we’re curious.”
“You are attentive children, then!” said the man, sounding both amused and impressed. “I said that you should be in school! These others you mention must have thought, as I did, that you were Dutch children, and that you were truant. But you are American, yes? On a school trip of some kind?”
“Something like that,” said Kate.
Reynie felt foolish and not a little uneasy. Traveling across town the four of them must have been much more conspicuous than they’d hoped. There was no help for that now, but it was all the more reason to find the clue and leave as quickly as possible. “Is there a message here for us?” he asked. “A message from someone named Nicholas Benedict?”
The man broke into a delighted grin. “Benedict, you say? Here you are at last! Did you hear about this mysterious arrangement, Daatje?” he asked his partner, who only looked away, as if she preferred to be left alone. “I suppose not,” the man said and turned back to the children. His enthusiasm was undiminished, not least because of the relief so evident on the children’s faces. “My name is Hubrecht, children, and I am very pleased to meet you! I do have something from Benedict. Yes, indeed I do!”
The children waited, but Hubrecht only looked at them with an encouraging smile. He appeared to be waiting for something himself.
“May we, um, see it?” Kate asked. “Please?”
Hubrecht glanced left and right, and then in a comically conspiratorial manner he leaned forward and whispered, “First you must show me . . . the item.” He wiggled his eyebrows dramatically.
“The item?” said Sticky.
“Oh, yes! Your Mr. Benedict has rented a room, and I am to make it available to anyone who mentions his name — provided I am shown a certain item. Do you have it? He said you will not have come here without it. I cannot say more.”
“Not another riddle,” Sticky said wearily.
Reynie scratched his head. “All right, what is it Mr. Benedict knew we’d bring?”
“My bucket?” Kate asked. “I do always have it with me.”
Hubrecht smiled and shook his head. He glanced at Constance as if expecting her to guess, but Constance had noticed a wad of gum stuck under the edge of the desk and was making unpleasant gagging sounds, so Hubrecht looked politely away.
“If Mr. Benedict’s sure we’ll have brought it,” said Reynie, “it’s probably something we’d have to have with us to get here.”
“Maybe it’s clothes,” Sticky ventured.
The others stared at him.
“Oh yes, it must be clothes, Sticky,” Constance said as Kate suppressed a snort of laughter. “Show him your clothes and see if that gets us into the room.”
“It’s not such a dumb idea,” Sticky said defensively. “Without clothes we’d have been arrested by now, right? We couldn’t have come here then, could we?” But Hubrecht was shaking his head.