At this, their faces grew somber, and Milligan laid his hand on Kate’s shoulder. “We’re going to get them back. Don’t you worry.”
Her father’s words were an unexpected comfort to Kate — who hadn’t realized till now that she really could use some comforting — and the effect was to bring tears to her eyes. Kate had always thought crying an acceptable thing for others to do, but she didn’t particularly care to be seen doing it herself, so she leaned out of the office door, pretending to check on her friends. (The boys had opened the police car’s trunk and were peeking in at the briefcases, while Constance was hopping up and down to keep warm.) By the time Kate had blinked her eyes clear and turned back to him, Milligan had almost completed his transformation.
Dressed in his usual weather-beaten boots, jacket, and hat, Milligan looked nothing like a secret agent and everything like someone who’d gotten a bad deal at a secondhand store. Kate was always impressed by the way his clothes so perfectly concealed his utility belt and tranquilizer gun. She thought he ought to look lumpier, somehow.
Milligan adjusted his hat. “How do I look? More like myself ?”
“Except for the black hair and brown eyes,” Kate said, appraising him. “And your ears look smaller. They’re — I don’t know, flatter or something.”
“Ah.” Milligan tugged a piece of transparent tape from each side of his head. His ears sprang out to their normal positions. Then he removed the colored contact lenses, revealing his natural ocean-blue eyes — eyes the same color as Kate’s — and put the lenses away in a tiny container. “Better? I’m afraid I’m stuck with the black hair for a while.”
Kate was grinning, partly because he looked more like her father now, and partly because she had a great admiration for disguises. “Were you trying to look like anyone in particular?”
“Anyone but myself,” Milligan replied. “I’ve developed a bit of a bad reputation in certain circles. I have an unpopular habit of collecting briefcases that don’t belong to me. Speaking of which, the boys weren’t actually touching the briefcases in the trunk, I hope?”
Wondering how Milligan knew, Kate stuck her head out the office door and gave Reynie and Sticky a warning look. They nodded and tried to close the trunk as quietly as possible. “They aren’t now, anyway.”
“Good,” Milligan said, picking up his duffel bag. “I’d hate to have to speak sternly to them again. It embarrasses me to be so ineffective.”
“What you tell me fits with what I learned from Jackson and Jillson,” said Milligan, when the children had related everything they’d found out. “My impression is that Curtain has Executives and Ten Men posted all along Mr. Benedict’s trail. They haven’t any clue what they’re looking for, because they don’t know what Mr. Benedict was up to. But they’ve been keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.”
“So Mr. Curtain was just shooting in the dark,” Sticky said. “Hoping to turn up something he could use.”
“Which he did,” Milligan said. “He got lucky with this duskwort business. I don’t suppose I need to tell you how serious a matter this is. Every law enforcement agency in the world is already nervous about Curtain — and that’s without duskwort figuring in. If he gets his hands on real duskwort, if he can send entire cities to sleep —”
“It will be a dark day,” said Reynie grimly.
“It will be a dark night,” said Kate.
Sticky started to say that it would be a total solar eclipse in conjunction with unseasonably heavy cloud cover, but Constance interrupted him.
“Forget all that,” she said crossly. “What about Mr. Benedict and Number Two? We only have until tomorrow to find them!”
“Try not to worry,” said Milligan. “I intend to stop Curtain before he can harm them — and before he learns where to find that plant. There’s time enough, Constance. I promise.”
“How can you be sure?” Constance demanded.
“At the airport earlier I was able to confirm that Mr. Benedict and Number Two flew here from Lisbon. There was no record of their flying out again, however, so it would appear they traveled to the island by boat, and the fact that he gave you the address of a water transport business makes it all but certain. The island can’t be very far — probably somewhere in the North Sea.”
“But the oceans are connected!” cried Constance (who had deduced this from gazing so often at her globe pendant). “A boat could have taken them anywhere! For all we know they’re on the other side of the world!” Her face had gone bright red — she was getting very upset. It seemed to her that Milligan had overlooked a key fact, and if it turned out that he was wrong, that they couldn’t get to that island in time . . .
“They haven’t been gone long enough for that, Constance,” Reynie said gently. “Not every boat is as fast as the Shortcut.”
Constance stared at him a moment, then turned to Sticky, who probably knew everything there was to know about ocean distances and ship speeds and whatnot.
“It’s true,” Sticky said. “The island can’t be very far.”
“Well, why didn’t anyone say that?” Constance growled at no one in particular, but she looked much relieved.
Kate clapped her hands together. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s head to the wharf.”
“We’re practically there,” Milligan said. “I need to scout it out first, though. I’ll take a look from the roof.” He headed for the rear of the warehouse, where a very steep and rickety-looking stairway led up to a high door.
“I’m coming, too!” Kate said, hurrying after him.
“We’ll all come,” said Reynie.
Milligan spun around and held up his hand in warning. “No, you won’t. These stairs may be unsound. You stay here, and I’ll be back in a minute. I mean it, now. Stay put.” Composing his face into a severe expression to show them he meant business, he went up the stairs and disappeared through the door at the top.
The children waited until the door had closed and Milligan was out of earshot. Then they went up after him.
The Boathouse Prisoner
The door at the top of the stairs opened onto a utility room. From there a ladder and a second door led to the wide, flat roof. The children found Milligan at the roof’s edge, peering through a spyglass he’d balanced atop the low wall there.
“You seem to have misunderstood me,” Milligan said in an even tone, without bothering to look at them.
“The stairs held you, so we figured they were sound,” Reynie said.
Milligan grunted. “For future reference, I walk lightly. Don’t ever let that be your guide.”
Reynie was unsure if Milligan was teasing him or not. He wouldn’t be entirely surprised to learn that Milligan could walk on water. “Have you found anything unusual?”
“It’s what I expected. Several docks and boathouses, a number of seagulls, and one well-dressed fellow with a briefcase.”
Kate took out her own spyglass and swept it along the wharf. Overhanging the entrance to one of the long docks was a sign that had been lettered in both Dutch and English. The English words read: RISKER WATER TRANSPORT — OCEAN TOURS & BOAT RENTALS. A Ten Man stood beneath the sign, his briefcase at his feet and his eyes roving up and down the wharf. Every so often he turned to glance behind him toward the far end of the dock, where a grimy old yacht was moored beside a boathouse.
“I wonder why he keeps looking behind him,” Reynie said, when Kate had passed him her spyglass and showed him where to point it. “If he’s just keeping an eye out for whoever shows up, why watch the boathouse? For that matter, why is he standing in plain sight, unless —?”