There was enough slack in the chain for Reynie and the others to huddle close to Kate and pretend to comfort her. In fact they were looking at what Kate had just detected and pointed out. A tiny drill bit was boring through the masonry between two stones in the wall. The bit made only the faintest scratching sound as it poked through the masonry, no more than an insect might have made, and this scratching was what the girls had heard. After a moment the bit withdrew, leaving a worm-sized hole, and in its place appeared a tightly rolled scrap of paper. Kate removed the paper. It was a note from Milligan:
Stay where you are until I appear. Then run straight for the door. Do not hesitate even for a moment.
Kate passed the note to Constance, who read it and passed it to the boys.
“Everything all right?” Crawlings called over to them. “Lost your cookies yet, dear heart?”
“Not yet,” Kate called back in a strangled voice.
“Leave her alone!” Sticky shouted, forgetting himself again. He clapped his hands over his mouth, accidentally yanking Reynie and Constance’s hands up as well.
“Easy, Sticky,” Reynie cautioned, though he couldn’t help noticing that Constance seemed to benefit from Sticky’s impudence. Each time he lashed out at the Ten Men, she looked less frightened and more like her usual defiant self.
Sharpe snickered and muttered something to the other Ten Men about “that bald one spoiling for a handkerchief.” The others murmured their assent.
The Ten Men had begun putting their things back into the briefcases and were talking in low voices now, which to Reynie seemed far more sinister than when they’d been speaking up for the children’s benefit. He felt his own stomach turning as badly as Kate’s appeared to be. Milligan was coming for them, but how were they supposed to run for the door? They were chained up!
Constance looked at him and whispered, “But how are we going to . . . you know, how do we do it?”
“Hold on,” Kate muttered. She began to cough, then to gag, and then to spit. Over by the lantern the Ten Men smirked and snorted. Kate thrust her head forward a few times like a pecking chicken, made one last, repulsive retching sound, and fell silent. For a moment she stood with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily through her nose. Then she looked over at her friends, winked, and gave them a huge grin.
Clenched between her teeth was a key.
Kate had switched one of her old farm keys for the handcuff key. That was why Reynie had seen her slip her hand down inside her bucket — she’d been seeking, by touch, a key that might pass for the one McCracken had given Martina. Anticipating a search, Kate had swallowed the handcuff key and dropped the farm key when McCracken grabbed her. Reynie understood all this at once, but Constance and Sticky only stared, confused. Hadn’t they seen McCracken take that key away?
“We’ll explain later,” Reynie whispered. He was afraid the sound of the handcuffs opening would catch the Ten Men’s attention, so he told Kate to go back to retching, which she did promptly and with great gusto. As she made one horrible noise after another, with her friends gathered around as if to comfort her, Kate unlocked all their handcuffs and adjusted them to fit much larger wrists. The children would appear to be cuffed but could easily slip loose when the time came.
But when would it come? That was the most pressing question now, for they needed to be ready when it did.
The Ten Men were standing up, their briefcases repacked and buckled closed, and were shaking hands all around as if they’d just concluded an agreeable meeting. Milligan still had not appeared. McCracken stuck a pencil behind his ear and walked over to the children. “Guess what?” he said in a tone of cheerful excitement. He knelt in front of Constance, who shrank away, avoiding his gaze. “You’re a lucky ducky, little one! You get to help McCracken!”
“Help you?” Constance asked.
“Oh, yes! You see, I’ve been going over things in my mind, and I’m still not satisfied with the way your story all fits together. I think you’re hiding something from old McCracken, you naughty things, and I’m going to find out what it is!”
“If you don’t like my story,” Reynie said, “then why aren’t you talking to me?”
McCracken didn’t take his eyes from Constance. “Because in my experience the smallest child is the one most likely to tell you what she isn’t supposed to.” He put a finger under Constance’s chin and lifted it so that she was compelled to look up. “Am I right, little one? Do you think I might be able to convince you to give me your secrets?”
Constance stared at the sharp pencil behind the Ten Man’s ear, and her lip began to quiver. Rather than cry, however, she screwed up her face and screamed furiously at McCracken — screamed loud enough to make him wince and step back. She screamed until her breath ran out, and then she glared at him, panting hard, her face purple as a plum.
McCracken looked at Constance as if he were disappointed in her. “Now why would you do that, muffin? Why would you want to make old McCracken angry? Don’t you realize your little adventure is over? Don’t you see there’s no one to help you now?”
“That’s what you think!” Constance snapped.
McCracken wrinkled his brow. Narrowing his blue eyes, he fixed the tiny girl with a cold and penetrating gaze. Constance looked as if she’d swallowed a scorpion and was praying it wouldn’t sting her on the way down.
“Why, I don’t believe that’s the way you’d speak about someone like Risker,” McCracken observed. “Oh no. Not that sorry fellow far away in his boat. You’re expecting someone else, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we are!” Reynie said, hoping McCracken would think he was lying out of desperation. “We’re expecting —”
“You be quiet,” McCracken said, pointing a warning finger at Reynie. “None of your trickery.” He turned to the other Ten Men. “Any ideas about this?”
Crawlings’s eyebrow shot up. He snapped his fingers, reached inside his suit coat, and took out Milligan’s flare gun. “The skinny bald one dropped this! I thought the children were using it to signal one another.”
“Is that right?” McCracken said, scratching his head. “A flare gun? Well, that was silly of you, Crawlings! They wouldn’t need a flare gun to signal one another — they were all right here in the village. So who was our friend really signaling, do you think?”
“Nobody. He dropped it before he could fire the flare.”
“Perhaps, Crawlings, but don’t you think our blowing up the tunnel entrance will have acted as a substitute?” McCracken pursed his lips. “You’d better climb on up into the rafters. Sharpe, you unbar the door. We’ll want to make it easy to get inside.”
Crawlings winked at the children with his right eye — the one without an eyebrow — which made his face look bizarrely lopsided. It was an unsettling sight, but far more unsettling was the way he skittered up one of the beams like a spider and disappeared into the shadowed rafters.
The Ten Men were setting a trap.
Reynie looked anxiously at his friends. Kate was clenching and unclenching her fists, not meeting anyone’s eye, too upset for words. Constance had begun to cry, and with a pained expression Sticky was telling her not to feel bad, that they were in this mess because of him, not her.
“That’s true,” Constance sniffed. Then she straightened into an attitude of attention, as if she’d sensed something, and a moment later they all heard the rumbling of the Salamander outside.
“There’s Garrotte and Martina,” said Sharpe, backing away from the door and loosening his tie.
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” said McCracken. He turned off the lantern, throwing the room into blackness. “We’ll just wait and see who walks through that door.”
McCracken soon had his answer: No one would walk through the door at all. In fact, to the surprise of everyone in the shelter, the door itself ceased to exist.