After the shock of the sight came the horror of understanding. Lizzie should have seen it before, back when the grave robbers were dumping Jacob Hayward’s clothes into the canal. They were getting rid of the evidence.
They dug him up, Lizzie realized. No wonder he’s not at peace.
Dr. Gladwell had clearly been cutting up dead bodies for years. The jars on the shelves didn’t contain witches’ potions. What was inside was even worse. Lizzie saw kidneys, a wrinkled lung, and what looked like a brain. The contents were cloudy and decomposed, and the smell made her gag.
“I told you not to look,” said Dr. Gladwell from behind her. “Now, aren’t you sorry you did?”
“Those grave robbers weren’t after jewels and gold at all,” Lizzie said in a hollow voice. “It was the bodies they wanted. Bodies for you to cut up in your lab!” She turned on the doctor. “That was your scheme, wasn’t it? You knew when a fresh body was going into the ground, because you’re the doctor. People trusted you. So you sent those two thugs out to dig the bodies up and bring them here.”
“You’re right,” Dr. Gladwell said. “Not that it matters, because nobody will believe you.”
“It’s disgusting!” Lizzie yelled. “That man there isn’t one of your experiments. He’s my friend’s father. She loved him!”
“What would you rather happen?” Dr. Gladwell asked, trying — and failing — to sound friendly again. “That the dead should merely rot away, giving no help to anyone? The bodies I dissect are all making priceless contributions to science. Some part of them lives on in the form of knowledge! Isn’t that better than just feeding the worms in some cemetery somewhere?”
“You have no right,” Lizzie said fiercely. “The dead deserve to be left in peace.”
The doctor smiled a tight, smug little smile that made Lizzie furious. He slapped Jacob Hayward’s cold arm. “Don’t be so sentimental. This is only flesh. There’s nothing of the person left.”
“You’re wrong,” Lizzie said with total certainty.
Dr. Gladwell waved a hand dismissively. “Superstitious nonsense.” He rummaged through his instruments, as if he had work to be getting on with and Lizzie was nothing but an annoying distraction.
She couldn’t believe how stubborn and arrogant the doctor was. “What about the law?” she demanded. “Body snatching ain’t legal. A clever man like you ought to know that. It’s a crime. A disgusting crime at that.”
“Men of science are above the laws of common men,” Dr. Gladwell said without looking up. The metal tools rattled as he continued searching for something.
Lizzie wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face. “Your two thugs ain’t above the law, I’ll tell you that much,” she raged. “They got carted off by the police last night.”
“Is that so?” the doctor said with maddening calm.
“That’s right,” Lizzie snapped. “We caught them. So you won’t be getting any more bodies, will you?”
The doctor had found what he was looking for — a razor-sharp scalpel. He raised it up in front of his face. He was no longer smiling. His eyes swiveled around to fix their cold glare on Lizzie. “No more bodies?” he said. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
The doctor’s meaning was suddenly all too clear. Lizzie backed away from him. “N-n-no,” she stammered. “No. Don’t hurt me.”
“Stupid child. You rob me of my cadavers; why shouldn’t I turn you into one? It’s what you deserve.” With his free hand, Dr. Gladwell reached for the door handle. He pushed it shut, then twisted the key in the lock and pulled it out. “There. Now we won’t be disturbed.”
“Get away from me!” Lizzie hollered.
The doctor advanced on her. “Don’t be scared. It’s just like getting an injection. It only hurts for a second — then it’s all over.” The scalpel slashed through the air, not close enough to cut her . . . yet. He was trying to scare her, Lizzie knew. And it was working.
She had to fight. Desperately, she snatched a jar from the shelf and flung it at him. The doctor dodged out of the way, and the jar exploded on the floor behind him, spilling its disgusting contents across the tile floor.
“Keep still!” Dr. Gladwell jabbed at Lizzie, sending her scurrying backward. She pressed her back against the wall as he bared his teeth and changed his grip, holding the scalpel like a dagger in his fist and stabbing downward with it.
The blade caught the fabric of her dress and ripped it. Lizzie felt a wet, stinging sensation. He’d cut her, but not deeply, thank goodness.
As the doctor brought the scalpel down again, Lizzie caught his wrist and struggled. He grunted as he pushed the blade down toward her neck. It was her strength against his, and he was winning. The shining blade gradually descended.
“I will not let . . . a circus brat . . . get in the way of scientific progress!” the doctor growled furiously.
The blade was only an inch away from her throat now. Lizzie fought for her life, drawing on every scrap of strength she had left.
Suddenly the door to the lab crashed open, and Mrs. Crowe burst in, a ring of keys in her hand. The doctor glanced up, taken by surprise. In that moment, his grip relaxed.
Lizzie seized her chance. She flung him backward, sending him crashing into the shelves. Jars fell off and smashed on the floor.
“I could turn a blind eye to the grave robbing,” Mrs. Crowe shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the doctor, “but I won’t let you hurt that girl! You stay away from her, Dr. Gladwell!”
“Shut up, you ignorant old fool,” the doctor spat. “I should have disposed of you long ago.”
“Run, girl,” Mrs. Crowe said, holding the door open. “You run and tell the police everything this man’s done.”
“He’ll kill you!” Lizzie yelled.
“I’m old. I’ve had my time. Go!”
Lizzie made a move for the door, but the doctor stepped into her path. “Looks like I’m going to need a new housekeeper. That’s a shame. Seeing as there’s going to be a lot of mess to clean up.”
Just then a black shape, growling like a demon unleashed from the underworld, came bounding through the open door on four paws. It launched itself at the doctor and knocked him to the ground. Dr. Gladwell screamed and thrashed about, while the monstrous beast tore and tugged at his clothes.
“Shadow!” Lizzie shouted in delight.
The dog closed his jaws on the doctor’s throat, waiting for the command to finish him off. His big brown eyes, full of loyal devotion, looked up at Lizzie.
“Hold him,” Lizzie ordered. “Good boy.”
Malachy and Hari came charging into the room. “Here he is!” yelled Malachy. “Lizzie? You’re hurt!”
“It ain’t deep,” Lizzie said. “I’m fine. Shadow saved me. That doctor wanted to slice me up.”
“The doctor was behind all this?” Hari looked at the body on the table and the scalpel in the doctor’s hand and nodded. “Of course. I should have worked it out long ago.”
“I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore.” Lizzie snatched the scalpel out of the doctor’s hand.
“Call your dog off!” the doctor shrieked. “I’m bleeding. I’ll take you to court. I’ll have this dog destroyed!”
“You’ll be going to court all right,” Lizzie said. “But Shadow won’t be the one who gets his lights put out.”
“I’m sorry, girl,” Mrs. Crowe said, hanging her head. “I should never have let any of this happen. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t dare speak up.”
“You saved my life,” Lizzie said. “I owe you for that.”
“We need to tie this bloke up before Shadow chews his head off,” Malachy said.
Lizzie rummaged around in the cabinets and found a roll of bandage. While she and Malachy tied the doctor hand and foot, Hari sprinted off to fetch the police. Mrs. Crowe silently left the room.
“I’m making some tea,” she replied. “Don’t worry, boy. I won’t run off. I wouldn’t get far, anyway, not at my age.”
Lizzie thought of JoJo and his delirious raving about needles. She sprang to her feet. “JoJo! I almost forgot about him. He’s still in this house!”
Lizzie raced up the stairs, leaving Malachy and Shadow to guard the fallen doctor. JoJo’s door was slightly open. She barged her way in and stood staring in horror at what she saw.
At first she thought JoJo was dead. His face was a pitted mess, and his lips were dry and cracked. But when he saw her, they drew back in a slow, painful smile. “Lizzie? Is that you?”
“JoJo, you’re alive!” She ran and hugged him, despite the dreadful smell coming from his bed. “Just hang on a bit longer. The police are coming. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“The doctor . . . he’s up to no good. Don’t trust him.” JoJo tried to sit up and fell back, coughing.
“He ain’t a problem anymore,” Lizzie said. “We stopped him.”
JoJo nodded toward a card covered with medical implements. “He never meant to cure me at all. He’s been doing experiments on me. Injecting me with . . . what did he call them? Bacteria. And other things. Then taking my blood to look at under his microscope.”
Lizzie could see the clown was getting worse, not better. “We’ll take you back to the circus, and we’ll take care of you ourselves,” she said. “Don’t die, okay? Please!”
JoJo closed his eyes. “I begged him not to do it. ‘Please let me live,’ I said. ‘All I want to do is make people laugh.’ But he said I was useless. ‘What’s more pathetic than a clown?’ he said to me. ‘You’ll be more use as a corpse.’”
Lizzie knew exactly what the doctor had meant by that. The doctor was planning to cut JoJo up after he died. With tears in her eyes, she held the clown’s hand. Even if JoJo didn’t make it, she’d see him buried decently. No doctor would get his hands on her friend’s body.
* * *
Lizzie was still sitting with JoJo when the police arrived. The doctor protested his innocence, but the officer cut him short. “I knew Jacob Hayward,” he said, “and that’s him, right there on that filthy table, when he ought to be resting in his grave. He was a better man than you. You’re no doctor, Gladwell. You’re a butcher.”
“What I did, I did for science,” the doctor snarled.
“Science, eh? Some great medical prize you had your eye on? Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You’re going to be famous after today. Your photo’s going to be in the papers all over town.” The constable drained his tea. “Thanks for the brew, Mrs. Crowe, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with us now.”
Mrs. Crowe held out her hands for the handcuffs and sighed. “Do your duty, Constable.”
Outside the house, Lizzie hugged Hari and Malachy and gave Shadow a grateful stroke. “That was too close for comfort,” she said with a shiver. “Thanks for coming after me.”
“I should have come with you in the first place, Lizzie,” Malachy said, looking embarrassed. “Stupid of me to think I knew better than you did! Your visions have never been wrong before. They don’t call you the Magnificent Lizzie Brown for nothing!”
CHAPTER 18
That night, the show tent was packed. An electric feeling of excitement crackled in the air, and the wide-eyed audience burst into wild applause the moment they saw Fitzy appear.
The ringmaster jumped back, faking surprise, then gave them a huge grin and raised his arms. “Welcome, one and all, to the hardest working circus on the planet!” he boomed.
Lizzie watched from behind the curtain, her heart hammering. All the wild adventure of the past few days had to be put aside now. She had to focus on her performance. Doubts were chasing their tails in her mind. We’ve hardly rehearsed. The comedy act might not work. What if Victoria spooks again?
Fitzy introduced the Boissets to another storm of applause. Lizzie looked on open-mouthed as Dru, Collette, and their family put on one of the best performances she’d ever seen. The more the audience cheered, the more their confidence seemed to grow.
“That’s more like it,” Malachy said. “The Boissets are back on form.”
Hari nodded. “My animals seem calmer too. It could just be the change in the weather, I suppose. But I think they’re happier because we’re happier.”
“The dead are at peace, so the jinx is broken,” Erin said in explanation.
“If there ever was a jinx,” Lizzie said. She still wasn’t willing to open the door more than a crack where superstition was concerned. Even if she had spoken to ghosts.
The next few acts seemed to rush past in a blur. Clowns, acrobats, and performing animals all played their parts perfectly. That just made Lizzie more nervous. What if she was going to be the one to mess it all up? She chewed on her fingernail.
Nora slapped her wrist lightly. “Stop it.”
“I can’t help it,” Lizzie said. “I haven’t got butterflies in my tummy — I’ve got elephants.”
“You’ll be fine,” Nora insisted.
Hari whispered, “Victoria’s not nervous. So why should you be?”
Lizzie stared at Victoria. The midnight-black horse was standing perfectly still, the blinkers she wore screening her from any distraction.
“Trust the horses,” Hari said. “And trust yourself.”
Fitzy’s voice boomed out over the applause. “And now, ladies and gents, for the act you’ve all been waiting for. You’ve read about them in the papers, you’ve seen their picture on the posters, but nothing can prepare you for the reality! Here they are, fresh from their triumphant tour of Kensal Green Cemetery . . .”
The crowd roared with laughter.
“. . . the Amazing Sullivan Twins!”
This one’s for you, JoJo, Lizzie thought.
Lizzie and Nora rode out into the light. They circled the tent, waving at the audience and smiling, while the band played an opening number. Then there was a roll on the drums, and the audience fell silent.
All eyes were on Lizzie as she lifted herself up to stand on Albert’s back. She reached out her arms to balance, then deliberately rolled her eyes back, wiggled her arms, and fell straight down on her bottom. A trombone made a loud parp.
Delighted laughter roared from the stalls. Nora put her hands on her hips in mock impatience, and to the sounds of a second drumroll, stood upright — and then balanced on one leg, lifting her toe to touch her outstretched fingers. The trumpets blared ta-daaaaa!
It was the simplest stunt in Nora’s repertoire, and yet the audience applauded like never before. Nora and Lizzie exchanged a private look, and Lizzie knew they were both thinking the same thing: This is going to work. Best of all, Victoria was still calm and happy in her blinkers.
The rest of the act went from strength to strength. Lizzie fumbled juggling clubs, but Nora caught them. Lizzie’s pirouette ended with her sprawled across Albert’s back like a flopping fish, while Nora’s drew gasps of amazement. By the time Lizzie deliberately botched her leap from Albert’s back and fell into Dru’s waiting arms, she was almost sorry to have to leave the ring.
A girl could get used to this, she thought, as Dru carried her triumphantly away from the applause, through the curtain, and into the crowd of her waiting friends.
* * *
“Do you want to count it again, Pop?” Malachy asked Fitzy. They were sitting in their caravan, sorting an immense pile of paper notes and coins into neat order.
“I don’t think so, son,” Fitzy said. “Three times is enough.”
“It’s our best night this year,” Malachy told Lizzie. “This isn’t just ticket sales. They were throwing money into the ring at the end! Can you believe it?”
“It’s good luck to throw coins into
a circus ring,” Fitzy said, very seriously. Then he winked. “Good luck for me, at least.”
Lizzie felt an uncomfortable prickle at the back of her neck, as if she were being watched. She turned to see Calculating Crake and Persuading Harry advancing slowly on the caravan. Harry was wearing his brass knuckles, and it looked like he was eager to use them.
“Mr. Fitzgerald . . .” Lizzie started to warn him.
“Ah, gentlemen!” Fitzy noticed them and came down the caravan steps. “How wonderful to see you. What an interesting scent that is. A new cologne, perhaps? Oh, never mind, I see it’s something you’ve stepped in. That’s one of the problems with owning elephants, I find.”
“Time’s up, Fitzgerald,” said Crake. “We’ve been more than generous.”
“Generous,” echoed Harry.
“And since the debt ain’t been settled, we’ll just have to take payment in kind. Starting with those two horses.”
Fitzy snapped his fingers. “I knew there was something I meant to do. Malachy!”
“What’s this?” Crake said, deeply suspicious.
Malachy came out with an envelope stuffed with money. He handed it to Crake, who swiftly counted it and passed it to Harry for safekeeping.
“It’s all the money we owe you, to the penny,” Fitzy said. “I suggest you take it.”
Crake looked around at the brightly colored caravans and tents, then shrugged. “Till next time, Fitz.”
“Toodle-oo, cheerio, go jump in front of a train,” Fitzy muttered through his teeth, still grinning. He didn’t take his eyes off the money-lenders until they were safely off the site. Then a strange expression came over him. His eyes gleamed. “Trains. Now there’s an idea.” He began to stride through the site toward the tea tent. “A circus train! If we keep packing the house like we did tonight, we could afford one!”
Malachy started off after him. “Dad, no!”
“Just think,” Fitzy continued. “No more trudging down endless country roads. No more rain and wind. The comfort of a dining car!”
The Magnificent Lizzie Brown and the Devil's Hound Page 13