“What?” all four children said at once. Miss Fitch swooned and was barely saved from toppling backward by the intervention of Goldini, who caught her.
“Married?” both albino twins cried at once.
“‘As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,’” quoted Smalls, wiping away a tear with a gigantic thumb. “Robert Burns,” he clarified.
Only then did Pippa notice that Hugo was wearing a very dark suit, cut especially to accommodate his monstrous neck and shoulders, and a hat the size of a pumpkin, made to fit over his huge, bulbous head. Phoebe was wearing a voluminous white dress that made her look like a large ball of cotton.
“It’s true,” Hugo said, removing his hat. His smile was so big, Pippa thought it might split his face in two. “Phoebe is my wife.”
“A marriage!” Mr. Evans cried, and cameras began to flash again.
Pippa’s jaw fell open. “That’s your big secret?”
Hugo smiled sheepishly. Phoebe jumped in. “We were afraid to tell anyone at first,” she said, squeezing Hugo’s arm. “We felt terrible about leaving the act after everything Mr. Dumfrey has done for us.”
“Pshaw.” Mr. Dumfrey waved a hand dismissively. “I didn’t do so much. Still, now that you mention it,” he added, turning to a collection of reporters still clustered around the stage, “I suppose that the public will be happy to learn that no showplace on earth treats its performers better than the one-and-only Dumfrey’s Dime Museum!”
“You’re . . . you’re leaving the act?” Pippa said. She remembered the conversation Thomas had relayed. Pippa had assumed Hugo and Phoebe felt guilty because they were involved in the theft of the head. But all along, they had merely planned to get married.
Hugo took a deep breath. “Do you remember Mrs. Weathersby? Old as the hills with a face like a lemon?”
It was Mr. Evans who spoke up. “Mrs. Weathersby? She was the very first victim of the curse!” His voice echoed through the Odditorium. “I went to interview the old girl myself. She kicked the bucket not fifteen minutes later. I broke the story. You can read all about it in the Screamer.” He raised his voice even louder, to be heard above the murmuring of the crowd.
“That’s the one.” Hugo looked at Phoebe. Phoebe nodded at him. “She . . . she was my mother.”
Mr. Evans looked about ready to swoon from joy. He began scribbling furiously in his notebook.
“Your mother?” This time it was all the residents of the museum—except Mr. Dumfrey—who spoke the words at once.
Hugo nodded. “She didn’t like to tell anyone about me, of course,” he said. “Because of . . .” He gestured to his oversize head and his nose the size of an onion, and Pippa’s heart ached for him. Poor, kind Hugo. She couldn’t believe they had ever suspected him of murder. “She told everyone her son was dead. But she came to see the show sometimes. Never said a word to me, but slipped me a ten-spot every now and then. And she remembered me in her will.”
“She remembered you very well,” Phoebe said. Her face was flushed with pleasure. “Hugo can retire. And I can open a little bakery, like I’ve always dreamed.”
Hugo ducked his head. “It didn’t seem right to ask her to marry me when I didn’t have an extra nickel,” he said. “But now . . .”
“Ah, yes. But now,” Mr. Dumfrey said, “you can live happily ever after.”
“You knew,” Sam said accusatorily. “You knew all along.”
Mr. Dumfrey spread his hands as if to say, Of course.
“But you were there,” Max said, “the day Thomas was pushed under the train.”
This time, it was Hugo’s turn to look stunned. He turned to Thomas. “You—you were pushed under a train? When? How?”
Thomas looked uneasily at the group of newspaper reporters, standing with their pens hovering over their notepads. “It was an accident,” he said quickly. “It happened yesterday.”
“Yesterday.” Hugo continued to look bewildered. “Yesterday was the day I went to settle my mother’s affairs with her lawyer on Center Street in Brooklyn. Phoebe and I met at the courthouse.”
Another mystery solved. They must have caught him leaving the lawyer’s office on his way to get married.
“Well, well.” Mr. Dumfrey opened his arms as though to embrace the entire crowd. “A wedding and a funeral! How absolutely remarkable. I really couldn’t have planned it better myself.”
But the way his eyes twinkled made Pippa wonder if planning it was exactly what Mr. Dumfrey had done.
Potts’s memorial service, which turned into a celebration of Phoebe and Hugo’s wedding, lasted well into the evening, and Pippa was exhausted by the time everyone had at last cleared out and all the exhibit halls had been swept of debris. Her cheeks ached from smiling for photographers. Her teeth ached from all the soda she had consumed.
And her heart ached when she thought of the hideous Andrea von Stikk.
She couldn’t sleep. Every time she did, she drifted down into the same dark nightmare: a long black tunnel, lined with cages, and human hands reaching for her, whispering her name, begging for help. Finally, she sat up. Max’s bed was already empty. She must have gone to the bathroom.
Pippa shoved her feet into her slippers and reached for the robe she kept near the bed. Mr. Dumfrey had given it to her for her last birthday. She was headed to the stairs when she heard a rustling and a soft muttered curse from the common area. Peeking over the bookshelves, she saw Thomas pressed to the ground, fishing for something underneath the armchair.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
He sat up quickly, banging his head on the underside of the chair. “Ow,” he said, and rubbed his head. He held up a small wooden eyeball; she knew from watching him that it was a critical piece for some of the more complicated strategies of DeathTrap. “Found it.”
“You can’t sleep, either?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been awake for hours. I’ve played three games already.”
“How’re you doing?” she whispered.
“I won,” he said. He made a face. “And I lost.”
“Hey.”
Pippa spun around, startled. Sam had appeared behind her, his face shadowed by the curtain of his hair.
“You, too?” she said.
He shrugged. “I’m not tired.”
“Shhhh.” Several people said simultaneously from the dark.
Pippa gestured to the stairs. Thomas stood up, nodding, and he and Sam followed her out into the hall and down the spiral staircase. Pippa’s slippered feet slapped loudly on the steps. There was something delicious about the museum after dark: cool and vast and theirs, like a secret vault full of hidden treasure.
The light was on in the kitchen, and Max was standing at the stove.
“It’s about time,” she said, when they entered. “I thought you’d be down sooner.”
There were four mugs centered in the middle of the table. Max turned away from the stove, holding a steaming pot, and carefully ladled hot chocolate into each of them.
“You’re the best, Max,” Sam said, with sudden emotion.
Max tossed her hair. “No need to get all gooey about it,” she said, but Pippa noticed she couldn’t quite conceal a smile.
They sat together in quiet for a bit, sipping the hot chocolate, which was surprisingly good. Max had even remembered to froth the milk. The kitchen was warm and bright, and Pippa found herself wishing that they could stay there forever, together, with the darkness held at bay behind the windows; with the nightmares safely trapped upstairs, among the shadows.
“What is it, Pip?” Thomas said gently. “You’re shaking.”
It was true. Pippa had spilled a bit of hot chocolate on her thumb. She set down her cup and took a deep breath. “I’ve been having these . . . dreams,” she said. She avoided Max’s gaze; Max would only laugh. “Awful dreams.”
“Everyone has nightmares,” Thomas said. “Statistically, one out of every seven dreams is actually—”
“Lay
off the math lesson,” Sam said. Then he turned to Pippa. “What kind of dreams?”
She dug her fingernail into a knot in the wooden table. She was embarrassed, now, that she had brought it up. But she couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth. “There’s a tunnel,” she said. “And—and cages. Like the kind you see at the zoo. Only there aren’t any animals. There’s only—”
“People,” Thomas finished for her. She looked up, astonished. He was staring at her, wide-eyed. “I’ve—I’ve had the same dream,” he said.
Pippa felt a sudden thickness in her throat. “That’s impossible,” she croaked out. “People don’t dream the same things.”
“They must,” Sam interjected. He had pushed his hair out of his eyes; his gaze was sharp and alert. “Because I’ve had the same dream, too.”
There were several long moments of silence. Pippa felt as if her brain was wrapped in a slow, sticky syrup. What did it mean? What could it mean?
Thomas was staring off into space, as though he could decode the answer there. “The probability of three people dreaming the same exact thing,” he murmured, “is one in three billion eight hundred and seventy-five.”
“What about the probability of four people dreaming the exact same thing?” Max said in a shaky voice. Pippa looked up. Max wasn’t laughing after all. She was gripping her mug so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
“Impossible,” Thomas whispered.
Pippa’s chest felt tight. She remembered the conversation she had overheard backstage just after Max’s arrival. What had Mr. Dumfrey said, exactly? Now I know all four of them are safe. Almost as if they were connected . . .
In the silence, Pippa heard it: the faint tinkle of shattered glass. Max jumped to her feet.
“Did you hear that?” Sam whispered, and Max hushed him. In one fluid movement, Thomas vaulted over the table and crept silently up the stairs, pressing his ear to the door.
Pippa held her breath. Her heart was drumming in her chest. She strained to listen. Someone was moving swiftly across the lobby.
Thomas eased the door open and gestured for the others to follow him. Max grabbed the weapon nearest at hand—in this case, a spoon, which wasn’t much of a weapon at all. Pippa moved up the stairs, pausing only to kick off her slippers. The floor was cold against her bare feet. Sam followed behind her, moving on his tiptoes.
Together, they emerged into the darkness of the special exhibits room, and Miss Cobble’s chambers, now empty. They slipped into the hallway, moving silently past the grand central staircase, and skirted two Indian totem poles that stood like sentries next to the ticket desk. Max’s spoon glittered in the moonlight coming through the windows. Pippa’s heart was in her throat. Long shadows lay like liquid across the floor.
Thomas held up a hand, and Max stopped walking. Pippa stepped on her heel, and Max turned around and poked her sharply with her spoon. Pippa swallowed back a cry of surprise and instead settled for pinching Max’s elbow.
They listened. The grandfather clock ticked on in the quiet; there was a sudden sweep of bright light, as though from a flashlight, at the end of the hall. The light disappeared again, and footsteps creak-creak-creaked into the Odditorium.
They moved forward again, but so slowly that Pippa had the sensation they weren’t moving at all, as if the darkness were tar and they were floundering in place. But eventually they were there, at the entrance to the Odditorium.
The beam of light—definitely a flashlight—was moving quickly up the aisle toward the stage on which Potts’s coffin had been placed for display by Mr. Dumfrey. A feeble blue light illuminated the dead Potts, lying with his hands folded, looking just as ill-tempered as he had in real life.
As they watched, a shadow broke free of the dark and stepped onto the stage. Crouching, the man—Pippa thought it must be a man, because of the loose pants and coat he was wearing—pocketed the flashlight and bent over the casket.
Everything happened very quickly. Thomas and Max slipped off toward opposite sides of the stage, and Sam and Pippa charged down the central aisle, shouting, “Stop! Freeze!”
The intruder whipped around and cried out. Backlit by the dim blue light, his features were indistinguishable. He tried to run toward the wings, but Max charged him and barreled him backward, holding the spoon to his jugular, roaring fearsomely. Then Sam was there, restraining him, and Pippa heard someone calling, “Lights! Turn on the lights!” before she realized that she was the one yelling.
The stage lights came on, suddenly dazzling. Dazzling, too, was the intruder’s extraordinary clothing: purple pants, a bright-red shirt, and a billowing purple coat, all of it clashing awfully with the boy’s thatch of shock-red hair.
They had found Reginald Anderson.
“P-please,” Reginald Anderson blubbered. “I can explain.”
“Then start explaining,” Max growled. She was still holding her spoon menacingly in Reggie’s direction, as though she intended to scoop his brains out with it. They had seated Reggie in one of the narrow folding chairs used by the audience.
Reggie opened his mouth, then closed it again. All at once, he buried his head in his hands and began to sob loudly into the fabric of his hat.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a choked voice. “I never shoulda come . . . but I didn’t know what else to do. . . .”
“Slow down and start from the beginning,” said Pippa, who with every second was doubting more and more that he might have been responsible for the attack on Bill Evans or Potts’s murder. Even the sight of a spoon made him tremble. On the other hand, he had broken into the museum—and he had been rummaging around in Potts’s casket.
Reggie took a deep breath and raised his head. His lower lip trembled. “I’m in a real tight spot,” he said. “But I’m no killer. I swear I’m no killer.”
“What did you want with Potts?” Max jabbed her spoon closer to his face.
“I—I didn’t even know his name before today,” Reggie said quickly. “I saw his picture in the paper. I knew his face. He’d been to see my uncle . . . once or twice.” He mumbled the last words quickly.
“Mmm-hmmm.” Thomas crossed his arms. “And was once the day your uncle died?”
He nodded miserably. Pippa’s breath caught in her throat. She caught Thomas’s eye. So they’d been right about Potts—he had been dealing with Mr. Anderson behind Dumfrey’s back. And Potts had been in Anderson’s shop the day he died.
Reggie worried his thin woolen hat between his hands. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. My uncle had lots of clients. Lots of people going in and out. I’d had a fight with him that morning, you see. I phoned him up to tell him—to tell him I wasn’t coming back. To tell him I was running away with my girl, Betsy. Betsy Williams. She lives in Boston—”
“Get on with it,” Max said impatiently.
“Well, that morning I phoned up but he hardly let me get a word out. Gotta go, Reggie, I got Scarface coming over. That’s what he said.”
“Scarface?” Sam repeated.
Reggie gestured to the casket where Potts was lying, his acne scars inexpertly concealed under heavy makeup. “That’s what my uncle called him. He called me Red most of the time. Or Dummy.” Reggie blushed.
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing, poking around here in the middle of the night,” Thomas said.
By now, Reggie’s face was the exact same shade of crimson as his hair. “I’m broke,” he said. “Betsy won’t marry me unless I get some money together. . . . I tried gambling for it but . . .” He trailed off.
“Now you owe money all over town,” Sam finished.
Reggie looked at him. “How did you know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Thomas cut in quickly. “Go on.”
He was working the hat so hard, Pippa feared he would tear it in two. “My uncle always carried a lighter,” he said, in a choked voice. “It was my grandfather’s. It was made of pure silver, and there was a real sapphire in the catch.�
� Reggie’s voice began to tremble. “It’s terrible but I—well, I knew my uncle couldn’t miss it now. I was going to use it to pay off my debts. But it’s gone. My uncle always had it on him, always. I thought Scarface—er, Potts—might have taken it. It seems silly but . . . I was desperate.”
Pippa noticed that Max’s spoon had begun to tremble. Pippa looked at her questioningly, and Max quickly crossed her arms.
“Now Betsy will never marry me,” Reggie said, and swallowed back a sob.
Max turned suddenly and bolted out of the room. Thomas raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Sam whispered.
“What’s got into them?” Reggie turned around to watch Sam go.
“Stay focused.” Thomas snapped his fingers in front of Reggie’s nose. “Tell me what you know about Bill Evans.”
Reggie’s eyes widened. “The newspaper man?”
“So you know him,” Thomas said.
Reggie shrugged. “Only from the papers.”
“He was nearly killed two days ago,” Pippa said, watching Reggie carefully for any signs of guilt.
But he only looked bewildered. “I read about it,” he said. “He was in a car accident.” He looked from Pippa to Thomas and back again. Then, suddenly, realization seemed to dawn on him. “Don’t tell me you think I had something to do with it . . . ?”
Now that she had spoken to him, Pippa didn’t think Reggie was capable of mowing a man down in cold blood—or, for that matter, of squashing an ant. But she said, “Evans told us the person driving the car had red hair.”
“Now just hang on a second.” Reggie straightened up in his chair. “You can’t pin this one on me. I never even learned to drive. I can’t. I’m completely color-blind. The state won’t let me ride a bicycle, even.”
The Shrunken Head Page 18