Sam, Pippa noticed, turned the color of a tomato at Max’s touch.
The subway at Canal Street was teeming with people and swelteringly hot. Pippa cupped a hand over her mouth, trying to ignore the overwhelming smells of sweat and breath and old seafood. When the subway arrived at last, there was a massive surge toward the doors. Pippa caught an elbow in the chest, and fell backward, gasping, as Thomas, Max, and Sam were carried forward on the wave of people onto the train.
“Tom!” Pippa shouted. She was caught on the platform behind a fat woman sporting sweat stains in the shape of butterfly wings. Thomas tried to turn around, but the momentum of the crowd was too powerful. The doors slammed shut, sealing Pippa off from her friends.
“Sorry, Pip.” Thomas’s voice was muffled through the glass. Then the train pulled forward and was gone.
This only increased Pippa’s bad mood, especially since she had to wait another twenty minutes for a train, and was pressed so tightly between passengers, she felt like a noodle in a very dense casserole.
Then, at Twenty-Third Street, the train came to a shuddering halt, and a tinny announcer’s voice declared the train out of service.
“Worse and worse,” Pippa muttered as she oozed with the rest of the slow-moving crowd along the platform, toward the stairs that led up to the street. Her bangs were sticking to her forehead, and her dress clung uncomfortably to her lower back.
She was relieved, when she emerged from the station, to be in open air, though it was not much cooler than it had been on the train, and the streets were knotted with cars shimmering in the sun, horns blaring. Still, she resolved to walk home. She’d had enough of trains for the day.
She hadn’t gone two blocks when she spotted Howie on the opposite side of the street. He had his back to her and was moving north, as she was, but she recognized the precise cut of his clothing and the swagger in his walk, as though he was parading in front of an invisible camera. Despite the fact that she didn’t particularly care for Howie, she nearly called out to him, thinking they could return to the museum together. But at that moment he stopped, looked furtively right and left as though fearful of being observed, and darted into a narrow, soot-stained building.
Pippa waited impatiently for the light to change, then crossed the street along with a tide of commuters and tourists. She broke free of the crowd with difficulty and made her way up the street to the building she’d seen Howie enter. On the ground floor was a dingy dry cleaner’s, but a quick glance revealed that it was empty.
Curious, Pippa pushed inside the building. She was greeted by a sad lobby, hardly bigger than a bathroom, which featured a dying plant and a dust-smeared directory of the building’s businesses and residents. Pippa scanned the list quickly, and her stomach seized up.
The top floor of the building was occupied by the Bolden Brothers Circus.
Howie, too, was abandoning ship.
“Strike!” Thomas said as both the stuffed two-headed raccoon and the three-legged chicken hit the ground with a thud. He jogged to the end of the Gallery of Historical and Scientific Rarities to retrieve the apple he was using for a bowling ball.
“No fair,” Max said. “Your apple’s rounder than mine.”
“At least you get to play,” Sam grumbled. He was sitting cross-legged at the end of the gallery, arms wrapped around his knees, watching the game. His first and only roll had resulted in a pulpy mess.
Thomas squatted and restored the raccoon and chicken to their positions. Just then, Pippa entered the gallery from the main hall, backlit by the late afternoon sun.
“Hey, Pippa,” he said, straightening up. “You want to roll a turn?”
She ignored the question. “Have you seen Mr. Dumfrey?”
Instantly, Thomas knew something was wrong. Pippa’s voice sounded strange—as if something were choking her.
“What’s the matter with you?” Max asked. “You’re not still creeped about those fortune cookies, are you?”
“What?” Pippa looked startled, as if she’d forgotten all about their lunch. “No. I mean, not really . . .”
“Are you mad because we left you on the platform?” Sam said.
“We couldn’t do anything. The doors were closing,” Thomas said.
Pippa shook her head, and her bangs shook with her. “I don’t care about that,” she said. “Look, I really need to talk to Mr. Dumfrey. It’s about Howie . . .”
“Hey.” Max brightened at the sound of Howie’s name, and Thomas noticed that both Pippa and Sam looked a little queasy. “Where is Howie? I haven’t seen him since we got back.”
“That’s just it,” Pippa said impatiently. “I really think Mr. Dumfrey ought to know that—”
“Ought to know that what?” Mr. Dumfrey came bustling into the gallery, clutching a long, bone-handled knife in one hand and a bottle of ketchup in the other. He was, Thomas saw, altogether in a different mood than the one they had left him in that morning. The color had returned to his cheeks and his eyes were sparkling vividly.
Pippa blushed. All of a sudden, she seemed nervous. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “I think . . . I think that maybe . . . some of the performers—”
“Well, go on, girl. Spit it out. I’m very busy. Lots to do, no time to do it, et cetera.”
“What’s the knife for, Mr. Dumfrey?” Thomas asked curiously, relieved but also slightly bewildered by Mr. Dumfrey’s change of mood.
“For stabbing,” Mr. Dumfrey said calmly, as if that explained everything. “Naturally, we’ll have to make some adjustments. The real weapon would have been handmade and much cruder.”
“What are you talking about?” Thomas said patiently.
“I’m talking about the murder of Manfred Richstone,” Mr. Dumfrey said impatiently. “The brutal slaying of a man just days before he was to get the chair. It’ll make a beautiful piece, very dramatic. Of course, there’s much to be done. Manfred’s all right, but that hideous Snyder—Rachel Richstone’s boyfriend, you remember, the one who drove Manfred to a fit of jealousy—doesn’t fit the role of a jailbird at all. We’ll have to rough him up, paint on a tattoo or two. If only Freckles . . . ah, well. The less said about that, the better.”
“Are you using the ketchup for blood?” Max said, taking a large bite of her apple. Thomas sighed. The game was over, he supposed.
“What? This?” Mr. Dumfrey shook his head and smiled. “Miss Fitch whipped up some lovely scrambled eggs. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had even a nibble for hours. No, dear. Corn syrup and food coloring makes the best blood. Gives a real dripping effect. Now off I go, off I go. I’m not giving up just yet, you know. This new exhibit could give us just the boost we need.”
“Wait!” Thomas called Mr. Dumfrey back before he reached the stairs. “Pippa had something to tell you. Didn’t you, Pippa?” Thomas turned to Pippa. Her mouth was all twisted up, as if she were trying to chew through a metal bit.
“Well, what is it, Pippa?” Mr. Dumfrey blinked at her expectantly. There was a split second of silence.
“It’s nothing,” Pippa said finally, with forced cheerfulness. “It wasn’t important.”
“Ah! I’ll just scurry along then. Time is money and money waits for no man. Tell Lash to come and see me immediately, if you spot him, will you?”
As soon as Mr. Dumfrey had disappeared up the stairs, Max rounded on Pippa. “What was that all about?”
“What do you mean?” Pippa said defensively.
“You storm in saying you got news for Mr. Dumfrey, then tell him it’s not important. I don’t buy it.”
For a second, Thomas thought Pippa might deny it. Then she sighed, and her whole body sighed with her. “I didn’t want to ruin his good mood,” she said.
“Why?” Sam stood up. He was already so tall that the top of his head nearly grazed the immense hanging exhibit of the world’s first airplane, and he quickly ducked. “What’s wrong?”
Pippa sucked in a deep breath. “I saw Howie at the office
of the Bolden Brothers Circus,” she blurted. “I think he might be leaving the show, just like Caroline and the alligator boy.”
Now Thomas understood why Pippa looked so miserable. Howie was a draw—there was no doubt about that. The audience—when there was an audience—loved him. Thomas knew, deep down, that part of the reason he so intensely disiked Howie was because he was jealous. He envied Howie’s confidence, his natural ease. He envied the fact that Howie had a real family—a mother, a father, two brothers, that stupid uncle Howie wouldn’t stop boasting about who was the president’s bodyguard—all of them, like Howie, odd or special in some way.
If Howie left, it would be a huge blow to the museum. Even if Mr. Dumfrey could convince the crowds to come back, they might soon find that there was no one left to entertain them.
“I knew it,” Sam said with a kind of bitter triumph. “I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”
Max’s face had gotten very red. “There might be another explanation,” she said.
“Oh, come on, Max.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Max glared at him, then whirled around and stalked out of the room.
“How can she like Howie?” Sam said despairingly, to no one in particular. “Can’t she see what a weasel he is?”
Neither Pippa nor Thomas had a good answer for this. Sam scowled.
“Well I, for one, hope he does leave,” Sam spat out. “I hope he leaves all of us alone forever. She can leave, too, for all I care.” And he stormed out of the room, stepping so hard that the floor shuddered slightly, like the earth after a quake.
Pippa sighed. “Maybe that fortune cookie was right after all,” she said, and Thomas couldn’t help but agree.
But they needn’t have worried. The afternoon performance went off without a hitch, though admittedly there was only one person there to see it, who afterward confessed he had wandered in by mistake; Howie returned and showed no signs of dissatisfaction, performing his part with the same good-natured casualness as always. There were no midnight visitors, no mysterious notes, no disruptions to the everyday rhythm of the museum.
And in the morning Thomas heard, intermingled with various ringing church bells, a sound that cheered him up immensely: Chubby’s voice, loud as an artillery blast, bellowing “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!”
“You hear that, Sam?” Thomas whispered. Sam grumbled a reply. “Sounds like Chubby’s back to work.”
Sam groaned, rolled over, and drew a pillow over his head.
As always, Thomas was the first one awake—except for Miss Fitch, no doubt, although she hardly counted, since Thomas was convinced she never slept at all. He was up, dressed, and on the street in less than a minute, and he followed the sound of Chubby’s voice down Forty-Third Street and onto Ninth Avenue.
The air was sticky with the kind of heat that threatened rain, and Thomas found himself thinking about Ned Spode, and the picture of Rachel Richstone that had started everything. Funnily, he found he could imagine it just through Manfred Richstone’s descriptions: the smiling Rachel, somehow even more beautiful because she was imperfect; her first boyfriend, the dashing and mysterious Ian Grantt; Jennifer Clayton and her fiancé, whom Thomas imagined to have the dazed, friendly look of a well-fed cow. For the thousandth time, he asked himself what it could possibly mean. Why was the photo so important?
He hoped Spode would have news for them soon.
He found Chubby strutting along Ninth Avenue between Thirty-Ninth and Fortieth Streets, like a rooster patrolling a particularly sunny patch of yard. In less than a single day, Chubby had been transformed. His hair, which had the day before been stringy with grease, was clean and cropped close to his head. His boots were radiantly shiny, and he was wearing a brand-new pair of suspenders and a clean shirt. There were a dozen newspapers bundled under one arm.
“Tom!” Chubby waved enthusiastically when he spotted Thomas. As Thomas approached, Chubby reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of dollar bills, casually counting out four of them and slipping the money into Thomas’s hand. “I told you I’d pay you back for lunch, didn’t I? Now we’re even. Not a bad racket, is it? I bought my corner back this morning and the papers have been selling like hotcakes.”
Thomas frowned as Chubby slipped the money back in his pocket. “You haven’t been pickpocketing again, have you?” he said.
Chubby did a relatively convincing job of looking offended. “I’m on the straight and narrow from now on. Scout’s honor. I don’t need more trouble with the cops.” He lowered his voice. “It was the funniest thing. EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! Yesterday, after lunch, some guy offered me ten bucks just to do some errands for him. GET YOUR NEWS, GET YOUR NEWSPAPER, HOT OFF THE PRESSES! Easiest money I ever made.” Even as Chubby talked, he never stopped doing business: he dispatched papers, pocketed coins, and made change without even breaking for air.
Thomas couldn’t help but smile. Chubby couldn’t stay out of trouble even when he wanted to. “Just be careful, okay?”
“I’m always careful,” Chubby said, showing off the wide gap in his teeth when he grinned.
Thomas started to turn around as Chubby was encircled by a new swarm of customers. Chubby called him back.
“Hey, Thomas! You want a paper? Big news today.”
“Oh, yeah?” Thomas knew that Chubby said the same thing every day: it was the only way he could convince people to keep buying. “What’s that?”
Chubby was counting change, and didn’t look up. “That crackpot, Rattigan,” he said, and Thomas’s whole body went cold, as if the sun had suddenly blinked out. “He was caught.”
Sam was, for once, having a nice dream. He was dreaming that he was very small, and a man with a long white beard—was it Freckles?—was picking him up and spinning him in a circle. Above him, birds scattered across a blue sky, thick as a cloud, and when Sam extended his arms he began to float, float, float toward them . . . into the mass of soft feathers . . . Then the birds were tickling his nose with their wings . . . and he felt pressure building behind his eyeballs . . .
“Achoo!” Sam came awake, sneezing, and realized that Thomas had been tickling his nose with the end of a supposedly genuine phoenix feather that Sam knew had been plucked from a perfectly ordinary chicken, and then expertly painted by Miss Fitch.
“Finally,” Thomas said. “I couldn’t tell if you were sleeping or dead.”
Sam sat up, rubbing his eyes, as the birds from his dream scattered once again into unconsciousness. Howie’s bed was, as always, impeccably made. Sam scowled and shook off his sheets, leaving them in a piled mess at the foot of his bed. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Ten? Ten thirty? Sam, you’ll never believe it.”
“Believe what?” Sam said, yawning, wishing that for once Thomas would let him sleep in past noon.
But Thomas just shook his head. Sam noticed he was practically shaking with excitement. “Where’s Pippa? I want to tell everyone at once.”
“Tell us what?” Pippa’s head appeared over one of the bookshelves that encircled the boys’ sleeping area. She had obviously been in the act of getting dressed, since she was wearing a striped sweater and pajama bottoms.
Thomas just shook his head. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find Max.”
Sam cast one last longing look at his bed and, swallowing a sigh, followed Thomas and Pippa out of the attic. As they stepped into the hall, Max burst out of the stairwell that led up to the small storage area known as the loft. For a second, when she spotted them, she seemed tempted to turn around and retreat. Instead, she stood her ground.
“What were you doing in the loft?” Pippa asked.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Max said quickly—too quickly, Sam thought.
“I thought you said you didn’t like the loft,” Sam said suspiciously. “You said there were mice.”
“Exactly.” Max’s face was as red as a flame. “That’s what I was doing—checking for mice.”
>
“And?” Thomas said.
“There are dozens of them—hundreds—piles! It’s revolting. Really awful. Stay out of the loft, if you value your fingers and toes.” Max’s voice was unnaturally shrill, and Sam noticed she wouldn’t make eye contact.
“I’ve got news,” Thomas said, before Sam could question Max further. His eyes were glittering, like those of an overexcited owl.
“Did you hear from Spode?” Pippa asked.
Thomas shook his head. “Even better.” He looked right and left as though to verify they were alone in the hallway. Then, with a flourish, he whipped a rolled-up newspaper from a back pocket and unfurled it.
MAD SCIENTIST RATTIGAN NABBED IN CHICAGO HIDEAWAY, trumpeted the headline in enormous letters.
Sam stared. He had to read the headline three times before he would believe that it wasn’t going to vanish, like trick ink. But there it was, stark black, real and indisputable. As further proof, the front page featured a grainy black-and-white photograph of Rattigan, head down, thin lips pressed firmly together, swarmed by policemen and FBI agents.
Rattigan had been caught.
It was over.
Sam felt if as if a concrete block had been lifted off his chest. In that moment, he felt such a dizzy, heady rush of well-being that even if Howie had strolled into the hall, Sam might have clapped him on the back and called him a friend.
“I don’t believe it.” Pippa’s dark eyes were shining. She ran a finger along the headline as if she, too, believed it might vanish.
“The article says they were closing in on him for weeks,” Thomas said. He could hardly keep from crowing. “He’ll be chucked in jail for the rest of his life, now. We’re free and clear of him.”
“He broke out of jail once before,” Pippa pointed out, looking momentarily uneasy.
“Not this time,” Thomas said.
Sam had a sudden vision of Rattigan’s long, pale fingers, his eyes blue and hard as ice crystals, his lips as pink as worms. He imagined him locked in a room built of solid concrete and felt the hysterical desire to laugh. Wasn’t that what Rattigan had done to them, in a way? He had imprisoned them not in a room but in their bodies, rebuilt them to be weapons, fiddled with their inner mechanisms like a child with a clock.