“Sorry to disappoint you,” Pippa said. “But you can forget about your big plans. It’s like Max said. We’ll never help you, not in a million years.”
Rattigan hardly blinked. “I’m afraid I’d anticipated a certain amount of . . . resistance,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I believe I have ways of persuading you. If you’re so disapproving of murder, surely you wouldn’t want to be responsible for an innocent person’s death?”
A chill went up Max’s spine, making even her hair tingle. “What are you talking about?”
“Show them, Ned,” Rattigan said with a careless wave of his hand.
Spode had been so motionless, Max had nearly forgotten him. Without a word, he disappeared into the gloomy darkness that surrounded the small circle illumined by lantern light. There was a brief noise of scuffling, as if something heavy was being lifted or dragged.
Then Spode reappeared, pushing a bound-and-gagged Chubby in front of him.
“Chubby!” Thomas cried.
Sam started to take a step forward.
“Don’t move, or the boy dies,” Rattigan snarled, dropping all pretense of civility. For a moment, Max saw his true face: not the easygoing, smiling scientist who believed that murder was moral and humans were playthings, but the beast, the animal, all madness and hate.
Rattigan stood up, withdrawing a knife from his pocket. Max’s stomach turned. It was one of her knives—one of the knives he’d stolen, when he’d tackled her in the dark and wrestled off her jacket. Rattigan tested it against a finger, and a small bright bit of blood immediately welled there.
“Very nice,” he said. “I should have known you would take excellent care of your blades, Mackenzie. It shouldn’t take more than a single cut to spill this unfortunate boy’s guts all over the ground.”
Chubby whimpered. Spode shoved him down onto the crate that Rattigan had vacated. Chubby’s eyes were rolling like a terrified horse’s, and though Max was no mind reader, she could easily see the plea written in his expression. Help me, he was saying. Please help me.
“Let him go, Rattigan,” Thomas said. “Killing him won’t do any good.”
“I agree,” Rattigan said. “That’s why I’d like to avoid it. And if you do as I say, the boy will live.” Rattigan laid a hand on Chubby’s shoulder; Chubby jumped. A whimpering sound worked its way through the gag. “Ned will stay here watching over your friend. You will do what I say, when I say it, and only then, on our return, the boy will be released with not a scratch on him. Well”—Rattigan moved the blade close to Chubby’s throat. Chubby was trembling so hard the crate rattled underneath him—“perhaps with one or two scratches.”
Max licked her lips, which felt very dry. “And why should we care if you kill him or not?” she said, trying to sound unconcerned. “You made a mistake, Rattigan. He’s no friend of ours.”
“Oh no?” Rattigan raised an eyebrow. “How unfortunate. But if he’s no friend of yours, then surely you won’t mind if I make a minor . . . adjustment to his face?”
Rattigan grabbed Chubby’s left ear. Chubby screeched in pain. In one fluid motion, before Max could even react, Rattigan lifted the blade and brought it down in a swift chopping motion. . . .
Just then, Rattigan screamed in pain and the knife clattered to the ground. Before Max could register what had happened, what looked like a long leather snake appeared out of nowhere, curling itself around the knife handle and whipping it out of sight.
Then her brain ticked forward and she realized: Lash. He had struck the knife from Rattigan’s hand. A split second later Lash was there, whip in hand, his face mottled with fury.
“Lash!” Max cried. But before she could get to him Spode tackled him. He caught Lash square in the stomach and the two men crashed to the floor, bringing down one of the lanterns with them. There was an explosion. Max felt the sudden bite of glass against her cheek. She hardly noticed the pain.
Everything was chaos. Sam lunged for Rattigan, but Rattigan, anticipating his attack, sidestepped him and seized Pippa by the arm. She screamed and tried to shake him off, but he held on firmly, growling at her to be quiet. Max instinctively stepped toward her and felt something cold slide against her ankle. Of course. It was the artist’s scalpel, the small blade she’d taken from Eckleberger’s studio and had been keeping in her boot. By the time she had it in her hand, Rattigan had snaked an arm around Pippa’s neck, holding her close to his chest, like a human shield.
“Not another step, Mackenzie,” he said softly. But she could tell he was losing control. His hair was wild, his forehead damp with sweat. It made him look more dangerous than ever. “That goes for you, too, Sam.”
Max and Sam froze. Only then did Max realize that Thomas had vanished. She felt a flare-up of hope. Perhaps he had gone to get the police. Then, above them, she saw a brief flicker of shadow, a form darting along the high metal grid of catwalks, and her stomach sank again. What was he doing?
“I’m very disappointed in all of you,” Rattigan said. “You’ve given me very little choice.” Pippa opened her mouth as if to speak. Nothing but a gurgle came out. Max tested the weight of the scalpel in her hand. She had a clear shot . . . if only Pippa would stop moving . . . if only she had a little more room for error . . . Her palm was sweating. She had a sudden flashback to that disastrous performance with Betty, the blood, the sharp gasp from the audience and her roiling guilt . . .
She had to try. It was their only chance.
But before she could so much as lift her arm, Rattigan dragged Pippa backward, kicking over the other lantern, and they were plunged into darkness.
Years of shimmying through the complex nest of pipes and ducts within the museum’s walls had made Thomas very good at seeing in the dark. As soon as Rattigan seized Pippa, he had sensed an opportunity to attack from above. Melting back into the darkness, he had quickly found an old staircase that led to the factory’s upper level: a grid of dusty catwalks, built so that the foremen could easily survey the action down below. When the second lantern shattered, he paused in a crouch, giving his eyes time to adjust to the renewed darkness—listening, too, trying to separate individual strands of sound and weave them into pictures. Shouting and cursing, the muffled sound of blows: Lash and Spode were still wrestling. Max, commanding Chubby to hold still. Good. At least Chubby would be safe; Thomas prayed Max would tell him to go find help.
Straining now, staying motionless despite the drumming, thrumming urge to do something, to rip Rattigan apart, to scream, he kept listening. What else? A crash from down beneath him, as if someone had overturned old equipment. He stood up again, moving as silently as possible along the catwalk, praying it was still sturdy and would hold. Then he froze.
There was a noise behind him: a shuffling, creaking noise, a vibration that Thomas felt in his feet.
Someone was with him on the catwalk.
Thomas turned around quickly and nearly lost his footing. He windmilled his arms and regained his balance, but his heart wouldn’t stop thudding painfully against his ribs. The factory floor must be at least forty feet below him, and cluttered with heavy and sharp equipment. There would be no way to survive a fall.
The shuffling had stopped. But Thomas knew that he was right. He could hear another person breathing heavily in the dark. It occurred to him that Rattigan might have other friends besides Spode. Who knew how many people might be hiding out here in the dark, waiting to attack?
The back of Thomas’s neck was sweating. He was losing time. Rattigan had Pippa. He needed to help her.
“Hello?” he risked calling out softly, hoping he didn’t sound as afraid as he felt. “Who’s there?”
“Oh, it’s you.” Sam’s voice floated back to him. Sam inched forward on the catwalk, eventually becoming visible. “I was worried Rattigan might have more friendly helpers.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Thomas said. He was immensely, embarrassingly relieved to have Sam with him. “Did you see which way Rattigan went?”
“That way.” Sam pointed to the back of the factory. “At least, I think he went that way. I lost him pretty quickly.”
“We have to stop him before he can get to an exit. Once he leaves with Pippa . . .” Thomas trailed off. He didn’t even want to think about what Rattigan would do to his best friend. And Pippa was his best friend. He realized that all at once with a sudden shock.
They moved forward carefully on the catwalk, pausing every few seconds to listen. Sam was doing his best to tread lightly, but even so the metal shuddered under his feet, and Thomas kept fearing that it would suddenly snap, and send them plummeting toward the factory floor below.
They skirted an enormous bundle of cables, massed like a fist around what looked like a giant engine. The catwalk branched, and Thomas hesitated. Which way?
As he was debating, he heard a loud scream and his heart rocketed into his throat. Pippa.
“This way,” Thomas whispered urgently to Sam, taking the catwalk on the right. This one felt even more treacherous than the last, and swayed underneath Thomas’s feet as they moved, giving him an awful sense of vertigo. They must be nearing the very back of the factory. Weak light filtered in from several boarded-up windows. Thomas saw a huge set of old trolley rails, dangling from a steel cable hooked to the ceiling, pointing like an accusatory finger toward the floor.
And underneath them: Rattigan, with Pippa still hugged tightly to his chest and a knife to her throat.
“Don’t come any closer!” Rattigan’s voice was shrill, practically a shriek. He staggered in a circle, hauling Pippa with him, shouting his words up into the dark. “I know you’re up there. If you move even a single inch, I’ll slit her throat!”
Rattigan was trapped: that much was clear. He had taken a gamble that there would be a secondary exit at the back of the factory, and he had lost. It was a stupid error. But even Rattigan made mistakes. Still, the idea gave Thomas no satisfaction. Rattigan was now desperate and out of control, which made him even more dangerous than usual.
They would have to be very, very careful.
“Where are you?” Rattigan wrenched the knife away from Pippa’s throat and slashed at the shadows. “Stay away from me, you hear me? Stay away!”
As Rattigan once again spun around, starting at an imagined noise behind him, Thomas spotted the narrow mouth of a metal chute that ended only a few feet from where Rattigan was now standing. Shaped like a drain spout, the chute hugged the back wall and ceiling, and dead-ended just next to the catwalk. Presumably, Thomas thought, people had once used it to send materials down to the factory floor.
Thomas reached out and squeezed Sam’s arm to get his attention. As soon as Sam nodded to show he understood, Thomas took a deep breath and worked himself headfirst into the chute, inching forward on his stomach.
It was hot and very cramped and Thomas’s progress felt agonizingly slow. But he didn’t want to go faster and risk rattling around or banging his knee, and alerting Rattigan to his progress. Here, there was no light at all. He went forward blindly, hoping he’d encounter no block, until the chute eventually opened up beneath him and he knew he had reached the back wall. Here he spent several minutes turning himself upright. Keeping his back to the wall and his knees to his chest, he was able to work his way down, slowly, slowly, toward the ground. He could hear nothing; the chute acted as a kind of muffler, and all he could hear were the amplified sounds of his own breathing and the squeak-squeak-squeak of his shoes. He didn’t know what he would do once he reached Rattigan. He knew only that he had to save Pippa.
Once again, the chute turned, this time flattening out as Thomas reached the factory floor. He’d been worried that Rattigan might once again have disappeared before Thomas could reach him, but he was still standing only a few feet away, keeping Pippa restrained with one hand, stabbing at the air with the knife in the other.
“I made you,” Rattigan was shrieking as Thomas slid silently out of the chute and stood. His whole body was cold and heavy with fear. Now he saw how mad Rattigan truly was. “I’m your creator. I should be honored like a god!” Rattigan’s voice thundered through the space. Above them, Thomas saw the steel railway tracks sway on their cable, as if in response to his words. He inched forward again. He was so close to Rattigan, he might have reached out and touched the back of his neck. His hands were itchy. He was no match for Rattigan in strength. And where was Sam? What was he doing?
“If you won’t honor me, we will be enemies for life!” Rattigan bellowed, head tilted back, eyes wild with anger. In that moment, he did look like a vengeful god. “I demand sacrifice. Sacrifice, do you hear me?”
It happened so quickly, Thomas barely had time to react. All at once Rattigan spun Pippa around, gripping her by the throat, and raised the knife.
“No!” Thomas screamed.
Rattigan pivoted, surprised. The railway tracks above them gave another lurch and suddenly Thomas knew where Sam was and what he was doing. At the same time, Pippa stamped, hard, on Rattigan’s foot. Rattigan lost his grip on her neck. Thomas sprang forward, grabbing Pippa’s elbow and yanking her out of the way.
Just then the steel cable above them succumbed, with a groan, to the pressure of Sam’s hands, and three tons of steel came crashing down directly on top of Rattigan.
It was a somber group that made its way, several hours later, back to the museum. Mr. Dumfrey took the lead. For once, he had nothing to say. Pippa wasn’t in the mood to speak, either—no one was. She was relieved that they had gotten away safely, and doubly relieved that Lash, though badly injured, would surely survive as well.
Spode had not been so lucky. They had found him dead next to the bleeding Lash, the bullwhip wrapped three times around his throat, embedded so deeply in his flesh that the coroner expected to have to remove it with a razor blade. But Pippa couldn’t bring herself to feel even vaguely sorry for him.
She had never been so tired in her whole life. Even her hair felt tired, and hung limply against her neck. They had told their story, over and over again, both to the cops who had arrived at the factory with Chubby, and to Mr. Dumfrey, who had been summoned there by a call from the police and had arrived with shaving cream still slathered over half of his face.
It was obvious that no one, least of all Schroeder and Detective Hardaway, believed their story about Rattigan, especially when the pile of old trolley rails was cleared and no body was found beneath it. True, there was a steel-reinforced trapdoor set in the floor, but the heavy hinged lid was closed and latched. No man, the police insisted, could have flung it open, jumped inside, and swung the door closed again in the seconds before the rails came crashing down on him.
Sam, Pippa, Thomas, and Max knew better. Somehow, Rattigan had once again made his escape.
Detective Hardaway made no secret of his theory: that Max, Pippa, Thomas, and Sam had, like Chubby, been hired by Spode to make special “deliveries.” It turned out Spode had been blackmailing half the rich people in the city, and using Chubby to drop off incriminating photographs and retrieve payouts and hush money. The kids had gotten in over their heads, they’d tried to back out, and Spode had turned violent. Lash—who admitted that after leaving the museum he’d been keeping an eye on the children from afar—had rushed in to save them at the last moment. They’d cooked up the Rattigan story to avoid getting in trouble.
Case closed. And nothing anyone could say would persuade him otherwise—which meant that Rattigan was once again a free man.
Pippa was relieved when they turned onto Forty-Third Street and she saw the familiar contours of the museum’s weathered face. But even this pleasure was dampened by the knowledge that the museum was facing almost certain closure. The performers were unhappy. Dumfrey hadn’t found a way to bring the crowds back. How much longer could they possibly last? Even now, as they approached, she felt as if she were not really seeing it, but already only remembering it: the wide stoop and vivid red doors with their smudgy brass handles, the old casement windows that w
ere forever sticking, the flag waving proudly from one of the attic windows . . .
She blinked, realizing several things simultaneously: first, that the museum had no flag, and second, that what she had at first mistaken for one was in fact a brightly colored shirt that was fluttering through the air. As she watched, another shirt, followed quickly by a set of dress socks, and then a pair of dark trousers, catapulted out of one of the attic windows and swished softly to the ground.
“What in the . . . ?” Mr. Dumfrey stopped, clucking his tongue. “What now?”
A shoe came spinning out the window, and thudded directly at Pippa’s feet, so she was forced to skip sideways to avoid being clobbered. Max kneeled and scooped it up.
“This is Howie’s shoe,” she said slowly. “And those are his shirts.”
Faintly, from above, they heard Miss Fitch screech: “And stay out!” The second shoe followed the first, and this time it was Max who had to avoid it.
“Come on,” Thomas said. “Hurry. Before she starts in on his underwear, too.”
They raced up the stairs—at least Pippa, Thomas, Sam, and Max did. Mr. Dumfrey followed behind them, panting, pausing on the landings to catch his breath.
“You . . . go . . . ahead,” he huffed. “I’ll . . . catch up . . . soon.”
In the attic, they found the performers assembled in a semicircle, motionless and stunned, watching as Miss Fitch tore through Howie’s possessions, tossing them one by one out the window. Pippa had never seen Miss Fitch look so angry. Her hair, usually arranged so exactly, was wild around her shoulders—a situation so absolutely unheard-of, so unimaginable, that Pippa all at once mirrored the other performers’ shocked expressions.
Miss Fitch never stopped screaming, not even for an instant.
“You filthy, two-faced louse!” Out went Howie’s leather wallet and another pair of pants. The object of her abuse, Howie, was glaring at her, his face dark as a storm cloud, his fists clenched, but making no move to try to stop her. Perhaps he knew there was no point; she was moving with such speed it was almost dizzying to watch. “You slimy snake! Taking advantage—smiling and nodding and all the time plotting against us! You’re sickening, truly sickening, you should be absolutely ashamed—”