“Nothing,” he called down. “Curtains are drawn. Give me a second.”
Like a spider, he flung himself from the drainpipe onto the narrow window ledge. Pippa gasped and unconsciously cried out as he teetered there for a second, windmilling his arms. But Thomas didn’t fall. He found his balance; dropped into a crouch; and, after fiddling with the latch, slid open the window and eased himself inside.
They waited in anxious silence for one, two, three seconds. Pippa expected at any second to hear an explosion of shouting, but there was nothing. Then Thomas’s head reappeared at the window.
“Come quickly!” he shouted. “Upstairs! Now! Hurry!”
Sam didn’t even hesitate. He drove a fist into the front door; with a tremendous boom it collapsed inward. Sam stepped aside and gestured politely for Max and Pippa to go before him.
“Thank you,” Pippa said, and passed into the shop.
The hall was carpeted and smelled like mildew and cat urine. To their right was a dusty glass door that obviously led to the shop; on it the words Anderson’s Delights had once been painted, but after several decades, only the letters And on Deli remained. A large sign that said CLOSED hung on the knob.
Directly down the hall was a narrow wooden staircase. Pippa raced toward it, and Max practically elbowed her out of the way.
“Move it,” she said.
Just as they had reached the second floor, Thomas appeared on the third-floor landing.
“Hurry!” he shouted again. His eyes were practically bulging out of his head. A door was open behind him, and Pippa caught a glimpse of dark green wallpaper and a ceiling crisscrossed with rough wooden beams.
“We’re coming—as—fast—as—we—can!” Pippa panted.
Max reached the third floor first. Pippa and Sam were right on her heels.
“This way.” Thomas’s face was stark white, as though someone had drained him of all his blood.
Together they piled through the open doorway, which led to Mr. Anderson’s private chambers. There was a fire burning cheerfully in the grate, and several lamps were illuminated. The room reminded him immediately of the museum. Every surface was cluttered with objects: a stuffed rearing king cobra, its fangs bared and hood extended; a carved African mask; a rusted saxophone. A mug of tea sat on a large mahogany desk, and a book was lying open on a squashy armchair.
And there was a body hanging from the rafters.
Pippa screamed. Sam shouted. And Max threw her knife. Quick as a flash, the blade whizzed through the air and severed the rope, slicing the body down from where it dangled.
The children ran to him at once. His face was the bruised purple of a storm cloud. A rope was knotted tightly around his fleshy neck. He was wearing an old pinstripe suit and a pair of patched leather shoes, and they knew at once they were staring down at the face of Mr. Anderson.
Sam kneeled beside him. Pippa hugged herself. She was suddenly freezing. For a minute, no one said a word.
“Is he . . . ?” Max asked finally.
Sam looked up at her. His dark eyes were hollows in his face. “Dead,” he confirmed.
Max had claimed earlier that she’d known a lot of dead people. That was true. But she’d never seen one. It was not at all how she’d imagined it would be, not at all how people spoke about saying good-bye to their dead grandmothers or described attending the funeral of a beloved neighbor. “She looked so peaceful!” they would say, dabbing their dry eyes with a handkerchief. Or: “He looked just like he was sleeping.”
Mr. Anderson didn’t look peaceful, and he certainly didn’t look like he was sleeping. And Max did not feel curious, or even superior, as she had imagined she might, standing above a dead person when she was still alive.
She just felt sad and a little sick.
It wasn’t until Sam put a hand lightly on her shoulder that Max realized she’d been frozen there, staring, for who knows how long. Pippa was watching the street from the window; Thomas was gone.
“Are you all right?” Sam asked.
“Fine,” Max said quickly. She winced and shrugged him off, both because she had let her guard drop and because Sam’s touch, even when he was doing his best to be careful, was a little like the gentle pressure of a thousand-pound boulder.