“You’re unbelievable,” Pippa said, while Max grinned and gave Thomas the thumbs-up.
By the time they arrived at the museum, Pippa was practically numb from exhaustion. The windows, usually bright with lamps, were dark. The front door was locked, so Thomas knocked. It wasn’t Potts who came to admit them but Betty, carrying an old gas lantern from the museum’s collection of Victorian household items and wearing a nightgown shaped like a tent, her hair pinned into various rollers, her beard carefully braided for the evening.
“Why’s it so quiet?” Thomas asked. “Where’s Potts?”
“Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “Mr. Dumfrey has a terrible headache. Potts nipped out to the pharmacy.”
“Is he sick?” Pippa asked, feeling a pulse of anxiety.
Betty bustled ahead of them, her slippers slapping against the wood floor. In the circle of light from her lantern, the exhibits were lit up grotesquely on either side of them: shadows skated like bats over the walls and ceiling; glass reflected distorted faces and leering smiles.
“He’s doing the books,” she said. “Mr. Cabillaud insisted. And you know how numbers upset Mr. Dumfrey. He worked himself into an absolute tizzy.” No sooner had she finished speaking than the children heard the shrill cry of the telephone.
Betty sighed. “Now what?” she muttered, shaking her head. Her long beard waggled.
They climbed the stairs, following the jerky progression of Betty’s lamp. As they neared Mr. Dumfrey’s third-floor chambers, a door slammed. Monsieur Cabillaud appeared on the landing, carrying an enormous leather ledger, his expression even more pinched than usual.
“What’s the matter, Henri?” Betty asked.
“I have been dismissed for ze evening,” he said stiffly. “Monsieur Dumfrey has had enough. When it comes to ze mathematics, he is worse even than Sam!”
Sam blushed. “I try,” he mumbled. Math was his worst subject.
“There, there, Henri,” Betty said, and patted Monsieur Cabillaud’s shoulder consolingly.
Pippa hung back as the others continued up toward the attic. Mr. Dumfrey’s office door was closed, but through the wood she could hear the muffled sound of his voice.
“No,” he kept repeating. That was the word that had gotten her attention in the first place. “No. It can’t be.” There was a short pause. Pippa realized he must have answered the telephone. “But how?”
Pippa hesitated, then pressed her ear to the door. She felt bad about eavesdropping, but she had a feeling that Mr. Dumfrey’s phone call and Mr. Anderson’s death were related. A second later, however, she was proven incorrect.
“Absolutely not.” Mr. Dumfrey’s voice turned hard. “I haven’t spoken to him in thirty years. He knows to stay away from me. Oh, yes. He knows. He’s no family of mine, sir!” Mr. Dumfrey thundered, after another pause. “Please don’t call here again.”
Pippa heard the phone slammed forcefully back into the receiver. She drew back and hurried up the stairs.
The attic was unexpectedly quiet. Normally, the residents of Dumfrey’s Dime Museum stayed up late, playing cards, gossiping, or listening to baseball on the radio and making bets about whether the Yankees would win. Hugo, the elephant man, might read aloud from one of his books—Robinson Crusoe was the popular favorite, although he was always pressing for War and Peace. Sometimes Smalls recited one of his poems in progress, although he’d become so insulted after Goldini yawned in the middle of his sonnets that for weeks he’d been refusing to share anything more.
Danny might play a few notes on his violin, which was so old and warped no one but he could coax any notes from it, but which sang under his stubby fingers like a brand-new instrument. On special occasions, he even broke out his cherished bagpipe, which was normally stored in a beautiful velvet-lined walnut case underneath his bed. Then Phoebe—who was surprisingly light on her feet, despite being the fattest lady in New York—would demonstrate how to do the two-step and every so often, on rare, magical nights, would convince Mr. Dumfrey to dance with her.
But Mr. Dumfrey’s news, and the danger that the museum might close, had soured the atmosphere, as though someone had farted and no one wanted to admit to it. Everyone pretended to act normal while, instead, doing the opposite. Hugo had a book open on his lap but didn’t once turn the page. Betty didn’t remember her rollers until the sharp stench of burned hair reminded her, and Danny plucked a single string of his violin mournfully, over and over, so it sounded as though the instrument was crying. Even Quinn and Caroline did not have enough energy to argue with each other.