“Exactly,” Mr. Dumfrey said.
Mr. Evans smiled. “All due respect, Mr. D., they’re already implicated.” His two front teeth were large and somewhat protruding, which gave him the look of a tall, skinny, eager rabbit. “Murder’s no common potato, Mr. Dumfrey, and they’re neck-deep in it.”
“Murder?” Mr. Dumfrey repeated.
Bill Evans had started to make for the door. Now he turned around and said with false casualness, “Oh, yeah. The medical examiner’s report came back. Mr. Anderson didn’t do himself in after all. He was strung up by someone who wanted to make it look that way.” Evans’s eyes slid over to Thomas and Thomas quickly looked away. His heart was beating fast in his chest.
He had been right.
“You can read all about it in the afternoon papers,” Mr. Evans said, jamming his hat on his head. “Afternoon to you both. If you change your mind about the interviews, Mr. D., you know where to find me.”
Then he was gone.
“So what now?” Pippa said.
They were all gathered after dinner in the loft. Sam had cleared a small central space in the cluttered room, and Pippa had poached some unused props and old exhibits from the storage cellar, including a large Navajo blanket, several woven pillows sent to Mr. Dumfrey by a maharaja, a three-legged stool once owned by George Washington, and a walnut table inlaid with ivory. Now they were all sitting, drinking Ovaltine from earthenware mugs. Steam from their cups intermingled above their heads.
“What do you mean?” Max took a long slurp of hot chocolate. “You heard what Dumfrey said. It ain’t our business.”
“Isn’t.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Ain’t.”
“But we have to do something,” Thomas insisted, jumping in. “Mr. Anderson wanted the head back. And then he was killed.”
“Maybe there is a curse,” said Max.
“You can’t really believe that,” Thomas said, and Max shrugged.
“Does it matter? We’re no closer to finding the head than we ever were,” Sam pointed out.
There was a minute of heavy silence. Thomas’s stomach made a noise like a dog’s whimper. It had been a slow day, as Mr. Dumfrey had predicted. The murder of Mr. Anderson and continued talk of Mrs. Weathersby’s death had eclipsed the short mention of Mr. Dumfrey and the museum from which the head had been stolen. With the exception of a few local kids, who had pressed grubby palms against the front door and peered in through the glass, and one rich-looking man and his snub-nosed daughter, who had come after lunch and imperiously demanded to see the “freaks,” then inquired whether they might be rented out for a birthday party, there had been no customers at all.
The entertainers had passed the hours performing various chores and tiptoeing around Mr. Dumfrey, who remained locked in his study doing the books with Monsieur Cabillaud, as though he were a pressure cooker in danger of explosion. But in the absence of Mrs. Cobble, no one had remembered to go to the markets. And so dinner had been canned tuna and day-old bread and mustard.
Thomas took a long sip of his Ovaltine, hoping it would help ease the cramping in his stomach. “I still think Potts knows something,” he said.
Pippa nodded. Her dark bangs practically concealed her eyes. “He knew Mr. Anderson. Or at least they’d met. So why doesn’t he say so?”
Max shrugged. “Might not be anything to it. Maybe he pawned some stuff. Or did business for Mr. Dumfrey.”
“Maybe,” Thomas said, unconvinced. He had the vague, prickling sense that they were missing something—and that something very bad would happen as a result. “But then why—?”
“Shhh,” Sam said sharply. “Someone’s coming.”
A stair creaked; there was a shuffling, a rustling of skirts, and a murmured word. Thomas held his breath. Max had frozen with her mug halfway to her lips. Pippa leaned close to the door, listening.
More footsteps. Then a voice, low, urgent, on the other side of the door at the top of the stairs.
“Were you careful?”
Sam’s eyebrows shot nearly through his hairline. Thomas and Pippa exchanged a glance, and Max barely managed to swallow her hot chocolate without choking on it. They knew that voice. It was Phoebe.
“Very.”
And that one: Hugo.
“Do you think—do you think anyone knows?”
“No. They might suspect. But they can’t possibly know. We took every precaution.”
“But if Dumfrey finds out . . .”
“Dumfrey won’t find out.”