She told them how she had been hauled upstairs by the nurse and presented at the registration desk.
“And before I know it, some wacko in a nightgown comes barreling over, practically throws herself at me, and starts calling me sweetie pie,” Max said, outraged. The makeup had mostly come off, except for thick smudges of mascara, which gave her the look of a raccoon. “Well, what was I supposed to do? She painted me up like a clown and made me play cards. I only got out of there when she nodded off.”
Except for a homeless man dressed in toeless boots, a long overcoat, and a pair of aviator’s goggles, the children were alone on the subway car as it lurched through the tunnels. Thomas, seeking once again to make peace, at last extracted the medical report from his pocket, smoothed it down on one thigh, and began to read.
“What about . . . ?” Pippa nodded toward the homeless man, whose chin was nodding on his chest.
“It’s all right,” Thomas said. He couldn’t wait any longer. He scanned the page and its densely packed writing.
“Well?” Max said irritably. “What’s it say?”
“Give me a second,” Thomas said, frowning. Some of the words were unknown to him; others were illegible. Under Cause of Death, the medical examiner had printed poisoning by cyanide. That they already knew.
“Here,” he burst out, and read, “‘Subject’—that’s Potts—‘died between the hours of midnight and two in the morning on Thursday, April twenty-fifth.’”
Pippa shivered. “How awful.”
Thomas kept on reading. “‘Judging from the contents of the subject’s stomach—’”
“Eww!” Max and Pippa burst out together and then glared at each other. Thomas ignored them.
“‘—and also from the time of death, the poison was likely administered with the subject’s dinner at around eight p.m. on Wednesday. Stomach contents—’”
“Thomas!” Max and Pippa shrieked.
“‘—show dinner of roast beef, pickled onions, and”—Thomas grimaced—“prune juice.”
“Roast beef?” Max frowned. “We had canned tuna and old bread that night.”
Pippa shook her head. “Potts didn’t eat at the museum on Wednesday night. I remember—Goldini broke a cup and no one could find the broom and I thought Miss Fitch would burst into flame. Potts came home later.”
Thomas had reached the end of the report. He stared at it for a moment longer, as though the words would float off the page and reveal something further to him. The subway screeched and jerked to a halt, and Thomas suddenly realized the train had arrived at their stop. But as Thomas and the others pushed onto the platform, he had the strangest sensation that they were being watched. He turned around as the doors slid closed and the train began to chug forward. The homeless man was awake now, staring at him with an amused expression. Thomas felt a small shock, as though he’d accidentally touched a socket without drying his hands. He had the strangest feeling he’d seen the man before.
But then the train was gone, swallowed up by the black tunnel, and Thomas pushed the thought out of his mind. It was late. He was probably imagining things.
“Thomas?” Sam, Max, and Pippa were already halfway down the platform, waiting for him.
“Sorry,” he said, and hurried to catch up.
“We were talking about Potts’s dinner,” Pippa prompted.
Sam shoved his hands in his pockets as they moved down the empty platform toward the stairs that led to the street. “I guess the question is, where on earth did he eat?”
It was nearly ten o’clock at night and far too late to continue their investigation. They headed directly back to the museum. A fog had rolled in from the river and snuck between the buildings like some vast, yellow-furred animal. Even after Thomas had slipped beneath his thick woolen blanket in the attic and Sam was snoring peacefully next to him, he couldn’t get warm—as though the fog had followed him up into the room and was tickling the soles of his feet.
His mind was turning restlessly. Potts had been murdered—why? Had he perhaps gone to see Mr. Anderson? But for what purpose? Thomas rolled over, pounding a lump from his pillow with a fist. Mr. Anderson couldn’t help, either; he, too, had been killed. All after the disappearance of that stupid head . . .
Thomas remembered the gasp from the ancient lady—Mrs. Weathersby—in the front row the day the head had been revealed. She, too, was dead. What was the connection? Could the head really be cursed?
He dismissed the idea immediately. He had read every single book in the museum’s library, many of them multiple times. He knew all about ghosts and witches, spell casting and ancient curses from the battered books Phoebe the Fat Lady brought home.