“Don’t threaten her,” Thomas said, eyes flashing.
“Cute. All of you. Very cute.” He spit again, and a glob of milk-white saliva just missed the toe of Sam’s shoe. “This is the last time I’ll ask you nicely,” the bearded man said, once again turning his attention to Sam. His eyes shone like two dark stones. “Actually, you know what? Forget being nice. Jerry?”
Max’s vision seemed to slow down and get clearer, as it always did when things began to happen very fast. She saw Jerry charge forward as the bearded man stepped out of the way. She saw Jerry’s fist headed straight for Sam’s nose; she saw the fat wet slugs of Jerry’s lips pulled back in a grin over his broken teeth; she noticed his filthy cuffs and ragged fingernails.
Before Jerry’s fist could connect with his face, Sam lifted an arm almost casually and smacked Jerry’s hand away as if it were a fly buzzing around his face. Jerry spun nearly a half circle, roaring with pain.
“I warned you,” Sam said apologetically.
“Come on, Jerry!” All the men were shouting now, waving their hands and stomping their feet. “Don’t let the boy smack you around!”
Jerry came at Sam again, this time with both hands, his teeth bared like an animal’s. Sam let out a long sigh.
He brought his fist through the air slowly, indifferently, as if he intended Jerry to inspect it for him.
Crack.
His fist connected with a noise like a thunderbolt. Even Max jumped. The bearded man abruptly stopped shouting. Only the bleary-eyed man was still laughing, and his friend elbowed him sharply so he gasped and fell silent.
Jerry took one step back. His eyes rolled up to the ceiling. And then, just like that, he slumped backward, crashing through one of the wooden tables, leaving it in splinters.
Sam was blushing so hard, Max was sure he’d pop all the blood vessels in his face. “I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I tried to tell him.”
The bearded man had a wild look in his eyes that reminded Max of old Elijah Timmons, the man who was always pacing the street in front of Mr. Dumfrey’s museum holding a big sign predicting the end of the world. His hands were trembling, too, just like Elijah’s did.
“What did you do?” He grabbed Sam by the shirt collar. “How? How?”
“I—I didn’t mean to.” Sam kept his hands behind his back, as though he was worried they would reach out and hurt someone of their own accord.
The bearded man released him and stood for a second, panting. Suddenly, his face took on a murderous look. Quick as anything, he reached for something in his pants pocket.
“Look out!” Pippa screamed. “He’s got a—”
They never found out what he was reaching for. Max was already moving, faster than the speed of thought. In a flash, the knife was in her hand, and her hand was an extension of her knife. Air, space, angles, speed. She felt it, she knew, in her fingers and in the handle of her knife. For one second she was metal; she belonged to the knife and could sense the cold sharpness of its blade, aching to be released.
Then the bearded man was carried backward, halfway across the room. With a satisfying thud, the knife pinned his shirtsleeve to the precise center of the dartboard.
“Bull’s-eye,” Max said, and smiled.
They’d failed to find Reggie Anderson, or any information that might be useful in locating him. All they knew was that he played pool, darts, rummy, and poker, and was terrible at all of them. His debts gave him motive, Thomas knew, for the theft of the shrunken head. But he had a hard time picturing the boy in the mismatched clothing, who’d nearly fainted in front of the police, stringing up his own uncle and then poisoning Potts after dinner.
The sun was hovering low and lazy over the Manhattan skyline, fat as an orange. Thomas voted they return to the museum. At least there, they could confront Hugo—although Thomas had no idea what, exactly, they would say.
Back at the museum, however, they were again disappointed: both Hugo and Phoebe had vanished.
“Very strange,” Danny said, as he plunked a large pot of watery stew on the table. In Mrs. Cobble’s absence, he had taken over the duties of chef, after Goldini had spoiled a whole omelet while trying to make it levitate from the pan. “With not a word to nobody.”
“Not a word to anybody,” Pippa corrected, and then shrank backward when Danny glared at her, raising a bushy black eyebrow.
“I bet they jumped ship, just like Mrs. Cobble,” said Andrew darkly as he sloshed a bit of stew in his bowl. Thomas sniffed experimentally and swallowed a sigh. It smelled a little like the inside of a shoe. “You wait and see. He’ll be quoted in the papers tomorrow.”
“Nonsense. All of his things are still here,” Betty pointed out as she tucked her long beard neatly into the front of her dress so that it would not drag on the table.