Pippa held her breath. Her heart was drumming in her chest. She strained to listen. Someone was moving swiftly across the lobby.
Thomas eased the door open and gestured for the others to follow him. Max grabbed the weapon nearest at hand—in this case, a spoon, which wasn’t much of a weapon at all. Pippa moved up the stairs, pausing only to kick off her slippers. The floor was cold against her bare feet. Sam followed behind her, moving on his tiptoes.
Together, they emerged into the darkness of the special exhibits room, and Miss Cobble’s chambers, now empty. They slipped into the hallway, moving silently past the grand central staircase, and skirted two Indian totem poles that stood like sentries next to the ticket desk. Max’s spoon glittered in the moonlight coming through the windows. Pippa’s heart was in her throat. Long shadows lay like liquid across the floor.
Thomas held up a hand, and Max stopped walking. Pippa stepped on her heel, and Max turned around and poked her sharply with her spoon. Pippa swallowed back a cry of surprise and instead settled for pinching Max’s elbow.
They listened. The grandfather clock ticked on in the quiet; there was a sudden sweep of bright light, as though from a flashlight, at the end of the hall. The light disappeared again, and footsteps creak-creak-creaked into the Odditorium.
They moved forward again, but so slowly that Pippa had the sensation they weren’t moving at all, as if the darkness were tar and they were floundering in place. But eventually they were there, at the entrance to the Odditorium.
The beam of light—definitely a flashlight—was moving quickly up the aisle toward the stage on which Potts’s coffin had been placed for display by Mr. Dumfrey. A feeble blue light illuminated the dead Potts, lying with his hands folded, looking just as ill-tempered as he had in real life.
As they watched, a shadow broke free of the dark and stepped onto the stage. Crouching, the man—Pippa thought it must be a man, because of the loose pants and coat he was wearing—pocketed the flashlight and bent over the casket.
Everything happened very quickly. Thomas and Max slipped off toward opposite sides of the stage, and Sam and Pippa charged down the central aisle, shouting, “Stop! Freeze!”
The intruder whipped around and cried out. Backlit by the dim blue light, his features were indistinguishable. He tried to run toward the wings, but Max charged him and barreled him backward, holding the spoon to his jugular, roaring fearsomely. Then Sam was there, restraining him, and Pippa heard someone calling, “Lights! Turn on the lights!” before she realized that she was the one yelling.
The stage lights came on, suddenly dazzling. Dazzling, too, was the intruder’s extraordinary clothing: purple pants, a bright-red shirt, and a billowing purple coat, all of it clashing awfully with the boy’s thatch of shock-red hair.
They had found Reginald Anderson.
“P-please,” Reginald Anderson blubbered. “I can explain.”
“Then start explaining,” Max growled. She was still holding her spoon menacingly in Reggie’s direction, as though she intended to scoop his brains out with it. They had seated Reggie in one of the narrow folding chairs used by the audience.
Reggie opened his mouth, then closed it again. All at once, he buried his head in his hands and began to sob loudly into the fabric of his hat.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a choked voice. “I never shoulda come . . . but I didn’t know what else to do. . . .”
“Slow down and start from the beginning,” said Pippa, who with every second was doubting more and more that he might have been responsible for the attack on Bill Evans or Potts’s murder. Even the sight of a spoon made him tremble. On the other hand, he had broken into the museum—and he had been rummaging around in Potts’s casket.
Reggie took a deep breath and raised his head. His lower lip trembled. “I’m in a real tight spot,” he said. “But I’m no killer. I swear I’m no killer.”
“What did you want with Potts?” Max jabbed her spoon closer to his face.
“I—I didn’t even know his name before today,” Reggie said quickly. “I saw his picture in the paper. I knew his face. He’d been to see my uncle . . . once or twice.” He mumbled the last words quickly.
“Mmm-hmmm.” Thomas crossed his arms. “And was once the day your uncle died?”
He nodded miserably. Pippa’s breath caught in her throat. She caught Thomas’s eye. So they’d been right about Potts—he had been dealing with Mr. Anderson behind Dumfrey’s back. And Potts had been in Anderson’s shop the day he died.
Reggie worried his thin woolen hat between his hands. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. My uncle had lots of clients. Lots of people going in and out. I’d had a fight with him that morning, you see. I phoned him up to tell him—to tell him I wasn’t coming back. To tell him I was running away with my girl, Betsy. Betsy Williams. She lives in Boston—”