“Get on with it,” Max said impatiently.
“Well, that morning I phoned up but he hardly let me get a word out. Gotta go, Reggie, I got Scarface coming over. That’s what he said.”
“Scarface?” Sam repeated.
Reggie gestured to the casket where Potts was lying, his acne scars inexpertly concealed under heavy makeup. “That’s what my uncle called him. He called me Red most of the time. Or Dummy.” Reggie blushed.
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing, poking around here in the middle of the night,” Thomas said.
By now, Reggie’s face was the exact same shade of crimson as his hair. “I’m broke,” he said. “Betsy won’t marry me unless I get some money together. . . . I tried gambling for it but . . .” He trailed off.
“Now you owe money all over town,” Sam finished.
Reggie looked at him. “How did you know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Thomas cut in quickly. “Go on.”
He was working the hat so hard, Pippa feared he would tear it in two. “My uncle always carried a lighter,” he said, in a choked voice. “It was my grandfather’s. It was made of pure silver, and there was a real sapphire in the catch.” Reggie’s voice began to tremble. “It’s terrible but I—well, I knew my uncle couldn’t miss it now. I was going to use it to pay off my debts. But it’s gone. My uncle always had it on him, always. I thought Scarface—er, Potts—might have taken it. It seems silly but . . . I was desperate.”
Pippa noticed that Max’s spoon had begun to tremble. Pippa looked at her questioningly, and Max quickly crossed her arms.
“Now Betsy will never marry me,” Reggie said, and swallowed back a sob.
Max turned suddenly and bolted out of the room. Thomas raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Sam whispered.
“What’s got into them?” Reggie turned around to watch Sam go.
“Stay focused.” Thomas snapped his fingers in front of Reggie’s nose. “Tell me what you know about Bill Evans.”
Reggie’s eyes widened. “The newspaper man?”
“So you know him,” Thomas said.
Reggie shrugged. “Only from the papers.”
“He was nearly killed two days ago,” Pippa said, watching Reggie carefully for any signs of guilt.
But he only looked bewildered. “I read about it,” he said. “He was in a car accident.” He looked from Pippa to Thomas and back again. Then, suddenly, realization seemed to dawn on him. “Don’t tell me you think I had something to do with it . . . ?”
Now that she had spoken to him, Pippa didn’t think Reggie was capable of mowing a man down in cold blood—or, for that matter, of squashing an ant. But she said, “Evans told us the person driving the car had red hair.”
“Now just hang on a second.” Reggie straightened up in his chair. “You can’t pin this one on me. I never even learned to drive. I can’t. I’m completely color-blind. The state won’t let me ride a bicycle, even.”
Pippa and Thomas exchanged a look. So that explained the hideous choice of clothing.
Reggie’s eyes overflowed again. “I’m not a crook,” he said. “I promise. I got in over my head . . . all because I wanted Betsy to say yes—”
“Yeah, we got that,” Thomas said, and sighed. He rubbed his eyes. “All right,” he said. “Get out of here.”
“You—you’re not going to call the police?” Reggie stammered.
Thomas shook his head. Reggie stood up. He took a step forward, as though tempted to embrace Thomas. Thinking better of it, he settled for pumping Thomas’s hand and then Pippa’s. His palm was very wet.
“Thank you,” he gushed. “I won’t forget this. And you won’t have any more trouble from me. I promise.”
Pippa withdrew her hand from his and wiped it carefully on her pajamas. She was tired, suddenly—an exhaustion in her bones and blood and even the roots of her hair.
Pippa and Thomas saw Reggie out of the museum, carefully locking the door behind him. They carefully swept up the glass Reggie had shattered. Miss Fitch would see to the broken window tomorrow. Upstairs, they found Sam waiting for them on the landing.
“Max all right?” Thomas asked.
He shrugged. “She wouldn’t talk to me,” he said. Even in the dark, Pippa could see that he was blushing. “She hauled off straight to bed.”
“She’s always weird,” Pippa said, yawning. But even as they passed into the darkness of the attic, Pippa couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was missing something incredibly important.
Max was already in bed, as Sam had said. She was snoring quietly into her pillow.
“Max?” Pippa whispered. There was no answer. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers to her chin. “Max?” She tried again.
Max only snored a little louder. But even as Pippa drifted off to sleep, the bad feeling stayed with her—and the feeling, too, that Max was only faking.