The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis (15 page)

I had failed, again.

I was getting a bad case of cramp in this tight, airless space. Waldo, who is quite a bit taller than I, looked even more squashed than I felt. I hoped that the loathsome “Bender” Barney would go away, leaving us free to try
and follow the hansom cab with the mummy. But not a bit of it. While we struggled to breathe, he sat on his box, puffing away, carefree and apparently deep in thought. He looked like he'd settled down for a good, long smoke.

Suddenly Waldo sneezed. It sounded like a box of fireworks exploding.

“Rats in the wainscoting, eh?” Lazily Barney arose from the case and paced toward us.

I curled myself against the wall, willing Waldo to remain silent with all my might.

“I don't remember no rodents in 'ere,” Barney said to himself. Did he know where we were? He was almost upon us, then at the last moment he turned to the left and pushed aside a large case. I saw him look behind the case and then, disappointed, move away. Still puffing away on his cigar, he began to pace silently up and down the small space in the center of the room. We held our breaths. Then, as if the movement exhausted him, he sat down again on his box and flicked the stump of his cigar on the floor.

“No one likes vermin,” Barney said. “Human-shaped, animal-shaped or vermin-shaped.”

Abruptly, he stood up. He was looking straight at us. Had we made a noise? Something was glinting in his hand as he stalked up to the bookcase, reached behind it
and pulled me out, Waldo stumbling after me.

“Kids.” Barney looked us over in disgust. “Wot are yer? Stagehands or what? Scarper or I'll call the manager.” The glinting thing in his hand was a peashooter, a tiny pistol no bigger than a lady's fist.

We “scarpered.” Waldo dashing off first. We had almost made it to the door when Barney swore. His hand stretched out and grabbed me from behind by my shoulder. My blouse ripped, leaving a strip of cloth in the thug's hand.

“Hold up. Turn round. You ain't the kids Velvet Nell's got a bee in her bonnet about, are you? She got the whole family searching for the little rats who've bin hanging around Zwinglers. Blooming hell, I'll bet you are. I recognize the description. Girl who acts like a lad, that's what she said. All right, hands up, I'm taking you straight to Nell.”

The peashooter was pointed at my chest. Poised to blow a perfect hole through my heart. I raised my hands above my head. The shame of it was I couldn't stop them trembling.

A leer splitting his lips, the acrobat walked up to me, till he was an inch from my face. He smelt foul. He placed the gun against my neck. My breath caught in my throat, muscles seizing up all the way to my stomach. Barney could see my fear and he enjoyed it. He was smiling.
Smiling.

Chapter Fifteen

“You two will be fish-food before the sun rises.”

Bender moved the barrel of the pistol along my neck. I couldn't feel anything, except the gun, cold against my skin. Finally, after what seemed an age, he took it away and I could breathe again.

“See, Nell don't know the meaning of mercy. Ask her what the word means. Go on, give it a try. She'll probably think it's a new kind of ladies' fashion,” the man assumed an odious falsetto voice: “‘The Mercy Corset Essential for all Ladies of Taste and Refinement.'”

Keeping his eyes on us, Bender Barney lounged back against the wall, the deadly toy in his hand covering us both. Without the whiskers he'd worn in his disguise as the Prince of Wales there was a repulsive weakness in his chin. His tiny mouth disappeared into folds of fat, seeming almost to merge with his neck.

“Never seen Nell so angry. Well, not since last yesterday. Said you lot are toffs. Pokin” around where you're
not wanted.'

“You've got the wrong children, sir,” I managed to stutter. “We're just stagehands.”

As soon as I'd uttered a word I realized I'd done the wrong thing. My voice bred in Oxford had given me away. Barney would realize instantly that I was no street urchin.

“You've got the wrong children, sir!” Viciously Barney mocked my accent. “Thank you, your ladyship. You've saved us a lot of bother, coming here nice and easy. Lambs to the slaughter, that's wot I say. Look sharp. Out, quick.” Waving the gun, he directed us out of the door.

I could take nothing in. Make no plans. I felt sick, my brain aflame with fevered thoughts. It was I who had planned this silly escapade. It would all be my fault if we were murdered and—as Barney promised—bundled into the Thames.

An explosion cut through me. Followed by an awful rattling. I turned, startled.

Waldo and Barney were intertwined, a flailing mass of arms and legs. For a moment I could make no sense of it at all. Then I saw Barney firing his gun, while Waldo struggled to catch his hand. Bang, a bullet ricocheted off a tin picture of the Duke of Wellington. I stood and stared, like a fool. What was wrong with me? I felt sluggish.
As if wading through treacle.

Waldo struck Barney hard on the chest, cutting off his breath. Barney retaliated with a nasty kick at Waldo's knee. The pea-shooter was firing wildly, a stream of bullets zinging crazily through the room. I snapped to and ran to them. Jumping up I tried to grab the gun.

“Don't be an idiot,” Waldo roared. “You'll be shot.”

He landed an uppercut to Barney's jaw. The thug's head flopped to the side. I kicked him and Waldo followed up with a punch in his chest. Bender sagged, slumping to the floor in a heap of satin and velvet.

“Oh …” I gasped and couldn't go on, my breathing was so painful. I stood in the doorway, trembling.

Waldo regarded me for an instant, eyes blazing. He was furious. “I—” he began and stopped. Abruptly he turned away: “Better make a run for it. Before he comes round.”

I followed Waldo down the corridor, feeling very shaky. I was ashamed of my pathetic behavior. I, who had always prided myself on being different from the Minchin and the other fools who fainted at the hint of blood. Instead of being brave I had turned into jelly. Was it fear that made me react so feebly? I was ashamed of myself.

“Get a hold of yourself, Kit,” Waldo turned round, breaking into my reverie. I'd realized I had come to a
standstill. “We have to be quick.”

We skirted our way through a maze of corridors, till we found signs for the stage door. The people we passed paid us no heed. Then we tumbled out of the theater into the chill night air of a back alley. Straight into fog. As thick as wood smoke, it curled along the alley, reducing visibility to a couple of yards. Through the murk we could see the outlines of a couple of loungers, the shadows of a few horses further down. No sign of a hansom carriage. Infuriatingly the mummy must already be well on its way to the Baker Brothers' home. It was very late, nearly midnight by Waldo's pocket watch.

We crept down the alley into the fairytale world of Leicester Square. The blazing front of the Alhambra competed with the illuminations of the Turkish Baths next door. Some instinct made me tug Waldo back. He had been about to step into the arc of gaslight. A moment later I spotted some familiar faces, shining sickly greenish-gray through the fog. The Velvet Mob. Among them, looking very gray indeed, was Barney. How had he recovered so quickly? Maybe he was a magician as well as an acrobat. There was a huge commotion in front of the theater. Several of the mob were shouting. In the midst of them I had a glimpse of Nell in a scarlet cloak, her lily-white face furious. A shiver went through me, I would not want to be one of her gang tonight.

We had an advantage over the hoodlums. London was on our side. Under cover of the smog, we made our way; keeping out of lamp-lit streets, taking comfort from the shadows of the towering buildings. We came into Charing Cross Road and I spotted our friend. For once he had done as he was told and was waiting outside a bookseller's. Isaac is not a patient boy. He was wriggling around on the pavement as if he had ants in his shirt.

A carriage clipped toward us and a friendly driver peered down from the cab.

“Want a ride 'ome, miss?”

I glanced at Waldo. We had just enough money for the fare and we were both exhausted.

“Thanks, cabbie.” Waldo scrambled in and I followed. I was just about to request the driver to stop for Isaac when I felt a pressure on my arm. Someone was squeezing me roughly. I turned, about to protest when my words died on my lips. Looming out of the shadows was a familiar face. Those repulsive lips, merging smoothly into the chin. Those malicious, piggy eyes.

Bender Barney! How had he come to be sitting in the back of this cab?

“Hello, me lovely.” He grinned and lifted one hand lazily, the fabric of my blouse dangled from his fingers.

Bender was covering Waldo with his pistol. How
could we have been so stupid? We'd handed ourselves to the Velvet Mob. On a platter.

Isaac. At least he had a chance. I leaned forward, sticking my head out of the doorway and screamed at my friend on the pavement below. “Run, Isaac. Run. They've got us!” was all I managed before Bender removed his hand from Waldo's mouth and clapped it over mine.

Isaac looked up at me startled, still wriggling about crazily. His eyes met mine. Then he moved. A streak sped across the deserted street, faster than anyone could run. An illusion almost, a smooth blur of matter and light. Grazing the horses noses as it zoomed past.

The horses went wild, rearing up in alarm. The cab toppled to the side. Panic blossomed inside me. I was dimly aware of trampling horses, firing guns, bodies falling heavily against me. The window smashed into a hundred glittering pieces. A shard of glass speared Bender's top hat, close to taking out his eye. His hand fell, and his gun dropped to the floor. I grabbed part of the window frame and bashed Bender on the head.

“Take that!” I screamed.

“STOP!” Waldo hollered, pulling me away. “We've got to get out of here.”

We scrambled out of the destroyed cab. Waldo's shoulder was bleeding where a piece of glass had pierced it. Where was Isaac? Over there, on the other side of the
road. We ran to him and scooped him up, thankful he had not been trampled by the rearing horses. One of them, a majestic piebald stallion, was neighing horribly.

“What happened?” I hissed at Isaac as we hastened down a side alley, away from the wreck and the thug's pursuit.

For an answer he paused for a fraction of a second and lifted his right foot. In a flash he was gone down the alley, a smooth blur of navy blue coat and flickering legs on those magical wheels. So that was what had startled the horses: Isaac's crazy invention. We ran after him, Waldo struggling to keep up with me as blood poured down his jacket from his wounded shoulder. Panting, we came to a stop by a grinning Isaac.

“What on earth?” I asked him.

“RollerShoes.” He smiled at me. “Told you they'd come in handy.”

“More than handy, Isaac. They saved our lives.”

Chapter Sixteen