The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis (9 page)

“Who was scared?”

“The men—how you say ‘greeners'—they not like Jabber Jukes.”

“Yes.” Rachel nodded. “Scared for their lives, I would say. Everyone went all still—like Baruch had done the wrong thing.”

Chapter Nine

“Why is it wrong to call Frenchmen frogs?” my aunt barked at us, as soon as we entered her drawing room, weary and downcast from our trip to Spitalfields.

“Because it is wrong to make rude remarks about people. Especially people you don't know personally,” Rachel ventured, timidly.

“Of course not, you ninny. Rebecca, is it?” Aunt Hilda flashed her a withering look.

“Rachel.”

“That's a particularly wet remark, Rebecca. The answer, of course, is that the comparison is unfair to perfectly decent animals.”

Aunt Hilda was slumped on the sofa, a half-empty glass of whisky in her hand, her face flushed. Something in the newspaper in front of her, the
Pall Mall Gazette,
had clearly angered her. Edging over to see what was wrong I spotted the headline:

F
RENCHMAN
G
ASTON
C
HAMPLON
C
ALLS
F
AMOUS
L
ADY
E
XPLORER
, H
ILDA
S
ALTER
, “A L
IAR
.” R
ELATIONS
W
ITH
F
RANCE
A
T
R
ISK
.

There was only one thing for it; I would have to distract her. Once Aunt Hilda was on her favorite subject of French treachery she would never stop.

“London is terribly smoggy—” I began but Waldo seized the newspaper and read out the headline.

“You should sue the blighter!” he declared.

“Splendid idea! What a sensible boy,” Aunt Hilda crowed. “I'll bet Champlon hasn't the nerve to try his luck before an honest English jury!”

Quietly I signaled to the others that we should go. We sidled out as Aunt Hilda declared her intention of writing a letter to the Queen, protesting “French Insolence.” She wouldn't be satisfied, I thought, till blood had been shed over her stolen mummy.

We were tired and felt oddly listless. We trooped upstairs and slumped in the piano room, kicking off our shoes. I, for one, was overwhelmed by our trip to the sweatshops of the East End. Some of those begging in the gutters were children, boys and girls even younger than us. The whole trip left me feeling odd about being Kit Salter. The daughter of a father who can clothe and feed me, have me decently educated. (Yes, even the
Minchin counts as a decent education.) How lucky I was to be me. Not one of the unfortunates of the earth doomed to exist among dirt and drudgery.

“We'll have to go back there tomorrow,” I said.

On the faces around me I saw blank looks, which depressed me.

“It's a wild goose chase,” said Isaac.

“Hopeless,” Rachel agreed.

“Waste of time,” Waldo added.

“Well, see if you can think of anything cleverer,” I snapped. “All you lot can do is moan. Why don't
you
try coming up with a plan?”

A rap on the door interrupted our argument. It was my aunt's maid Mary, carrying a brown envelope. “Someone knocked at the door, left this for you, miss,” she said.

I turned the envelope over. It was grubby, marked with dirty fingerprints, but was not addressed to anyone.

“How do you know it was for me?”

Mary flushed. “It was a man wot brung it. A foreign man, all ragged and dirty-like but handsome if you take my meaning. He said it was for the bossy lady. I thought it was your aunt, miss, meaning no offense. But the man, he said no. The bossy
young
lady.”

The others tittered. It was my turn to flush. “Thank you, Mary,” I said and took the envelope from her.
Casting a cross glance at my friends I slowly opened it and extracted the slip of paper inside. What was written there was enough to make me forget my hurt feelings:

Chapter Ten

“He's not going to come,” I said, despairingly.

We had been waiting under the statue of the Duke of Wellington in Hyde Park for over half an hour. It was a splendid spot, a place to show Ahmed how glittering London could be. All around us nature was in full bloom, over there the fashionable world trooping their thoroughbred ponies down Rotten Row. You could admire the broughams of countesses with their golden crests, the carriages of earls. If, like Waldo, your tastes ran to ogling young ladies, you could watch the daintiest in the land, riding side-saddle, dresses flowing elegantly over their horses' flanks.

However, I had not come here for sightseeing. I was bored and cross as I saw my plans unravel once more.

“Patience,” Isaac said, not looking up from the screws he was fiddling with.

None of the others seemed as bothered as I was. Rachel was pointing the sights out to Ahmed, Waldo
lounged on the grass, whistling.

“What are you doing, anyway?” I asked Isaac.

“Portable RollerShoes,” he said, holding up two small wheels. “I've put the brackets for them on my own boots. I'm just working it so I can snap them on and off.”

My mind wandered off as Isaac talked. I had spotted a hunch-backed figure walking past the fence. Was it, could it be? As the figure moved nearer my heart leapt. Yes! It was Baruch the greener, weighed down by something on his back. We ran toward him and said our hellos over the fence.

He made no apologies for his lateness. “Come with me,” he motioned to us. “I am hurry. We will have to walk.”

Obediently we left the park and followed him. He set quite a pace, even carrying his large bag of clothes. I had to trot to keep up with him. As Baruch walked, he talked.

“I am taking risk because I like you.” He nodded at me. “I think you brave.”

“Thank you,” I muttered. I noticed, with a burst of secret satisfaction, that Waldo looked annoyed.

“Also I have 'nother reason.” He halted abruptly.

“Yes?” I prompted and then wished I hadn't spoken for Baruch looked at me so furiously, I shrank back.

“I am angry,” he said. “So angry it hurts.” He gestured
to his heart. “You will have to be clever with what I tell you. Not just brave. This is important because these are bad men. Many people, good people are trusting you. You unnerstan” me?'

“Yes.” I nodded, though I wasn't sure what he was talking about.

“Good. Jabber Jukes is a bad man. But he is a small bad man. A young man learning all the hard ways. You unnerstan'?”

“He is an apprentice,” Rachel said. “An apprentice in evil.”

“Yes. Jabber is young, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. He works for criminals and they teach him how to be bad.”

“How do you know him?” I asked.

The pavements along Park Lane were crowded with gentry in their fine clothes, but also with working people going about in the noise and bustle that is everywhere in London. I had to raise my voice to get Baruch to hear me. The greener, with his large bundle, struggled to make a path through the crowds.

“What can I say? My master should tell the police about these villains,” Baruch said, stopping in the middle of the pavement. “But he does not. He is too scared.”

“Moses Zwingler?” I asked, surprised. He didn't look like a particularly nervous man.

“Yes, we are scared. Zwingler, the other shopkeepers, workers, all of us in Raven Row. Every week Jabber or another man—they come and take money. Sometimes they demand five shillings. Sometimes ten. Once they took a whole guinea. And the masters, they pay. The criminals, they say they need the money to protect us.” Baruch shrugged. “All lies. If the shopkeepers don't pay, they get beaten. Or their shop will be fired.”

“That's wicked.”

“It is the way. Jews, we have many peoples bleeding us. Like lemons—even if we have not much juice there is a little more they can squeeze.”

“I thought it was your master, Moses Zwingler, doing the squeezing,” I said.

Baruch grimaced: “Fleas feed on small fleas. Both are sucked dry by bigger, how you say?”

“Insects?” I suggested. “Businessmen?”

“They call it business,” he agreed. “In Russia it is the same.”

“Who is doing this to you?” Isaac asked. “Who are these criminals?”

“Where do we find them?” I added.

But Baruch frowned; this talk was making him angry. He turned round and began walking much more quickly. We were on the edge of a crowd, waiting on the pavement. As we approached a large red omnibus
appeared from the direction of Victoria. It was emblazoned with signs for Fry's Cocoa and was already packed: gentlemen spilling off the rails at the top, ladies crammed into the downstairs compartment.

People surged around us. We were trapped in a stampede, people pushing and shoving like navvies. An elderly lady in a lace-trimmed bonnet landed me a punch in the ribs as she made her way determinedly past. Baruch was caught in the middle.

“Baruch,” I yelled. “Where do we find these thugs?”

“You've got to go to Norfolk. To Punch, its a—” abruptly his words were bitten off. I caught a surprised look on his face and then he was lost from view in the human traffic.

“Baruch, Baruch,” I yelled. The others added their voices to mine. It was no good, a second omnibus had driven up and the crowd frothed around it like an angry sea. We would just have to wait till the crush eased.

I glared at a gentleman in a shiny new top hat who had trodden on my foot. If he could afford a hat like that he could also afford manners, was the way I saw it. Another man, with piggy eyes and no chin, shoved against me and, fed up now, I shoved back. We waited for the crowd to disperse and in a few moments most of them had managed to cram into the two omnibuses.

But Baruch was nowhere to be seen. Had he left us? It
made no sense, he was just about to tell us the name of the villain.