The Magnificent Lizzie Brown and the Mysterious Phantom (12 page)

Erin looked to Lizzie. “What'd the mask look like, then?”

“It was horrible,” Lizzie said. “Like a ghost, or a skull, sort of. I tried to warn the man, but he laughed in my face!”

Excited chatter broke out. Nobody even questioned the truth of what she'd seen. Lizzie felt buoyed up by their faith in her, as if she'd taken a jump into the unknown, only to be caught by a safety net.

“The question we ought to be asking,” Malachy said after the babble had died down a bit, “is why you had this vision in the first place?”

“So I could warn him,” Lizzie said immediately.

“But he didn't listen, did he?” Malachy said.

Lizzie frowned. “Lay off! I did my best!”

“I know. But think,” Malachy said. “What if
he
wasn't the one who needs to act?”

Lizzie held up her hands. “So who does, then? Me?”

A hush fell upon the gathering. They all looked at one another. Were forces beyond their control setting some great hunt in motion, some adventure beyond anything they'd ever imagined?

“It stands to reason,” Malachy said quietly, “that a power that can see the future would have known your client wouldn't listen. So if the vision wasn't meant for him, it must have been meant for you.”

“You reckon I've got this . . . this gift of mine so's I can stop crimes happening, don't you?” Lizzie said.

“I honestly do, yes.” Malachy jumped down from his perch. “You've already stopped one, haven't you?”

“Aurora,” Erin said.

Lizzie remembered Aurora's blood-chilling threats as she was dragged away. She hadn't just stopped a crime, she'd made an enemy. Now Malachy was pushing her to confront the Phantom, who was far more dangerous. All of a sudden, Lizzie felt sick.

“Maybe I should just forget all about it,” she said. “It's too risky. I don't
have
to do anything, do I?”

“You can't be serious!” said Nora. “What if you'd just let Aurora rob that man? You think she'd have stopped with him?”

“She'd have kept stealing,” Dru agreed. “And when she was finally caught, it wouldn't just be her who got blamed.”

“It would've been the whole circus!” said Malachy.

Hari looked up. “If you are the only one who can stop the Phantom, Lizzie, then you have a duty to do so.”

“Why does it have to be me, though?” Lizzie complained. “Ain't it the police supposed to stop criminals?” But even as she spoke, Lizzie remembered what the passing officer had said. “I suppose the coppers are a waste of time,” she said with a sigh. “At least, that one I saw today was.”

“You saw a policeman on the site?” Malachy frowned.

“He spoke to my customer. ‘Don't ever believe a word those circus folk tell you,' he said. Called us all cheats and liars.”

Eyes rolled and tongues tutted all around the circle.

“
Comme toujours,
” muttered Dru. “The police don't like us, Lizzie. Whenever we come to town, we're the first to be blamed if there's a crime.”

“Heard it a thousand times,” Nora agreed with a sigh. “Thieving travelers, they think we are.”

“A policeman grabbed my ear once,” Hari said gloomily. “He warned me not to use my ‘Indian rope trick' to climb into windows and steal. I laughed. I told him such tricks are make-believe.” Hari pointed at a white scar on his cheek. “He gave me this for talking back to him.”

“Safe to say we won't be going to the police,” Malachy said. “Sorry, Lizzie. They're always like that where we're concerned.”

Lizzie rose to leave. If the police wouldn't help and the adults wouldn't act, then she'd just have to confront the Phantom herself. Once she'd figured out where to start, of course.

“So we'll have to be the ones who investigate.” Malachy touched her arm, stopping her in her tracks. “You didn't think we'd let you do this alone, did you?”

Lizzie stared at him. “Seriously? You're all in? Every one of you?”

Nora, Erin, Hari, and Dru all nodded and grinned. Malachy tipped an imaginary hat in Lizzie's direction. “All for one, and one for all.”

“Fantastic!” Lizzie cheered. “So . . . um . . . how are we going to catch him, then?”

“The same way we caught Aurora,” Hari said. “You recognized the gentleman and his watch, so you were able to act in time. We must look for something similar in this new vision.” He sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. Lizzie was sure he was building up a picture in his remarkable mind. “Tell us
everything
,” he said. “Take your mind back. Talk us through what you saw. Every detail.”

And that is exactly what Lizzie did. She described the tall house, the lion's-head door knocker, the narrow alley, the church with the huge spire, and the flying golden dragon perched on top. Lastly, she told them about the stooped figure of the Phantom, clutching his sack.

Hari asked question after question in a low calm voice, like a hypnotist. “How many windows?”

“Nine or ten.”

“Was the sky light or dark?”

“Sort of halfway.”

“Was the sack empty or full?”

“Empty.”

The questions went on until Lizzie's poor head ached with the effort of remembering. If Hari was growing frustrated, he didn't show it. Somehow, that boy was always calm. Malachy paced back and forth while the others looked on tensely, waiting for the moment of truth.

“Did you hear anything?” Hari finally asked, trying a new tactic.

“Yes!” Lizzie burst out. “A voice, shouting out, ‘Last show, last show!'”

“But that's us!” Nora cried, shivering all over. “That's this circus!”

“I've got goose pimples,” Erin said with a shudder.

Malachy snapped his fingers. “That tells us when it's going to happen! The callers call the last show at eight o'clock every evening.”

“When the sky is half dark and half light,” Dru added.

“Now we just need to work out
where
it'll happen,” Malachy said. “Let's get to work. We have a crime to stop!”

They all leaped up and began to rush from the tent, except for Hari. “One moment,” he said, still cross-legged, holding up a hand.

“Yes?” asked Malachy.

“If we are going to start investigating together, I think we should have a name.”

“Brilliant idea!” Erin said. “We should be . . . The Show Tent Irregulars!”

“I don't want to be an Irregular,” Lizzie said. “Sounds like someone with an upset stomach.”

“Dru Boisset and the Human Oddities?” Dru suggested cheekily. Lizzie cuffed him around the back of the head.

“It needs ‘gang' in the title. We should be the something gang,” mused Nora.

Hari brightened. “I like that! The Something Gang. It has an air of mystery.” He drew a question mark in the sawdust with a finger. “My calling card.”

“Too much mystery,” said Malachy. “No, I know what we should be. It's obvious. It's staring you all in the face.”

They all looked at him, questioningly.

“Well?” Lizzie demanded.

“The Penny Gaff Gang!” Malachy exclaimed.

Lizzie had to agree it was perfect.

The next day was Lizzie's day off. Most of the circus folk went into town when they had free time. The men went to drink and the ladies to shop, but Lizzie had very different plans. It was her versus the Phantom now, even if the Phantom didn't know it yet.

Ever since Malachy had told her not to bother with the police, she'd turned the problem over and over in her mind. Malachy was wrong, she decided. She hadn't even
tried
talking to the police. Yes, her client had laughed with the constable, but maybe she could make a different police officer listen. All she had to do was prove she was serious. Seeing was believing, after all. If she could convince a policeman that she had powers, then they'd have to take her seriously, wouldn't they?

Lizzie ran through the narrow, winding Whitechapel streets, looking for a police station. Alarmed people sidestepped out of her way. A dog tethered outside a pub barked savagely at her.

The more she looked, the more confident she felt. Hadn't the police admitted they were baffled, anyway? They needed any help they could get to catch the Phantom. What did it matter if it came from a circus fortune-teller?

Lizzie finally found what she was looking for on Leman Street. Inside, the police station was gloomy and smelled strongly of soap and writing ink. A desk sergeant with bags under his eyes looked down at her.

“I'd like to help you with an investigation,” Lizzie said proudly.

“Get outta here,” the sergeant said. “We're not taking on any informants.”

Lizzie drew herself up to her full height. “I'm not here to be an informant! I've learned something what could be of importance! Some bloke's going to get robbed unless you stop it.”

A second officer entered, mustached and smart in his uniform, carrying two mugs full of tea. He glanced at Lizzie as if she were something a cat had thrown up on the rug. “What's this?” he asked.

“She says she's got
information
,” the sergeant said, accepting his tea.

“Has she?” said the officer. “Where'd she come from, then?”

The sergeant's pale gray eyes were on Lizzie, who suddenly found she was having trouble speaking. “Well?”

“I'm with Fitzy's Circus,” Lizzie said hesitantly. She was beginning to wish she hadn't come here.

“A circus brat!” The desk sergeant laughed. “Come on then, love. Hand 'em over.”

“Hand what over?” Lizzie asked.

“The free tickets, of course.” He turned to his fellow officer. “They try this once in a while. Give us free tickets to a show and hope we'll look the other way when one of their lot gets collared.”

The mustached policeman blew in his tea to cool it down. “They'll stoop to anything, won't they?”

This wasn't going the way she'd planned at all. “I'm the fortune-teller!” Lizzie yelled. “But I'm not a scammer, I really can see the future!”

The sergeant rolled his eyes. “Pull the other one.”

“The Phantom's going to commit another robbery, and you lot need to stop it. If you don't help, then me and my friends are going to have to stop him ourselves!” Lizzie hollered.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” the mustached officer said with a nasty edge in his voice. He walked around from behind the desk and loomed over Lizzie, who backed away. He grabbed her ear in a painful pinch. “You and your raggedy little friends should keep your noses out of grown-up business, understand?”

“Ow!” Lizzie hollered. “Stop it! Getcher hands off me!”

The officer dragged her to the door. “You'd better stay on your site from now on, if you know what's good for you. We don't like your sort.”

“And if you don't, we've got some nice cells you can come and stay in,” the desk sergeant added with a yawn. “If I see any of you circus brats out on the streets playing your tricks, getting in honest people's way, I'll lock you up for begging. Quick as spit.”

The policeman dragging her bent down and whispered, “Didn't see
that
coming, did you, fortune-teller?”

Lizzie found herself back on the pavement, rubbing her sore ear and scowling.
Even if they didn't believe me, they didn't have to be so rotten about it!

She could still hear the desk sergeant talking indoors. “Better see about canceling Overton's leave,” he was saying. “When the bloody circus is in town, petty crime goes through the roof. We'll need all hands.”

“He won't like it,” the other officer replied.

“He can lump it. He's needed. Circus people! They're worse than the gypsies, that lot.”

Lizzie marched off down the street, her head full of angry thoughts.
I won't be telling Malachy about this. I know exactly what he'd say — “Didn't I warn you not to bother with the police, Lizzie? They'll lock you up soon as look at you.”

Well, she refused to go back to Malachy and the rest of the Penny Gaff Gang empty-handed. If the police wouldn't help her, she'd help herself. What had Hari said? They knew
when
the robbery would happen. They just needed to know
where
.

Lizzie thought back over what she'd seen in her vision. Tall, narrow houses were everywhere in the East End. So were alleyways. But a church with a golden dragon on the spire? That ought to stand out like a clown at a funeral.

“I'm on the hunt for a golden dragon!” she said to herself, breaking into a run.

Dodging out of the way of ladies with parasols and gentlemen with canes, Lizzie threaded her way through the twisting East End streets. She had to look up often, which meant bumping into people and tripping over cobblestones, but there was no other way to look for a golden dragon over the rooftops.

Lizzie could still see it clearly in her mind. It had a wavy body, like a sea serpent on an old-fashioned map.
Here be dragons
, she thought. Except there weren't any dragons anywhere she looked. She passed ironmongers and pubs and sawdust-floored butcher's shops that reeked in the heat. There were churches, plenty of those. She even passed St. Mary's Chapel with its high white walls. But not one had a golden dragon on the spire.

A nanny went by, pushing a baby. The police had warned Lizzie not to bother anyone in the street. She looked around carefully. No police anywhere in sight.

“Ma'am, 'scuse me?” Lizzie said.

“Hello, petal!” The nanny's face shone like a freckly sun. “Are you lost?”

“I need to find a golden dragon,” Lizzie told her. “Have you seen one?”

“I'm terribly sorry, but no. No golden dragons, pixies, or prancing unicorns neither.” She giggled. “Good luck!”