“I’m very disappointed, Thomas,” Dumfrey said, shaking his head so that the skin underneath his chin wobbled—as though it, too, were disappointed. “Very disappointed indeed.”

“Caught in the act!” Potts bellowed. “Snuffling and sniffling in my underthings, the little weasel. He oughta be paddled raw as an almond!”

“That’s enough, Potts.” Dumfrey fixed him with a hard stare. His blue eyes glinted like ice. “You’ve made your grievances known. Now please leave us.”

Potts grumbled something that sounded like “muffin” but was probably far more unpleasant, and gave Thomas a final glare before stomping out of Dumfrey’s office.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Dumfrey’s voice softened. “What on earth were you doing?”

Thomas opened his mouth to reply, but just then the door flew open and Pippa hurled into the room, breathless.

“It was my fault, sir,” she said. “I told him to do it.”

Thomas stared at Pippa. He was shocked—grateful, too. He’d never thought Pippa would take the blame for anything.

“Is that true, Thomas?” Mr. Dumfrey asked quietly.

Before Thomas could reply, the door once again banged open, this time with such force that an oil portrait of a young Dumfrey—looking almost exactly like an old Dumfrey, except with more hair and fewer chins—tumbled off the wall with a clatter.

“Don’t listen to Pippa.” Sam was standing in the doorway, wide-eyed. “It was my idea.” He noticed the toppled painting and winced. “Sorry, Mr. Dumfrey.”

Dumfrey frowned and settled back in his chair. “Explain.”

“I—I—well . . . ,” Sam stuttered.

Pippa balled up her fists and then released them. “It’s a long story. . . .”

Thomas jumped in. “It’s about the head, sir.”

“The head?” Dumfrey’s eyes seemed to triple in size behind his glasses.

Now Thomas felt himself falter. Dumfrey’s gaze was like that: it turned your knees to noodles. “It’s just that we thought . . .”

“It seemed possible . . . ,” Pippa chimed in.

“It seemed probable,” Thomas corrected.

“That Potts might have . . . ,” Pippa said.

“Or must have . . . ,” Thomas amended.

“Stolen it,” Sam finished.

“Eighty-two and a half percent of all store burglaries are committed by an employee,” Thomas blurted out. “I read it.”

There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by a loud, disapproving squawk from Cornelius. Dumfrey removed his glasses. With one end of his purple tie, he began polishing them. “Anderson was right,” he murmured. “That head has brought nothing but trouble.”

Thomas felt a small tingle of alarm race up his back. Anderson . . . he had heard that name before. . . .

No. He had seen it—on a piece of paper in Potts’s room.

“Anderson, sir?” he prompted, trying not to sound too curious. Pippa shot him a puzzled glance.

Dumfrey barely looked at him. “Arthur Anderson. Anderson’s Delights. Ever heard of it? No? He’s the one who sold me the blasted head in the first place. A good friend of mine, even though he’s an awful cheat. Once tried to pass off a yellow-painted penny as a recovered Spanish gold coin. Shameless! He warned me that the head was bad luck. I thought he was just saying that so I would sell it back to him . . . but he was right; he was right.”

Thomas felt like exploding from excitement. “Sorry, Mr. D., it was all a big mistake,” he said quickly, plastering on a smile. He grabbed Pippa’s arm and started hauling her backward toward the door. Sam took the hint and followed them. “Won’t happen again, we promise you.”

Mr. Dumfrey started, as though only just remembering the children were there. “Wait!” he called out. “We must discuss a suitable punish—”

But before he could say ment, Thomas had hauled Pippa into the hall and Sam had slammed the door closed. From inside, there was another crash, as yet another painting tumbled off the wall.

“Sorry, Mr. D.!” Sam called out, and then hurried after Pippa and Thomas.

“You’re pinching me,” Pippa said, as Thomas dragged her forward. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’re acting like a bug crawled up your—”

“You were right,” he whispered, cutting her off. “Potts did it.”

“What are you talking about?” Pippa said.

“Potts went to see Anderson. At least, I think he did. He had the address of Anderson’s store written on a piece of paper in his room—133 Seventh Street, in Brooklyn.” Thomas glanced from left to right and, seeing no one, continued speaking in a rush: “It isn’t a coincidence. It can’t be.”

Pippa was frowning, clearly deep in thought. “So . . . you think Potts is working for Anderson?”

Thomas shrugged. “You heard what Dumfrey said, didn’t you? Anderson tried to get the head back, but Dumfrey wouldn’t sell it to him. So maybe Anderson decided to take matters into his own hands. Maybe he paid Potts to pinch it for him.”

“But Dumfrey said Mr. Anderson was a friend . . . ,” Sam said doubtfully.

“Wouldn’t be the first time Mr. D. was wrong about something,” Thomas said. “Remember when he bought those two tiger cubs for the museum and tried to train them?”

“The magicians’ poor rabbits . . . ,” Sam murmured, shuddering a little.

“The trainer’s poor hand,” Thomas said.

Pippa roused herself. “All right, then. We have to talk to Mr. Anderson right away. We have to find out what he knows.”

Thomas felt a spark of excitement in his stomach. For the first time ever, he felt like he and Pippa were on the same team. Sam, too. For the first time ever, he felt like they were doing something important—not just performing the same tricks over and over, like trained monkeys. And he had always, always, wanted to do something important.

What was the point of being different if you couldn’t be special?

“To Brooklyn, then?” he said.

Pippa nodded solemnly. “To Brooklyn.”