Free The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis by Natasha Narayan Page B

Jabber Jukes. Does the name Moses Zwingler mean anything to you?”
    He met my eye with an insolent smirk.
    â€œPerhaps you’ll remember a mummy made of twigs?” I continued.
    My words hit their target. Immediately a change came over the boy, his cocksure air dropping away. He jumped off his stool, as the landlady looked on, clattering into me and making me stagger backward. With one hand he seized my arm and tried to pull me through the pub. In his left hand Jabber was carrying a package, about the size of a family Bible—though Idoubt its contents were in any way holy.
    â€œGet off!” I yelled, while Ahmed tried to push him away. It wasn’t easy. Jabber was far stronger than he looked.
    â€œShush!” the strange boy begged. “Please shut yer mouf, ladyship.”
    â€œI certainly will not.”
    â€œPlease, not ’ere.”
    Jabber looked so frightened all of a sudden, I relented. He dragged me to a dark corner that was shaded from the gaslight that made the rest of the gin palace so dazzling. Ahmed followed, glaring at Jabber angrily.
    â€œYer gotta go. Right now. I know who yer are. If I’m seen with yer I’m dead,” Jabber explained as he tried to push me down on a wooden bench that stood behind a table, in a shadowy corner of the room.
    Theories flashed through my mind as he talked. He knew who I was. How? Had the gang heard about our inquiries at Zwinglers? Had they followed Baruch and seen us with the greener? Were the gang on the lookout for us? If so they must have a fearsome organization. After all, it was only yesterday that the five of us had visited Moses Zwingler’s shop. There were so many possibilities. It was as if I was blindfolded and playing a game of badminton against a far superior opponent. I had to admit it to myself, for the first timeI felt out of my depth.
    â€œI’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Not till you answer my questions, Jabber Jukes.”
    â€œâ€™Ow do yer know that?” he yowled, he was towering over me as I sat on the bench. “Me moniker is sumfink between me and me maker.”
    â€œPardon?” I asked. This boy’s speech was so foreign to me he could have come from the wilds of Africa rather than the capital city of my own country.
    â€œâ€™Ow do yer know me?” Jabber said. He sat down on one of the stools opposite me, besides Ahmed.
    â€œHe wants to know how you know his name,” Ahmed intervened. Brilliant! An Egyptian understood this hooligan better than I did!
    â€œI have my sources.”
    â€œBet yer just makin” it up.’
    â€œI’ll come down to Petticoat Lane looking for you,” I said with a burst of inspiration. “I’ll say you’re my friend. I’ll tell everyone you were jabbering on. That you couldn’t stop telling me your secrets. I’ll tell them I saw you talking to the police.”
    â€œI ain’t no blower,” he protested indignantly.
    â€œPardon?” He’d lost me again. Blower? What could he mean?
    â€œI ain’t about to nose to the rozzers.”
    Finally! Something I could understand.
    â€œI’m not asking you to speak to the police. I just want you to answer my questions.”
    â€œâ€™Ow did yer find me, anyhow?” All the time we were talking Jabber’s eyes were darting around the gin palace, as if to check that no one was watching us. I resolved to capitalize on his unease, by hitting him with all I knew.
    â€œI have my ways. Understand? Now listen, Jabber, I know that you are part of a filthy, rotten criminal gang. I’m sure the police will be very keen to hear all about it. I know you take protection money from the shopkeepers of Raven Row—”
    â€œThat ain’t for me—” he interrupted. “That’s for the captain.”
    â€œWhat captain? Who are you talking about?”
    â€œIt’s wot you ’ave in the navy,” he