A Christmas Promise - Anne Perry [27]
There was no point in standing there in a strange street. Gracie set off again, briskly this time. At least she would get a bit warmer. A few hot chestnuts would be a good thing right then. Maybe Minnie Maude had gone back to Cob, to see if he knew anything more? Or if not Cob, then maybe Paper John, although he hadn’t said anything very helpful.
Who else might she have looked for? The crossing sweeper, Monday? Without realizing it she was walking more slowly, thinking hard, grasping for memory, and reasons. What had Minnie Maude done that had made Stan so angry? Or was he just scared too, but would rather get angry than admit being scared? If Alf really had been killed by someone over the golden casket, then could Stan know something about it?
How did he know what Minnie Maude had been doing? She had said something, she must have. But what? Had she told him something, or asked him? Or he’d said something, and she had remembered … or understood—but what?
Gracie stopped in the shelter of a high building with a jutting wall. There was no point in going any farther until she worked things out. She might be going in the wrong direction, and would only have to go all the way back. The wind was harder and there were occasional pellets of ice in it. Her fingers were numb. She leaned against the wall where an uneven door frame offered her a little shelter.
Why had Minnie Maude gone? She must have had a reason, something that had happened—or something that had suddenly made sense to her. If Stan had said something, what could that be? How would he know anything about it anyway?
Or was it some meaning she’d put together, and then she’d seen a pattern?
A hawker pushed his barrow across the street, wheels bumping in the gutter, the wind in his face.
Think! Gracie said to herself angrily. You were there all the time. Everything Minnie Maude heard, so did you! What did she understand all of a sudden?
She was shaking with the cold, but there was no point in walking anywhere if she didn’t know where to go. And the other thing, if she was really thinking as hard as she could, she wouldn’t be noticing where she was, and she’d get even more lost. That wouldn’t help Minnie Maude or Charlie, or anyone else.
Where had she and Minnie Maude been when they’d followed Jimmy Quick’s route? What had they seen, or heard? They’d spoken to Monday, the crossing sweeper on Cannon Street. She tried to recall everything he had said. None of it seemed to matter much. Certainly it wouldn’t have sent Minnie Maude out of the house, breaking her promise, and on a bitter night with ice on the wind.
Then there’d been Florrie, the peddler; and Paper John. Then there was Cob, the chestnut seller. He’d said a lot. He was the one who’d seen the toff, and Alf had actually told him about the golden casket.
But the more Gracie thought about it all, the less did she see anything in it that she hadn’t seen two days before. Nobody had spoken of anything suspicious. It was exactly the same route, though backward, as Jimmy Quick always took—the same streets, the same people saw him. He had even started at about the same time. She could remember most of the streets, only not necessarily in the same order. But Alf would have had it right, because it made sense. One street led into another. There was only one way to go.
She tried again to remember exactly what everyone had said. She closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders, wrapping her shawl even more tightly around herself, and pictured the roasted-chestnut man. He was the only one who had seen Alf after he’d had the casket. Cob had looked worried, but not really downright frightened. She could see it in her mind’s eye, the way he’d stood, his expression, the way he had waved his arms to show which way the man he’d called the toff had come … except that he had been coming the way Alf was going, not the way he had just passed! That made no sense.
She tried it again, but with Cob waving the other way. Except that he couldn’t have. He was standing next to the brazier, about the length