Anne Perry's Christmas Vigil Read Online Free PDF Page B

went to the small fire he kept going in a black potbellied stove, and pulled the kettle over. “Yer got any milk, then?” she asked.
    â€œCourse I ’ave,” he said indignantly. “Usual place. Wot’s the matter wif yer, Gracie?”
    She made the tea, wondering whether it would be worse to use up what she knew was the last of his milk, and leave him without any, or not to use it, and insult his hospitality. She knew with hergran the humiliation would have stung more, so she used it.
    â€œÂ â€™S good,” she said, sitting opposite him and sipping it gingerly.
    â€œSo wot’s goin’ on, then?” he asked.
    She told him about Alf dying and falling off the cart, and Charlie getting lost, and how she didn’t know what to do to help Minnie Maude.
    He thought in silence for several minutes while they both finished their tea. “I dunno neither,” he said at last.
    â€œWell, fanks fer the tea,” she said, conquering a very foolish sense of disappointment. What had she expected, anyway? She stood up ready to go back to the sweeping and scrubbing.
    â€œBut yer could go and ask Mr. Balthasar.” He put his mug down on the scarred tabletop. “ ’E’s about the cleverest feller I ever ’eard of.” He tapped his head with one arthritic finger. “Wise, ’e is. Knows all kinds o’ things. Mebbe ’e di’n’t knowif Alf fell off the cart afore ’e were dead, or after, but if anyone can find a donkey wot’s lost—or stole—it’d be ’im.”
    â€œWould ’e?” Gracie said with sudden hope.
    Mr. Wiggins nodded, smiling.
    She had a moment’s deep doubt. Mr. Wiggins was old and a bit daft. Maybe he just wanted to help, which didn’t mean he could. Still, she had no better idea herself. “I’ll go an’ see ’im,” she promised. “Where is ’e?”

    S he found the shop of Mr. Balthasar on Whitechapel Road just about where Mr. Wiggins had said it would be, which surprised her. He had seemed to be too vague for her to trust his judgment. But the moment she stepped inside the dark, narrow doorway, she thought it was much less good an idea than Mr. Wiggins had implied. There was no one to be seen in the extraordinaryinterior, but objects of one sort or another seemed to fill every shelf from floor to ceiling, and be suspended by ropes, threads, and chains from above so that she was afraid to move in case she dislodged something and brought it all crashing down on herself.
    There seemed to be an inordinate number of shoes, or perhaps they would more properly be called slippers. She couldn’t imagine anyone going outside in the wet street in such things. They were made of cloth, of soft leather, even of velvet, and they were stitched with all sorts of patterns like nothing she had ever seen before. Some had silly curling toes that would make anybody fall over in two steps. But they were beautiful!
    There were brass dishes with curly writing all over them, no pictures at all, but the writing was so fancy it would do just as well. And everywhere she looked there were boxes of every kind and shape, painted, decorated with stones, shiny anddull, written on and plain. Some were so small they would have had trouble holding a thimble, others big enough to take your whole hand. And there was an enormous machine that looked like a cross between a boiler and a pipe to smoke, like gentlemen used. Though what use such a contraption might be, she had no idea.
    She was still staring when a voice spoke from behind her.
    â€œAnd what may I do for you, young lady?”
    She was so startled she was sure her feet actually came off the floor. She jerked around and looked at the man not three feet away. He had come in silently, and she had heard nothing. He must have been wearing those velvet slippers.
    â€œI …,” she began. “I …”
    He waited. He was