A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry Page B

could see that one of hisfront teeth was broken short, and for a moment his round face gave him the illusion of being about six.
    “There y’are!” he said cheerfully, standing back to show the clean path across.
    Gracie wished she had a penny to spare him, but he probably had more than she did. But she had a ha’penny, and he might also have information. She gave it to him.
    He looked surprised, but he took it. For an instant, she felt rich, and grown-up. “D’yer know Alf, the rag an’ bone man wot got killed on Richard Street three days back?” she asked hopefully. “’e done Jimmy Quick’s round.”
    “’e ’ad a donkey,” Minnie Maude added.
    The boy thought for a while, frowning. “Yeah. It’d rained summink ’orrible. Gutters was all swillin’ over. ’ardly worth both’rin’.” He jerked the broom at the cobbles to demonstrate.
    “Yer saw ’im?” Minnie Maude said excitedly. “Which way were ’e goin’?”
    The boy frowned at her, and pointed east into the wind. “That way. Thought as ’e were orff ’is path. Jimmy’d a gorn up there.” He swung around and pointed westward, the way they had come. “Still an’ all, wot’s it matter? Poor devil. S’pose the cold got ’im.”
    Minnie Maude shook her head. “’e were done in. Somebody ’it ’im.”
    “Garn!” the boy said with disbelief. “Why’d anyone do that?”
    “Cos ’e knowed summink,” Gracie said rapidly. “Mebbe ’e see’d summink as ’e weren’t meant ter.”
    The boy’s eyes widened. “Then yer shouldn’t go lookin’, or mebbe yer’ll know it, too! In’t yer got no more sense?”
    “’e weren’t yer uncle,” Gracie responded, liking the sound of it, as if Alf had been hers. It gave her a kind of warmth inside. Then she thought of drawing the sweeper into it a bit more personally. “Wot’s yer name?”
    “Monday,” he replied.
    “Monday?” Minnie Maude said, and stared at him.
    His face tightened a bit, as if the wind were colder. “I started on a Monday,” he explained.
    She shrugged. “I dunno when I started. Mebbe I in’t really started yet?”
    “Yeah yer ’ave,” Gracie said quickly. “Yer gonna find Charlie. That’s a good way ter start.” She turned back to Monday. “When were Alf ’ere, an’ where’d ’e go? We gotta find out. An’ tell us again, but do it clear, cos we don’ know this patch. It was Jimmy Quick’s, not Uncle Alf’s.”
    Monday screwed up his face. “’e went that way, which weren’t the way Jimmy Quick goes. I see’d ’im go right down there, then ’e turned the corner, that way.” He jerked his hand leftward. “An’ I dunno where ’e went after that.”
    “That’s the wrong way,” Minnie Maude said, puzzled. “I remembered it.” She recited the streets as Jimmy Quick had told them, ticking them off on her fingers.
    “Well that’s the way ’e went.” Monday was firm.
    They thanked him and set off in the direction he had pointed.
    “Were ’e lorst?” Minnie Maude said when they were on the far side and well out of the traffic.
    “I dunno,” Gracie admitted. Her mind was racing, imagining all kinds of things. This was later in the route. He couldn’t have done all the little alleys to the west so soon. Why had he been going the wrong way? Had somebody been after him already? No, that didn’t make any sense.
    “We gotta find somebody else ter ask,” she said aloud. “’oo else would a seen ’im?”
    Minnie Maude thought about it for some time before she answered. They walked another hundred yards along Cannon Street, but no one could help.
    “Nobody seen ’im,” Minnie Maude said, fighting tears. “We in’t never gonna find Charlie.”
    “Yeah, we are,” Gracie said with more conviction than she felt. “Mebbe we should ask afterCharlie, not Uncle Alf? Most people push their own barrows, or got ’orses.”
    Minnie Maude brightened. “Yeah. Ye’re right.” She squared her shoulders and lengthened her stride,