*Can"t be too careful," she said. *That mad dago what did for Alice could come back any time for all I know."
Her dress was a patchwork of different materials, torn rags st.i.tched clumsily together with string, and her feet were bare, black and scarred with two toes missing from the left. Her baby was parcelled in a piece of shredded cloth, only the back of its scabbed head visible.
*How do you know he was a dago?" my guardian asked and the girl rolled her eyes.
*Everyone knows "e is."
*Have you seen him?"
She broke into a violent coughing fit, bending double to catch her breath. *Wouldn"t be "ere to tell if I "ad."
*Did you see or hear anything on the day she was killed?"
*What day was that then?"
Sidney Grice took a step backwards and scrutinized her.
*When did you last see Alice?" I asked.
She tucked the knife into the rope belt around her waist and pulled her hair away from her face, pocked by disease.
*Weeks ago."
*How many?"
She twisted her mouth up.
*"Oo counts? The weeks don"t mean nuffink to me. Oh yeah, I remember. It was just after we went to tea with the queen of China."
Sidney Grice looked heavenwards.
*Do you live upstairs?" I asked.
*Sort of."
*How well did you know Alice?"
She picked her ear.
*She was too posh for me, "ad her own room and a regular job she did. Always saying she was going to save up and get out of "ere. Well, she got out all right, didn"t she? Cow." She bent over in another coughing fit. *When I was so starved I couldn"t do no milk she wouldn"t give me a penny to feed myself or the baby. p.i.s.sing cow." She spat on to the floor, white worm casts floating in a dark froth of blood.
*What sort of work did she do?" I asked.
*Shopgirl."
Sidney Grice jerked to attention. *Where?"
The girl looked at her finger and wiped it on her hair. She sneered her smeared lips and said, *Well, you ain"t much of a detective, are you? She worked in Finnegan"s."
Sidney Grice"s cheek ticked.
*The curio shop on Mangle Street?"
*That"s the one." She spat again.
*h.e.l.l," he said and tugged at his ear.
*Your baby is very quiet," I said and she looked blank, her eyes almost as dead as the child she was holding.
44.
The Curious Curio Shop of Childe Finnegan The doors and windows of the Ashbys" shop were boarded over now and there was no policeman on guard as we went into the curio shop across the road.
My guardian picked up a stuffed monkey and said, *Are you the proprietor of this shop?" The man behind the counter nodded enthusiastically.
*Childe Finnegan." He bowed. *At your service, sir."
Sidney Grice put the monkey down and said, *Alice Hawkins."
*Now there is a coincidence." Childe Finnegan straightened the funnel of a tin model steamer. *For I had a girl by that very same name work here until quite recently."
Sidney Grice rolled his eye and said, *And how long did Alice Hawkins work for you?"
*Why from eight in the morning until eight in the evening." Childe Finnegan pulled the funnel up again and Sidney Grice groaned.
*Is the whole world full of imbeciles?"
*I myself have often thought so, sir." The mast collapsed.
*How long ago did she start working here?" I asked.
*Last October as I recall," Childe Finnegan said. *The piece you are holding now is a magnificent shrunken head all the way from the Cannibal Islands of darkest Portugal."
I put it down. *And when did she leave?"
Sidney Grice picked up a spear.
*Oh, but she herself did not leave as such, miss." Childe Finnegan pushed the steamer away and put a Toby jug in its place. *She just never came back. That, sir, is a rhinoceros hunting spear from the island of Armenia."
*And I shall plunge it into your heart if you do not start making sense," Sidney Grice said.
Childe Finnegan laughed. *You can try, sir, and are most welcome to do so, but I have to tell you that I have no heart and never did for I was born without one."
*Then you two have something in common," I said. *But surely that is not possible."
*Indeed it is not," Childe Finnegan agreed. *The doctors were astonished for by rights I should have been dead before I was alive, but as you can see for yourself, madam, I am not."
I opened the lid of a music box and a rusty ballerina creaked upright.
*What date did you last see Alice?" I asked.
*Why, the fifth of last month." Childe Finnegan frowned. *Careful with that genuine club of Hercules, sir. She came as usual, worked as usual and left as usual, and I was quite surprised that she did not come back as usual. I often wondered if she might have had an accident."
*Did you not try to find out?" I asked.
*No," Childe Finnegan said, *for I have never cared what happens to other people. It comes from having no heart, you see."
*Did you know William and Sarah Ashby?" I asked.
*That depends what you mean by know," Childe Finnegan said. *We would nod to each other across the street occasionally."
*Did Alice know them?"
Childe Finnegan screwed up his nose and said, *There again, it depends what you mean by know. She would go over and chatter to them and I believe that she sometimes had supper at their house."
*So they were good friends?" I asked.
*We have no time for idle chitchat," Sidney Grice broke in, peering at a pickled cobra in a jar.
*Three guineas to you, sir, for the very asp that killed Lady G.o.diva. No, madam, I could not say if they were good or not for if truth be told, I never liked her."
*Alice?"
*Mrs Ashby. Goodness" a Childe Finnegan threw out his arms so vigorously that he upset a basket of stuffed mice into a bamboo umbrella stand a *but she had a tongue. Sharp enough to shave a badger it was, always yelling and yawling at poor Mr Ashby. He held up a couple of mouldy specimens by their tails. *The actual mice that saved Rome."
*What did they argue about?" I asked.
*Money," Childe Finnegan said, so simply that I waited for more but no more came.
*Come, Miss Middleton," my guardian said. *We have suffered enough for one day."
*Have you ever had any strange Italians in the shop?" I asked, and Childe Finnegan rattled his fingernails on the countertop while he considered the question.
*No," he said at last. *And I do not think there would be any call for one."
My guardian opened the door but as I turned to close it I asked, *Do you know what has happened to Tilly, the match girl that used to sit outside their shop?"
Childe Finnegan"s face lit up. *Died," he said with a dreamy smile. *Died of being too lazy to wrap up warm. Stiff as a fish when they found her still sitting on her box in the morning."
*Oh," I said. *How awful."
*Dreadful," my guardian agreed. *Yet another expense for the parish council."
I slammed the door.
*Careful," Sidney Grice said. *You nearly caught my fingers."
I looked at the Ashbys" shop. It still had William Ashby"s name over the door.
*Pity he could tell us nothing," my guardian said.
*But surely-"
*Did you observe that he did not have a device for removing the seeds from strawberries?" he asked. *That has given me the idea for an invention."
45.
Dogs For once my guardian did not complain about our tea, though I thought it very weak. He did not even mention the tablecloth, which had obviously not been changed for a while, and he forgot to be rude to the waitress. He seemed preoccupied with flattening the sugar with the back of a teaspoon.
*Grace Dillinger." He spoke her name carefully as though it held a secret meaning which he had yet to discover. *She is our only living link between the Ashbys and Alice Hawkins."
*Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Alice worked in the shop opposite theirs," I suggested.
He dug a little hole in the sugar and asked, *Do you believe in coincidences?"
*Sometimes, yes."
*So do I." He filled the hole and smoothed it over. *But I do not think that this is one."
*Neither do I," I said and finished my tea. *Do you think Grace Dillinger might know something about Alice Hawkins?"
My guardian held his pince-nez up to the light.
*That is what I need to find out."
He produced a small white cloth from his inner breast pocket.
*I cannot imagine she would want to speak to you."
*Neither can I." He huffed on the lenses and polished them. *Will you take another cup?"
*No, thank you."