A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry

strange, very different, and several people stared at him nervously as they passed, increasing their pace a little.
    “Good afternoon, Mr. Cob,” Balthasar said gravely. “I must speak to you about a very terrible matter. I require absolute honesty in your answers, or the outcome may be even worse. Do you understand me?”
    Cob looked taken aback. “I dunno yer, sir, an’ I dunno nothin’ terrible. I don’t think as I can ’elp yer.” He glanced at Gracie, then away again.
    “I don’t know whether you will, Mr. Cob. You may have black reasons of your own for keepingsuch secrets,” Balthasar answered him. “But I believe that you can.”
    “I don’t ’ave no—” Cob began.
    Balthasar held up his hand, commanding silence. “It concerns the murder of a man you know as Alf, and the abduction of Minnie Maude Mudway.”
    Cob paled.
    Balthasar nodded. “I see you understand me perfectly. When Alf left you, on the day he died, which way did he go?”
    Cob pointed south.
    “Indeed. And it was two streets farther than that where someone caught up with him and did him to death. Somewhere in that distance Alf gave the casket to somebody. Who lives or works along those streets, Mr. Cob, that Alf would know? A pawnshop, perhaps? A public house? An old friend? To whom would such a man give a golden casket?”
    Cob looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I dunno!” he protested. “’e di’n’t tell me!”
    “How long after Alf spoke to you did this gaunt gentleman come by?”
    Cob moved his weight from one foot to the other. “Jus’…jus’ a few moments.”
    “Was he on foot?”
    “Course ’e were,” Cob said derisively. “Yer don’t go ’untin’ after someone in a carriage!”
    “Hunting,” Balthasar tasted the word. “Of course you don’t. You don’t want witnesses if you catch him, now, do you?”
    Cob realized that he had fallen into a trap. “I di’n’t know ’e were gonna kill ’im!” he said indignantly, but his face was pink and his eyes too fixed in their stare.
    Gracie knew he was lying. She had seen exactly that look on Spike’s face when he had pinched food from the cupboard.
    “Yer mean yer thought as the toff, all angry an’ swearin’, were one of ’is friends?” she said witheringly. “Knows a lot o’ rag an’ bone men, does ’e?”
    “Listen, missy …,” Cob began angrily.
    Balthasar stepped forward, half-shielding Gracie. He looked surprisingly menacing, and Cob shrank back.
    “I think you would be a great deal wiser to give an honest answer,” Balthasar said in a careful, warning voice. “How long after Alf was here did the toff come and ask you about him?”
    Cob drew in breath to protest again, then surrendered. “’Bout five minutes, I reckon, give or take. Wot diff’rence does it make now?”
    “Thank you,” Balthasar replied, and taking Gracie by the arm, he started off along the street again.
    “Wot diff’rence does it make?” Gracie repeated Cob’s question.
    “Five minutes is quite a long time,” he replied. “I do not think he would have run. That would draw too much attention to himself. People would remember him. But a man walking briskly can still cover quite a distance in that time. Alf would be going slowly, because he would be keeping an eye out for anything to pick up.”
    “Then why di’n’t ’e catch up wif Alf sooner?” Gracie asked.
    “I think because Alf stopped somewhere,” Balthasar answered. “Somewhere where he left the casket, which is why he didn’t have it when the toff killed him. And that, of course, is why the toff also took Charlie and the cart, to search it more carefully in private. He could hardly do it in the middle of the street, and with poor Alf’s dead body beside him.” He stopped speaking suddenly, and seemed to lapse into deep thought, although he did not slacken his pace.
    Gracie waited, running a step or two every now and then to keep up.
    “Gracie!” he said suddenly. “If you were to kill a