Nothing happened. Miriam waited on the doorstep, her toes freezing and feeling increasingly damp, and cursed her stupidity. She put her hand on the knob and yanked again, and this time heard a distant tinkling reward. Then the door scraped inward on a bare-walled corridor. “Yes?”

“Mr. Burgeson?” she smiled hopefully at him. “I’m back.”

“Oh.” He was dressed as he had been in the shop, except for a pair of outrageous purple slippers worn over bare feet. “You again.” A faint quirk tugged at the side of his upper lip. “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to open the shop.”

“If it’s convenient.”

He sniffed. “It isn’t. And this is rather irregular—although something tells me you don’t put much stock by regularity. Still, if you’d care to grace my humble abode with your presence and wait while I find my galoshes—”

“Certainly.”

She followed him up a tightly spiraling stone-flagged staircase that opened out onto a landing with four stout-looking doors. One of them stood open, and he went inside without waiting for her. Miriam began to follow, then paused on the threshold.

“Come on, come on,” he said irritably. “Don’t leave the door open, you’ll let the cold in. Then I’ll have to fetch more coal from the cellar. What’s keeping you?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, stepping forward and shutting the door behind her. The hall had probably once been wide enough for two people to stand abreast in, and it was at least ten feet high, but now it felt like a canyon. It was walled from floor to ceiling with bookcases, all crammed to bursting. Burgeson had disappeared into a kitchen—at least Miriam supposed it was a kitchen—in which a kettle was boiling atop a cast-iron stove that looked like something that belonged in a museum. The lights flickered as the door closed, and Miriam abruptly realized that they weren’t electric. “I see you’ve got more books up here than you have down in the shop.”

“That’s work, this is pleasure,” he said. “What did you come to disturb my Sunday worship for, this time?”

“Sunday worship? I don’t see much sign of that around here,” Miriam let slip. She backed up hastily. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble?”

“Trouble, no, no trouble, not unless you count having the King Street thief-taker himself asking pointed questions about my visitor of the other morning.” His back was turned to her, so Miriam couldn’t see his expression, but she tightened her grip on her bag, as she suddenly found herself wishing that the pockets of her coat were deep enough to conceal her pistol.

“That wasn’t my doing,” she said evenly.