“Ah, Boston it is.” She nodded to herself. “The cold?”

“Only when a smog notice is in effect.” Burgeson pointed at the fire.

“Damned smokeless fuel ration’s been cut again. You can only burn so much during a smog, or you run out and then it’s just too bad. Especially if the pipes burst. But when old father smog rolls down the Back Bay, you’d rather not have been born, lest pipes of a different kind should go pop.” He coughed for effect and patted his chest. “You speak the King’s English remarkably well for someone who doesn’t know a blessed thing. Where are you from, really?”

She put the book down on the heap on the sofa. “As far as I can tell, about ten miles and two hundred years away,” she said, feeling slightly light-headed at the idea of telling him even this much.

“Not France? Are you sure you don’t work for the dauphin’s department?” He cocked his head on one side, parrotlike.

“Not France. Where I come from they chopped his head off a long time ago.” She watched him carefully.

“Chopped his head off? Fascinating—” He rose on one knee, and held out a cup to her.

“Thank you.” She accepted it.

“If this is madness, it’s a most extraordinary delusion,” he said, nodding. “Would you be so good as to tell me more?”

“In due course. I have a couple of questions for you, however.” She took a decorous sip of the tea. “Specifically, taking on trust the question of your belief in my story, you might want to contemplate some of the obstacles a traveler from, um, another world, might face in creating an identity for themselves in this one. And especially in the process of buying a house and starting a business, when one is an unaccompanied female in a strange country. I don’t know much about the legal status of women here other than that it differs quite significantly from where I come from. I think I’m probably going to need a lawyer, and possibly a proxy. Which is why I thought of you.”

“I see.” Burgeson was almost going cross-eyed in his attempts to avoid interrupting her. “Pray tell, why me?”

“Because an officer of the law recommended you.” She grinned. “I figure a fence who is also an informer is probably a safer bet than someone who’s so incompetent that he hasn’t reached a working accommodation with the cops.” There were other reasons too, reasons connected with Miriam’s parents and upbringing, but she wasn’t about to give him that kind of insight into her background. Trust went only so far, after all.

“A fence—” He snorted. “I’m not dishonest or unethical, ma’am.”

“You just sell books that the Lord Provost’s Court wants burned,” she said, with an amused tone. “And the police recommend you. Do I need to draw a diagram?”