breakfast. I was anxious to talk with Uncle Mick about last night. I hoped he had been more successful than the major and I were.
He was seated at the big table in the dining room with his cup of tea, the morning paper spread out before him. He looked up when I entered.
“Ellie girl,” he said, smiling brightly. “How are you this fine morning?”
“I’m all right,” I said vaguely, moving to the seat beside him. We hadn’t yet confessed any of our doings to Nacy, though it was entirely possible she already had some inkling of what we were up to. Despite her frequent protestations that we needn’t tell her anything we didn’t want to, Nacy always found things out; I hadn’t been able to hide anything from her yet.
She came into the room just then, bearing a plate with sausage, eggs, toast, and tomatoes from our garden.
“Good morning, Nacy,” I said.
She set the plate down with a decided thump on the table in front of me. I looked up and saw her grim expression.
“Slept well, did you?” she asked.
“Yes, I slept fine,” I said, confused by her manner.
She continued to look at me hard, but her brows moved upward ever so slightly.
And then I realized. She had seen Felix leaving my flat.
Blast. It was just as I had said. There was no keeping secrets from Nacy.
I glanced at Uncle Mick. Though it had all been perfectly innocent—and, really, why should I have to explain myself at all?—it was not a conversation I wished to have at the breakfast table.
Nacy seemed to be of the same mind, for she turned and went wordlessly back to the kitchen. Uncle Mick, who was absorbed in his paper, didn’t appear to have noticed the silent exchange.
I took a bite of eggs.
“I’ve got a job this morning, Ellie girl,” Uncle Mick said.
I looked up.
“A legitimate one.” He winked. “Would you like to come along?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like it very much.” Especially since it would allow me to question him about his excursion to the auction house last night and also avoid Nacy for the time being.
I ate quickly, and we left the house and began our walk toward the station. It was a fine morning, the sun shining cheerily through a cool breeze. It felt good to be walking among the familiar streets, all the houses and shops as well known as the back of my hand.
In some ways, things were the same as they had been since I was a child, but it was impossible not to notice the changes the war had brought. It wasn’t only the sandbags, blackout curtains, and boarded-up windows. There was more of a sense of subdued purpose, evident in things like the kitchen gardens that now took up all the available space on people’s lawns. And there were fewer children, too, playing carelessly in the streets.
There had been quite a few in our neighborhood before this, and I found I missed the sounds of their laughing and shouting to one another as they played their games. There were still children to be seen, but there was something a bit restrained about them. The younger ones sensed that something was different, and many of the older ones had stepped up to do the jobs left behind by their fathers who had gone off to war. I hoped it wouldn’t be long before they were all able to be children again, but some part of me knew it wasn’t likely things would ever return to the way they had been.
“How did things go last night?” Uncle Mick asked as we walked along a quiet street.
“All right,” I said. “Though we didn’t find the documents.”
I told him all about our adventure, though I left out the part about Major Ramsey’s kissing me. It just wasn’t the sort of thing you mentioned to your uncle.
“Then it seems this Winthrop fellow may be our man,” he said.
“Possibly,” I agreed. “But what about you? Were you successful last night?”
I was eager to hear how he’d made out in his reconnaissance at the auction house.
He shook his head. “Not to speak of. We got in all right, did a thorough going-over of the place. But there was nothing to be found.”
“No documents hidden behind canvases or stuffed into pottery?” I asked, only half joking.
He smiled. “Not that we could find. And the major’s man is as thorough as I am. No, I’m afraid if that chap’s got secrets, he’s keeping them elsewhere.”
Then it