taken a court order to stop them from harassing Idalie.
She rose to refill her tea and stopped at the window, looking out at the flickering electrical lights strung haphazardly across the back streets. It began to snow, light flakes floating down past those lights and sticking to the cold ground, and soon, to the fences and roofs.
She didn't feel anyone watching her. No one followed her home. But it was freezing cold. Was she wrong? She looked into her tea cup and wished for a moment she could read tea leaves like her Aunt Agnes. Was it possible? Yes, it was possible. That would be embarrassing. What if he wasn't having her followed?
At ten minutes to eleven, Ed's secretary let him know Mr. Dunbarton had arrived for their meeting. Ed dropped what he was doing and had Gordon let the man in. He still needed the doll. In a moment of sheer stupidity one night, he had helped Penny write a letter to Santa Claus. She had asked for her mama doll. Nothing more, just the doll.
From the way the man walked in Ed could tell he'd been successful. Good news in the middle of a bad week. They'd had trouble at the site again. A fire at midnight on Wednesday, but it had been out off quickly, and some crates were broken into again and one of the wagons delivering shipments from the freight station had been vandalized.
He shook hands and said, "Have a seat, Dunbarton. From your expression I assume you have good news for me. Where's the doll?"
"I do have good news." He held up a hand. "But I don't have the doll. I did contact every toy store and retailer where the dolls were distributed, even as far west as Chicago and the stores are completely sold out. The distributor, who did give me the list of stores carrying the dolls, J Morris and Sons, claim they will have no more of the dolls until next fall."
"Then I don't understand. I need the doll for Christmas."
"I have located the dollmaker, sir. As luck would have it, she lives here the city, and it was not easy to find her. The distributor was very protective of her personal information. They wouldn't tell me anything. None of the stores know the maker behind the dolls. It seems it's a bit of a popular mystery, a legend now, as if the dolls actually come from the North Pole. But I'm more realistic than that." He leaned forward and placed a list and papers of who he had contacted on Ed's desk.
"There are four dolls made by this dollmaker, a company named Hummingbird." Dunbarton told him. "The Josephine doll you want is the newest and most popular. She was only first for sale last year. Another is called Liza, just as popular, apparently, and there are two baby dolls, Marta and Annabelle. All are sold out. I was able to get my hands on one of the others, only because a friend's daughter had one of the baby dolls. The stamp on the head show a manufacturer in Germany. I contacted them by telegram, too, but have received no word back.
"Then I got lucky. I was at the distributor again, hoping to get something out of one of the employees, when the dollmaker came in. I heard her talking because she brought in some doll clothing in to be sold for the holidays, custom made for those four dolls."
He handed Ed a card with an address written down. "Here is where she lives, sir. I thought you might have better luck contacting her than I would."
Ed read the address and rose. "This is good. See Gordon. He'll give you the rest of your money. And thank you." Ed shook his hand, grabbed his coat and hat and promptly left.
The snow in the streets was building. It had been snowing off and on for the past day and half. Ed hopped in his carriage and they headed for the address:
78 Barrow Street
The address stopped him for a moment, trying to remember where he'd heard of it before. Barrow Street. What was it?
The carriage pulled up and Ed hopped out. He remembered the instant he saw the two newer apartment buildings flanking the small, crooked little house dwarfed by its tall brick surroundings. A few years back the battle had been all over the newspapers. One little old lady was the holdout against expansion on this street. He had remembered the woman