THIRTY-SIX
The toy shop truly is a wonderland of a place. From the outside, it looks like a high-end store in the modern world, where the toys are really meant for adults to display as whimsical accents or to place high on nursery shelves where grubby hands can’t actually reach them. When I step inside, though, I find actual children milling about under the watchful but kindly eye of a shop clerk.
The clerk is a woman around thirty. Dark-haired and dark-eyed and full-figured. She’s smiling at a trio of girls ogling a fully articulated wooden doll.
“You may touch her if you like,” she says. “Go on. Pick her up. See how her arms and legs move.”
I walk to the counter, and she smiles my way, but it’s an absent smile, her attention on the children, enjoying the sight of their wonder. I pause to enjoy it, too, and I feel the weight of the coins in my pocket.
I take out the coins, push them forward, and whisper “Would this be enough?” as I nod toward the girls. The woman glances at the coins and her face lights, only to shutter as she eyes me warily.
“I truly would like to,” I say. “If it is enough.”
She nods and moves from behind the counter, skirts swishing as she bends beside the girls and whispers to them. They look at me, their eyes widening. She directs their attention to three smaller dolls, not quite asfancy. The girls nod and point. They will take one small doll apiece instead of the one large one to share.
The shopkeeper wraps each doll in blank newsprint as carefully as the New Town shopkeeper wrapped that hand cream in tissue. Then she presents one to each girl. She bends before them and says, “You are to tell your parents that there was a kind woman at the toy shop who bought these for you, and if they have any questions, they may speak to me.”
The girls haven’t looked at me since first glancing my way, and now all three murmur awkward thanks before running to the door, doll packages cradled in their arms. Before they leave, one blurts back at me, “You are very pretty, miss,” and another says, “I like your dress,” while the third only giggles and waves. Then they are gone, scampering off down the street.
“That was very kind,” the shopkeeper says as she returns behind the counter to count out my change.
When she hands me back coins, I pause. “Was that enough?”
She smiles. “It was. We do not make fancy toys here. Simple and sturdy toys for those who might spare a pence or two for their bairns. Which is not many, even in this neighborhood.”
Her dialect and accent are pure Scots, and so I speak carefully when I say, “Are you one of the Kaplan family?”
She tenses, and a sliver of annoyance edges into her voice as she says, “Do I not sound as you expected?”
“No, I am only making sure, because I have a message for the Kaplan family and I did not wish to misdeliver it.”
Now her body goes rigid, gaze darting to a door, which I presume leads to a workshop. Through it comes the muffled tap-tapping of a craftsman at work.
“Not that sort of message,” I say quickly. “I found this shop on a list of addresses that I fear may indicate danger. Addresses of immigrants, written by those who may mean them harm.”
She relaxes. “Ah, all right then. Well, I thank you very much for the warning, but the police have already been informed and thwarted whatever those ruffians had in mind.”
“Oh?”
She leans against the counter. “A criminal officer came by last week to warn us that there might be trouble on a certain day. He had the patrols coming past all evening, and my husband and my father slept in the shop here. It would not be the first time we have had trouble. We have been here since before I was born, and still some do not welcome us.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“We are welcome in this neighborhood, because people know us, and they bought toys from us when they were wee bairns themselves. Yet trouble still finds its way from the outside. We have learned to guard ourselves, but this time the police did their jobs. They found young men loitering about, intent on trouble, and they gave them a fright.”
“Good.”
She smiles. “Very good. We were most pleased.”
I double-check, confirming that the date the police were concerned about is the one on Evans’s note. It is.
“I do appreciate that you brought us this information.” She waves around the shop. “Please, take something with our thanks. Anything you like.”
I shake my head. “Thank you, but I am only glad the danger was averted.”
“Are there no bairns in your life who would like a toy?” she coaxes.
“No,” I say. “No children…” I’m idly looking around the shop when my gaze falls on a wooden box.