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last July. Fires are about as popular as smallpox, and households are required by law to have their chimneys swept monthly, enforced by the superintendent of sweeps. The actual sweeping is performed by a class of emaciated kinchins who appear to remain forever childlike. That’s because they find better work by the ripe age of twelve, when they’ve grown too big for such narrow spaces—or they’re already dead. Sweeps are invisible. About as conspicuous as gnats. And the sweeps, God help them, are all colored boys. If a white sweep exists on this island, I haven’t glimpsed him.
    “Households either clean their chimneys midmonth or near the first, so as not to forget,” I explained, watching comprehension dawn upon the faces of Piest and Turley. “If the flue in the music room was being serviced, and Grace stepped away—maybe to have a word with Jeb—she’d not have thought anything of it. Why should she? And then, if she discovered that the painting was gone . . . I needn’t tell you what that might have looked like to some. A black maid, a black sweep, an artwork stolen when she’d left the room.”
    “The accusation of conspiracy would have loomed over her the instant she gave the alarm,” Mr. Piest hissed.
    “I found soot on the wall where the painting had been. I’d thought it merely dirty, but that was absurd. The sweep touched the paper with his knuckles when he took the art down, and the painting was small enough to hide in his shirt or his kit,” I concluded.
    Turley rubbed at his cheeks with one hand. He hadn’t any gloves on, and his fingers and face were flushed with cold.
    “Call for Grace. If I’m right, there’s still a chance we can end this nonsense.”
    Turley considered my request. Likely not trusting me, and likely afraid for his staff. I admired him for it. Then he disappeared within the house. We waited, I staring at the paving stones in breathless anticipation and Mr. Piest grinning toward the side of my head.
    “Have you considered delivering lectures on the application of common sense in police work, intermixed with divine inspiration?” he teased me.
    “Spare me, please,” I muttered, stamping my feet against the cold as a slow smile twisted my features.
    Minutes passed. When Turley and Grace did appear, my heart curled in on itself at the sight of her. Turley led her gently enough by the arm into the yard, but her entire body trembled like a bell freshly chimed.
    It was the first occasion, as a copper star, I’d terrified someone. Simply due to the metal pinned to my lapel. It was a repellent feeling. As if I’d awakened another species, something with serrated teeth and long, gleeful claws. I wanted to scrape its hide off of me with a tanning knife, return to a short-statured fellow with a fresh-poured drink in his extended hand.
    Doubtless Grace’s discomfort was far worse. But just then, I could scarce stomach my own.
    “I wanted to shield the child,” Grace gasped. “I never meant any harm, on a Bible I didn’t.”
    “We aren’t arresting you,” I protested in dismay.
    “I’ll never find work again without a character, you can’t—”
    “Quieter, Grace, and no one need know about it,” I pleaded.
    “Just tell him what happened, Grace,” Turley requested. “He’s not the sort to rake an honest girl over the coals.”
    It took a bit more cajoling. But if there’s one thing I can do effectively, it’s look like a dimber place to deposit a story. Where stories are concerned, I am a man-shaped safety deposit box.
    The household’s usual chimney sweep had been coughing wretchedly for months; and Grace, not having the heart to let him starve just yet, had convinced Turley to keep him employed. But the lad had at last disappeared—into a colored hospital ward, or a charity society, or the ground. So Grace, whose job it was to interact with other blacks, had found a new sweep.
    “He was crying on the street corner with a bell,” Grace told us,