Read Seven for a Secret for Free Online Page B

only hope the boy isn’t engaged at his profession,” Mr. Piest observed, clutching at his top hat as it made a bid for freedom.
    I hoped the same. But I needn’t have worried, or at least not over that. When we crossed Seventeenth Street, a faint chiming sound met our ears over the strengthening gale.
    A tiny colored lad stood at the corner of Eighteenth Street and Third Avenue, ringing a hand bell. I put him at six years—not over, and anyhow that’s a common age for a new sweep. Charcoal coated him from head to toe. Novice sweeps often exhibit one or more limbs askew from falling down chimneys, but this kinchin appeared unscathed. So far. When we drew closer, I saw that his eyes were inflamed, red and weeping and blinking compulsively. Typical affliction, considering the incessant dust. They nevertheless searched with cutting focus for potential employment. He wore his coarse hair short but unbraided, and he’d a filthy broom at his feet.
    “Hello,” I said affably.
    Ringing the bell a bit faster, he smiled. It didn’t fool me—he was exhausted. Not to mention starving, judging by his wrists. The smile was pure sales technique, and a fine one.
    “Do you sweep the chimneys in these parts?”
    A nod, long lashes wicking the moisture from his brown and scarlet eyes.
    “Do you know what this means?” I asked, touching my copper star.
    He shrugged. But that didn’t nettle me. I was constantly informing adults that the police force existed, let alone six-year-old kinchin who live in fireplaces. Then Grace’s parting words echoed through my skull.
    “Can you speak?” I questioned.
    He shook his head and then stuck his chin up, ringing the bell beside his ear.
    “That’s all right, I know you can hear me. But you’re mute?”
    The child adopted a bored expression that demanded to know
Why the devil does it matter to you.
I exchanged a look with my fellow star police.
    “That is going to make questioning him a bit of a wrench,” Mr. Piest owned.
    Frowning, I considered tactics. Surely the child had never lived in an asylum where sign was taught. And if anyone had bothered to show him his letters, I was prepared to watch Manhattan’s numerous stray pigs take flight over the Hudson.
Tell us where the painting is. Have you stolen any paintings of late? We’ll not harm you, but we’re reasonably sure you filched a Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin.
All sounded either brutish or ridiculous. Finally, I lowered myself to my haunches.
    “Do you like art?” I asked him. “Pictures?”
    The bell stopped. Then, with a youthful happiness that would be trampled in a month’s time—if not much, much sooner—he nodded.
    “What sort?”
    Quick as thinking, he’d set the bell down. First he drew a square before me with his fingers, and then flashed a palm. Next the shape of a vase materialized out of thin air, followed by the same brief palm-forward motion. Finally he circled his arms in an expansive flail, encompassing anything and everything, showing his palm quickly one more time to signal he’d finished, and then staring at me with his head cocked.
    I glanced back at Mr. Piest.
    “Did you understand that?” I asked, feeling a bit dizzy.
    “Mr. Wilde, I believe it is safe to say that I did,” he answered, equal parts admiration and frank awe.
    “I like art too,” I told the sweep. “Paintings and vases and the like. All of it.”
    An honest thread of fellow feeling had burrowed into my tone. I’ve met plenty of queer people in my time, but never a kinchin who’d invented his own version of sign language. And a comprehensible one, no less.
    “Have you ever seen a picture being made?”
    This answer was in the negative. Wistful and longing.
    “Would you like me to show you?”
    Bell and broom scraped against the pavement as he leaped forward.
    “Mr. Piest, have you a memorandum book?”
    Within seconds, I’d paper on my knee and my pencil stub in hand. The boy came round to see what I was doing, and I