This boy was her only lead in discovering the timepiece and securing her job.

He couldn’t just up and leave.

“Your consideration does you credit,” she told him, “but finding work in this city isn’t as easy as all that.”

“Owen,” said Guy, returning to his chair with teapot in hand, “perhaps you’d like to tell Miss Daly what you told me.”

Owen sat a little straighter. “What I’d like is a last name. Calling me by the first is hardly proper when we aren’t familiar with each other.”

Guy took up his reading glasses, setting his eyes on the newspaper. “I’ve seen your skull,” he muttered. “I think that makes us quite familiar.”

This seemed to put Owen rather out of countenance. Hoping to console him, Catherine reached for the teapot and poured tea into his cup. “You may give yourself a last name, of course.”

“Well, I… Yes, all right, then. You may call me Smith.”

“Smith?” Guy considered him over the rims of his glasses. “Very well. Now do you wish to inform Miss Daly of what happened?”

Catherine folded her hands in her lap, trying to swallow down her own worries, which were aching to be said. Owen fidgeted with his teacup. “A nightmare,” he murmured. “I thought perhaps—perhaps it could be—”

“A memory?” The possibility jolted her. “What was it?”

His mouth twisted. “Do keep in mind it was a dream, and a horrible one at that.”

Next to her, Guy put aside his paper. His gaze was dark behind his spectacles as he fixed his attention on Owen. Catherine wondered what it was like for him—to have brought this boy into his home, to hear him crying in the night. Just as the watery daylight cleared away the strangeness of Owen Smith, so too did it grant Guy Nolan the appearance of composure, unruffled by this sudden sweep of changes.

Shoulders hunched, Owen picked at a slice of toast as he spoke. “I was out walking—I don’t know where. Someone—someone grabbed me from behind, pulled me into an alley. I felt something sharp at my neck.” He brought his fingers to rest at the hollow of his throat, as if in search of a scar, but his pale skin was smooth and unmarked. “Then I woke up.”

“And you didn’t get a look at the person?” Catherine asked.

Owen shook his head. “How can I be sure this even happened?” He stared down at the broken bits of toast on his plate, his voice turning small and choked. “Why would someone murder me?”

With a sigh, Guy took off his glasses. “Look here,” he said. “We needn’t get all worked up just yet. We haven’t got any credible proof you were murdered, dear God.”

His words may have chased away the night’s phantoms—if the scene Owen described hadn’t seemed so real. Catherine poured herself a cup of tea, adding milk, the tiny teaspoon clinking against the sides. “There is a way we might find out,” she said.