I gathered my tendrils of strength and made my way to Fleet Street. I kept my head down, fearing as always that someone might look into my eyes and discern the secrets I kept within, every murder as clear as the crystal glass from which Lord Clarence drank to his death. But no one paid me any mind. Along the avenue, a hawker woman offered lemon confections, and an artist sketched lighthearted caricatures. The sun began to peek out of a cloud, its heat wrapping around my tired, sore neck, and around me floated the safe, relaxed din of conversation. No one seemed interested in me; no one even noticed me. I could not help, therefore, but think it a good day, or at least better than yesterday.

As I passed a newspaper stand, I found myself tangled up with a small boy and his mother. She had just bought a newspaper and now attempted to wrestle him back into his coat as he ran in circles around her, making a game of it. Since my head was down, I could not properly see, much less avoid, the chaos, and I found myself stepping straight into the little boy’s path.

“Oh!” I exclaimed. My market bag flew forward and gave the boy a good knock in the head. Behind him, his mother lifted her newspaper and gave him a firm smack on the bottom.

Under attack from two women, including one stranger, the young boy relented. “Fine, Mama,” he said, and stuck his arms out like a featherless bird, waiting for his coat. The mother, victorious, handed the newspaper to the person nearest her—which happened to be me.

Yesterday’s evening newspaper, headlined The Thursday Bulletin, fell open in my hands. It was thin, unlike the stacks of The Chronicle or The Post, and I glanced down at it with disinterest, expecting to return it to the woman as soon as she had a free hand. But an insert, a hastily printed advertisement, had been stuffed within, and my eye caught several words toward the bottom.

Like black, inky beasts, the words read “Bailiff Searching For Lord Clarence’s Murderer.”

I froze, rereading the words and covering my mouth lest I retch onto the clean pages. My nervous state must be playing tricks on me. Lady Clarence had returned the jar and all was perfectly well—certainly no one was suspected of murder. Why, I must have misread the text. I forced myself to pull my eyes off the page and look at something new—the purple, ribbon-adorned hat sitting atop the lady across the street, or the blinding glimmer of sunshine on the mullioned window of the milliner’s shop behind her—and then I returned my gaze to the page.

The words had not changed.