Upon turning the page, I learned that the identification of the origin of the poison was now of utmost importance, as the “dispenser” (at this, I let out another small cry) might serve to resolve the conflicting stories of Lady Clarence and her maid. The bailiff hoped that, in exchange for a reasonable amount of clemency, the dispenser would identify who actually purchased the poison that was used to kill Lord Clarence.

And yet, the utter peculiarity of it! Lord Clarence was not meant to suffer a sure and sudden death at all. Miss Berkwell was the one who was meant to drink the cantharides, and yet she escaped the entire thing unscathed—she was not so much as a suspect in her lover’s death, her name not even mentioned in the article. I had mourned the possibility of her death all along, but by God, how things had swung in her favor!

At the end was a crude image: a hand-drawn copy of the wax impression provided by the lady’s maid. If the canister itself was hardly legible, this drawing-of-a-drawing certainly wasn’t any better. That, if nothing else, gave me a moment of ease.

I tore my eyes from the page. My damp, hot fingers had smudged the ink in several places, and the flesh of my inner arms and my groin was damp. I stood in the narrow alley between the two bins of rubbish, breathing deep, sucking in the odor of decay.

As I saw it, there were two possibilities: I could return to my shop and blow out every candle, lest the authorities locate 3 Back Alley and I must rely on my final disguise—the cupboard wall—to protect me and the secrets housed within. But even if it did protect me, for how long would I subsist under the relentless grasp of my illness? Only days, I feared. And oh, how I did not want to die while trapped inside of my mother’s shop! I had spoiled it enough with my killing; need I ruin it further with the decay of my body?

The second possibility, of course, was that the cupboard wall might not protect me. As safe as I’d felt behind it in years past, my shop’s address had never been exposed in such a blatant way. The disguise was not infallible; the authorities might arrive with hounds at their heels, and the dogs would surely smell my scent of fear through the wall. If the authorities broke their way through and arrested me, what legacy was left to preserve from prison? The lingering trace of my mother was delicate enough; memories of her came easily as I moved about my shop, but these precious recollections would not follow me to Newgate.