Gaynor grinned. “Our dates were all wrong. If the hospital note was indeed a deathbed confession, the author was probably referencing something that had happened earlier in her life. So, I searched the manuscripts and expanded my search to the late 1700s. I also added the keyword poison, which seemed logical for an apothecary who helped kill people. The search returned this article, and of course I spotted the image of the bear immediately.”

Gaynor lifted the earlier bulletin, dated February 10, 1791. The headline read “Bailiff Searching for Lord Clarence’s Murderer.”

Since Gaynor had already read it, she went to the counter to order a latte while I picked up the article and skimmed it quickly. By the time she returned, I’d moved to the edge of my seat, mouth agape. “This is scandalous!” I told her. “Lord Clarence, Lady Clarence, a maid serving the dessert liqueur at a dinner party... Are you sure this is real?”

“More than sure,” Gaynor said. “I checked the parish records on Lord Clarence. Sure enough, his date of death is recorded as February 9, 1791.”

I pointed to the image in the article again. “So the maid made a wax impression of the bear on the jar, and...” I ran my fingers over the printed image. “And it’s the same as the bear on my vial.”

“One and the same,” Gaynor confirmed. “It makes sense, the more I think about it. If the apothecary really did dispense poisons to multiple women, maybe the bear was her logo, her mark that she put on all her vials. In which case, your finding one in the river is still incredible, but not as coincidental as we originally thought.”

Gaynor lifted the article and reread a portion of it. “And here’s where things get a bit unfortunate for our dear apothecary. The wax impression didn’t just have the image of the bear. It had a few letters, too.” She pointed to the section indicating that the police were looking to decipher the letters B ley.

“Police suspected this was part of an address. Obviously, we know from the hospital note that this meant Bear Alley. But at the time of this printing, police didn’t know it.” Gaynor lifted the lid from her cup to let her latte cool, and I held my breath, envisioning the door I’d gone through last night. I suspected B ley didn’t mean Bear Alley at all. It probably meant Back Alley, the walkway leading to the apothecary’s concealed room.