With the second, current map on display, I instantly recognized the layout of the area—the present-day map even showed the intersection where the taxi nearly ran me over. “That’s it!” I exclaimed, leaning forward. “Yes, it’s definitely the right Bear Alley, then.”

“Perfect. Let’s go back to the old map and look around a bit more.” She removed the current map from the overlay and zoomed in as much as she could onto Bear Alley, as displayed on Rocque’s map.

“So this is interesting,” she said. “See this?” She pointed at a tiny line, thin as a strand of hair, protruding off Bear Alley. The line was labeled Back Al.

I hardly noticed the unexpected cramp that had begun to tug at my lower belly. “Yes, I see it,” I said. “Why is it interesting?” But as the words rolled off my tongue, my heart began to beat faster. The door.

“It’s just such a tiny little thing,” Gaynor said. “Rocque did a very good job with street size—the main thoroughfares are drawn widest, for example—but this is about as narrow as he would have drawn on the map. Must have been an unassuming little road, maybe no more than a walkway. Makes sense, as it’s labeled Back Alley.” She overlaid the current map yet again, clicking it on and off with the mouse. “And it definitely doesn’t exist today. It’s not uncommon—thousands of streets in the city have been replaced, diverted or simply built over.” She peeked over at me, and I pulled my hand from my mouth; I’d been absentmindedly chewing my fingernail. “Something’s bugging you,” she said.

Our eyes met. For a moment, I felt the almost uncontrollable desire to lean on her and unburden everything on my heart. But as heat began to prickle behind my eyes, I shoved my hands under my legs and turned my face back to the computer. James hadn’t arrived in London yet; this time was my own, and I wouldn’t spend it sobbing over him.

Looking again at the map, I hesitated, debating whether to tell Gaynor that I saw a door in exactly the spot where, according to the map, the now-obsolete Back Alley jutted off Bear Alley. But it didn’t mean a thing, right? As the plumber told me, the door led to a storage cellar in one of the buildings. Nothing more. “I’m all right,” I said, forcing a smile and turning back to the screen. “So Bear Alley survived two centuries, but Back Alley wasn’t so lucky. It must have been built over.”