No, that wasn’t quite true. I had made poor judgments. I had assumed that she and Frederick were innocent because they seemed like nice, wholesome young people. And yet Daniel had reminded me more than once that murderers don’t look like villains. I came to the conclusion that my anger was directed at myself as much as at Bo Kei.
As the cab came to a halt at the entrance to Patchin Place I felt a sudden spasm of fear. In my mind as I had traveled northward, Bo Kei had become a dangerous monster, not just a frightened and desperate girl. What if she had killed my friends—stolen their jewels and run off? I overpaid the cabby in my haste and teetered in my impractical lady’s shoes over the cobbles to their front door. Why, oh, why did they not make sensible shoes for women? I’d willingly have worn hobnail boots. I knocked on the front door, waited for what seemed an age, then let out a huge sigh of relief as Sid answered it.
“Thank heavens,” I muttered. “Where is Bo Kei?”
Sid looked surprised.
“What’s the matter? You look as white as a sheet. She’s sleeping, I believe. Gus felt an urge to paint today, so I moved the Chinese girl into your room, as she said she was sleepy.”
The horrible vision in my head transformed into a picture of Gus sitting engrossed in her painting while Bo Kei came up behind her, a heavy object in her hand. I left Sid staring at me and positively ran up the stairs. My bedroom door was closed. I flung it open and a sleepy Bo Kei opened her eyes and looked up at me.
“Missie Molly. You come back. What news?” she asked, sitting up anxiously.
“How could you?” I burst out, my intention to tread carefully with a dangerous killer having been forgotten in the heat of the moment. “You lied to me. You let me help you and spirit you to safety. Do you realize I can find myself in terrible trouble for harboring a criminal? This could put my upcoming marriage in jeopardy.”
“What do you mean?” She stared at me worriedly. “What criminal do you speak of?”
“Don’t you play innocent with me, miss. You begged me to save poor Frederick because you knew he was innocent. Of course you knew it. All the time it was you!”
She looked as if she was about to cry. “What was me? What have I done?”
“Killed the person who stood between you and happiness. You were seen, Bo Kei. Someone saw you leaping from one rooftop to the next.”
“Yes, I did this. On the night that I escaped, more than one week ago.”
“No, on the night that Lee Sing Tai was hurled down to his death.”
“That is not possible.” She looked shocked. “How could I be there? You yourself took me to the house of safety.”
“I am told it would be comparatively easy to come and go unnoticed from that house. Maybe you climbed down the drainpipe again. Maybe you got out of your window and crossed the roof to make your escape. You seem rather good at doing that kind of thing.”
She was still staring at me in horror. “But I did not kill Lee Sing Tai. I swear this. I also swear that I did not go to his rooftop that night. That man frightens me. I would do anything in my power to stay away from him. Why would I risk going back to a man who would make me his slave?”
“So that you could be free forever, of course. So that you could be with Frederick. While Lee Sing Tai was alive you would never be free, would you?”
“I admit it. I am glad that he is dead,” she said in a small voice. “But I swear to you, on all the holy saints of your church, that I was not the one who pushed him from the roof. I was not the one who killed him.”
I stared at her, wishing I could read her mind. There was something about the way she phrased that last sentence that made me wonder if she knew who did the actual killing if she didn’t do it herself. “You know what I think?” I said. “That you and Frederick planned this between you. You might not have been strong enough to throw Lee off the roof, but Frederick was.”
“No, this is not true. Frederick is innocent. He is a good, upright man. He would never do a terrible thing like this, never.” She was sobbing now. “Please, Missie Molly. Please believe me.”
“I want to believe you, Bo Kei. I wanted to help both of you, but if someone tells me they saw a small, slight figure jumping from roof to roof, the very night that Lee Sing Tai was killed, what am I to believe?”
She went to say something, hesitated, then said, “Maybe what they saw was laundry, flapping in the wind. Plenty laundry on rooftops. Maybe it was someone moving across another roof on their way to bed. Plenty people sleep on roof when weather is hot.”
“It doesn’t matter. If you and Frederick did this between you, then the truth will soon come out,” I said. “He is being held in the Tombs. That is a terrible place. I’ve been there. If he has something to confess, trust me, he will confess it.”