unkind observations about Jews in general and me in particular until he quite wore himself out. Finally he assumed a more reasonable posture. “I shall speak to men I know who are not without some small influence. Perhaps I can do something to keep you from being summoned at this trial. In the meantime, you must give me your word that should you be summoned, you will not speak my name or in any way connect me to your shooting that man.”
“Sir Owen,” I said in a calm, quiet voice, “we must do what we can to see that it does not come to that, but I cannot make that promise. I shall hold my tongue as long as I can safely do so. I do not know that your name will never be asked of me. The court may not consider it of importance on whose behalf I sought out Kate. But if forced to speak in whose name I acted that night, I shall not be able to refuse. Is there no way to inform your wife-to-be, Miss Decker, of some small notion of your past—just enough to steel her against any unpleasant rumors she may encounter?”
I chose the wrong thing to say. Sir Owen’s fist clenched and his jaw tightened. He stared at me in disbelief for what seemed like ages. “What would you know of a refined lady’s sensibilities?” he sputtered. “You know nothing more than whores and gutter rubbish.”
Perhaps I should have been more sensitive to a man in his position, but I could not find it in my heart to feel sympathy with Sir Owen’s accusatory tone. I had done all I could do and more in his service. His expectation that I swing at Tyburn to show my loyalty was hardly just, and his accusations about the women in my life inappropriate, to say the least. “Is there not,” I asked calmly, “something in your gospels about only the sinless casting stones, Sir Owen?”
He stared full at me. “We have nothing more to discuss,” he said, and hastily departed.
· · ·
SIR OWEN’S PANIC left me confused, but not entirely dejected. He was, after all, on the verge of a public embarrassment—one that could jeopardize his upcoming marriage—and I felt that he was right in suggesting that I was in no small part to blame. I was more concerned with how this unfortunate chain of activity had been set into motion and what I could do to set it right. I thought it logical that Jonathan Wild had been the man to bring me into Kate Cole’s business, but again the question remained why. Sir Owen had suggested that it might be the Company itself that had tossed me, and the baronet along with me, into harm’s way, and that was a possibility I could not ignore.
I believed there was but one person who could explain these matters to my satisfaction, and so once again I made my way to Newgate prison to speak to Kate Cole.
After I passed through the terrible Newgate portal, and in exchange for a few coins, the warder led me to the Press Yard, where Kate’s room lay. The turnkey there explained to me that Kate had asked to take no visitors, but that was a request a few shillings soon dispensed with.
The room itself was surprisingly pleasant—it had a reasonably comfortable-looking bed, a few sitting chairs, a table, a writing desk, and a wardrobe. A small window allowed for a modicum of light to trickle in, but not enough to render the room sufficiently bright—even in full daylight—and a superfluity of cheap tallow candles cast streaks of black soot against the wall. Scattered about the room were empty flagons and tankards, pieces of half-eaten joints of meat, and stale crusts of white bread. Kate had been living well off her remittance.
If, however, she had been making the purchases of a gentlewoman, she knew not how to live as one. She wore new clothes—no doubt procured from the money I left her—but they were horribly soiled with food and drink, wrinkled as though she had slept in them, and smelled distractingly filthy. The lice she had acquired during her nightmarish hours on the Common Side of the prison had stayed with her, and they fairly crawled about her skin like anxious pedestrians on a busy street.
Kate showed no small amount of displeasure at seeing me in her doorway. She greeted me with a scowl of broken teeth and promptly