A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem (A Lady's Guide #1)(11)
“You’ve said your piece. Now will you please get me a hansom cab so that I may return home?” Her full mouth was tight, as if she was trying to stop herself from saying more.
Eversham swept into a mocking bow. “Gladly.”
*
As it happened, Kate spotted Caro beneath the glow of a nearby gas streetlamp a couple of streets away from where Eversham had seen her off.
It was only the work of a moment to get the driver to stop so that they could pick up her friend, and soon they were on their way toward Belgrave Square.
“I was so afraid I’d lost you forever,” Caro said dramatically as she hugged Kate tightly to her. “What a debacle that was. Who knew that a simple announcement about a police investigation would turn into such a nightmare?”
“The Commandments Killer has been the most talked about subject among Londoners for nearly half a year,” Kate said wryly. “I suppose we were foolish to misjudge the degree of interest there would be.”
She was careful to maintain a bright tone, but inside she couldn’t help thinking about what Eversham had said about John Clark, the suspect in custody for the killings. If the detective had been telling the truth, her column hadn’t, in fact, helped capture a murderer. Instead it had only made it possible for the police to arrest a possibly innocent man.
It was a travesty of justice. And one thing she’d hoped to achieve with the column—along with helping women protect themselves from harm—had been to assist in bringing criminals to justice.
Now she wondered if her column had done more harm than good.
“Was it too terrible getting to somewhere you’d be able to find a cab?” Caro asked sympathetically. She must have assumed her friend was merely tired from her ordeal, for which Kate was grateful.
“It took far too long,” Kate said truthfully. “And my poor feet are aching like mad.”
“Mine too.” Caro reached down to rub her toes through her kid boots. “I wish I could remove these entirely, but even I’m not brave enough to risk my stockings on the floor of a public conveyance. Who knows what sort of muck is down there?”
For the first time in hours, Kate laughed. “I wouldn’t try it.”
“So, what shall the next column be about?” Caro asked, switching subjects in that quicksilver way of hers. “Now that our first has managed to help apprehend a killer, I’m not sure how we can possibly make the second any more successful.”
At the mention of the column, Kate bit back a wince. “Maybe we should wait a bit before we write another one.”
Caro frowned. “Is there something wrong? I thought you were merely tired, but now you seem as if you don’t wish to write with me after all. Which is perfectly fine. You only need to tell me and I’ll—”
“No!” For a second, Kate considered sparing her friend the knowledge that their interview had been used to imprison an innocent man. But that would be fair to neither of them. “It’s not you, I promise.”
Never one to shy away from a difficult subject, Caro pressed her. “Then what is it? Did something happen in the crowd?”
Quickly, Kate told her what Eversham had said about the suspect the police had arrested.
Caro’s eyes widened and she paled. “And you believe him? It wasn’t sour grapes because he’d been taken off the case?”
“What reason would he have to lie?” Kate asked. “He was angry with us, of course. But I have no reason to doubt he was telling the truth. John Clark bears little resemblance to Lizzie’s description.”
They were both silent for a moment, the air in the enclosed carriage thick with regret.
“It never occurred to me,” Caro said finally, “that our column could be used by the authorities to bolster their own incompetent police work. We were supposed to be illuminating the truth. Not helping to cover it up.”
“Nor I,” Kate agreed. “Since I took over the newspaper, I’ve made it my mission for our writers to adhere to the truth. Sensationalist rags in Fleet Street might traffic in exaggeration and outright lies, but The Gazette does not. But I never thought that the truth might be manipulated in such a way. Which I now realize was naive of me.”
“Naive of both of us,” Caro said firmly. “Our intentions were good, but to quote Samuel Johnson, ‘hell is paved with good intentions.’”
“When we first conceived of this column, we aspired to help women protect themselves from just the sort of crimes committed by the Commandments Killer.” Kate shook her head. “But we lost sight of our goals because we were—or at least I was—too caught up in the thought of catching the killer and, honestly, the accolades that might bring.”
“I was just as enthralled by the notion as you were,” Caro argued, “especially given how many missteps the police have made.”
“And this doesn’t mean that I intend to let the Yard get away with their deceptions,” Kate assured her. “The Gazette has a very talented reporter who covers corruption and the like. I’ll pass along what I learned from Detective Inspector Eversham to him. In the meantime, I think we should put off continuing with the column until we’ve come to a better understanding of just who it is we intend to help and how we can best do that while remaining true to ourselves.”