He couldn’t just up and leave.
“Your consideration does you credit,” she told him, “but finding work in this city isn’t as easy as all that.”
“Owen,” said Guy, returning to his chair with teapot in hand, “perhaps you’d like to tell Miss Daly what you told me.”
Owen sat a little straighter. “What I’d like is a last name. Calling me by the first is hardly proper when we aren’t familiar with each other.”
Guy took up his reading glasses, setting his eyes on the newspaper. “I’ve seen your skull,” he muttered. “I think that makes us quite familiar.”
This seemed to put Owen rather out of countenance. Hoping to console him, Catherine reached for the teapot and poured tea into his cup. “You may give yourself a last name, of course.”
“Well, I… Yes, all right, then. You may call me Smith.”
“Smith?” Guy considered him over the rims of his glasses. “Very well. Now do you wish to inform Miss Daly of what happened?”
Catherine folded her hands in her lap, trying to swallow down her own worries, which were aching to be said. Owen fidgeted with his teacup. “A nightmare,” he murmured. “I thought perhaps—perhaps it could be—”
“A memory?” The possibility jolted her. “What was it?”
His mouth twisted. “Do keep in mind it was a dream, and a horrible one at that.”
Next to her, Guy put aside his paper. His gaze was dark behind his spectacles as he fixed his attention on Owen. Catherine wondered what it was like for him—to have brought this boy into his home, to hear him crying in the night. Just as the watery daylight cleared away the strangeness of Owen Smith, so too did it grant Guy Nolan the appearance of composure, unruffled by this sudden sweep of changes.
Shoulders hunched, Owen picked at a slice of toast as he spoke. “I was out walking—I don’t know where. Someone—someone grabbed me from behind, pulled me into an alley. I felt something sharp at my neck.” He brought his fingers to rest at the hollow of his throat, as if in search of a scar, but his pale skin was smooth and unmarked. “Then I woke up.”
“And you didn’t get a look at the person?” Catherine asked.
Owen shook his head. “How can I be sure this even happened?” He stared down at the broken bits of toast on his plate, his voice turning small and choked. “Why would someone murder me?”
With a sigh, Guy took off his glasses. “Look here,” he said. “We needn’t get all worked up just yet. We haven’t got any credible proof you were murdered, dear God.”
His words may have chased away the night’s phantoms—if the scene Owen described hadn’t seemed so real. Catherine poured herself a cup of tea, adding milk, the tiny teaspoon clinking against the sides. “There is a way we might find out,” she said.
Owen met her eyes, his expression despondent. “How’s that, Miss Daly?”
She offered him a small smile. “A record of your death.”
CHAPTER NINE
CATHERINE BROUGHT GUY and Owen back to the Invercarn Chronicle.
They stood across the street from the building, and this close to the river, the air was filled with the smell of dirt and rust and damp. Catherine eyed the window to Ainsworth’s office. He seldom ventured outside of it during the workday, and he rarely visited the archive, which was where the old obituaries were kept.
Beside her, Guy took off his hat. “I’m not certain about this.”
Catherine couldn’t tell whether he was talking to her or to Owen. Perhaps both of them, though Owen didn’t appear too keen on this endeavor. He’d had to borrow more of Guy’s clothes, namely a dark coat and hat, which Guy had unearthed from a linen chest, taking a needle and thread to the torn seams before they set off.
Approaching the front door, Catherine asked, “Why do you say so, Mr. Nolan?”
“Well, we’ve no name, no date of birth, nor date of death. And I’ve got to head back to the shop around noon—I’ve clients coming by to pick up repairs.” He checked his pocket watch, marking the time.
“Can’t your father handle that?” Odd that she hadn’t seen him at breakfast.
“He left earlier this morning,” replied Guy. “He’s repairing someone’s long-case clock across the city.”
“Well, I know my way around the archives. It shan’t take long,” Catherine said. “It’s worth a look, at the very least.”
Inside, she nodded to the employees who greeted her. She didn’t stop to make conversation, leading the boys up the staircase to the fourth floor. It was still, near silent, away from the clatter of print work. The archive was around the back of the building, a long stretch of space crowded with tables and cabinets, old prints and files stowed away for safekeeping. It was the newspaper’s own morgue.
The windows here were lined with soot and grime, the gray morning offering little illumination. Catherine set about lighting the lamps, the familiar task easing the knot of worry inside her.
“Is it all right that we’re in here?” asked Owen.
She turned around. He stood next to one of the tables by the door, as if too nervous to step any farther into the room. Guy, meanwhile, was already scrutinizing the cabinets, the labeled drawers with their brass knobs, scratches in the wood finish. He tried one of the drawers; the wood was swollen, stuck fast, and Guy winced at the scraping sound it made as he tugged it out. Looking back at Owen, Catherine said, “Of course. The Chronicle has kept archives since it was established, a decade or so before your passing. We get plenty of visitors wishing to look through the old records.”
Guy pushed up his glasses and flipped through the contents of the drawer. “Shall we each take a year? We can start with the papers printed twenty years ago and work forward from there.”
“That’s reasonable.” Catherine glanced over at Owen. “Mr. Smith?”
He pulled away from the table and made his way across the room. His face was ashen, his eyes shining bright as coins. A thought occurred to Catherine, and she told him, “You needn’t look yourself, if it pains you.”
“No,” he murmured. “It would take you and Mr. Nolan that much longer to go through it all. You’ve already done so much on my behalf—I truly am grateful.”
Catherine bit her lip. She was at once overwhelmed with pity, caught in the fear that there was nothing to find, whether it be Owen’s obituary or the timepiece. She set her fingertips to a cabinet drawer. She pulled it open, dust floating free.
They piled papers on a table and worked through them in a meticulous manner. By week, by month, by year. The obituaries were organized in narrow columns, and Catherine skimmed over the lines, wondering who’d set the type, who’d made the impressions. It was important work, the neatly printed pages telling of so many lives.
From the hallway came the sound of familiar footsteps. Catherine glanced up just as Spencer Carlyle opened the door, looking in at the three of them. “Catherine,” he said. “I thought I saw you come up here.”
She rose from her chair and headed over to him. He closed the door a little as he stepped inside. A nearby lamp on the wall cast light over his face, his blue eyes bright in the glow. “Why aren’t you downstairs?” he asked. And then: “Is something wrong?”