Lee Sing Tai had been murdered, then Captain Kear would probably have been happy to let the death be ruled accidental. As usual I had spoken too hastily, without thinking through the consequences, and it was my fault that Frederick Lee was now locked up in the Tombs.
“Is that so?” Mr. Chiu nodded. “So it is believed that someone struck him first and then threw him to his death?”
“You see, I knew it,” Aileen Chiu said triumphantly. “I knew there had been a death that night. What did I tell you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, we were sleeping on our roof too,” Aileen Chiu said. “And our Kitty woke up and said she thought she saw an angel. So I said to Albert—it’s come down from heaven to take somebody, you mark my words. And I was right.”
“Your Kitty saw an angel? On Mr. Lee’s rooftop?” I asked.
“She couldn’t exactly pinpoint it to Mr. Lee’s rooftop, but it was one of those buildings farther down the block. Her father thought she’d dreamed it, of course, but she was quite insistent. It was either an angel or a fairy, she said.”
“Did she say what this angel looked like?” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“A little dainty spirit thing, like a young girl with white wings, and it flew from one roof to the next.”
Twenty- seven
I ran all the way back to the El station on Chatham Square, driven by my anger. I stood, seething, on the railway platform, waiting for a train that didn’t come. Finally it dawned on me that today was a public holiday and the train schedule would be curtailed. I ran down the steps again, not willing to wait any longer, threw caution to the winds, and hailed myself a cab.
I had to get back to Patchin Place immediately. I had to confront her. I didn’t stop to think that if she had killed once before, most efficiently, she could do so again if cornered. I was so furious at having been taken in by her.
There was still the question of the big workman’s boots. Frederick was a clerk, and his sort didn’t wear hobnail boots. But then I had never actually studied his feet. He could have inherited the shoe size of his European mother. He could have worn those boots that night to throw us off the scent. I dismissed that notion right away. Who would be aware that the tar on the rooftop might become soft enough to leave imprints after a hot day?
But if Bo Kei had killed Mr. Lee, she would surely have needed an accomplice to help her carry the unconscious Lee Sing Tai to the edge of the roof. And in my cursory examination I had seen no sign in the dust and dirt up there of a body having been dragged. And what better accomplice than her beloved Frederick? I realized with utter mortification that I had probably been duped yet again.
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.”
