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the Middlesex murderer?”
    Marietta moved to touch him and noticed Noble shift his position. “Kenny, you are in real trouble. Haven’t you noticed?”
    He chewed his lip. “I thought they were keeping me away from the others. The guards mostly avoid me. Do they really believe that of me? Does—” his voice lowered. “Does anyone else know?”
    Marietta swallowed. “Yes.”
    “No,” he whispered. He obviously read all that she wasn’t saying in her one word reply.
    Marietta examined her sturdy slippers. “You needto help us, Kenny. It’s the only way we can get you released.”
    “Have you sent for a barrister?”
    Her lips compressed. “Yes, but one is of little use in these types of cases.”
    She had read the laws as she’d promised herself. Noble had been right, damn it.
    “But then, what—what is going to—”
    “You can answer our questions, for a start.” Noble’s tone was cold, but he didn’t look as completely unapproachable as he had the first night she’d met him. “What were you doing around the White Stag when you were arrested?”
    Kenny sent her a questioning glance, his face a mirror of the sharp planes and dark circled brown eyes she had sported before eating Mrs. Rosaire’s hearty stews. Though unlike her, his wide eyes made him look comically innocent. Marietta had a vague stirring of hope that a jury would see him that way too. She nodded encouragingly in response.
    He ran a hand through his dirty hair and it stood on end. “Mark and Marietta were fighting again. Just had to get out of there.”
    Marietta bit her lip, the flare of hope quickly firing into guilt.
    “I walked for a while. Passed a number of taverns—there wasn’t much action in any of them and they lacked friendly faces. Headed east. I had a few pence on me.” He looked sheepishly at Marietta. Mark had distributed their “pin” money with the new clothing items they couldn’t afford—part of the reason for the fight in the first place.
    “There was a raucous tavern. I could see it from a block away. Looked perfect. So I headed for it. Wasn’t three strides to enter when I heard a noise. Like the tap of metal against stone. Someone screamed, ‘You!’ There was this weird sound. Like the screech of a cat.”
    His eyes pinched together. “I walked around and toward the sound. A woman was lying there. Then everything went black. I woke up in a puddle of blood with a knot the size of a grapefruit on my skull.”
    “You didn’t see anyone with the woman?”
    “No. Must have knocked me out. Hurt like the devil when I woke. I couldn’t stop moaning. Then I saw the body.” He shivered. “Lying there, right next to me.”
    He paused, his eyes widening. “Dear God.” He looked as if someone had just struck him again. “The Middlesex murderer.”
    “How long do you think you were out?”
    “Don’t know.” He scratched his head, flattening a section and making another stand further on end. “Maybe twenty minutes? Was about ten when I left the house, and I heard a guard say it was half past eleven as they were locking me up.”
    “And after you saw the body what did you do?” Noble asked.
    “I touched her arm. It was so…cold. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there looking down at her. Then this man came barreling down the alley and tackled me. Wouldn’t listen to a word I said. He just kept yelling at me. I was here not twenty minutes later. Shovedinto this rathole.” He kicked a piece of straw. “They think I’m the Middlesex murderer. Unbelievable. And to think, he was right there. Could have done anything to me.” He shuddered.
    “So far his victims have all been women. I doubt you were quite his style, even with that shirt,” Noble said.
    Kenny looked down at his overly frilly shirt in bemusement. It was the height of style, at least it had been before being dirtied and bloodied and ripped, but Marietta privately agreed with Noble.
    “Who are you?” Kenny asked Noble in honest