CHAPTER 11

That evening I hurry along Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. Ornate gas lamps glow in front of tall, stately brick townhouses. Across the street, beyond the green, the river hides beneath the fog. I hear the water lapping at the rocks; smell its fishy, fetid breath; and shiver in the chill wind. The house where Sally works and lives belongs to her employer, who owns a shipyard. It has a white marble facade on the first story, and its large windows glitter with light. I bypass the gate in the black iron fence and walk around the corner to the narrow, cobblestoned alley behind the house. The smell of manure issues from stables across the alley. I knock on a plain wooden door flanked by dustbins. Sally isn’t allowed to receive visitors at the front entrance. Long moments pass before a woman opens the door. In her forties, she has gray-streaked brown hair coiled atop her head; she wears a black frock and white apron. She’s the last person I wanted to see.

The feeling is mutual. “What are you doing here?” Mrs. Albert, Sally’s mother, demands. Hostility deepens the lines in her pretty oval face.

“I need to see Sally.”

“You can’t,” Mrs. Albert snaps.

She’s hated me since the day we met. We got off on the wrong foot, and I’m a reminder that Benjamin Bain—whom she knew as George Albert, his false name—already had a wife and child when she married him. No matter that my mother is long dead and my father’s deception isn’t my fault; she bears a grudge against me. I suppose that because she can’t punish my father for abandoning her and Sally, I’m a convenient target for her anger.

“Sally is busy helping with dinner,” Mrs. Albert says.

I hear pans clattering in the basement kitchen and smell the savory odors of cooking food. My stomach grumbles. I’ve not eaten since breakfast. “This is an emergency.”

Mrs. Albert glares as if I’m trying to fool her. “Isn’t it enough that Sally spends her days off with you? Can’t you leave her alone?”

My temper heats up, but I clamp a tight lid on it. “Sally and I are sisters. We have a right to see each other.”

“You don’t have the right to fill her head with nonsense. You told her that her father is alive and in London. And now she thinks she’s seen him!” Mrs. Albert is spitting with rage.

“He is alive.”

“Even if he were, he wouldn’t be hanging around you and Sally. Remember, he left you. He left all of us.” Mrs. Albert’s brown eyes brim with pain.

Sally has let on that her mother prefers to think Benjamin Bain is dead because it’s more comfortable than dredging up the past, opening unhealed wounds. I think Mrs. Albert is afraid of what will happen to her and Sally if his past catches up with him. I wonder whether she knows something about him that she’s not telling.

“Why can’t you let sleeping dogs lie?” Mrs. Albert’s question is a plea for me to do exactly that. Before I can try to explain, she says, “It was an evil day when you turned up out of the blue. Sally used to be a good girl, content with her place. Now she’s full of silly notions. She wants to be a writer and have her own house and live her own life.”

I gape in surprise, for Sally has told me none of this, and I’ve never said anything to encourage her to change her situation.

“Go away,” Mrs. Albert says through clenched teeth, “before you do any more damage.”

“Mother, who’s there?” Sally appears in the passage behind Mrs. Albert, drying her hands on her apron. She sees me and smiles. “Sarah!”

“Miss Bain was just leaving,” Mrs. Albert says. She never calls me by my first name. She knows my father named Sally after me, and it galls her.

“No!” Sally holds the door open while her mother tries to close it. “Sarah, is something wrong?”

“We can’t wait to—we have to go—” I can’t say that we have to look for our father, starting at the place where Sally saw him. Mrs. Albert would never let Sally out of the house.

Sally takes the hint. “I’ll get my coat.” She runs down the passage.

Mrs. Albert fumes at me. “Sally is going to get in trouble, and it’s your fault.”

Sally returns, carrying her coat and hat, and pushes past her mother. We run down the alley like children running away from school. “Sally! Come back!” Mrs. Albert shouts.

On the main road, amid people hurrying to the shops before they close, we slow down to catch our breath. Misgivings fill me. “I’m sorry I came. You could lose your post.”

“I don’t care,” Sally says. “I’ve been working in that house for eleven years. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life there.”

I consider the prospect of adding another person to my household. Sally could share my bedroom, but even with the generous salary Sir Gerald pays us, I come up short. “Your mother said you want to be a writer.”

“Well, yes.” Sally ducks her head, abashed. “I was good at writing when I was at school, and I love to read novels from the library. Some are wonderful, but others aren’t at all, and I said to myself, ‘I could do this.’ Mother caught me scribbling at night. She was furious. She said I was stupid to think I could write novels, let alone earn money from it.”

My mother had reacted much the same when I said I wanted to be a photographer. Now my heart contracts with remembered pain and humiliation. She also criticized my looks, my manner, and everything I did. She often said I would need to earn my own living because no man would ever want to marry me. If she loved me, it was difficult to tell. Her harsh treatment of me has left scars as permanent as those caused by my father’s absence.

“She says she’s telling me for my own good,” Sally says. It’s exactly how my mother justified her behavior toward me. “But I’m not going to let anybody stop me.”

I’m the last person to tell someone else not to pursue her dream, but I warn Sally, “You may have to work for a long time before you succeed. I operated my photography studio at a loss for the first year. You had better keep your post and save up your wages. There could be some hardships ahead.”

“I know, but I just can’t resign myself to emptying other people’s chamber pots.” Sally adds bashfully, “I want to be independent, like you.”

My example speaks louder than my words, but maybe her notions aren’t entirely my fault; maybe we were both born with an independent streak. “I’m sorry I’ve caused trouble between you and your mother.”

“It’s all right. She needs to realize that I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I’m glad you want to look for Father tonight, but why are you so urgent all of a sudden?”

I explain about Inspector Reid’s threat. I’ve already told Sally that Reid hates Hugh, Mick, and especially me for meddling in police business. She’s safer not knowing the whole truth about Robin Mariner’s kidnapping and the fate of Jack the Ripper.

“Oh, dear,” Sally says. “But I’m sure we’ll find him before Inspector Reid does. We won’t let him get arrested.”

I’m not so sure he doesn’t deserve to be arrested, but I’ll let Sally believe in his innocence until, heaven forbid, he’s proven guilty.

We arrive at the library, an elegant building so new that its bricks are still red instead of black with soot. A domed portico mounted on white stone columns embellishes the entrance. We climb the steps. The library is dark except for a lamp glowing in the vestibule. As Sally opens the door, a man inside says, “We’re closing.”

“Please, Mr. Roscoe, can we come in just for a moment?” Sally says. “It’s very important.”

The man is short and thin, with a bald head, a waxed brown mustache, and silver-rimmed spectacles. “Oh, hello, Miss Albert.” He has a surprisingly deep, rich voice. He smiles and says, “For a regular patron like you, I’ll bend the rules.”

He lets us into a large room that smells of leather, wood, fresh paint, tobacco smoke, and floor wax. The dark shapes of furniture inhabit the shadows. The clatter of our footsteps on the parquet floor echoes up to the high ceiling. Sally says, “Mr. Roscoe is the head librarian.” She introduces me to him. “This is my sister—Miss Sarah Bain.”

I’m touched by the pride in her voice. I’ve shied from meeting her acquaintances for fear that she would be ashamed of me because I’m part of her father’s dark, secret past.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Bain,” Mr. Roscoe says as we shake hands. “How can I help you ladies?”

Sally’s brow knits as she gropes for words. “The last time I was here, I saw … a man.” She’s obviously reluctant to reveal his name or connection with us. She and her mother have kept their history as much a secret as my mother and I did ours. “May I show Sarah where?”

Mr. Roscoe looks mystified but intrigued. “Certainly.”

He lights gas lamps, illuminating dark, heavy wooden tables and chairs, the librarian’s desk, and shelves filled with books. I follow Sally up an iron staircase to a gallery that circles the room and contains more rows of ceiling-high bookshelves. “I was here.” Sally stands in the narrow aisle between two rows. She paces some fifteen steps halfway down the aisle. “He was right here. We looked straight at each other.” Her voice resonates with the shock she must have felt. “Then he turned and ran.” She leads me back to the staircase, leans over the railing, and points down at the door. “He hurried outside. By the time I got there, he was gone.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Mr. Roscoe’s rich voice echoes up to us. He’s standing below the gallery, his small figure dwarfed by the height. “Why were you chasing that man?”

Sally gasps. “You saw him?”

“Yes. Heavyset fellow with a white beard. He ran past me, and a moment later you did.”

“See? He really was here,” Sally says to me, breathless with triumph. “I didn’t just imagine it.”

I want to believe her, but it’s possible she mistook a stranger for our father. We hurry down the stairs to join Mr. Roscoe. He asks, “Who was he?”

“I—I don’t know.” Sally blushes and looks at the floor. She’s not a competent liar.

Mr. Roscoe turns his quizzical gaze on me, but my countenance is impenetrable; I’ve had many more years’ practice at concealing secrets. I ask, “Had you ever seen him before?”

“Once or twice. I noticed him because he didn’t borrow any books. He’s not a member.” Mr. Roscoe turns to Sally. “Was he bothering you?”

She lifts her puzzled gaze. “Bothering me?”

“At the time, I thought that was why you chased him and he was in such a hurry to get away,” Mr. Roscoe says. “Because you were angry and meant to report him.”

“No,” Sally says, still confused. “He didn’t do anything. He didn’t even speak to me.”

“That’s good. It happens sometimes—an unsavory character notices a young lady and follows her around the library. When I see it, I put a stop to it and tell him in no uncertain terms never to come back. If that fellow ever does bother you, just let me know.”

Sally and I look at each other, stunned as we absorb the implication of his words. “He was following me?” Sally says.

“Yes,” Mr. Roscoe says. “He came into the library right after you, and he hid behind the stacks while you were browsing. He pretended to be looking at books, but he barely took his eyes off you.”

*   *   *

As soon as we’re outside the library, Sally exclaims, “It had to be Father! And he knew who I was! Why else would he follow me?”

I think of my own sighting of him, which I’d thought to be a coincidence. “My God, maybe he was following me too!”

“He tracked us down,” Sally says, jittery with excitement. “He hasn’t forgotten us. He wants to reunite with us, but he’s afraid.”

Even as my heart leaps to embrace this interpretation, other possibilities disturb my mind. Maybe it was a coincidence; maybe our father didn’t recognize Sally or me. He is the prime suspect in the rape as well as the murder of Ellen Casey. Maybe he happened onto us and viewed us, his own daughters, as prey to molest. The idea is so sickening that I can’t voice it to Sally.

“Did he think I wanted to catch him and turn him in to the police? Is that why he ran?” A mournful sob breaks Sally’s voice. “Did I scare him away?”

That seems a real possibility. I look around the foggy street, where a lone carriage rolls. We and the few other pedestrians walk bent against the cold wind that buffets us. Our father has left no visible trace.

“He’ll never come back,” Sally cries. “Sarah, we’ve lost him forever!”

“Let’s not give up,” I say, to raise my own morale as well as Sally’s. “Inspector Reid claimed to have clues to his whereabouts.” Dreadful news at the time, it’s encouraging now. “And we definitely do,” I remind Sally.

Her face brightens. “Lucas Zehnpfennig.”

We walk in silence as we think of the link between our father’s disappearances in 1866 and 1879. Shortly before he disappeared on Sally and her mother, he received a letter from a man named Lucas Zehnpfennig. He was very upset, burned the letter, and made Sally promise she wouldn’t tell anyone about it. But she told me, and the news unearthed a buried memory of a day when I was ten years old and came home from school to discover a strange man in the parlor with my mother. Hello, Sarah. I’m Lucas Zehnpfennig. His last name was so odd that I giggled. He was holding me on his lap, stroking my hair, when my father came in. My father ordered Lucas to get out of the house, and that night I heard my parents having one of their many whispered arguments. Soon afterward, my father disappeared. I’m sure Lucas was the same man who sent the letter Sally saw. Sally and I believe that finding Lucas is the key to finding my father and the truth about the past, but I’ve let time slip by for fear of taking the next step.

“How would we go about finding him?” Sally asks.

“I have an idea.” An idea that entails returning to a place where I never wanted to go again.