CHAPTER 20

My mother had an illegitimate child.

Lucas Zehnpfennig is my half-brother.

The revelations pound in my mind like a deafening drumbeat as I ride the train back to London. My father is a mystery, but I never suspected that my mother had a secret. My discoveries cast a new, transforming light on my whole life, including the day I met Lucas. The quarrel between my mother and father must have arisen because she had let Lucas fondle me. And my perception of Ellen Casey’s murder changes drastically. My parents must have suspected that Lucas killed Ellen, but my father’s police file contained not a word about Lucas and no statement from my mother.

I think she was forced to choose between her son and her husband, and she chose her son. And my father and I aren’t the only ones who’ve suffered because of her choice.

I dread telling Sally. I can’t even soften the blow with new information regarding our father’s whereabouts. All I’ve brought from Ely are more questions. Why did Lucas write to Benjamin Bain instead of his mother—my mother? After her death, I found no letters among her belongings, but she and Lucas could have been in touch while I was away at boarding school. I’ll never know. Even if she knew where Lucas went, she can never tell; she took her secrets to her grave. And I can never tell her that I know what she did or how devastated I am by her betrayal.

When I arrive home, in dire need of comfort, I hear raised voices in the parlor. “You little sneak!” The shrill, angry voice belongs to Catherine Price. “How could you do this to me?”

I find Catherine and Mick standing in the middle of the room, she with her hands on her hips, her chin thrust at Mick. She wears her blonde hair in an elaborate confection of ringlets and has on a low-necked red satin gown whose full skirts are puffed out by petticoats. She must have come straight from the stage. Her face is bright with rouge, her sapphire eyes ablaze with anger.

“It was for your own good,” Mick says.

Hugh and Fitzmorris are sitting on the sofa, an intimidated captive audience. Catherine whirls to face me. “Did he tell you?” She points at Mick, whose expression blends the same defiance and guilt that I used to see when he was a street urchin, when he confessed to stealing food in order to survive. “Today he went behind my back and talked to my friends, trying to prove that Lionel wasn’t with me the night the hangman was murdered.”

So Mick hasn’t given up trying to pin the murder on Sheriff Hargreaves. “I did prove it,” he says to me. “After the show, Catherine went to a tavern with some other folks. They say she went home by herself. Her landlady says she were alone in her room ’til the next morning.”

I’m impressed by his detective work. He’s poked big holes in the alibi that Catherine had provided for Hargreaves.

“My landlady is half-blind and deaf, and she sleeps like a log,” Catherine says. “She doesn’t know I went out late that night to meet Lionel, and I came back before she woke up.” But Catherine’s voice rings false.

I’m grieved to see her stand by her lover despite evidence that he could be guilty of murder. “Catherine, don’t.”

“You’re lyin’.” Affection gentles Mick’s rebuke. “Lyin’ for him. Lyin’ to yourself too.”

“Don’t protect him, Catherine,” Hugh urges. “He’s not worth it.”

Catherine ignores Hugh and jabs her finger at Mick. “You’re jealous. That’s why you’re trying to get Lionel in trouble. Because—”

Mick suddenly looks cornered, frightened. We all know that Catherine knows how he feels about her, but she’s never said so.

“That’s enough,” Hugh snaps.

She’s too angry and reckless to desist. “You think that if you can get rid of Lionel, then you can have me.” She tosses her blond ringlets. “Well, you’re a fool. I’ll never—”

Hugh, Fitzmorris, and I shout, “Catherine!”

She sputters into silence, too late. Mick cringes as if he wants to drop through a hole in the floor.

Now Catherine has the grace to be ashamed. “Mick, I’m sorry.” She knows that she owes her life to him, that he risked his own to save her; she doesn’t really want to repay him with cruelty. She reaches out her hand to him. “I didn’t mean—”

His humiliation turns to anger. “You’re more a fool than me. Hargreaves don’t care about you.”

“Yes, he does!” Catherine’s indignation can’t hide the doubt that flickers across her face. “We’re in love. We’re engaged.”

“You think he’s gonna dump his wife to marry you? Hah! He’s just havin’ fun with you and usin’ you for an alibi.”

“He promised.” Catherine sounds like a little girl trying to convince herself that her dreams of becoming a princess will come true.

“You oughta run from that guy as fast and far as you can,” Mick says, determined to protect her even though she’s rejected and mocked him. “Before he hurts you.”

“He’s right,” I say, reluctant yet obligated to make Catherine face reality.

Catherine turns to Hugh, whose masculine judgment she trusts. Hugh nods sadly.

“You’re all wrong. I’m going to marry Lionel,” Catherine declares. “Just wait and see!” Head high, she exits the room in a swish of red satin.

My mother chose Lucas Zehnpfennig over her husband; I chose my father over Barrett; and now Catherine has chosen Sheriff Hargreaves over Mick. Choices can have serious repercussions, but they have to be made, no matter if they set in motion a steamroller of consequences that will crush us into dust someday.

Mick gazes unhappily after Catherine, then flops onto the chaise longue. He blinks, trying not to cry. Hugh, Fitzmorris, and I tactfully avert our eyes. Fitzmorris says, “I think we could all use some hot cocoa,” and goes to the kitchen.

In a gallant attempt to pretend that the scene with Catherine never happened, Hugh says, “Sarah, welcome home. What happened in Ely?”

I relate my discoveries. Hugh, flabbergasted, whistles. Mick, distracted from his woes, says, “Crikey!”

Something occurs to me that failed to earlier. “The conspiracy of silence between the witnesses to Amelia Carlisle’s hanging isn’t the only one. There was another, between my parents and Lucas Zehnpfennig.”

“They covered up the truth about Ellen Casey’s murder.” Hugh shakes his head, regretful. “That was noble of your father, keeping quiet for the sake of his wife and stepson.”

I smile despite my outrage at the situation. Hugh would find the most charitable way to view it. But I’m still furious at my mother because she chose Lucas over my father—and, in effect, over me, her second child. That I was less beloved than the first is apparent from the harsh way she treated me. These ideas are like a chest of serpents that I don’t want to open.

Fitzmorris brings cups of steaming cocoa on a tray. I sip mine, and the sweet, milky chocolate soothes my spirits. I ask Hugh, “What did you do today?”

“I sat in pubs near Newgate, bought drinks for the regulars, and chatted them up. It appears that Governor Piercy wasn’t telling the truth when he said he was in his residence the whole night of Harry Warbrick’s murder. I spoke to the cab driver who picked him up outside Newgate at eleven thirty. He knows Piercy; he’s driven him before.”

I’m interested to learn that Sheriff Hargreaves isn’t the only suspect whose alibi has evaporated. “Where did he take Governor Piercy?”

“He dropped him off at Spitalfields Market.”

“That’s not far from The Ropemaker’s Daughter.”

“It weren’t Piercy.” Mick lies on the chaise longue with his arms crossed over his face. “Hargreaves done it.”

“Governor Piercy had the opportunity to kill Harry Warbrick,” Hugh points out.

“So what? It don’t mean he’s guilty for sure,” Mick says. Either he still hopes that if he incriminates the sheriff, he’ll win Catherine’s hand, or his mind is too one-tracked to change course.

“A witness has placed the governor near the scene of the murder,” I say. “Have you found anybody to place Hargreaves there?”

“Nope. But give me time.”

“There are still four other suspects,” I say.

“Forget ’em and help me go after Hargreaves.”

“Mick, we can’t focus on him and ignore everybody else.” Kindness softens Hugh’s exasperation. “To restore Sarah’s reputation and get our detective agency back up and running, we have to solve this case before the police do. We can’t afford to be wrong.”

“I know I’m right. I’m gonna get Hargreaves if it’s the last thing I ever do.” Mick runs upstairs, and his bedroom door slams.

The rest of us exchange troubled glances. Hugh says to me, “Any ideas?”