A Mortal Likeness Page 5

  Here is another reason to look for him. He could be the witness who leads us to the man who killed Vaughn and his lady and kidnapped Robin Mariner. Here is my chance to combine my search for him with the search for Robin—two birds, one stone. “I have a new clue,” I say and tell Hugh about the note written on the police report. “Maybe this George Albert recently sighted my father and has clues to his whereabouts.”

  “Splendid! You should go to Chelsea right away.”

  I resist. “Maybe my father is there, but he wasn’t the man in the park. Or maybe he was the man, but he’s not in Chelsea.”

  “You won’t know unless you go.”

  “All right. But even if I find him and he did see the kidnapper, that’s a long way from discovering where Robin is hidden. I feel bad about keeping the information secret.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to keep it secret. We could tell Sir Gerald Mariner.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very. We could get the reward. Five thousand pounds,” Hugh exults. “Sarah, this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. We can offer our detective services to the Mariner family. This case could put us on the road to success.”

  “There have been hundreds of tips. Why would Sir Gerald think ours is genuine when so many are false?”

  “I’ve a connection. His bank manages my family’s finances.” Hugh’s expression turns sober and apprehensive. “I’ll ask my father for a favor—an introduction to Sir Gerald.”

  #

  That afternoon, I find myself in Cheyne Walk. Tall, stately brick townhouses face across the green toward the Chelsea Embankment. Beyond ornate gas lamps mounted on a low stone wall, I see the Thames bracketed by the Albert Bridge to the east and the Battersea Bridge to the west. Barges, ships, and ferries glide along the river. From a rift in the gray mist and smoke in the sky, a sheet of pale sunlight beams down. The brown water gleams like a dragon’s scales. But I’m too nervous to appreciate the beautiful view, remove my miniature camera from my satchel, and take a photograph. I turn away from the river and face the house, which stands behind a black iron fence, its gate flanked by pillars topped with marble urns. White marble flagstones pave the path below marble steps that lead to the marble facade of the first floor. All this gleaming stone testifies to the owner’s wealth. An iron-railed balcony overhangs a turquoise door. When I tilt my head back to look up at the three tiers of arched windows and the dormers set into the roof, I feel dizzy. Hunting down Jack the Ripper gave me confidence as a detective, but this investigation is personal. My legs wobble as I push open the gate, climb the steps, and knock on the door.

  A young woman wearing a white apron over a gray dress and a white cap over her hair greets me. “Good morning, ma’am. May I help you?” Her enunciation places her among the better class of servants.

  I take a second look at her, and I see, as if in a mirror, a startling version of myself. Some ten years younger, she has the same slim figure, square jaw, and deep-set hazel eyes. My mouth opens, but I can’t speak.

  This is my half sister. I know—without proof but with absolute certainty—that after his disappearance, my father begot another child. I’d thought that all my features except my eyes had come from my mother, but some happenstance has made my father’s two daughters by different women virtual look-alikes.

  Confusion wrinkles her smooth brow. She’s reacting to the astonishment on my face; she doesn’t seem to notice our resemblance. My trained photographer’s eye notices our differences: her hair, visible beneath her cap, is more golden than mine, her features softer. She’s not only younger; she’s prettier than I am.

  A stab of jealousy, like a knife to my viscera, jolts words from me. “I’m looking for George Albert.” I suddenly realize who George Albert is—not a stranger who sighted my father and reported it to the police but my father himself. “Is he here?”

  Her smooth skin pales, her hazel eyes widen, and her lips part. A short older woman in a black dress, white apron, and white cap—evidently the housekeeper—appears in the hall behind her. “Sally, who’s there?”

  My half sister turns to her. “Oh, Mother!” Gesturing at me, she says, “She’s asking for Father.”

  The woman and I stare at each other in mutual shock. This is my father’s second wife. She’s in her forties, with a full bosom and small waist. Despite the gray streaks in the brown hair coiled atop her head and the lines in her oval face, she’s prettier than my mother ever was. She must have been much younger than my father when they married. Her hand presses her throat as she sees the resemblance between her daughter and me.

  “My God,” she whispers. “Who are you?”

  She and her daughter are servants, meaning my father isn’t rich and this isn’t his house. But my resentment swells, for they’ve had him all these years while he’s neglected me. “Good day, Mrs. Albert. My name is Sarah Bain. Your husband is my father. His real name is Benjamin Bain.”

  “No!” Sally responds with horrified disbelief. “That can’t be!”

  Mrs. Albert’s shock contains resignation, as if the news isn’t entirely unexpected. “We shouldn’t talk here. You’d better come in.”

  “Mother, she’s lying!” Sally says. “Make her go away.”

  But when I pass her to enter the house, she doesn’t try to stop me. Mrs. Albert leads me up the back stairs to an attic partitioned into servants’ quarters. Sally trails us, huffing in indignation. We gather in a small room where we have to stoop under the slanted ceiling, crowded among two iron cots, a wooden chair, and a washstand. Everything is neat and spotless. Mrs. Albert motions me to the chair, perches on a bed, and says, “Sally, go and get Miss Bain a cup of tea.”

  Sally frowns, then flounces off. I drop into the chair, dazed into speechlessness while a thousand questions rattle in my mind.

  “I didn’t know about you.” Mrs. Albert speaks quickly, trying to finish before Sally returns. “But I knew he had a past. He wouldn’t talk about it. And I suspected that ‘George Albert’ wasn’t his real name. His camera case had the initials ‘B. B.’ carved on it. He said he’d bought it at a pawnshop. How did you find us?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Your mother. Is she . . . ?”

  “She died in 1874. So you needn’t worry about being the wife of a bigamist.”

  Mrs. Albert flinches. Her expression shows puzzlement, then a hostility that matches mine. “When did he leave?”

  “In 1866.”

  “Well, I didn’t meet him until 1868. He was working as a photographer for the Oxford University Press and living on his own. I’m not the reason he left. If your mother had a sharp tongue like yours, maybe that’s the reason.”

  I could tell her about Ellen Casey and knock the spiteful expression off her face, but I cut to the chase. “Where is my father?”

  “You seem prosperous enough,” Mrs. Albert says, as if to deflect my question. Her gaze rakes me over, observes the lack of a wedding ring on my hand. “A spinster, I see. Where do you live? How do you keep yourself?”

  “I live in Argyle Square, Bloomsbury. I’m a photographer. Where is my father?”

  “Ah, a chip off the old block. Well, lucky for you. You’re not in service like Sally and me.”

  I’ve gotten on the wrong side of this woman from whom I need information.

  “We don’t know where he is.” Sally speaks from the doorway, holding a cup of tea. “He disappeared. We’ve not seen him in ten years.”

  “Disappeared?” Not once but twice. I’m shocked to the core. “How?”

  Sally’s eyes shine with tears. “One night he just never came home.”

  “Is that how it happened to you?” Mrs. Albert smiles; she can read the answer on my face. “Does that make you feel better? That he did it to us too?”

  It’s the disaster from my childhood, visited on my half sister at approximately the same age as I was. “Why?” I ask Sally and her mother. “Why did he leave you?”

  Mrs.
Albert laughs bitterly. “He was a drifter and a dreamer. He liked roaming around the country taking pictures. I should have known he would get tired of us.”

  “He didn’t!” Sally sets the cup on the washstand with a thump that sloshes tea into the saucer. Tears spill down her cheeks; the pain of her loss is more recent than mine. “He wouldn’t have. He loved us!”

  Mrs. Albert rises, puts her arm around Sally, and dabs her daughter’s tears with her apron. “Of course he loved us, but some men just aren’t cut out to be husbands or fathers.”

  At least she didn’t pretend he was dead, but her explanation is terrible food for thought. Has he married a series of wives, begotten a series of children, and cut them all loose? The idea, on top of his being a suspect in Ellen Casey’s murder, makes me feel physically ill.

  “He wouldn’t have chosen to go away. Something bad must have happened to him,” Sally insists.

  “It’s in the past.” Mrs. Albert’s curt tone reminds me of my mother. “Best not to dwell on it.” She says to me, “Sally and I must be getting back to work.”

  I’m far from ready to end the conversation. “Have you heard from him? Received a letter, perhaps?”

  “No,” Mrs. Albert says.

  I belatedly remember my photograph of the man in the dinosaur park. When I packed it in my satchel earlier this morning, I hoped to show it to “George Albert,” whom I surmised to be a former friend or acquaintance of my father’s. I never imagined having an opportunity to show it to people who’d known my father as well as I had—and much more recently. Now I bring out the photograph, hold it up for Mrs. Albert and Sally to see, and point to the man.

  “Is this him?” I ask.

  Sally gasps. Her complexion turns gray, as if she’s about to faint.

  “That picture is so blurry,” Mrs. Albert says. “That man could be anyone.” But her daughter’s reaction, and her own suddenly tremulous manner, have told me what I need to know. “I’ll see you out.” She advances on me, compelling me to rise and move toward the door.

  On my way down the stairs, with her and Sally close behind me, I call over my shoulder, “Did you ever look for him? Did you go to the police and report him missing?”

  “No more talk, Miss Bain. You’ve already upset my daughter enough.”

  At the front door, I face her and Sally. “Have you any idea where he went?”

  “Please go.” Mrs. Albert holds the door open, her expression stony. Sally hovers, wringing her hands and looking sick.

  “I’m his daughter! I have a right to know!”

  “You have no rights as far as Sally and I are concerned. You’re nothing to us,” Mrs. Albert snaps. “If you don’t leave now, I’ll fetch the butler to throw you out.”

  6

  “Now I know why my father didn’t come back or get in touch with me.” I’m at home in the parlor with Hugh. Fitzmorris is preparing dinner in the kitchen while Mick keeps him company. “It wasn’t because he was afraid the police would find him and he would be hanged for Ellen Casey’s murder.” I thought I’d cried all my tears for my father long ago, but my face is awash in tears that burn with anger as well as grief. “It was because he had a new family!”

  I wonder if my mother knew. That would explain why she spoke bitterly of him after he disappeared, why she destroyed his photographs—not because he was the primary suspect in a murder, but because he’d made a fresh start and replaced us. She pretended he was dead because the truth was so humiliating.

  Hugh hands me a glass of brandy. “Your father wouldn’t have just washed his hands of you. There must have been extenuating circumstances.”

  He sees people in the best light, even after what happened to him. For most of his life, he was his parents’ adored, pampered golden boy despite the fact that he’s the youngest son, not the heir. In contrast, my mother was critical, unloving, and harsh toward me, and she taught me her habit of distrusting other people. I suppose the difference between our pasts explains why Hugh is ready to give my father the benefit of the doubt.

  “It must have been strange to meet a half sister and stepmother you didn’t know you had,” Hugh says. “Are you going to see Sally and Mrs. Albert again?”

  I shake my head, torn between contradictory, complicated feelings. I didn’t like Mrs. Albert; I can’t think of her as my stepmother, but I want to know whatever she could tell me about my father. I feel drawn to Sally despite my jealousy. She’s my only living kin.

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “They wouldn’t welcome me back with open arms.” Their treatment of me was hurtful, and I have neither the desire nor the courage to risk another rejection. “I wish I’d never started looking for my father.” Once my camera had a tear in its bellows, and light leaked in and overexposed the negative plates. I feel as if the harsh light of a new day has seeped into me.

  “At least we now know he really is the man in the photograph. Even if Mrs. Albert and Sally didn’t actually identify him in so many words.” Hugh regards me with sympathetic concern. “But I’m sorry I put you up to looking for him and it turned out like this. If you really want to stop looking before you discover anything worse . . .”

  I sigh and bow my head. “I can’t stop. My father was in the dinosaur park. He could have witnessed the kidnapper taking the money and killing Noel Vaughn and the woman. I have to keep looking.”

  “That’s very brave of you.” Hugh smiles with admiration and relief that I’m not going to quit. “By the way, I spoke with my father today. He’s agreed to introduce us to Sir Gerald tomorrow.”

  #

  The Mariner Bank is a palatial building constructed from white stone, located in Bishopsgate on a corner in the heart of London’s financial district. Tall Corinthian columns separate the high arched windows on the first floor. Statues crown the roofline. Among them, I see St. George and the Dragon, Britannia holding a wreath and shield, Galileo with his telescope, and a goddess with a cornucopia of fruits. The largest statue is a ship in full sail above the main entrance, which is set in an archway in the building’s curved corner. The bank itself resembles a ship ready to sail across the city and sea in pursuit of wealth.

  Hugh and I arrive at nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, 22 April. “I heard that Sir Gerald started as a cabin boy on a merchant ship out of Liverpool that carried cargo to and from Africa and the Americas.” Hugh is in high spirits, eager for our big day. “He eventually bought his own fleet of ships and made a fortune before he switched to banking. And then he made another fortune by taking over other banks and investing money all over the world.”

  As Hugh opens the door for me, I grip my satchel in hands damp with cold sweat. I’m afraid Sir Gerald will think our information is useless. My first sight of the bank’s vast interior doesn’t relieve my anxiety. It’s like a Venetian cathedral, with marble columns and floors illuminated by three large, domed, stained-glass skylights. Bank tellers behind brass grilles wait on fashionably dressed customers. I’m wearing my best dark-blue frock with white lace jabot and cuffs, but I feel outclassed, intimidated.

  “Here comes my father,” Hugh says.

  Lord Staunton, Marquis of Ravenswood, is in his late sixties, tall and lean, white-haired, and expensively tailored; he’s an older, haughty version of Hugh. “Good. You’re on time,” he says. His cold manner conveys his unspoken meaning: promptness is about the only thing he thinks is good about Hugh, who disgraced their family and wheedled this favor that Lord Staunton is reluctant to provide.

  Hugh’s spirits visibly deflate, and I feel sorry for him, the golden son no longer. I know how much he misses and looks up to his father, and his situation is in some ways worse than mine. Although it hurt to discover that my father had a second family, I’ve had twenty-four years to get used to his absence. Hugh’s estrangement from his father is still fresh.

  “Father, may I introduce Miss Sarah Bain,” Hugh says.

  Lord Staunton casts a brief glance at me. I bow awkwardly. It’s o
bvious that he thinks me immoral for living with a man—a homosexual at that. I’m angry on Hugh’s behalf. Hugh is the same clever, good-natured, kind person he was before his family learned his secret, yet Lord Staunton treats him like an abomination.

  Lord Staunton glances around, as if he’s afraid someone will recognize Hugh and see them together. “Are you sure this information of yours is important?”

  “Positive.” Hugh speaks without his usual confidence.

  Lord Staunton obviously doubts Hugh, and I wonder why he agreed to introduce us to Sir Gerald. “I wish you would tell me what it is and allow me to give it to him for you.”

  “Something might get lost in the translation,” Hugh says.

  A sleekly groomed young man approaches us. “Lord Staunton? Sir Gerald will see you now.”

  We follow him up the marble staircase into a big noisy room full of clicking telegraph machines. Clerks labor beneath green-shaded lamps at rows of desks, writing in ledgers, poring over documents. Sir Gerald’s office is smaller than I expected, enclosed by paneled walls and shelves of books with worn bindings. His massive wooden desk takes up most of the space. Behind it, Sir Gerald sits in a simple leather-backed chair while a subordinate hands him letters to sign. He looks about sixty years old, his stoutness emphasized by the double-breasted waistcoat of his black suit. His body appears to be all muscle, no fat. His thick, coarse dark hair and beard are streaked with gray and neatly trimmed, his broad features swarthy and toughened from exposure to the elements. He gives orders of which all I can understand are the names of foreign countries and huge sums of money. His voice is rough with a Northern accent. The former cabin boy from Liverpool, unlike Barrett, doesn’t try to disguise his humble origins.

  I feel guilty as I think about Barrett, who would be upset if he knew I was here and why.

  The subordinate lays telegrams on Sir Gerald’s desk. “The President of the United States, the Emperor of Japan, and the Pope send their sympathies and hope that your son comes home safely.”

  Sir Gerald looks up at us. His eyes are deep brown, opaque, and watchful. He dismisses his subordinate and our escort, then rises, extending his hand to Lord Staunton. “Hello, Richard.”