him know that she knew he was crying. When he was able, he spoke again. For the first time, he told her that he loved her. He said he didn't wish to leave her, but he'd have no choice.
'I want to do what's best for you,' he said.
'If I'm lucky enough to survive the war, I'm going to come back and take you to America.'
He hesitated, then added,
'If I don't come back, I want you to be provided for.' Then for the first time he spoke of his origins. He stated without elaborating that back in New York he was a man of considerable wealth. On the next day, October 20, 1944, they drove from Exeter out into the countryside.
There, among green hedgerows in a small rural churchyard in the township of North Fenwick, they were married.
Thomas Daniels glanced down at the threadbare Bible in his hand.
'Ten days later,' said Leslie, 'he departed during the night. He never returned, even after the war. Nine months later, I was born 'And at the conclusion of the war..?' asked Thomas.
'My mother waited. Nothing. No communication. No letters.
No messages. No Arthur Sandler.'
'Did she attempt to trace him?'
'Of course,' said Leslie.
'But she ran into two walls of resistance.
One British, one American. The British authorities maintained that no such man could ever have been on English soil. Then my mother tried to trace him through the American Embassy and the United States Army Headquarters in London. Again, nothing.'
'Did she show the marriage certificate and explain that she was searching for her husband?'
'Yes' she said.
'But the Americans were worse than recalcitrant.
They ere outright secretive and un trusting Do you know what they said?
They said that no such man ever existed. And they told her that if a bar girl such as she continued to make these wild accusations about marrying an American millionaire they would turn her over to the local police or a London mental hospital.'
'And so?'
'And so that's how it stood. My mother raised me herself. And as the years passed she became more convinced that a cruel hoax had taken place, with her at the center. She was stuck in her job as a barmaid in a section of Exeter which declined after the war. She was a woman without any education. She couldn't do anything to support us except work in that bar, subjected to dirty labouring men whose drunken hands wandered nightly.'
'She never married?'
'She never trusted another man in her life, Mr. Daniels' she said.
'Given her situation, I'm not sure that it was a bad idea' ' Thomas fidgeted uncomfortably. He glanced away from Leslie.
Outside it was dark now, almost six in the evening.
Leslie skipped to 1954, the year of Arthur Sandler's death.
It hadn't exactly been of natural causes. Arthur Sandler had been walking on Eighty-ninth Street, where three gunmen had been waiting for him. Victoria, with him at the time, screamed hysterically when she saw him being shot. She dropped the shopping bag she'd been holding and out tumbled no less than a thousand crisp, new one- dollar bills.
The assassins ignored the money and were never found.
'The murder of an American millionaire like Sandler was newsworthy throughout Europe,' said Leslie.
'A shooting on the street like that, a prominent man executed, would find its way into most newspapers. The British news journals carried it. All of them' She took a breath.
'My mother saw a picture of him. Recognized him.
And of course she recognized the name. She had always felt that somewhere he was still alive.'
'What did she do?'
Elizabeth Chatsworth, Leslie explained, went to half a dozen solicitors each of whom dismissed her as a fortune-hunting fake. She went to a local petitioner who said he'd look into her claim. He may or may not have, but he quickly reported back to her that she had no case at all.
Then she tried the American Consulate in London.
After a few days of investigation, the Americans icily informed her that she was a fraud.
She took the only course left. She sent several letters to the Sandler address in New York.
'Did she get a response?' asked Thomas.
'Yes. But it wasn't in the mail' On an afternoon in 1954, two weeks before Christmas, Leslie returned to the small four-room row house where she and her mother lived, opened the front door, and shouted that she was home, just as she'd done countless other days. There was no response. Leslie called a second time. Odd, the girl thought. The door unlocked, yet her mother not home. She stopped in the kitchen for cookies, and a few minutes later climbed the stairs.
Her mother's bedroom door was open. And beyond, the room was a shambles. Clothing, dresser drawers, and bedding were all over the floor.
The girl's voice broke now.
'Mo?'she called plaintively.
She stood at the doorway. The bed had been turned over. She walked past the half-open door, and saw the bedraggled, bloodied sheets. With another step she saw her mother.
Elizabeth Chatsworth Sandler. The body was lying face up on the floor, broken and fully clothed, the face contorted. Below her mother's chin was a messy line across the throat, where the neck had been severed.
The girl bellowed, nearly felt her heart stop. The door behind her crashed shut.
Terrified, she whirled. He was a large man with a powerful build, his suit and tie black, his skin sallow and white. There were heavy black rubber gloves on his hands.
'You must be Leslie,' the man said evenly. His accent was American.
'Your mother wrote about you' A second or two slipped by as the man started slowly toward the cornered girl. He pushed back his sleeves.
'Come to me, Leslie' he said.
'I'm your father.'
Sandler fumbled wil something in his other hand, a pair of silver rings with several inches of wire strung between them. He quickly looped the wire over her neck. She kicked.
Her foot cracked directly into his kneecap. He yanked at the wire. The wire tore the flesh across her throat. But he was unsteady. She pulled away. He lost his grip on the wire and it fell as she rushed by him and down the stairs, shrieking, the deep red gashes dripping blood to her dress and coat.
Exactly how Sandler escaped Leslie never knew. When the police returned to the house Sandler was gone. He'd left behind no trace of himself just the body of Elizabeth Sandler. A thoroughly professional killing.
'I have an instinct for self-preservation, Mr. Daniels' she explained.
She continued calmly, with only the slightest quaver in her voice.
'At age nine I learned. I've never forgotten. I remember him grabbing my wrist so tightly that it hurt. I remember how his face looked. I was paralysed with fear. But I knew I had to do something to protect myself.'
Leslie's left hand played with a strand of her hair. She noticed Thomas watching her hand.
'I have something else to show you,' she said.
'This is something you can keep' She opened her purse and pulled from it a small envelope, the size used for personal letters. She reached into the envelope and pulled out a small glossy black-and-white photograph. She held it by her thumb and forefinger, considered it for a moment, then handed it to Thomas.
'My father,' she said without emotion.
'Arthur Sandler.'
Thomas took the photograph by the edges and looked into the face.
