“She claims no memory.”
“Memories can be jogged.”
“I know. I should have been more open with her, but I wasn’t and I drove her off. She’s somewhere in London, but that’s all I know.”
“So you’ve looked.”
“I even asked the census office to check for me. Under the guise of official business.”
“What’s her name?”
“Evangeline May Bancroft. Not exceptional. But not so common either. For all I know she may have married and changed it.”
“Or she may simply have avoided the census.”
“The census takers are terriers. Few people escape their attention.”
“You can find her, Sebastian. You used to be able to find anyone. How will you feel if the tinker hangs and then it happens all over again?”
They sat in silence for a while.
Then he said, “She had one of those purple pins the suffragettes wear. I saw one on the costume of an actress at the film studio. She couldn’t tell me what it meant, but the wardrobe mistress did. Didn’t suffragettes boycott the census?”
“There may be some record at the Old Bailey,” Elisabeth said. “Those women get arrested all the time.”
THIRTY-THREE
The meeting ended early.Sebastian stood on the pavement outside the Portman Rooms, and from there he watched the women coming out. He’d hesitated to enter, thinking that he’d be conspicuous, but now he saw that a small number of men had been in attendance. Evangeline Bancroft was one of the last to emerge, arm-in-arm with another young woman of around her own age. This second woman suddenly hesitated on the steps, as if remembering something; with an apology she disengaged herself and hurried back inside.
This left Evangeline alone in the lighted half circle at the foot of the entranceway steps. Seeing an opportunity as she waited for her companion’s return, Sebastian started toward her.
“Excuse me,” he called out, and as she spun around to face in his direction he was surprised to see her draw a short length of heavy chain from her bag.
“I suggest you pass on by,” she called back. “And don’t imagine I’m afraid of you.”
He stopped, with his hands raised.
“I can see as much,” he said. “You misunderstand. My name is Sebastian Becker. Surely you remember me?”
She peered at him suspiciously, and he moved more fully into the light.
“Mister Becker?” she said.
There followed a few moments of silence. Then the dull clink of the polished chain as Evangeline Bancroft gathered it up and returned it to her bag.
He said, “We parted on bad terms. You were right to criticize my honesty. I beg forgiveness. Will you give me a chance to explain myself and make amends?”
Her companion emerged at the same time as two others. After a brief exchange of words, Evangeline sent her off with them.
“We’ve learned the wisdom of watching out for each other’s safety,” Evangeline explained.
She consented to let him walk her to her train. The evening was clear and the pavements not too crowded, the stars overhead blotted out by the smoke of a million September stoves and fires.
She said, “How did you find me?”
“You were part of a suffragist demonstration in Downing Street six years ago.”
“I was never arrested.”
“No, but the police have a record of your name. I went to the address they had, but it was out of date.”
“That was a hostel for young women. I have my own rooms now.”
“I know. So I found you this way instead.”
She said, “I was new to life and London and full of anger then. It’s an incident that could damage me in my present position.”
“Not through me,” Sebastian promised. “I know you think I meant to draw you into a plan to gain control of Sir Owain’s fortune. But I can assure you, it’s not his wealth I’m interested in. You know they’re set to hang a tinker for this latest attack.”
“But he’s confessed.”
“He’ll say anything that he thinks will gain him favor with his interrogator.”
“Mother said he had the girls’ clothing on his cart.”
“That’s true. But not the clothes they were wearing.”
“How so?”
“I saw the clothes. They don’t match the description that Florence Bell’s mother gave before the search. I think that when the detectives showed her the evidence, she changed her story.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I’m not saying she lied. And I’m not saying the dresses don’t belong to the girls. But the rag-and-bone man had a peep show for the children. They’d bring him old clothes, and he’d let them look through the spy holes while he pulled a string to make the puppets dance. What if Florence and Molly had traded him their castoffs without telling Mrs. Bell? And Mrs. Bell, at the sight of them, was moved to correct her own memory?”
“If the tinker didn’t kill them, who did?”
“I believe it could be the same man responsible for your own misfortune,” Sebastian said.
The below-ground buffet in the station concourse was open for tea, toast, or a three-shilling supper. Evangeline declined them all. She sat forward on the edge of her seat and did not unbutton her coat. The buffet was paneled in rich, polished wood, with stained glass in the concourse windows and electric light from bronze fittings. Their table was not in the best spot, but it was separated from the others and they would not be overheard.
Evangeline began, “Grace Eccles was my best friend. We didn’t choose each other, we just made a pair. Chalk and cheese. Mother didn’t approve. She was never a snob, but she’s always been proper.”
“What about your father?”
“My father died when I was very small. I don’t remember much about him at all. He was in the foreign service and they sent him out to India. He was supposed to send for us when he got settled, but a fever took him six weeks after the boat landed. Mother got a telegram to say he was dead. A week after that she got a letter from him, the last one he wrote. I’ll always remember that.”
“Stepfather?”
“You’re looking for a man to blame for my situation.”
“Just trying to understand it better.”
The waitress brought coffee, and Evangeline waited until she’d gone before continuing. As she started to speak again, she undid the top button of her coat and unwound the scarf from around her neck, reaching up and over her head to do it.
“People misjudge Grace,” she said. “They always have.”
Evangeline told of how her mother had reason to disapprove of her daughter’s friendship with Grace Eccles. Grace’s father was a man of poor reputation, though Grace loved him as much as any daughter ever could. Grace’s mother had run off with another man. Her father had been a hard worker and a Saturday-night drinker before that, and became an all-week drinker thereafter. This didn’t sit well with Lydia Bancroft, who was a member of the Temperance League.
Evangeline said, “The story is that Grace’s father was making his way home from the Harbor Inn one night and swore he saw something cross his path in the moonlight. Big and black and it looked at him with yellow eyes. He said they shone out like lamps. You can imagine what everyone thought. But the more people ridiculed him, the more he insisted. Until the story found its way into the paper, and then he shut up. The reporter let him think they
