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Chapter Nine
“So let us suppose that Spencer is not the real last name of the girls,” Geraldine mused. She glanced
down at Trevor’s latest telegram, which was resting on the table. “Perhaps Rose adopted a
pseudonym when she entered the Kirkland School, which is apparently standard practice for the
young women who go there. And Dorinda took the same name before she went to Hever.”
“But I don’t understand,” Tess, said, fitfully twisting one of her gloves. “Knowing what LaRusse did
to her sister, why would Dorinda follow him to Hever?”
“Revenge, Mama. It is all that explains it.” Marjorie, Tess’s older daughter, looked at her mother
with sympathy as she spoke. The last two days had taken their toll on Tess; she had slipped from
being a woman who was merely agitated and worried to someone who was having trouble thinking
clearly at all.
“It is one of humankind’s greatest motivations,” Emma said.
“But if Anne is still at Hever,” Tess said, “I can’t see what any of the rest has to do with it.”
“Patience, my dearest,” said Geraldine, reaching over to pat her arm. “Not one of us has forgotten
that your precious Anne is the focus of all our efforts. But if my labors in the arena of crime solving
have taught me anything, it is that sometimes the most unlikely strands of a story find a way to twine
themselves together. Answering one question often leads to a greater understanding of another. And
thus throwing light on LaRusse’s past may be the swiftest way to extract Anne from his grasp.”
“It occurs to me,” Marjorie said thoughtfully, “that when people concoct a false surname, they rarely
pull it from midair. Perhaps Spencer is some other sort of family name – their mother’s maiden name,
perhaps?”
“A reasonable notion,” Emma said, considering Marjorie with new respect. When she had first
arrived on Geraldine’s doorstep with her mother, Emma had been prepared to dislike her. This young
woman, scarcely two years older than Emma herself, seemed to have been uniquely blessed with
good fortune. Striking beauty, a doting family, an advantageous marriage, two perfect children. It
seemed almost too much to fathom that Marjorie would also be possessed of a kind heart and common
sense. But in the brief time she had spent in her company, Emma had found that she was beginning to
like Marjorie very much.
“Spencer as the mother’s maiden name?” Geraldine said. “Quite right. Tess, help me think. Do we
know any woman in her forties who was a Spencer before marriage?”
“There’s ElizaAnne Spencer Mill,” Marjorie said swiftly, answering in her mother’s stead. “It’s
what gave me the idea. I met her last year at the fundraising gala for the Barrow Street orphanage. A
kindly woman, and about the right age, with two growing daughters. But she and her husband have
recently left London.”