9308-3953

Geraldine’s heart, which had spent this entire odd audience in a sort of suspended
stupor, began to beat more quickly. “Anthony,” she said. “Whatever are you saying? “
“The child I took to the orphanage thirty-two years ago…” Weaver said. “She grew up
smart and strong and defiant and ultimately became the headmistress of the school. She assumed a
new surname at some point in the process, as I gather they all do. You hate me for not saving her, I
can see it on your face, and no doubt she hates me too, even though…” He broke off as realization
hit, belated and painful.
“When she realized who we were, she hated us too,” he finally said. “Hated us enough
to murder. Or rather enough to teach that Adelaide creature how to kill in her stead.”
“Adelaide is not the child you carried from Cawnpore?” Geraldine asked hollowly,
although she already knew the answer.
“No,” said Anthony. “Of course not. What a notion. The child I deposited at the
orphanage thirty-two years ago, has grown up to be the woman they call Leigh Anne Hoffman.”
***
Bombay Jail
11:10 AM
“There are only two sets of fingerprints on the glass Hubert Morass held as he toppled
into the well of Cawnpore,” Davy said. “His own and, just as suspected, those of Miss Hoffman.”
At first no one reacted to this announcement. Emma, Trevor, and Rayley all sat in
silence. It was Henry Seal who found his voice first.
“I will get the full credit for the arrest, I assume?”
“Fine,” Trevor said with distaste. The politics of police work, which marched on even
in the most ghastly and blood-soaked of circumstances, had always repelled him. But the Scotland
Yard crew had no interest in the ultimate prosecution of Leigh Anne Hoffman – in fact, he himself
hoped to be far away, somewhere along the waters of the Indian Ocean, when that woman met her
fate.
“Morass is the one who solved the case,” Davy said flatly. “That glass yielded the two
most perfect prints I have ever seen. He turned the vessel perfectly, presented it to her just so…”
“And I shall see that he gets a posthumous commission,” Seal said, barely restraining
himself from rubbing his hands together in glee. “It would mean a bigger pension for his family…did
he have one?”
“He lived alone,” Trevor said shortly. Like me. Like me and Rayley and Benson and
so many of us. Take note, young Davy. You have your family of birth around you now, but within a
few years, you shall see what a lonely business this copper work truly can be.
“Promise me two things,” he said to Seal. “That Secretary-General Weaver will be
released immediately and that Leigh Anne Hoffman won’t be arrested until after we sail.”
“Gladly.”
“What will happen to Adelaide?” Emma mused aloud. “And all the girls in Miss
Hoffman's school? For here we have a killer who has created much benefit with her life. It seems a
good many innocents shall suffer in her absence.”
“I agree, it is a disheartening business,” said Rayley. “All losers, no winners, unless
you count Anthony Weaver, and I somehow doubt he shall enjoy his freedom very much.”
“It would seem some good would have to come out of this somehow,” Emma went on.
“I can’t bear the thought that our bloody English justice system has cast all those little girls out upon