“I chose to leave, to come here—”
“Youchosethis?” I asked, unable to believe such a thing. “Then why can’t I say your name? Why hasn’t Father searched for you?”
She looked as if she was going to speak, but then she shook her head. “It’s best if you leave—right now, before Joseph returns. He doesn’t know anything about my past, and I want to keep it that way. It’s safer for all of us if he believes I’m Marie Jeanette.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I understand why you left home.”
“You need to go. Now.” She put her small hand on my back and nudged me toward the door. “Don’t come back here, Kathryn. Joseph is already upset with me because I’ve been letting friends stay here at night. It’s too dangerous for them to be on the streets with a murderer on the loose.”
“About that—” I wanted to tell her to be careful, but Austen reached out and put his hand on my arm to stop me. He shook his head, as if warning me not to say too much.
“Mary, please,” I said as I tried to pause.
She opened the door, more tears in her eyes. “If you want to keep me safe, please don’t come back. For your sake and for mine.”
“I’ll send money,” I told her.
“I don’t need—or want—anything from you. No one must know about you. I can’t risk that they’ll find out who you are—or who I am.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “Please, help me understand.”
She put her hand on my cheek, and I felt like the younger sister for the first time. “Good-bye, Kathryn.”
Austen put his hand on the small of my back. “We should leave. We don’t want to put Mary in a difficult position.”
I wrapped her in another embrace and whispered, “Please be careful.”
She nodded and then pulled back, anxious for me to leave.
When we stepped outside, Mary closed the door behind us, and I leaned into Austen as he led me down the passageway. A curtain moved aside from one of the other rooms, and an old woman peered out at us.
“I don’t understand,” I said again as Austen led me to his carriage. “None of this makes sense.”
“I don’t understand it, either, but we have to honor her wishes.”
“She said that Father didn’t force her to leave. Why would she abandon the comfort and safety of our home? Why would he let her go?”
“Perhaps it was more dangerous for her to live at home than it is for her to live here.” Austen helped me into his carriage and then tapped on the roof to let Miles know we were ready to head back to Wilton Crescent.
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“I’m sorry, Kate,” he said as he put his arm around me and held me close. “I wish you had more answers. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t save her. We must be patient.”
I didn’t want to be patient. I just wanted to save my sister.
12
London, England
September 28, 1938
The basement of Lancaster House was filled with the London Museum’s special exhibits. There was a cell from Newgate Prison, items from the Tudor Dynasty—including medical paraphernalia from Queen Elizabeth’s physician, Doctor Bromley—models of Old London, and even a Roman boat. Calan and I had been given a large, empty room in the corner to turn into an exhibit for Jack the Ripper. It was a dark, dank area and offered just the right amount of atmosphere to create a sense of foreboding. We’d decided to make the long, narrow room look like Buck’s Row, the site of Polly Nichols’s murder—the first of the canonical five victims that were attributed to Jack.
“On the left wall,” Calan said to the museum’s carpenter, who had joined us for a meeting in the basement, “we’ll want a façade of the brick buildings along Buck’s Row. At the end, we’ll re-create the gate that led into the stable where Polly’s body was found.” He pulled several photographs out of a file taken around the time of the murder. “The architecture was very simple,” Calan noted as he pointed to one photo. “Just keep it as true to the photographs as possible.”
“Alright, mate,” the carpenter said. “And what will we do for the floor?”
“We’ll keep the floor natural,” he answered.
