Noel Hynd - The Sandler Inquiry

"I'm afraid nothing's obvious ' "Arthur Sandler was a spy. You've confirmed that for yourself.

He's still alive and he still knows the proper people in United States intelligence. He doesn't want me alive," she said bitterly "Of course my fingerprints are on file somewhere. And if you've been good enough to trigger that central computer, it's only a matter of time before my father comes looking for me again' "If you're claiming his estate, it's only a matter of time anyway."

"True," she said. She fell silent, reflective.

"Consider Arthur Sandler. For every minute of his life that you've been able to account for already, he's wielded power. Every day, from every angle.

In whatever identity he has now, he knows I'm the one person who might give him away. Do you need any further explanation of why my fingerprints would be on file?"

Gently, with a certain defensiveness, she was resting her case, leaving her story open to his judgment. She waited for a reply.

"What I need" he said slowly, 'are photocopies of your documents. Your birth certificate. The marriage certificate. May I?"

She broke into the first natural, calm smile he'd seen from her.

"All right," she said, and nodded enthusiastically.

"I'm going to disappear for a few days. I want to build a case for you. Will you be able to take care of yourself for a week?"

"I've taken care of myself for over twenty years" she said.

Her self-assurance was back. Theyd reached an understanding.

She looked at him for a moment, then, in her excitement, leaned toward him. She embraced him as a friend would, then slowly she felt his strong arms around her shoulders. Her own arms responded in the same manner. She pulled away from him slightly.

"I'm glad we finally trust each other," she said.

"It was lonely in the next room " Understanding, yet mystified, he watched her as she stood up for a moment. Gracefully she reached to the front of the nightgown.

The light was dim, but he could see every bit of her perfectly. She slid the two short sleeves away from her arms. He was almost speechless.

"Leslie…?" he stammered.

"It's my decision. Don't say no."

The thin gown slipped away, sliding to the floor. She stood before him, slim, delicate. He was no longer conscious of the scar across her throat. His eyes were elsewhere as she moved onto the bed.

He hesitated.

"I thought…?"

"I changed my mind " she said spiritedly with her gentle British accent.

"Now. No more discussion."

As his anxious arms reached for her, her own hands, the hands that had left the fingerprints on the photograph, reached to him and formed an embrace.

Thomas Daniels arrived at London International, otherwise known as Heathrow, at nine PM." London time. He rented a car, stayed overnight in nearby Windsor, and the next morning drove southwest.

North Fenwick, where Arthur Sandlerthad married Elizabeth Chatsworth a third of a century earlier, was a quiet rural township of four hundred inhabitants. Much of the twentieth century, other than electricity, telephones, and automobiles, had been resisted. The air was clean, though damp and very cold that time of year. Houses were stone and had thatched roofs. Smoke from peat or wood rose from most chimneys. The atmosphere was rural without being provincial.

The brown-stone church by the town hall dated from the fifteen hundreds.

The church, St. George's Chapel, was open. Thomas parked his car on the village green and walked into the church. The interior was barely warmer than the outside. The pews were dimly lit, as the stained glass allowed only modest amounts of light to filter across the old wooden pews, the -center aisle and its same floor, and the deep plum-colored cushions on the wooden benches. There was one hymnal per row.

But before even approaching the aisles or the pews, Thomas Daniels was struck dramatically by a large marble catafalque to the rear left corner of the worship hall. He approached it, as its contours resembled that of a human body.

He stood before it. There he looked upon a marble tomb, that of the chapel's founder, a sixteenth-century cleric named George Lorrick.

Within were the remains of Lorrick, bones turned to dust over four centuries' repose. And along the top of the tomb, according to the custom of the day, was the likeness of the minister wrought in heavy iron. Head to toe, cap to boot, the iron image of the minister.

Along the side, beneath the man's name, were his earthly dates: 1470-1545.

Thomas gazed into the metal image of the face, wondering whether the death mask did the man justice; whether or not the image of the rural parson revealed or concealed anything of the soul of the man sealed within. The graven image told only what the man had looked like on the exterior. It said nothing of the man behind the facade. A side notation was more helpful. Lorrick had founded the chapel, it said, in 1501. Stone after stone, by hand. In 1847 he'd been canonized.

Thomas moved on. He looked around both curiously and anxiously: curious whether he'd happen upon the pastor, and anxious as he looked forty feet ahead of him to the altar. There Leslie Me Adam parents had been married, the barmaid and the spy, during a dark hour of the Second World War. Thomas walked slowly and inquisitively up the narrow center aisle until he stood where Arthur Sandler and Elizabeth Chatsworth must have. He looked around the chapel from that spot. Receiving no special inspiration, he turned and walked again toward the two heavy front doors.

In the vestibule he stopped, examining plaques on the wall. A pair of plaques remembered the sons of North Fenwick who'd fallen in the world wars. Another, smaller and older, plaque bore two lonely names, a pair of long-forgotten souls who'd died for a long-forgotten cause under the command of Lord Kitchener. Transvaal. 1901.

Thomas turned and examined the opposite wall. There, engraved on stone, was part of what he'd been seeking. A listing of rectors of the chapel. From 1501 to the present.

His eyes stopped on Jonathan Phillip Moore 1937-1949. A small cross by the name indicated that Reverend Moore, whose name appeared on the wedding certificate shown to Thomas by Leslie, had died while still the rector of that small parish. Another man had served from 1949 to 1957.

Another from 1957 to 1968, and still another, Moore's third successor, from 1968.

Thomas went next door to the town hall. An old woman with grayish-white hair, a wrinkled face, yellowed teeth, and two heavy wool sweaters allowed Thomas to examine the town records, the official entries of births, deaths, and weddings.

Thomas turned to 1944. He sat at a long table and felt the old woman watching him from across the small town clerk's office.

Thomas ignored her as best he could. He was on the page that included October in the heavy, leather-bound ledger. He ran quickly down the page with his finger.

Then he froze. Simply noted, no more than a single line, was: MARRIED -ARTHUR EDWARD SANDLER, New York, United States ELIZABETH ANN CHATS WORTH Tiverton, Devon. October twenty, ten A.M. Thomas examined the page of the book. Without question it was the original page. The entry was legitimate, Thomas looked up and found the old woman watching him.

"Where would I find deaths?" he asked.

"Deaths?" She nodded toward him with a rasping voice.

"Same ledger."

"But by specific names?"

She looked at him strangely.

"What names?"

Thomas removed from his pocket a photograph of Leslie's parents' marriage certificate. He read the names of the two witnesses. After a cross-reference procedure in which the olct woman consulted a different town ledger, Thomas learned that both of the other witnesses to the marriage were also deceased. The most recent had died in 1953.