The Sandler Inquiry Part 13

"She never trusted another man in her life, Mr. Daniels" she said.

"Given her situation, I'm not sure that it was a bad idea' ' Thomas fidgeted uncomfortably. He glanced away from Leslie.

Outside it was dark now, almost six in the evening.

Leslie skipped to 1954, the year of Arthur Sandler's death.

It hadn't exactly been of natural causes. Arthur Sandler had been walking on Eighty-ninth Street, where three gunmen had been waiting for him. Victoria, with him at the time, screamed hysterically when she saw him being shot. She dropped the shopping bag she'd been holding and out tumbled no less than a thousand crisp, new one-dollar bills.

The a.s.sa.s.sins ignored the money and were never found.

"The murder of an American millionaire like Sandler was newsworthy throughout Europe," said Leslie.

"A shooting on the street like that, a prominent man executed, would find its way into most newspapers. The British news journals carried it. All of them' She took a breath.

"My mother saw a picture of him. Recognized him.

And of course she recognized the name. She had always felt that somewhere he was still alive."

"What did she do?"

Elizabeth Chatsworth, Leslie explained, went to half a dozen solicitors each of whom dismissed her as a fortune-hunting fake. She went to a local pet.i.tioner who said he'd look into her claim. He may or may not have, but he quickly reported back to her that she had no case at all.

Then she tried the American Consulate in London.

After a few days of investigation, the Americans icily informed her that she was a fraud.

She took the only course left. She sent several letters to the Sandler address in New York.

"Did she get a response?" asked Thomas.

"Yes. But it wasn't in the mail' On an afternoon in 1954, two weeks before Christmas, Leslie returned to the small four-room row house where she and her mother lived, opened the front door, and shouted that she was home, just as she'd done countless other days. There was no response. Leslie called a second time. Odd, the girl thought. The door unlocked, yet her mother not home. She stopped in the kitchen for cookies, and a few minutes later climbed the stairs.

Her mother's bedroom door was open. And beyond, the room was a shambles. Clothing, dresser drawers, and bedding were all over the floor.

The girl's voice broke now.

"?"she called plaintively.

She stood at the doorway. The bed had been turned over. She walked past the half-open door, and saw the bedraggled, bloodied sheets. With another step she saw her mother.

Elizabeth Chatsworth Sandler. The body was lying face up on the floor, broken and fully clothed, the face contorted. Below her mother's chin was a messy line across the throat, where the neck had been severed.

The girl bellowed, nearly felt her heart stop. The door behind her crashed shut.

Terrified, she whirled. He was a large man with a powerful build, his suit and tie black, his skin sallow and white. There were heavy black rubber gloves on his hands.

"You must be Leslie," the man said evenly. His accent was American.

"Your mother wrote about you" A second or two slipped by as the man started slowly toward the cornered girl. He pushed back his sleeves.

"Come to me, Leslie' he said.

"I'm your father."

Sandler fumbled wil something in his other hand, a pair of silver rings with several inches of wire strung between them. He quickly looped the wire over her neck. She kicked.

Her foot cracked directly into his kneecap. He yanked at the wire. The wire tore the flesh across her throat. But he was unsteady. She pulled away. He lost his grip on the wire and it fell as she rushed by him and down the stairs, shrieking, the deep red gashes dripping blood to her dress and coat.

Exactly how Sandler escaped Leslie never knew. When the police returned to the house Sandler was gone. He'd left behind no trace of himself just the body of Elizabeth Sandler. A thoroughly professional killing.

"I have an instinct for self-preservation, Mr. Daniels" she explained.

She continued calmly, with only the slightest quaver in her voice.

"At age nine I learned. I've never forgotten. I remember him grabbing my wrist so tightly that it hurt. I remember how his face looked. I was paralysed with fear. But I knew I had to do something to protect myself."

Leslie's left hand played with a strand of her hair. She noticed Thomas watching her hand.

"I have something else to show you,"

she said.

"This is something you can keep' She opened her purse and pulled from it a small envelope, the size used for personal letters. She reached into the envelope and pulled out a small glossy black-and-white photograph. She held it by her thumb and forefinger, considered it for a moment, then handed it to Thomas.

"My father," she said without emotion.

"Arthur Sandler."

Thomas took the photograph by the edges and looked into the face.

"What year?"

"It was Mother's photograph. 1942. Maybe 1943. Probably not much use now."

Thomas shrugged noncommittally. He tucked the picture into another envelope.

"So you were a nine-year-old orphan' he said.

"What next?"

"Mother hadn't any relatives. Normally that would have put me in a children's home in Devon. But there was more to this case than that.

Scotland Yard was involved from London the next day. And they must have turned it over to British intelligence immediately."

"Why do you say that?"

She managed a sardonic smile.

"Because that's what happened" she said with sudden authority.

"I was driven to London by two plainclothes policemen whom I'd never seen before. I was taken to a large Government building which had Union jacks and official portraits of Churchill and the Queen on every wall. I may have been nine years old, Mr. Daniels, but never underestimate a child.