Page 114 of The English Wife

February 10

ANNABELLE FOUND! exclaimed the headline on The New York Journal. But only halfway down the page.

The weather had pushed missing murderesses down the page, beneath reports of cattle freezing in the fields, chunks of ice in the port of New Orleans, and snow in parts of the South that were entirely unused to the phenomenon and not best pleased. In New York, the temperatures had ducked well below zero and seemed set to stay that way, a fact that appeared to have had some effect on the crowd around the courtroom, which seemed smaller than yesterday’s by a large margin.

Or perhaps after yesterday’s dramatic testimony, they thought they had learned all they needed to know?

Once one got past the frozen cattle, the papers had vied to supply sightings of Annabelle Van Duyvil, a.k.a. Georgiana Smith, a.k.a. Goodness Only Knew. She’d been seen boarding the Staten Island Ferry, on a train to Des Moines, and in a bathhouse in Yorkville. The World had offered a $500 reward for reliable information as to her whereabouts; The Journal had upped it to $750 and a large ham haunch.

All of the papers were agreed on one point: Annabelle Van Duyvil was an imposter and a murderess who had killed her husband to escape discovery. It was only on the details that they varied.

Not one, Janie had noticed, made any mention of Georgina Evans, actress.

By now, the courtroom had a strange feeling of familiarity to it, as if she had spent her life sitting on this same bench in this same courtroom, day after day. Janie remembered the long train trips to Saratoga Springs having the same quality in her youth, feeling as though they had been traveling and would go on traveling forever, eating in the same dining car, among the same passengers.

That, of course, was before her mother had discovered the joys of private railcars.

As they passed the press bench, Janie heard one of the reporters say to another, “Sure to be a verdict today.”

And the other replied, “Better hope. I’d like to be home before hell freezes over.”

“It already has,” said the first one, scooting a little closer to the potbellied stove, which was doing an entirely inadequate job of heating the room.

Everyone left their coats on, the high collars and hats and mufflers giving the assemblage a slightly sinister air. Next to Janie, Anne’s head emerged out of a pile of stone martens, each biting the other’s tail, the eyes replaced with jet beads. She looked, thought Janie, like a goddess of the hunt—the sort who changed men into deer and then shot them.

She didn’t see Mr. Burke in the room.

As the coroner took his place and consulted his notes, Janie tried to clear her head. She had discovered Bay—at least in Anne’s version of the story. Her reprieve could last only so long.

The coroner lifted his head, but it wasn’t Janie’s name that he called.

“Mr. Giles Lacey?”

The crowd stirred, heads emerging from mufflers, people sitting straighter on their benches.

Mr. Lacey strutted up to the podium like a society beauty honoring the masses, looking neither to left nor right, acknowledging no one, but preening at the attention all the same. He was news, and he knew it.

He flipped his tails as he took his seat, waiting with an air of exaggerated patience for the coroner to ask the first question.

The coroner took his time, adjusting his spectacles, reviewing his notes, smoothing his mustache.

Giles shifted impatiently, propping one ankle against the opposite thigh.

“Yesterday,” said the coroner, “you alleged that the woman known as Annabelle Van Duyvil was, in truth, one Georgiana Smith. Is that correct?”

“My good man,” drawled Mr. Lacey, “I wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t.”

A titter ran through certain portions of the courtroom.

The coroner didn’t look at them. Instead, he focused his spectacles on Mr. Lacey, saying mildly, “Do you have any proof of this, Mr. Lacey?”

“I knew them both,” said Mr. Lacey impatiently. “Isn’t that proof enough?”

“A record of birth, perhaps,” suggested the coroner.

Mr. Lacey made a dismissive gesture. “The lot of them—my cousin and her brother and Georgie—were all born in India. Would you like me to try to find their old ayah?”

“What about in England?” the coroner asked, and Janie had to admire his doggedness.