The Lost Ancestor (29 page)

3
^rd
March 1901

Singing
lessons on Friday morning instead of the usual arithmetic lesson.  Mary
Mercer and Martha Stone kept in the whole dinner-time on Friday for playing
truant on the previous afternoon.

Morton
read the previous entry several times.  It was simple and yet spoke
volumes about the two girls and their friendship.  He hoped that whatever
had happened to Martha would be noted in the coming pages.  He returned to
the ledger and carried on his searches into 1902.

8
^th
February 1902

The
school is very cold this morning.  The correspondent says we cannot have
any more coal.  The week opens with a very thin attendance owing to the
prevailing epidemic of influenza.

10
^th
February 1902

Still
no coal, and the school very cold.  Obliged to let 2 boys saw up Hop Poles
to warm the rooms a little, infants nearly crying with cold.

18
^th
February 1902

I
regret to say that influenza has again broken out amongst the children and one
child, Martha Stone died this morning.

Morton stopped reading and stared at the
entry, transfixed.

How
was this possible? 
As
if the headstone had not been proof enough, here it was in black and white:
Martha Stone had died.  And yet, in 1911 Martha Stone had apparently
emigrated to Nova Scotia, where she had remained until at least 1925.

Morton’s mind went into overdrive as he
began to make tentative links between the facts that he already knew, the
theories proposed by Jenny and the newly acquired knowledge of Martha Stone’s
death.  At the moment, it was still tentative to say the least.  He
needed more—much more—to even
consider
suggesting anything to Ray
Mercer.

Morton photographed the entry and moved
on.  On the following page, Martha’s burial was noted.

1
^st
March 1902

The
little girl (Martha Stone) who was taken ill a few days before the annual
inspection was buried to-day.  The children sent a wreath & a cross
which were placed on her grave.  The teachers also sent a wreath &
cross.

After
photographing the page and continuing his search, Morton quite soon found
another entry that made him sit up with interest.

18
^th
March 1902

One
girl, Mary Mercer punished, by wearing two placards on her coat, before the
whole school, for appalling conduct during her dinner-hour.  Her recent
conduct has been the subject of a managers’ meeting last week.

Morton
could only speculate at Mary’s behaviour.  One possibility was that
Martha’s death had had a severe impact on her.

‘Anything?’ Jenny suddenly asked, peering
over his shoulder at where his index finger pointed.  ‘Oh.  Naughty
girl!’

Morton turned.  ‘Yeah.  I just
found Martha’s death—she died of the flu.’

She lowered her glasses and looked at
Morton.  ‘Are you now thinking that Mary travelled to Canada under a
pseudonym, using her dead school friend’s name?’

‘It’s certainly a theory,’ Morton said
nonchalantly.

‘Oh, come on, Morton,’ Jenny
persisted.  ‘It’s looking
much
more probable than a theory.’

Morton was indignant in his belief that he
should never accept something as fact without substantial proof.  His
usual ideal was three pieces of separate evidence.  ‘We’ll see.  How
are you getting on?’

Jenny turned her nose up.  ‘Not
great.  I found George’s baptism fairly quickly.  It was in November
1911, just a few weeks after his birth.  I’ve taken a photo of it, but
there’s nothing unusual about it—same for his marriage.  I’ve spent the
rest of the time on the Findmypast website digging around, but nothing so far.’

From the desk in front of him, Morton
noticed his phone light up.  Juliette was calling.  ‘Just need to
take this—can you watch my stuff for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ Jenny replied.

Morton answered the call with a hushed
whisper.  ‘Hang on,’ he said, as Max pressed the door release, allowing
him to leave the Reference Room.  Once safely in the lobby, Morton
returned the phone to his ear.  ‘Hi, Juliette.  You okay?’

‘Yeah, fine.  You?’ Juliette said.

‘Interesting day—will tell all later,’ he
said, taking a seat at one of the small round tables.  ‘I’m doing some
research at The Keep at the moment.  Oh, that reminds me—I’m going to call
in on Dad on the way home—do what you suggested and talk to him about Aunty
Margaret and the wedding.’

‘That’s good.  I’ll be finishing work
in about an hour.  Listen, I just wanted to ring to tell you that I’ve
been making discreet enquiries at work today about the investigation into
Douglas Catt’s murder.  At the moment they’re none the wiser about why he
was shot.  One theory is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,
like you wondered.  But, Douglas seems to have a
lot
of enemies and
the killer wasn’t a professional hit-man, like you thought he might have been.’

‘How do they know that?’ Morton asked.

‘He just made a lot of mistakes.  The
kill wasn’t clean, he left footprints and DNA material, and grainy CCTV from
the pub over the road shows him tripping over a gravestone in the
churchyard.  A bit hapless and bungling really.  Even so, be careful,
because he’s not been caught yet and, if you’re right, then he could still be
after you.’

‘Will do,’ he muttered.  All the
while he was ensconced in the archives he felt safe enough.  He was more
worried about her, but he knew that she couldn’t be safer anywhere else than
surrounded by dozens of police officers.

‘The other reason I was ringing was
because, whilst I was in the station today, I had a chance to speak to Susan
Catt.  I caught her quickly as she was leaving following another
interview.’

‘Did you ask her why her husband was so
desperate for me to stop my work?’ Morton asked.

‘Well, in a bit more of a diplomatic,
pillar of the community kind of way, yes.  She wouldn’t reveal anything to
me but she wants to meet you.  I’ll text you her mobile number in a
minute.’

Could be interesting
, Morton thought.

‘Just be careful,’ Juliette warned. 
‘Meet her somewhere public.  I don’t trust her at all.’

‘You don’t think she killed Douglas, do
you?’ Morton asked incredulously.

Juliette laughed in a mocking way. 
‘No chance.  I said the killer was hapless, not a dappy wet fish. 
Plus, she’s got a very good alibi for the evening of the murder.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Got to go—about to go off on patrol
now.  See you later.  Love you.’

‘Love you too—see you tonight.’

‘Be careful!’ she warned.

‘I will.  Bye.’  Morton ended
the call and sat for a moment thinking about the next steps that he needed to
take.  He should go online and find Martha’s parents in 1911.  If the
census enumerator had done his job properly, and they had told the truth, then
their entry on the 1911 census should show that they had lost a child.  It
would be worth checking if passport applications existed and disembarkation
records for the period, too. 
Could Mary have escaped Blackfriars,
leaving her child behind and run off to Canada under a false name? 
As
much as he had initially doubted the theory, more and more evidence was rising
to the surface to prove, rather than to disprove it, at least the latter part
of that theory.

Morton made his way back to the Reference
Room, swanning past Miss Latimer just like the good old days where their mutual
hatred needed no disguise.

‘Right,’ Morton said when he reached Jenny
at his workstation.  ‘I’m going to see if historic passport applications
are available online—I’m fairly sure that the National Archives has some on
their website.  If so, would you mind trawling them to see if you can find
anything for Martha Stone or Mary Mercer in 1911?’

‘I’d be delighted,’ Jenny said, rubbing
her hands with glee.

Morton opened up a web browser and
navigated to the National Archives website.  He used their search facility
to look up passport applications and quickly found what he was looking
for.  ‘Here,’ he said to Jenny.  ‘FO—for Foreign Office—611. 
Then go to file 21, which covers the period 1909-1912.  It’s a free
document but pretty large by the looks of it,’ he said as he clicked to
download the file.  ‘Three hundred and sixty-three hand-written
pages.’  Morton turned to Jenny with a grin then began scrolling down
through the file.

‘Shouldn’t take long—it’s in alphabetical
order,’ Jenny noted.

‘Hmm, but only by first letter.  You
then need to search through pages and pages of haphazard surnames beginning
with M and S.  Is that okay?’

‘Oh yes, absolutely!’ Jenny said. 
‘I’ll get right to it.’

‘Great,’ Morton said, watching Jenny head
back into the Reading Room.  Normally, he liked to research
everything
for himself, but with this slightly outlandish theory and the approaching
closure of the archives for the day, he was happy to delegate some of the less
important work to someone else.

Morton used the Ancestry website to gain
the necessary reference to order Martha Stone’s death certificate; he then
placed the order on a priority service.  The certificate would be unlikely
to give him any new information, but he wanted to really make sure that there
was only one Martha Stone and that she had died and was buried in Winchelsea,
thus making the Martha Stone living in Nova Scotia someone living under a false
name.

Next, Morton turned his attention to the
1911 census.  Within seconds he had the record of Martha Stone’s
parents.  They were still living in Peace Cottage, Friar’s Road.  The
census return showed that they had been married for twenty-three years. 
One child had been born alive.  One child had died.  There were no
surviving children to James and Flora Stone.

Morton saved the image of the census
return, now having sufficient evidence to show that Martha Stone had died and
that
somebody
was living under a false name in Canada.  Somebody
that Edith Leyden visited in 1925.

Opening up a fresh web browser, Morton ran
some generic Google searches into gaining false passports for the period around
Mary’s disappearance.  He discovered that photographs of the passport
holder were only added in 1914, so Mary could easily have passed as someone
else born within just a few years of her.  Morton knew, as many
genealogists knew, that it was only until very recently that
anyone
could gain an original birth certificate if they could provide enough of the
background family details included on them.  One hundred years ago, it
would have been even easier.  Mary would have known the Stone family well
enough to have been able to answer the basic questions asked in order to gain a
birth certificate and then a passport.

A while later, Jenny returned. 
‘Nothing under Mercer, but I found this,’ she said with a telling grin. 
She held up her digital camera with the rear-viewer facing Morton.  He
strained his eyes to see.  November 26
^th
1911, Stone, Miss
Martha.  It was brief, but firm proof that
someone
had been issued
with a passport under that name.

‘Take a seat,’ Morton instructed. 
‘Let’s see if this Martha Stone appears on passenger lists.’

Jenny pulled up a swivel chair and tucked
herself up close to Morton’s chair.  ‘It’s getting very exciting!’

Morton smiled and opened up a search for
outward passenger lists 1890-1960.  He typed in Martha Stone, date of
travel 1911.  One result.  Morton clicked to see a scan of the
original page.

Returns of passengers leaving the United Kingdom in ships
bound for places out of Europe, and not within the Mediterranean Sea.

Port of Departure:
Bristol.  Date of departure: December 12
^th
1911

Ship’s name:
Royal Edward

Steamship line:
Royal Line, Canadian Northern Steamships Limited

Where bound:
Halifax, Canada

Morton
scrolled down the list of passengers until he found her.

Martha
Stone, 3
^rd
class, housemaid, single, English, aged 21.

Both
Morton and Jenny stared at the screen for some time before either of them
spoke.

‘What date was George Mansfield baptised?’
Morton finally asked.

Jenny switched her camera back on and
scrolled through the images that she had taken.  ‘Twenty-first of
November.’

‘And you thought that was about three
weeks after his birth?’ Morton quizzed.

‘About that.  I remember that he was
definitely born in November 1911.’

Morton nodded.  ‘Okay.  Nine
months prior to that takes us to…’ he stopped and thought for a moment. 
‘February 1911—when Mary and Edward were working and living under the same
roof.  Two months later, Edward tries to get a marriage licence but Mary
disappears.  One month after that, he turns up dead in the Blackfriars
lake.  Then nothing happens.’

‘Until we reach November,’ Jenny
continued, ‘when George Mansfield is born.  Soon after, a female, who knew
Martha Stone very well, travels to Canada, where she remains until at least
1925 when Edith Leyden travels out to see her.’  Jenny paused.  ‘And
then Martha Stone’s trail goes cold.’

‘Let’s try and find her,’ Morton said,
returning his focus to his laptop.  He opened up the Canadian Ancestry
website to search the millions of records available pertaining to Canada. 
First, he tried Nova Scotia death records 1890-1960, but his search returned
zero hits.  ‘So she didn’t die in Nova Scotia before 1960,’ Morton
mumbled, before widening his search to the rest of the country.  Of the
few possibilities that appeared on screen, it took just a few minutes of cross-referencing
in other records to eliminate them.