The Strange Story of Linda Lee Read online

  The notes were all of high denominations and, with eager fingers, Linda totted up their value. At a rough calculation, she found to her delight that they were worth well over one thousand pounds.

  It was more than enough to get her out of the country and keep her for quite a time; so, had she remembered this hoard, she need not have risked endeavouring to sell some of the jewels while still in England. But it was too late to job backward now, and she could certainly count herself lucky in making this unexpected find.

  Having put the envelope with the jewels in the brief-case and locked it, she relocked the now empty tin box, gave it back to the young man outside and, with a light heart, heard the iron gate of the vault clang to behind her.

  It was now past her usual lunchtime, but she still had a lot to do, so resisted the temptation to go up and have a snack in the restaurant, and took a taxi to her bank in Baker Street.

  She had there something over one hundred and eighty pounds. To have left it there would have been greatly against the instinct she had acquired when she had worked in her father’s market garden, and every penny counted. But she knew that she must proceed with caution. It was just possible that Arthur might already have notified the bank of Rowley’s death, in case they had a joint account and she might be tempted to draw on it.

  Actually they had not, but now, her mind a prey to every form of apprehension, she feared that if the people at the bank did know of Rowley’s death and she failed to mention it, they would think it very strange and perhaps ask her awkward questions which might result in her being caught out in a lie.

  The attitude of the cashier would, she decided, be the acid test. If he condoled with her, that would be that. If not, she would be in the clear. As she walked up to the counter, she saw that the cashier on duty was a young, coloured girl who had cashed her cheques on several occasions. The girl smiled at her politely and said only, ‘Good morning, Miss Chatterton. I hope you’re well.’

  Thanking her, Linda asked for her balances. They proved to be one hundred and eighty pounds on deposit and eight pounds fifty-three pence on current account. Feelirig that it would be less likely to arouse comment if she sacrificed the lesser sum, she said, ‘I want to draw out one hundred and eighty.’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Chatterton,’ the girl smiled. ‘It’s quite a sum, isn’t it? You must be going on a real spending spree.’

  Linda returned the smile. ‘As a matter of fact, I am, I’m getting married on Friday to Mr. Frobisher, and I want to buy him a really nice present.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely. Congratulations. I’m sure our manager will want to congratulate you, too. Mr. Coxon is in his office. I’ll let him know.’

  Only then did Linda realise that she had been extremely stupid. To get her own money out of the bank it had been quite unnecessary to tell the lie she had used at Cabouchon’s. She had spoken without thinking. And now, the moment the girl left the counter, she was seized by a new fear. Mr. Coxon might know of Rowley’s death, but not have told the cashier about it.

  A minute later, the girl came back. ‘Mr. Coxon would very much like to have a word with you, Miss Chatterton. But he’s got someone with him at the moment. He’ll come out to you as soon as he is free.’

  It seemed to Linda that the girl was no longer smiling. With a lump in her throat, she said, ‘I … I’m in rather a hurry; and I’d like the money in tenners please.’

  The girl waved aside her protest. ‘Oh, he won’t be long, I’m sure. And there has been quite a run on ten-pound notes this morning, so I’m getting short. While you are waiting I’ll send down to the vaults for more.’

  Most reluctantly Linda took a chair at a small table, as she wondered if the cashier was lying in order to detain her while Mr. Coxon rang up Arthur to tell him that she was saying she was engaged to a dead man. Still, they could not refuse to let her have her own money. But what if Chubb’s had already sent a man to open the safe? If so, she had cooked her own goose. Arthur would ask the manager to send for the police.

  Her mouth had gone dry again from nervous strain, and her hands were clenched tight under cover of the table. Again she was tempted to run for it. She would have to sacrifice the one hundred and eighty pounds, but she had the Swiss francs.

  With her eyes fixed on the clock on the opposite wall, she counted the agonising minutes—five, six, seven, eight, nine. At last, bald-headed little Mr. Coxon came bustling out of his office, and he was smiling. Taking both Linda’s hands, he wrung them heartily and cried:

  ‘My dear young lady, I am delighted; delighted. Mr. Frobisher is one of our oldest clients. I do congratulate you, and also him. He is a very lucky man. It is a pleasure to wish you both every possible happiness.’

  Five minutes later Linda had cashed her cheque, stuffed the wad of crisp, new notes into her handbag and was out in the street.

  Glancing at her wrist watch, she saw that it was half past two, so her next hurdle was to collect the cheque from Cabouchon’s. A taxi got her to Bond Street in ten minutes. It was close on three hours since her previous visit. In that time much might have happened. Chubb’s men might have opened the safe. Arthur might have telephoned the jeweller and learned that she had attempted to sell two of the rings. If so, there was probably a detective in the shop, waiting to arrest her when she returned there.

  As it was still well before three o’clock, Linda made that an excuse to herself for not yet going in. For ten minutes she loitered from one shop window to another, apparently studying the goods in them, but without her brain registering what they were or their prices. A smartly-dressed grey-haired man, wearing a curly-brimmed bowler, attempted to pick her up. For a moment she did not take in the remark he had made to her; then she sharply brushed him off, turned and walked quickly away.

  Finding that she was going toward Cabouchon’s she rallied her courage. Then, telling herself that the odds against the safe having yet been opened were a hundred to one, she pushed open the door and went in.

  Mr. Smithers was not at his counter. A young man whom she did not know came forward and enquired politely what he could do for her. She asked for Mr. Smithers, but he had unexpectedly had to go out, and the young man knew nothing about her arrangement with him that morning. Much irritated, she told him about the rings that she had sold from the Frobisher collection. Asking her to take a chair, he disappeared into an inner office. He was absent for several minutes, while Linda tapped her foot impatiently. Presently he emerged, smiling and holding the cheque. Standing up, she took it from him and was about to put it into her bag when she caught sight of the last half of the name written on it. Instead of to herself, it had been made out to Roland Frobisher, Esq.

  Her nerves taut to breaking point, it was on the tip of her tongue to scream at him, ‘Damn you for a bloody fool!’ but, she checked herself in time. Whatever happened, she must not make a scene. Choking down her fury, she pointed out the error and gave him back the cheque.

  Apologising, he again went into the office. Linda endured another wait of several minutes. Then the young man returned, accompanied by an older man who introduced himself as Mr. Bendon, and told her that he was one of the partners. Holding the same cheque in his hand, he said:

  ‘I understand that you are Miss Chatterton, a friend of Mr. Frobisher. In fact, I’ve seen you in here once or twice when designs were being submitted to you for resetting some of his jewels. But the jewels belong to Mr. Frobisher; so, naturally, we made out our cheque to him.’

  Calling up the last dregs of her patience, Linda told him the same story as she had Mr. Smithers. He listened, unsmiling, to the end, then made a little bow:

  ‘It is a pleasure, Madam, to wish you every happiness in your forthcoming marriage; and I hope you will continue to give us your patronage. But—er—I trust you will forgive me for pointing out that this transaction is a little irregular. I mean, without a written authority from Mr. Frobisher, I hardly like to buy from you jewels which, as far as we know, are his property.’
r />   Linda felt a chill run down her spine. She was not, after all, going to get the cheque. She had been through all this agonising business for nothing. But there was one last chance, although it was a desperate one. She could try a bluff.

  Drawing herself up to her full, splendid height, she said haughtily, ‘I am not accustomed to having my word doubted. If you don’t believe that I am engaged to Mr. Frobisher and that he has given me his jewels to do with as I wish, I’ll have to explain to him why I wanted to sell the two rings. That will ruin the surprise I planned for him; so it will be the last time I shall ever enter this shop.’

  Mr. Brendon gave her an unhappy look, bowed and walked toward his office. The second his back was turned, Linda would have given anything to take back her words. They had been incredibly rash. She had virtually invited him to ring up Rowley. Elsie or Arthur would take the call, and be told what she had done. And that, when she already had in her bag over twelve hundred pounds. Why, in God’s name, had she been so greedy, instead of sensibly sacrificing the money for these accursed jewels? Now she had burnt her boats with a vengeance. After Mr. Bendon had telephoned, he would invite her into his office and keep her there until the police came.

  He was away only a few minutes. When he returned, he was still holding a cheque in his hand. Forcing a smile, he handed it to her and said, ‘Madam, I apologise for having upset you; but we do have to take every possible precaution, in the interests of our clients as well as ourselves.’

  A quick glance at the cheque showed her that it was another and made out to her. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘I’m afraid I was rather hasty. But—er—of course I do understand. I’ll be coming in to see you when I return from my honeymoon.’ Then she picked up her bag, and they bowed her out.

  At a quick walk she went round to the Westbury; but not to collect her suitcase. In the writing-room she wrote a brief note to Mr. Coxon, asking him to pay the cheque into her current account, enclosed the cheque with it, bought a stamp at the office and popped it into the post-box.

  On leaving the hotel, she decided that for her next business it would be quicker to walk than take a taxi; so, at a good pace, she went up Conduit Street and down Regent Street to the B.O.A.C. offices. She would have preferred to get her ticket through Milbanke Travel in Bond Street, as the manager there, Mr. Unger, had always, with admirable efficiency, made the arrangements for her travels abroad with Rowley. But to use Milbanke would almost certainly lead to the Spilkins learning where she had gone.

  She had decided to escape to Canada, her choice possibly having been subconsciously influenced by the fact that her brother, Sid, had gone there. But she had no intention of trying to seek him out, as he had a streak of his father in him and had often bullied her into doing jobs that he should have done himself; so she felt no affection for him. Canada’s main appeal to her as a country in which to start a new life was an assumption that life there could not be very different from what it was in England.

  At the B.O.A.C. offices, she asked for a seat on the next day’s aircraft to Montreal, only to learn to her dismay that every seat was already booked. It was imperative that she be out of England by the following night, so she enquired if there were any planes flying to other Canadian cities. There proved to be an Air Canada flight direct to Edmonton. A glance at the map showed her that Edmonton was in the far west, just this side of the Rockies. With the thought that the further she was from England the better, she decided that she would get on it if she could; so, leaving the B.O.A.C. office, she walked quickly up Regent Street to that of Air Canada. There her luck was in, as several seats on the flight were still available.

  Her original object in selling the two rings had been to get enough money to pay her fare, and she had meant to take the cheque straight to her bank and cash it. On learning that she would not receive the cheque until too late to bank it that day, she had hoped that B.O.A.C. would accept a cheque on her own account, otherwise she would have to use her deposit money for her fare and arrive in Canada with very little cash. That would have meant selling more of the jewels almost at once to a jeweller to whom she could give no references. But within an hour she had been relieved of that worry by the unexpected help of Swiss francs; and would not have risked returning to collect the Cabouchon cheque had she not feared that if she failed to do so the jewellers would ring up to find out why she had not, which would prematurely alert the Spilkins to the fact that she had made off with the jewels.

  Now that she had posted the cheque she was able to use one of her own to pay for her ticket: much relieved by the knowledge that it would not bounce and lead to Air Canada putting the police on to her a day or two after her arrival at Edmonton.

  The thought that she must leave the greater part of the money she had received for the rings untouched in her bank annoyed her. But there was one consolation. She felt no qualms about paying the much more expensive first-class fare, and signed a cheque for two hundred and four pounds. A further comfort was that she would not have to wait in agonised suspense all next day right up till the evening, as the Edmonton flight took off at five past two in the afternoon. Even so, if the Chubb man got through his rounds quickly there was still a nasty risk that the Spilkins might get on to the police in time to have her arrested at the airport.

  The girl at the desk had just handed Linda her ticket when her mind was suddenly distracted from the risk she must run next day by a terrible shock. Her precious brief-case was not on the floor beside her. The upset at Cabouchon’s had taken her mind off it, and she must have left it there.

  The blood draining from her cheeks, she ran out to get a taxi. But all those in sight were occupied. For the best part of ten minutes, she stood fuming on the kerb, watching the stream of traffic alternately halt in a solid block, then run on. At length one drew up in front of the Air Canada office. Without waiting until the passenger had paid the driver, she jumped inside and shouted to him to take her to the jeweller’s as quickly as possible.

  On the way she had frightful misgivings. The best part of three-quarters of an hour must have passed since she had left Cabouchon’s. Perhaps during that time Mr. Bendon had decided that, after all, he ought to telephone Rowley, and had got on to Elsie or Arthur. If so, she was deliberately walking back into the trap she had set for herself but had been lucky enough to escape. Dare she risk it? She must. It was no longer a question of getting hold of five hundred-odd pounds, or even of retrieving the jewels she had stolen from the safe. The big stuff from Harrods’ safe deposit and the Swiss francs were also in the briefcase—the whole fortune she had been counting on to keep her in comfort for years to come.

  In London it was the height of the tourist season. The West End streets were a seething mass of traffic, its free flow hampered by motor coaches and enormously long lorries, which brought everything else to a halt as they manoeuvred their way round corners. Owing to the one-way street regulations, the taxi had to cover twice the distance and Linda felt that it would never get there.

  At last it pulled up. On getting out, her mind occupied to the exclusion of all else with what would happen in the next five minutes, she forgot to pay the driver. The man called after her, ‘Can’t wait here, Miss!’

  Turning back, she fumbled in her purse, found she had not enough small silver, thrust a fifty-pence piece into his hand and said, ‘Keep the change.’

  Grinning, he cried as she crossed the pavement, ‘Thanks, ducks. Good luck to you.’

  His shout put new heart into her as, for the third time that day, she pushed open the door of Cabouchon’s. A moment later she knew that things were all right. The young man who had attended to her on her second visit gave her a welcoming smile, emerged from behind his counter with the brief-case, and said:

  ‘I see that you remembered where you left this, Madam. We were afraid you had forgotten. When you came in I was thinking of telephoning your home to let you know we had it and would send it to you by messenger.’

  Raising a smile, she tha
nked him, took the brief-case and again walked out into Bond Street. Another reprieve. She sighed with relief. Had she returned ten minutes later the brief-case would have been on its way up to Park Side West. As it was locked they would not have known what was in it; but the fact that it had been sent from Cabouchon’s would have been certain to arouse their suspicions. She would never have had the nerve to face Elsie and reclaim it.

  At a bag shop not far down the street she bought a satin pochette and the largest size in waist belts made of strong satin. Then she walked round the corner to the Westbury and got her suitcase out of the cloakroom. The hall porter shook his head over the taxi situation, but a few minutes later an American couple drove up in one.

  She had at first intended to lie low in a small hotel somewhere south of Kensington Gardens, where no-one was likely to know her by sight. But further thought had decided her that it would be safer to go to a large place, where people were constantly coming and going, and she would not be remembered by the staff.

  As she got into the taxi, for the benefit of the hall porter she told the man to take her to Charing Cross Station; but when they reached Piccadilly Circus she tapped on the window and shouted to him that she had changed her mind and would travel from Victoria. There, having paid the man, she waited until he had driven off, then told a porter to take her suitcase across the station to the Grosvenor Hotel.

  The initials L.C. were on her case, but she might have borrowed it, and she booked herself in as Mrs. Ronald Smith of 109 Burnside, Newcastle-on-Tyne. It was the first name and address she could think of and she had no idea if such a street as Burnside existed in Newcastle; but the odds against the receptionist’s checking up were astronomical. A bell-hop showed her up to a lofty, comfortably-furnished bedroom. As soon as he had closed the door behind him, she kicked off her shoes and sank into the armchair.