The Strange Story of Linda Lee Page 15
As a result of her cogitations, on the fifth morning of their stay at the Empress, while she was doing her hair she said:
‘Darling, I need some money.’
In the mirror she saw his expression of sudden, shocked surprise, as he said, ‘I thought …’ then broke off and added in a toneless voice: ‘O.K. sweetie. I’ve plenty, and I certainly owe you a good fat wad for the fun you’ve given me.’
Turning round, she blew him a kiss. ‘Thanks a lot for that generous answer. But, as I told you, I’m not a tart, and I’m enjoying our little jaunt every bit as much as you are. My trouble is that my husband is letting me down about the monthly allowance he agreed to make me. It was already three weeks overdue when we met, and after I had my hairdo downstairs yesterday, I phoned the bank in Vancouver. It still hasn’t come in.’
‘The dirty bastard! But don’t worry, honey. I’ll give you ample to tide you over.’
‘Thanks again, darling. But that won’t be necessary. My aunt on my father’s side was very rich and she left me all her jewellery. I brought it with me from England, and put it in the bank. I won’t miss a few pieces, but I don’t know anyone in Vancouver who could see to it that I got a fair deal from a jeweller.’
‘That’s easy. Dave Kane will know for sure who you’d best go to. As I’ve told you, I’m already committed to lunch with him and his wife on the last day of my vacation. I’ll call him, say I’m bringing you along, and fix with him to take us to his jeweller’s.’
On the Saturday morning, instead of taking the ferry back to Vancouver, Big Bear turned in at a local garage the car he had hired for his holiday, and engaged a taxi to take them to Swartz airfield. A twenty-minute flight took them to the international airport on Sea Island, a few miles south of Vancouver City. They booked in at the airport hotel for the night, then drove in to the bank where Linda had lodged her jewels. When her box was brought to her she selected from her hoard a diamond-cluster brooch, which was one of the better pieces, to sell; and, on second thoughts, a valuable square-cut emerald ring and a diamond bracelet to wear should the Kanes prove friendly and, later, ask her to a smart party.
By twelve o’clock, in the lounge of the Vancouver Hotel, Big Bear was introducing Linda to his friend Dave, a short, tubby, genial little Jew who looked about forty.
Dave took them along to Robson Street where there was a jeweller from whom he had bought several presents for his wife. One of the partners examined the diamond cluster and offered Linda two thousand dollars for it.
‘Come now, Mr Bowerman,’ Dave said, with a quick shake of his head. ‘It’s a lovely thing, and worth more than that. I’d give two grand for it myself.’
The jeweller smiled and spread out his hands. ‘Business is business, Mr. Kane. But, seeing the lady’s a friend of yours, I’ll make it two-two-fifty. That really is the very best I can do.’
Linda accepted the offer and, as it was such a large sum, asked Big Bear to put the notes in his wallet, in case she had her bag snatched. As he took them he laughed and said:
‘Where do you think you are, honey—New York or London? We don’t allow bag-snatching in Canada. You could walk on your own round the old French quarter in Montreal at midnight without the least fear of being robbed. People don’t steal cars, either. Our courts believe in protecting law-abiding people, and the penalties they inflict for theft are so heavy that crime simply does not pay.’
When they had left the shop Linda thanked Dave for having got her an extra two hundred and fifty dollars. She still had nearly eight hundred from the Swiss francs she had exchanged at Calgary, so now she had over a thousand pounds which would keep her going for a long time, without having to make further inroads into the jewels or the francs. Feeling that it was too large a sum to keep with her, she said she would like to put some of it-in the bank. While Dave went to fetch his car, Big Bear accompanied her back to the bank, where they willingly opened an account for her and she put the two thousand dollars on deposit.
Dave collected them and drove them up Grenville Street to his home, which lay in one of the avenues off Osler Crescent, all lined with fine houses standing back from the road in well-kept gardens.
Judith Kane, a dark, elegant woman, looked considerably younger than her husband. She welcomed Linda cordially and they were soon all chatting cheerfully over cocktails. After an enjoyable lunch, Judith said to Linda, ‘Dave told me he has a lot of business to talk over with Big Bear, so I thought I might take you for a drive and show you some bits of Vancouver that maybe you haven’t yet seen.’
For the better part of two hours Judith then took her guest on a tour of South Vancouver, which included the Fraserview Golf Course, which ran down to the river, Renfrew Heights and, on the way back, Queen Elizabeth Park, where they got out and walked for a while.
That morning Linda had been saddened by the knowledge that she was soon to lose Big Bear, but the afternoon drive consoled her a little, as she had got on excellently with Judith, and hoped that she would now have at least one friend in Vancouver. Her hopes were confirmed when, after tea, Dave was about to drive Big Bear and herself to the airport hotel, and Judith said:
‘You must come to see us again. Call me some time and we’ll make a date to go shopping, then come back here for lunch.’
That evening she dined with Big Bear in the airport’s Sea Island restaurant, then went early to bed; but, much to her surprise, he refused to make love to her more than once, on the grounds that they would have to be up early next morning, as reporting time for his flight was 8.15.
They breakfasted in bed at seven o’clock, and soon after eight were packed and dressed. Now that the time to part had come, Linda felt very low. He took her in his arms and kissed her. Then he put his big hands on her shoulders and held her a little away from him. There were tears in her eyes as he said, ‘Seems you’re sorry to have me go.’
She nodded dumbly and the tears flowed over, ‘Maybe too,’ he went on, ‘you’re wondering why I didn’t make the most of our last night together?’
Again she nodded.
Releasing her, he took his air ticket from his breast pocket, opened it and said, as though in surprise, ‘Now, just look at that! I must have been real crazy yesterday. There are two tickets here.’ With a wide grin he held them out. ‘I’m taking you to Montreal with me, honey.’
Flinging her arms round his neck, she cried, ‘Oh, darling! How marvellous! What a wonderful surprise.’
It was a long flight and after six o’clock when they landed at the airport outside Montreal. There was a chauffeur-driven car to meet Big Bear, and at the Ritz-Carlton she found that he had telegraphed the day before to get her a room on the same floor and in the same corridor as his suite. They dined down in the beautiful, oval restaurant, but he told her that he rarely ate there, preferring the Maritime Room on the lower floor, or had something sent up to his sitting-room. Later, when he had joined her in her big, comfortable bedroom, he told her that he would be out most days on business, but she was to order anything she wanted, as he had told the cashier that she was his guest, so whatever she signed for would go on his bill. While dropping off to sleep in his arms she felt that she was one of the luckiest girls in the world to have found such a devoted and generous lover.
Next morning, it being Monday, he was off to his office at half past eight, and he did not get back until six o’clock. That, except for weekends, became the pattern of their days. If he was entertaining a small party that included women executives or the wives of clients, he always asked her to join them; but more often than not he gave lunch only to men, or had it out, and every few days he had to attend convention rallies in the evenings, so Linda was much alone.
But she found Montreal, with its broad streets and massive skyscrapers, a beautiful city. Peel, Metcalfe, La Montagne and St. Catherine Streets were all soon familiar to her. She visited the Cathedral, ‘Basilica of Mary, Queen of the World’, on tree-filled Dominion Square, and the Arts Museum where, to her, t
he outstanding exhibit was the collection of beautiful figures of people and animals carved in stone by Eskimos. Another wonder was the Central Metro Station. It consisted of an enormous underground area having several levels, the sides of which were all lined with a great variety of shops. There were scores and scores of them, so that they formed a city centre in themselves, and a perfect place to make one’s purchases during Montreal’s bitter winters.
One day she took a taxi up to Mount Royal Park, where, from the balustrade high up on the south side, there was a wonderful view over the city and Montreal Island. On another occasion she went to the Botanical Gardens, with its acres of glass houses, and on yet another day had herself driven from the island across one of the bridges that spanned the St. Lawrence, to see the intriguing variety of buildings, dominated by a lofty, aluminium pyramid, that had been erected for Expo ’67.
Linda soon realised that the population of Montreal was mainly French and that the good service she enjoyed at the Ritz-Carlton was largely due to the majority of the servants being French-Canadians. The names over a good half of the shops were French, and she constantly heard that language spoken.
She thought, too, that the most fascinating part of Montreal was the old French quarter, with its narrow streets and many small restaurants. One evening Big Bear took her to dine there at the Filles du Roi. It consisted of a bar and several small rooms, with stout, wooden tables under low ceilings supported by big, rough-hewn beams. All the waitresses wore little white caps, ample petticoats and white aprons, that having been the uniform of the original Filles du Roi—orphan girls provided with a dowry by King Louis XIV and sent out in the charge of nuns as wives for his soldiers in Canada.
Much as Linda enjoyed Big Bear’s company, she was not unduly bored in the evenings when he could not be with her because, from the time she had first known Rowley, reading had been one of her greatest pleasures, and she became a frequent visitor to the book counters in Eaton’s great department store.
Sometimes, when Big Bear entertained, he told her afterwards that she had been a big help in sweetening his prospective clients; and more than once he had declared that, if only she were free, he would marry her. Although she had scotched that possibility by her own story that she was tied to a husband in England who would not give her grounds to divorce him, there were times when she was tempted to tell Big Bear that, without naming him, she had written to her mythical husband admitting adultery, so that he would be able to use her letter to set them both free. But each time the thought crossed her mind, she put it from her because she knew that nothing could now alter the fact that she was a criminal, and that one day she might be traced and arrested. She had even had qualms about involving Big Bear and Dave Kane in helping her to sell the diamond cluster, then reassured herself with the fact that, since they were innocent parties to the transaction, they could not later be held accountable for having taken part in it. But to saddle Big Bear with a wife who was a crook was a very different matter.
Linda had been in Montreal for close on a fortnight and on the second Friday a couple she had met twice at parties given by Big Bear had asked them both to lunch at the Hôtel Champlain. At a quarter to one, he picked her up in his car and drove her the half-mile to the great thirty-seven-storey hotel that filled one end of Dominion Square.
They had drinks and lunch up in the roof restaurant, and Linda found that the meal was in keeping with this ultra-modern hotel de luxe, which differed in so many ways from the quiet, gracious, old-fashioned Ritz-Carlton. There was no menu, but a large, semicircular table stood against the inner wall of the room. On it was a splendid variety of dishes, both hot and cold, from which chefs served patrons with their choice of food.
Afterwards Big Bear dropped Linda in St. Catherine’s Street so that she could go into Dionne’s—the Fortnum of Montreal—and buy some pâté de foie gras for them to eat up in his suite. Having bought the pâté and a few other things, Linda walked up Peel Street on her way back to the Ritz.
The hotel formed a block in itself. Behind it there was a narrow alley in which were the service entrances. As Linda was passing one end of the alley, she noticed that it was almost blocked by a big waste-disposal van. Standing behind the van, with an empty trash can over his shoulder, was a tall, sour-faced man. He was no more than six feet from Linda, and she happened to glance at him. Instantly she recognised him. He was her brother Sid.
At the same instant his pale eyes boggled. He dropped the trash can and exclaimed, ‘Swelp me Gawd! If it ain’t our Linda!’
Chapter 12
Nemesis
In a matter of seconds several thoughts raced through Linda’s mind. So this was the fine job with the Municipality of Montreal that Sid had said he had got in a letter to Ma—a dustman! What ghastly luck to have run into him like this. How ashamed she would have been if Big Bear had been with her. Must she acknowledge him? If she did, it was certain that he would make a nuisance of himself. Why should she? She owed him nothing. In the old days, before he had stolen the money to go off to Canada, he had followed Pa’s example and often bullied her. Many a time when she was only a kid at school, he had made her do dirty jobs he should have done himself.
The blood had drained from her face. But her eyes flickered only for an instant before she turned them away. Exerting all her will-power, she kept her expression unchanged and walked on without increasing her pace.
‘Linda!’ cried the man, hurrying after her. ‘Yer can’t not know me, yer brother Sid.’
She turned round then, stared at him and said coldly, ‘I thought you were calling out to that woman who just went past. Why you should imagine that I am your sister I cannot think.’
‘You are,’ he insisted, walking beside her as she moved on. ‘You’re Linda Lee or I’m a Dutchman.’
‘I am not,’ she snapped. ‘My name is Harrison, and I never had a brother. Be good enough to go back to your work.’
‘Stop foxing, Linda,’ he said, angrily now. ‘For all yer fine clothes an’ hoity-toity airs, I’d know you anywheres.’
By then they had reached the corner. Halting, she faced him, drew a quick breath, then declared firmly, ‘I may resemble your sister, but I am not. Now if you pester me any further I’ll call a policeman.’
To her intense relief that silenced him. She covered the fifty paces to the entrance of the hotel and did not look back until the porter touched his cap and gently pushed the revolving door for her. From that one swift glance she had seen that Sid was still standing on the corner, staring after her, with an expression of puzzled anger.
Although she had had plenty to drink at lunch, the shock had so shaken her that, as soon as she was upstairs in Big Bear’s sitting-room, she poured herself a stiff brandy and soda. When she had taken a big gulp she sat down with the glass in her hand and stared out of the window.
Again her thoughts were racing. Had she got rid of Sid for good, or would he make an attempt to force himself on her? For a month now, Linda Chatterton’s name must have been on Interpol’s list of wanted criminals, and no doubt, by questioning the Lucheni couple, they had learned soon after she had got away from England that Linda Chatterton had come to Park Side West as Linda Lee. She had therefore been doubly right in refusing to recognise Sid, and so give away her alias as Lucille Harrison. If he did succeed in seeing her again, she must stick it out and swear black and blue that she was not his sister.
On further consideration she persuaded herself that he was unlikely to try. All he could have heard about her from Ma was that she had gone to London and got a job as a companion, presumably to an old lady. Had that really been the case, although she might have improved herself from the down-at-heel teenager she had been when he last saw her, it was most improbable that she would have acquired an impeccable, upper-class accent and become an elegantly-dressed woman wearing expensive furs and jewels. She might, of course, have married. But the odds would be long against an old lady’s companion meeting the sort of man who could
afford to give his wife a mink coat and take her travelling de luxe in Canada. She had grown a lot and was now a mature woman, six feet in height. Only her face had remained unchanged. Surely, after the firmness with which she had denied her true identity, he could not continue to believe that the lady he had accosted was the same person whom he had known as a schoolgirl?
Through the rest of the afternoon she continued to be upset and worried; but that evening Big Bear was giving a party to celebrate the silver wedding of one of his best customers, and that took her mind off the matter. Nevertheless, on the Saturday morning she decided not to go out, in case Sid was lurking somewhere in the neighbourhood of the hotel on the chance of being able to confront her again. That afternoon Big Bear took her to the Blue Bonnets race-course, where she had the good luck to back three winners. As he worked so hard all the week, he liked to do nothing on Sundays, and they spent the whole day in dressing gowns up in his suite.
Although she had her own bedroom further along the corridor, she had at first feared there might be embarrassing complaints owing to his making no attempt to conceal the fact that they were living together; but his lavish tips ensured that the staff continued to treat her with respect; and luxury hotels do not usually regard themselves as responsible for the morals of their best customers, provided that in public their behaviour is discreet. Her Sundays in Montreal, when she had Big Bear to herself, had therefore been among her happiest days; and by Monday morning she had almost forgotten her encounter with Sid.
It was recalled to her most unpleasantly when the femme de chambre brought in her breakfast tray. There was a letter on it. No-one she had met in Montreal was likely to write to her and, although she did not recognise the writing, the sight of the untidy scrawl and cheap paper made her sit up with a jerk. Ripping open the envelope, she saw at a glance that her worst fears were realised. Although it was addressed to Mrs. Harrison, it began Dear Linda, and went on: