The Strange Story of Linda Lee (12 page)

From the first she had realised that she could not possibly hope to dispose of all the jewels in one transaction and, whenever she had had a moment, had been badgering her wits about how to turn even a few of them into ready money. But on the way down in the taxi inspiration had come to her and, on entering the shop, she knew exactly how she meant to proceed.

Looking round, she was glad to see that the nice old gentleman who usually looked after her was behind his counter. Greeting him with her sunniest smile, she said, ‘I’ve wonderful news, Mr. Smithers. I’m going to be married.’

He returned her smile. ‘Indeed, Miss Chatterton. Your fiancé is to be congratulated. May I enquire…’

‘Oh, to Mr. Frobisher. I expect you know that Mrs. Frobisher has been—er—in a home for a long time past. She died quite suddenly, on Sunday. I felt that we really ought to wait, but Mr. Frobisher wouldn’t hear of it, so we are being married by special licence on Friday.’

Mr. Smithers smiled again. ‘How exciting for you. I hope you will be very happy.’

‘Thank you. I’m sure we shall. Now I must tell you what I’ve come to see you about. Mr. Frobisher has given me a most wonderful wedding present: his mother’s jewels. Not the very valuable pieces that are in Harrods’ safe deposit. He promised his wife that he would leave those to her daughter, Mrs. Spilkin, but all the lesser pieces that we keep at home, and he’s let me wear during the past two years.’

‘I see. And in what way can I be of help to you?’

‘I want to sell one or two of them. Not for money to spend on myself, of course. It is to buy Mr. Frobisher a really nice wedding present. He loves Georgian
furniture, but he has never bothered to get himself a genuine desk, and I’ve seen just the very thing in Partridge’s. It’s Regency, and the price is five hundred and twenty guineas. I couldn’t possibly afford such a sum, and I had this wonderful idea of parting with some of the rings. There are more of them than I shall ever want to wear, and some of them are not particularly beautiful. The diamond cluster, for example, and the marquise ring—that’s very old-fashioned.’

In the taxi Linda had sorted out her haul and put two of the rings into a separate compartment of her bag. She now produced them and laid them on the counter.

Mr. Smithers screwed his magnifying glass into his eye and examined the rings in turn. But only cursorily, as he had revalued them only the previous year, to bring Rowley’s insurance on the jewels up to date; so he already knew approximately what they were worth.

‘I think we could give you three-fifty on the cluster,’ he said, ‘and two-twenty on the marquise. That would leave you twenty-four pounds in hand.’

Linda was tempted to jump at the offer; but she knew that the rings were worth considerably more, so felt bound to say, ‘That is more than I need, but surely it’s not a very good price. And wouldn’t there be about fifty over?’

Mr Smithers smiled his benign smile. ‘No, Madam. You spoke of the price of the desk in guineas, and I was quoting for the rings in pounds.’

‘I see. Well, could you make it guineas?’

Turning the rings over with his long fingers, Mr. Smithers considered for a moment, then he said, ‘I think I could, Madam, if you were willing to spend the extra fifty with us. The desk will be a most handsome gift, but perhaps you might also like to make Mr. Frobisher
a more personal present, something he could wear?’

Linda would have much preferred the extra fifty pounds, but she had yet to get over the really big fence of asking the jeweller, without arousing suspicion, to pay her on the spot; so she agreed to his idea and said she would like to spend the extra money on a pair of cuff-links.

Compelling herself not to hurry over her choice, she selected a pair of white gold and mother of pearl, with tiny sapphires in the centre. Picking up the links, Mr. Smithers said, ‘No doubt you would like to take these with you, Madam. I’ll find a case for them and pack them up. Our cashier will post the cheque on to you.’

‘Oh, no!’ Linda exclaimed, having expected this. ‘That would never do. As I told you, we’re being married on Friday and we leave for the Continent that afternoon. It would spoil everything if the desk was not delivered until we got back. I want to give it to Mr. Frobisher tomorrow, Thursday. And, as I’ve never bought anything from Partridge’s, I can’t ask them to send it unless I give them my cheque; so I must have one from you to pay into my bank this afternoon.’

‘I see; I see.’ Mr Smithers suddenly became thoughtful. ‘Yes, I see. Well, if you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, Madam, I will try and arrange matters.’

To Linda those few minutes seemed never-ending. She was gripped with the awful fear that Mr. Smithers would ring up Rowley to get confirmation that the transaction was in order. Then, when he learned that Rowley was dead, the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance. Having made his first call, Mr. Smithers would then make another—to the police.

The temptation to cut and run while the going was
good was almost irresistible. Yet, so far, things could not have gone better. Her story that she was about to marry Rowley and that he had given her the jewels was perfectly plausible. There was no reason whatever why they should suspect her; whereas, if she tried to sell the jewels anywhere else it was certain that she would be asked all sorts of questions and required to supply evidence that they were her property—which she could not possibly do.

No. She must sit tight. Her whole future was at stake. This was her one and only chance of getting hold of enough money to leave the country and have enough to live on until she could sell some of the other jewels. If she abandoned it at this last moment, her entire plan collapsed. There would be no alternative but to throw in her hand. If she returned the jewels at once, no charge would be brought against her. But she would have condemned herself to hardship and misery.

Taking a cigarette from her case, she lit and pulled upon it avidly, while keeping her eyes riveted on the glass-panelled door at the back of the shop, through which Mr. Smithers had gone. At last he reappeared. He held something in his hand; but it was not a cheque. Her heart sank.

He laid the thing he had been carrying on the counter. It was the pair of links, now done up in a neat parcel. Then he said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Madam, but there has been a slight difficulty.’

‘What! You … you can’t let me have a cheque?’ Linda stammered.

‘Not for the moment, Madam. You see.…’

‘But why? Why not?’ She could not keep a quiver out of her voice. ‘It … it’s very disappointing. I was counting on it. Surely you can arrange something?’

‘Please, Madam.’ Mr. Smithers sought to reassure her. ‘There is no cause for your distress. It is simply that all our cheques have to be signed by two partners. There is only one here at the moment. The others have gone out to lunch.’

Looking down to hide her intense relief, Linda stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course I understand. When will one of them be back?’

‘If you look in about three o’clock, Madam, I’ll have the cheque ready for you.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll do that.’ She gave Mr. Smithers a bright smile, put the links in her bag and turned away. He hurried round the counter to open the door for her, and bowed her out into Bond Street.

She was still free, and unsuspected. But she had not got the money.

The moment she had left Park Side West she had temporarily put aside her bitterness against Elsie for the more urgent matter of thinking up this plausible story by which she might turn some of the jewels into money. While doing so, it had come into her quick mind that, now she was fully committed, she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. So, on leaving Cabouchon’s, she took a taxi down to Harrods.

There she went first to the leather department and bought a brief-case, which would easily hold all the jewels and could be locked. As it was an expensive item, she had to wait some time while they checked her signature, but putting it down to the joint account that she ran with Rowley tickled her sense of humour, as Elsie would now have to pay for it.

She then went down to the safe deposit in the basement. As she rang the bell outside the iron-barred gate,
she felt no qualms of apprehension, as Harrods could not possibly yet know that Rowley was dead. She had been down there before, several times, to take out or return some of the more valuable pieces, as Rowley had liked her to wear fine jewels when he took her to City dinners, receptions given by the Royal Society and similar functions. Her Junoesque good looks had registered with the young man who unlocked the gate, and he greeted her with a smiling ‘Good morning’.

At the reception desk she gave the password, ‘To Hell with Harold’, that Rowley had chosen some years before, and handed over the key to his locker. The attendant fetched the box, put it on the wide shelf of one of the booths and closed the door behind her. With the smaller key she unlocked the box, then transferred the leather cases in it to the brief-case. Beneath them, at the bottom of the box, there was a long, fat envelope.

As she saw it, her heart gave a bound of joy. She had forgotten it was there, but knew what it contained. Like many people who were law-abiding in other respects, Rowley had resented being dictated to by the Labour Government on how he should spend his money. In those days, holiday-makers had been restricted to taking thirty pounds out of the country, and when abroad he normally spent that amount in a couple of days. In consequence, he had acquired a fat wad of Swiss francs, and whenever he left England used to take several hundred pounds’ worth with him. Since the restriction had been lifted, four years previously, he had had no need to draw on this nest-egg.

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: