The Strange Story of Linda Lee (22 page)

When she reached her room and looked in the mirror, as she had feared her tears had caused her make-up to run. While she repaired the damage, she hoped that none of the staff had noticed the state she had been in and, later, when Big Bear was with her, ask if she had been involved in an accident. Hurrying out of her clothes, she hid the torn dress in a bottom drawer, in case the
femme de chambre
should see it, then lay for a while in a hot bath before getting into bed.

At about half past ten, Big Bear came in to her. She knew that she must positively reek of onions, which normally neither of them ate in quantity; so, holding her breath, she let him kiss her, then turned away her face and said, I can’t let you make love to me tonight, because my curse has just come on.’

Actually it was nearly due, but she had thought up the excuse while in the bath, since she felt so shattered that she could not have made love with anyone that night—not even with her beloved Eric if she had suddenly found him in bed with her.

For about ten minutes Big Bear remained there, telling her about his evening and asking about hers. She said that she had had a light dinner down in the coffee shop, then, the curse having made her feel rotten, gone early to bed. Again she held her breath as he kissed her good night. Relieved by his departure, she was free to think miserably about the future.

Heavy as her loss to Sid had been, it was not catastrophic. In the bank at Vancouver she still had jewels valued at about seventeen thousand pounds, six hundred pounds in Swiss francs and another two thousand dollars on deposit; added to which, allowing for what she had spent in Montreal and the two hundred dollars she had given Sid, she still had between five and six hundred dollars out of the thousand odd she had brought with her from Vancouver. So, theoretically at least, she still had assets worth nearly nineteen thousand pounds.

Her immediate worry was how to account to Big Bear for all the jewels she had had with her. All she could do was to go out first thing in the morning, buy herself some junk jewellery resembling as nearly as possible the pieces she had lost, and hope that he would not notice the difference.

On the Thursday she spent all the morning and a good part of the afternoon hunting for suitable items. A string of false pearls, and an imitation diamond solitaire ring were easy; but it took her a long time to find a brooch at all similar to the one of which she had been robbed, and she could not find anywhere a ring that might have passed for the square emerald; so, if Big Bear asked about it, she decided to tell him that she thought it too precious to wear and had put it in one of the hotel safe-deposit boxes. Fortunately she had a second wrist watch. It was not so valuable as the one she had lost, but would serve.

All through Friday she felt extremely sore about the way in which Sid had lured her to his house on a false pretext, then treated her so damnably. It consoled her a little to think that the kick she had landed on his private parts might have caused him a permanent injury or would at least have laid him low for a day or two. So far Big Bear had not noticed the change in design of her brooch, or that the clasp of her pearl necklace was no longer a jewelled one.

By Saturday she had become more or less resigned to her loss and was looking forward to a party that Big Bear was giving that evening. After lunch, as usual, she had a lie-down on her bed. Soon after three o’clock the telephone rang. As she picked up the receiver she expected her caller to be one of the many people to whom Big Bear had introduced her while she had been in Montreal. But it was Sid’s voice, low and urgent:

‘Spot of trouble, Lindy. Thought I ought ter warn yer, spite of that bloody kick you give me. Tried to hock a ring this mornin’. The one wi’ the big green stone. Chap said it were worth a packet, but ’e’d see what ’e could do about it ah’ let me know. Then ’e askt
me name an’ address, an’ I give it. ‘Twas only arter that ’e showed suspicious. Wanted to know where I got it. I wasn’t sayin’, so ’e says then I must give its description to the police so they can check it’s not listed as stolen property. That means the ’tees may be comin’ round ter my plice termorrer. I won’t giv’ yer away. But Doris may. When I let out that yell she came tumblin’ downstairs, found the scattered pearls an’ all, an’ I ’ad ter tell ’er what I’d done.’

Before Linda had time to speak, he rang off. As she hung up, all the frightful implications resulting from Sid’s stupidity in trying to sell her big emerald without most careful precautions rushed through her mind. The fool had been trapped into giving his address. It was certain that the police would question him; certain, too, that he would not let himself be sent to prison to save her. Through him they would learn that Lucille Harrison was Linda Lee. If she was not already on the files of the Canadian police as a wanted criminal under that name, she would be as soon as they had radioed Scotland Yard. Sid had said he would not give her away, although Doris would, but that seemed to Linda a despicable invention. That poor creature would do whatever Sid told her. It was he who would tell to save his own skin, and he would tell everything except that he had robbed her of the jewels. He would say that she told him she had inherited them and had given them to him to dispose of for her.

In an agony of fury and despair she slumped into the chair beside the table on which the telephone stood, clenched her hands until the nails bit into her palms, then hammered with both fists on the table.

‘The fool! The brainless idiot! The swine!’ For him, an illiterate dustman, to walk into a jeweller’s or a
pawnbroker’s and expect to sell an emerald worth two thousand five hundred pounds without being questioned! A teenage hippy would have had more sense. And what a ghastly mess his impatient greed had landed her in.

Panic seized her. Visions of prison again took possession of her mind. She must get out, and at once. But how, and where? Vancouver seemed the obvious answer. She must get the rest of the jewels and her money out of the bank there, with the minimum of delay, and start a new life under yet another name.

At the thought tears sprang to her eyes. That meant leaving Big Bear, and she loved him in a way. Not as she had loved Eric. She would never really love anyone but him; but Big Bear was kind, generous and a delightful companion. Never had she experienced such transports of passion as she enjoyed with him, and he had created for her a new, happy life, meeting pleasant people.

She glanced at her watch. It was a quarter past three. That afternoon he was out, taking an American client on a tour of the sights of Montreal. For that she thanked her gods; for, had he been in she would have been with him in his sitting-room, and Sid’s call would have been put through to her there; so she could not have left without giving him some explanation, and what possible explanation could she give? But he would be back about five o’clock, so she had not a moment to lose.

Frantically she began to dress, choosing a serviceable tweed suit. As she pulled it on, she realised that she would have to abandon nearly all her other clothes. Even if she could have left the hotel with all her suitcases without arousing comment, there was no time to pack them. Angrily she thrust into her overnight bag the things that were most necessary to her.

As she did so, she thought of writing a farewell note to leave in Big Bear’s sitting-room. But what could she say in it, except that circumstances compelled her to leave him; and time was passing with terrible rapidity.

It was twenty to five when she left her room, wearing her mink, a fur toque she had bought in Montreal now that the weather was becoming so much colder, and carrying the small suitcase. Out in the corridor and in the lobby downstairs, she was a prey to awful apprehension that Big Bear would return early and that she would run into him. She was spared that, but spent a desperately anxious five minutes while the hall porter got her a taxi.

Jumping in she told the driver to take her to the big new Queen Elizabeth Hotel on the Place Vieille Marie. There she spent a few minutes in the crowded lounge, then took another taxi out to the airport.

At the enquiry desk she learned to her consternation that the next flight to Vancouver did not leave until the following morning. As the jeweller’s report about the emerald was only a routine enquiry, particulars of it would probably not reach the police until that evening, so the odds were that they would not go to Sid’s house and question him that night. But they might; so she dared not risk remaining in Montreal until the morning, in case the airport people had by then been alerted to keep a look-out for her. Yet it was imperative that she should go to Vancouver and draw funds from the bank, because, after buying her junk jewellery, she now had only something under six hundred dollars in cash. Impelled by the necessity of getting out of Montreal within the next few hours, she decided to try the railway station but, before leaving the airport, she sent Big Bear a telegram which read;

Have left you with deepest regret but compelled to do so stop You will soon learn reason stop Please don’t think too badly of me stop Thank you for everything Fondest love Lucille
.

At the railway station she was more fortunate. A train was leaving for Vancouver in an hour and three-quarters. Realising that until she could get more money she must now watch every dollar, she took a second-class ticket instead of a drawing-room.

Her companion in the two-berth compartment she found to be a cheerful, talkative, middle-aged woman. In her still agitated state of mind, the last thing Linda wished to do was to gossip, so she resorted to her old trick of pretending to be deaf and said that her hearing aid had suddenly gone out of order.

From Montreal to Vancouver by train took the better part of three days and nights, so Linda had ample time to think over her new and far from happy situation. It was a certainty that, to protect himself, Sid would disclose her real name and that she had been staying at the Ritz-Carlton as Mrs. Harrison, and it seemed equally certain that the Canadian police, having communicated with Scotland Yard, would soon be hunting for her. Their next move would be to find out all they could about her at the hotel. Inevitably they would question Big Bear. Greatly as he cared for her, he could not afford to have it said that he had knowingly been associating with a jewel thief; so, to protect his business interests, he would have at least to tell the police that he had picked her up in Vancouver and that she had then been staying at the Astley.

On arriving in Montreal she had sent a cheque on the Vancouver bank to pay for the room that had been kept for her during the week she had been on Victoria Island; but Mrs. Burnaby could tell the police little
more than how long she had stayed, the date of her arrival, and that she had said she had come from Los Angeles.

But, as she was drifting off to sleep on the second night on the train, an awful thought struck her. She had counted on Big Bear being sufficiently in love with her to hope that she would not be caught and, knowing that to keep on the run she would need more money than she had with her, keeping it to himself that she had opened a bank account in Vancouver. But what of that accursed cheque she had sent Mrs. Burnaby?

That would give away the place in which she had cached her stolen fortune. Dared she now go there? If only she had taken the risk of remaining in Montreal until the Saturday morning and gone to Vancouver by air, she would have been able to collect her hoard first thing on Monday, before enquiries about her in Vancouver had begun. But now she would not reach Vancouver until Monday afternoon, and too late to go to the bank that day. That loss of twenty-four hours could make all the difference. By Monday the police in Vancouver would have been alerted and, that day, make their enquiries at the Astley. As soon as they learned about her cheque they would instruct the bank to detain her if she went there. So, on Tuesday morning, she would walk straight into a trap.

Bitterly she realised that her whole future was in jeopardy. The remaining nineteen thousand pounds were now as lost to her as though Sid had robbed her of the lot. After paying her fare she was down to four hundred dollars in the pouch under her skirt, enough to meet immediate expenses in her bag, and some pieces of imitation jewellery. For a long time she lay
awake, wondering what would happen to her. At length she cried herself to sleep.

On the Sunday morning, as she again thought over the desperate situation in which Sid had landed her, another danger occurred to her. She had spent eight days in Vancouver. She was known by sight to all the people at the Astley. Many others had obviously noticed her beauty in the restaurants and night spots to which Big Bear had taken her; in addition there were the Kanes, the jeweller to whom she had sold the diamond cluster, and the staff at the bank. If a description of her was put in the papers by the police, any of those people might recognise her and so bring about her arrest. She dared not go to Vancouver.

In the early afternoon, when the train stopped at Banff in the eastern foothills of the Rockies, she got off. Up there in the Rockies winter was setting in and light snow falling. A hire car was standing outside the little station and she asked the driver to take her to an hotel. Scenting money, on observing her mink coat, he said:

‘Château Lake Louise is the place for you, lady. Jump in.’

She was a little surprised when he drove her out of the small town, but made no comment until they had covered several miles through pine woods. Only then she learned to her annoyance that Lake Louise was thirty miles from Banff. When they arrived she found that the hotel was an enormous place, overlooking a beautiful lake with mountains reflected in its still waters. On asking for a room she was further dismayed to learn that the end of the season was at hand, and the hotel closing in three days’ time. The driver must have known that. He could have taken her to another great C.P.R. hotel just outside Banff; but, to earn a big fare
which she could ill afford, he had literally ‘taken her for a ride’.

She booked in as Mary Watson, then found that the huge hotel was crammed with people making the best of the last days of the season. It was as crowded as Waterloo Station in a rush hour, and she had to join a queue before she could eat a very expensive dinner. She found too that, having had one drink with it, the licensing laws prevented her having another, either in the vast lounge or up in her room. Weary and dispirited, she went to bed, having decided to get out of the Château Lake Louise as soon as possible.