The Strange Story of Linda Lee (26 page)

When the vehicle was running along straight stretches, her mind reverted momentarily to the desperate situation in which the arrival of the police at The Fisherman’s Paradise had placed her.

By suffering the most ghastly experiences during the past twenty-odd hours, she had so far managed to evade them; but how long could she continue to do so? She had no idea where she was, except that she could not be very many miles from The Fisherman’s Paradise. The police in every town round about would have been warned to keep a look-out for her; so, at the very first place she entered, she might be hauled off to gaol.

While wandering in the forest the previous afternoon, she had thought a lot about possible ways of escaping capture, and had decided that her best plan would be to try to cross the border into the United States.

When she had been in Vancouver she had learned that it lay only a few miles north of the United States frontier, and that the big town of Seattle could be reached by ferry from Victoria Island. While she was there, she had had no reason at all to wish to leave Canada. Recent events had altered the whole picture. The principal difficulty of carrying out the plan was that from Montreal she had come only to the eastern side of the Rockies. Even so, she felt that the frontier running through them was so long that no place on it could be frequently patrolled by the Mountics and American frontier guards; so, by working her way from valley to valley, she should be able to cross it. But she had not then realised how desolate the country was, and how slender her chance of securing food and shelter during a tramp that must take several days. Now, after she had spent many hours in the forest, nothing would have induced her to enter it again.

A mile or so further on from the scene of the accident, a single-line railway track emerged from a tunnel on the side of the road away from the valley. Only a few minutes before, a train had come out of the tunnel. Linda could see it snaking away round a curve lower down in the distance. From experience she knew how slowly the trains meandered along through the Rockies. Suddenly it occurred to her that, if she could catch up with, then pass it, she might be able to board it at the next stop, and so get clear away from this district where it was certain that the police were hunting for her.

She had just topped a rise and was about to run down a long, straight slope. Daringly she put her foot on the accelerator. The lorry increased speed to sixty miles an hour. Half-way down the hill she became frightened and fought desperately to check its headlong rush. The weight behind her was so great that at such a speed the brakes had little effect. A screen of trees on the corner ahead loomed up with terrifying rapidity. She could not have escaped running into them had she not had the presence of mind to throw the engine into second gear. Just in time she wrenched round the wheel. The lorry tilted at an angle, then righted itself. She was safely round the bend and her spurt had brought her to within a hundred yards of the last wagon of the train.

Sweat was streaming down her face, but she felt that she could do it now. Five minutes later she was level with the engine. Another car came rushing toward her. By a nerve-racking swerve she managed to avoid it. Subconsciously she noticed that she was passing a few scattered clapboard houses. Quite suddenly the lorry entered a wide space, on the left-hand side of which was a small railway station.

To her horror she recognised it at once. It was the whistle-stop halt for Château Lake Louise, where she could have got off on her journey from Montreal, instead of at Banff, which was thirty miles further east along the line. During the past few days she had several times walked down to the little station, in order to buy biscuits and sweets at the small general shop only a hundred yards or so away from it.

Dare she pull up and take a ticket there? Knowing that she could not get far on foot, it was very likely that the police would think it probable that she would make for it, and have a man in the little booking office waiting for her. Yet what was the alternative? In the past twenty minutes she had narrowly escaped death or serious injury half a dozen times. If she drove on, it was as good as certain that before she was an hour older she would either have a crash or go over a precipice. Even if she survived the hour, by then the hateful lorry-driver would have got a lift to a place with a telephone, reported the theft of his vehicle and given its number, so the police would be on the look-out for it.

The train was slowly clanking into the station. The sight of it decided her to risk arrest now sooner than later. In his vile fumbling to get his hand between her thighs, her attacker had not come upon the flat silk wallet suspended a little higher up round her waist. Thanking her gods for that, she brought the lorry to a halt a little way beyond the station, then fished out from the wallet a twenty-dollar bill, grabbed her night case and jumped down from the cab.

Before entering the booking office she gave a fearful peep inside. It was deserted, and no-one was about. Slipping through the doorway, she took off her toque. Her hair was already in shocking disarray. Now she
pulled it right down, shook it out over her shoulders and replaced the toque low down, so that it almost hid her eyes. Stepping over to the
guichet
, she thrust the bill in and, without looking at the man behind it, asked for a second-class return ticket to Calgary. Scooping it up with her change she ran out on to the platform. A number of hampers and boxes were still being loaded on to the train. Clambering up into it she found that there were very few passengers, so she was able to get a carriage to herself. Huddled in the corner furthest from the station building, she waited impatiently for the train to move out. At last it did. Heaving a sigh of relief, she relaxed.

She had taken a return ticket to Calgary, with the idea that when the police learned that a young woman had got on the train at Banff, they should not associate her with their quarry, as anyone seeking to escape from the district would not be thinking of returning to it. When the conductor came along, she asked how long the train would stop at Calgary and, as she had intended to travel much further east, learned to her annoyance that, being a local, Calgary was the terminus.

Exhausted by her twenty-four hours of fear, strain, terror and spent energy, she soon fell asleep, and so soundly that when the train reached Calgary she had to be wakened by an attendant. From the long, bleak, naked platform she went down to the underground booking hall and enquired about trains going eastward. The next was not due in for two and a half hours. For the greater part of the journey it remained one train. At Winnipeg a portion was detached that went to Quebec and at Sudbury Junction another portion went south to Toronto, while the greater part of the coaches went on to Ottawa and Montreal.

Linda had again become very hungry, so she went into the station restaurant and ordered a substantial meal. While she ate it she thought over her next step. Now that the Canadian police were in full cry after her, she felt again that her best hope of escaping capture was to cross into the United States. The border between the two countries ran for so many hundreds of miles that she felt it should not be too difficult to get across it undetected, and that, after all, the most promising place to make the attempt might be in a well-populated area where numbers of people were moving about; so she decided to go to Toronto.

Having taken her ticket she was careful to avoid coming face to face with the two policemen who, side by side, were patrolling the booking hall; then she quickly went up in the lift. Twenty minutes later she was installed in a second-class sleeper and happy to find that she had it to herself. Still very tired from her recent ordeals, she asked the attendant to make her berth up right away, and told him that she had some sandwiches with her so would not go along to the restaurant car for dinner.

After several hours’ sleep she woke in a sweat from a ghastly nightmare, in which she had again been struggling with the lorry-driver. The memory kept her awake for a long time, but eventually she drifted off into another lengthy sleep.

Next day, at Winnipeg, a girl of about eighteen was put in with her. She was going to the University of Toronto to study electronics. It was the first time she had left her native city, and she was thrilled with the idea of seeing something of the world. After breakfasting that morning, Linda had tried to read a paperback which she had bought in Calgary, but found that
she could not concentrate, so she was glad to listen to the girl’s pleasant chatter, and to have her as a companion at meals in the restaurant car.

When the train at last reached Toronto the girl went off to get her heavy luggage from the van. Linda had none, so made straight for the exit from the platform. As she did so she was alarmed to see two policemen scanning the people descending from the train. Swiftly she mingled with the little crowd round the entrance, but kept an anxious eye on them. Just as she was about to pass the ticket collector, one of the policemen turned, caught sight of her, grabbed the other by the arm, and pointed. Instantly she knew that from her description she had been recognised.

Linda caught her breath, swallowed and felt her heart begin to hammer. All her striving, her fortitude, her endurance, had been in vain. She had been spotted and in another few moments would be arrested. Visions of prison—bad smells, indifferent food, awful monotony, evil companions—again coursed through her mind in a matter of seconds. During her long journey across Canada her mind had never been free from anxiety that she would be traced. She had hoped that the booking clerk at Banff had caught only a glimpse of her and that the police would not connect the lone woman who had taken a return ticket to Calgary with herself, but would believe that she had become lost and frozen to death in the snow. Now, the terrible ordeal she had gone through that night, and her still more awful encounter with the bestial lorry-driver, had been suffered for nothing. Had she surrendered to the police at Lake Louise, she could have saved herself from both.

But to surrender was not in Linda’s nature. Without losing a second, even while these thoughts came and went like flashes of lightning through her brain, she was forcing her way through the crowd at the exit from the platform. She was big, strong and, in her near despair, ruthless. Seizing a fat woman in front of her by the arm,
she pulled her back. Dropping her night case, with her other hand she pushed aside a well-grown boy. Only two men now stood between her and the exit. With a swift ‘Excuse me,’ she thrust her way between them, dashed aside the outstretched hand of the ticket collector and, next moment, was outside.

Wildly her eyes sought the quickest way to get out of the station yard. They fell upon a car at the edge of the pavement. It was a long, low, open, bright red sports car. At the wheel sat a well-dressed young man. The other seat was unoccupied. The engine was ticking over. As her gaze took it in, he put his foot on the accelerator, and the car began to move. Dashing forward she flung herself flat on the long boot, grasped the back of the empty seat and began to pull herself over.

Taken completely by surprise the young man turned his head, his mouth agape. ‘What the …’ he began.

‘Drive on!’ she gasped, cutting him short, her big eyes imploring. ‘For God’s sake save me! I’m in deadly peril!’

In one glance he had taken in her lovely face, the fact that she was wearing a mink hat and toque, though both were soiled and rumpled; then, as she scrambled over the back of the seat, her long and shapely legs.

Recovering, he reacted swiftly. The car shot forward. She threw a quick glance behind her. A score of people, forgetful of all else, now stood blocking the entrance to the station. Some were staring after the car in amazement, others were laughing, no doubt having assumed that they had witnessed a scene in a lovers’ quarrel, in which a determined young woman had risked injury rather than allow herself to be abandoned by her boy friend. As the car swung round the corner, the two
policemen had still not succeeded in forcing their way through the crowd on the far side of the barrier.

The young man turned to look at Linda. ‘What a cheek,’ he began; but his words were accompanied by a smile, and he went on, ‘So I’m cast for the role of a Galahad, eh? Called on to rescue beauty in distress. Well, where do you want me to take you?’

She returned his smile, showing her perfect teeth. ‘Anywhere; anywhere, that is, where I can lie low for a day or two.’

He considered for a moment. ‘The only place I can suggest is my apartment. But, I warn you, I live alone.’

‘There’s no fate worse than death,’ she countered with a little laugh. ‘But I should warn you that I’m not prepared to pay for my lodging. So if, after you know me better, you no longer feel inclined to play Galahad, you can always throw me to the wolves.’

‘You’ve got me there,’ he replied with a rueful grin. ‘
Noblesse oblige
and all that, eh? O.K. I’ll take you to my apartment.’

For some twenty minutes they ran through the streets of the city, with their lofty buildings and fine shops, then out into the suburbs. During the drive they had spoken little, both being busy with their own thoughts. When he asked where she had come from, knowing that he could not know at which platform she had arrived she told him Montreal; because, having lived there for a fortnight, if they later talked of that city he would not be able to fault her. She then gave her name as Camilla Grey.

He said his was Colin Granard and they laughed about having the same initials. She was enjoying the view of the waterfront on Lake Ontario when he pulled up before a tall block of luxury flats. As they got
out, the porter touched his gold-braided cap and said cheerfully:

‘Nice afternoon, Mr. Granard, but chilly. Looks as if we’ll be having our first snow soon.’

With an aplomb that Linda greatly admired, Colin replied:

‘You’re right, Briggs. I don’t think you’ve met my sister. She’s had lousy luck today. Smashed herself up in her car and had to abandon all her luggage. Couldn’t very well go to an hotel without it, so she’s going to picnic here with me for a day or two.’