The Strange Story of Linda Lee (21 page)

‘No, she won’t. I’ll see to that. And this means a lot to me. Doris’s father is a builder. In a small way, but quite well off. ’E bought us the ’ouse we live in, an’ she’s always gettin’ at me about me not earnin’ better money, an’ ’ow superior her family are to the people I come from. You comin’ along in your mink and sparklers would put an end to that line o’ gab and teach ’er better. Come on, Lindy. Be a sport. It’ud be only for once, ’cause I’ll tell ’er that you’re off back to England in a couple of days’ time.’

Put that way it was a request that Linda found it impossible to refuse, and Big Bear had to attend a conference on the coming Wednesday evening, so she agreed to Sid’s plea. With a stub of pencil he wrote down his address for her and said, ‘There yer are. It’s quite a way out, but it won’t break yer ter take a taxi. Thanks, ducks; you’ve proved a real pal.’

After they had parted, she felt that Sid was not such a bad fellow after all, and that things had gone off well—except for this new commitment. That evening and all through Tuesday, the thought that complications might arise from it worried her; but she endeavoured to comfort herself with Sid’s promise that after this one visit he would once more disappear out of her life.

On the Wednesday morning, feeling that she ought to take some presents with her, she went out and bought
for Doris a quite expensive costume-jewellery brooch and for the two girls dolls that could be dressed up in a variety of clothes, and large boxes of candy.

At six o’clock that evening, loaded with her parcels, she took a taxi out to the address Sid had given her. It was, as she had expected, in a poor district, but she was a little taken aback by the appearance of the house. That it was only a two up, two down did not surprise her, but the little garden in front was a tangle of weeds, the woodwork had not had a coat of paint for a generation and the window curtains were faded brown, one of them torn at the top.

Sid had been watching for the taxi to drive up, and let her in. He greeted her with exuberance, took her coat and led her into the front room. It was shoddily furnished in appalling taste. On the walls there were several coloured lithographs of sacred subjects, from which Linda guessed that Doris was a Roman Catholic. She was making up the fire as Linda came in. Turning, she showed good teeth in a nervous smile, then instinctively ran her hands down her front, as though wiping them on an apron, before shaking hands with Linda. Doris had once been pretty in a flashy way, but looked older than Sid or, perhaps, was prematurely aged by work and worry. Linda’s experienced eye took in the fact that the gold of her hair had come out of a bottle and her blue dress was of artificial silk.

The two little girls, aged four and three, were seated on the edge of the sofa. One was named Angelique and the other Bernadine, but it soon transpired that they were called Ang and Ber. The hair of both had obviously been crimped for the occasion and was kept in place by none-too-clean ribbons. Their clothes had been freshly ironed, but the frock of the younger one was so
old that the colours had faded and the shoes of both were scruffy. Out of pinched little faces their big eyes were riveted on the visitor as though she were a being from another world.

Sid had carried in Linda’s parcels for her and she now distributed them with smiles. Doris gawped at the piece of costume jewellery and exclaimed, ‘Oh, my! Ain’t that just too lovely. To bring me that was ever so kind.’ The children tore their parcels open, stared at the dolls for a moment then put them quickly aside and fell upon the candies like two small, famished wolves. They had devoured several while their mother was admiring her brooch. When she saw what they were doing she snapped at them:

‘Stop that, you two, or you’ll be sick. And I’ve no mind to clean up after you. Now thank your kind auntie, and behave proper.’

Sid produced a bottle of Canadian red wine and, when he had filled three glasses, started on what amounted almost to a monologue. To Linda’s embarrassment, it consisted of a tissue of lies about a fine home in which he and she were supposed to have been brought up, designed to lead Doris to believe that they came of an upper-class family from which he had become an outcast owing to a quarrel with their father. At times he asked Linda questions about nonexistent rich relatives and, greatly as she disliked doing so, she felt bound to play up to him.

How, with his awful speech, he could have the nerve to such pretensions, Linda could not imagine; but Doris, who remained almost silent, appeared to accept them. Her voice showed that she was better educated than he was, but that was the only evidence to suggest that she considered herself superior to her husband.
Most of the time she sat there like a frightened hen and, as she said not a word about her own family, Linda decided that Sid’s statement that she was the daughter of a prosperous middle-class builder was a lie.

To Linda’s added discomfort the crowded little parlour brought back to her an unpleasantness of which she had been unconscious before she left home, but had soon afterwards come to regard with aversion—the smell of warm, rarely-bathed bodies. To her relief, after about twenty minutes, Sid said:

‘We eat early, Linda ducks. ’Ave to because of the nippers. Sorry we ain’t grand enough ter give yer supper in a dinin’-room, but the eats taste just as good in the kitchen. Doris ’as it all ready, so let’s go feed our faces’

They then all trooped into the back room. There the kitchen table was already laid for five, and an attempt made to give it a festive air by arranging brightly-coloured paper serviettes so that they protruded like fans from the glasses. While Sid opened another bottle of the red wine, Doris took from the oven a big casserole that proved to contain an Irish stew plentifully laced with onions. Sid’s table manners were no better than Linda remembered them to have been at home, but Doris’s were genteel. She helped herself only to a small portion and used her knife and fork with her little fingers stuck out sideways. Ang and Ber laboured awkwardly with spoons, receiving a sharp rebuke from their mother each time they spilt food on their bibs or on the red-checked table cloth. The stew was followed by a blancmange highly flavoured with vanilla. When the last of it had been demolished by the two children, Sid said to his wife:

‘While yer put the kids to bed an’ wash up, Lindy and I’ll have a cosy ’eart-to-’eart in the parlour.’ Linda
dutifully kissed Ang and Ber good night, then followed Sid into the other room.

As soon as he had shut the door behind them, he said in a tone from which all the joviality had disappeared, ‘When I said you an’ I would ’ave a ’eart-to-’eart I weren’t joking. You’ll have guessed by now that Doris don’t come of a family any better than ours, but it were a good excuse ter get yer on yer own here to ’ave a showdown. I didn’t want no scene in a public place like that cafe; much less the Ritz where they would ’ave thrown me out on me arse.’

Linda’s heart missed a beat. Staring at him in consternation, she stammered, ‘Showdown; what … what do you mean?’

He gave a nasty laugh. ‘Yer must be dumber than yer seem not to have tumbled to it that I know all about yer making off with them jewels.’

The blood drained from Linda’s face. ‘How … how could you?’ she gasped.

‘Why, from Ma, of course.’

‘But … she knew nothing about it.’

‘Be yer age, girl. When that there Mrs. Spilkin what yer robbed askt yer fer an address to forward yer mail, yer give her Ma’s, tellin’ ’er that she was yer aunt and yer was goin’ back north ter live with ’er.’

Linda then saw the awful blunder she had made. Caught off her guard by Elsie, she had given Ma’s address as the only one she could think of from which a letter from Eric could be forwarded on to her, failing to realise at the time that when Eric knew what she had done he would not write to her and that, even if he did, she would not dare to let Ma know where she had gone, so that a letter could be forwarded to her.

Meanwhile Sid was going on: ‘It follows, don’t it,
that when the police was put on to yer, Mrs. Spilkin gives them Ma’s address. Ma couldn’t ’elp the ’tecs when they questioned ’er, but she learns from them about the sort of life you been livin’ as an old buffer’s doxy, an’ ’ow ’im forgetting you in ’is will, yer makes off wi’ all them jewels. Twenty-five thousand smackers’ worth, so they say, an’ a month or more back Ma writes me all about it. Strewth! What a lucky day it was for yours truly when I runs into yer.’

‘Why?’ Linda demanded tersely. ‘What I’ve done is no affair of yours. But you were lucky in that I’ve given you two hundred dollars.’

‘Come orf it! That ain’t no more than two hundred dimes to yer now. I want a proper cut. An’ I’m goin’ ter have it, if yer want me ter keep me trap shut.’

Linda looked at him aghast. ‘D’you mean … d’you really mean that you would split on me to the police?’

‘You’ve said it! There never was much love lost ’tween us. Wouldn’t cause me a wink o’ sleep if they put yer in the can. Fer years past you’ve been ’aving a high old time as a gilded whore, while I’ve been livin’ like a rat. Fer me this is the chance of a lifetime. You’re goin’ ter set me up in a nice little garage. Cost abart thirty thousand dollars, I reckon. That’s less than half what you got. Added to that yer can go on selling the goods yer peddle fer plenty more.’

‘I won’t get thirty thousand dollars, or anything like it,’ Linda protested. ‘I sold only a few of the jewels in London and … Anyhow, the greater part of them is in a bank.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m not telling you.’

‘Well, get ’em out, and sell some more.’

‘Don’t be a fool. No-one could sell stolen jewels to
raise the amount of money you are demanding without exciting the jeweller’s suspicions that they might not have been come by honestly.’

That made Sid think. For a moment he stared morosely at her, then he snarled:

‘Maybe yer right. But turned out posh, like you are, an’ ’avin’ thought out a good story about how yer come by the stuff, the risk wouldn’t be great. Anyways, I want my cut; so it’s a risk you gotta take.’

‘I won’t,’ she flared. ‘I’m damned if I will! It would be as good as handing myself straight over to the police.’

‘You got no choice,’ he muttered.

‘I have. I’d prefer to walk out of here now. And if you are such a swine as to inform on me, may you rot in hell. Anyhow, if you do, you won’t get a penny.’

Scowling, Sid considered this. He knew of old how pig-headed Linda could be, and decided that her threat was not an empty one. During the past few days he had been having marvellous visions of himself, dressed in a loud checked suit, lounging about as a garage proprietor, while his mechanics did the work. Now this ‘castle in Spain’ was rapidly vanishing. Then a new light came into his pale eyes, and he suddenly exclaimed:

‘All right, you bloody tart. Go if yer like; but you’re leavin’ yer sparklers behind yer.’

Linda’s face paled and she took a quick step away from him, but not quickly enough to place the small table between them. His teeth bared in an ugly grin, he grabbed her arm with one hand and snatched at her pearl necklace with the other. The string broke and most of the pearls cascaded on to the floor. Instead of attempting to retrieve them, he wrenched off her brooch, then seized one of her hands to pull off her wrist watch, rings and a bracelet. As he bent his head, she
jerked hers forward and savagely bit him in the ear. He managed only partially to repress a cry of agony. Furiously angry, he hit her hard in the stomach. The blow knocked all the breath out of her. Gasping, she doubled up. By the time she was able to come upright again, he had stripped her hands and wrist and was stuffing a handful of gems into his trousers pockets.

Livid with rage, she swore at him, using all the filthy words she had picked up during her teens. He only laughed, jerked his thumb in the direction of the door and cried:

‘Now get out if yer like, an’ go back to yer whoring.’

Tears were streaming down Linda’s face. Choking back her sobs, in two strides she reached the door and wrenched it open. Her mink hung on a peg in the hall. Snatching it down, she flung it round her shoulders. As she did so, Sid suddenly shouted from the parlour:

‘Hey! ’Alf a mo’. You ain’t goin’ ter get away with that. I can flog it for three thousand bucks.’

As he ran forward, she braced herself, her big eyes blazing, and kicked out with all her strength. The toe of her shoe caught him right in the groin. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. He screeched like a scalded cat, pitched forward on to the floor, and writhed there, groaning.

Without losing a second, Linda had the front door open and, still sobbing, dashed out into the street. It was only dimly lit and few people were about, none of whom took any notice of her. As she struggled into her coat, she realised with relief that she had instinctively snatched up her bag before rushing from the parlour. But the loss she had sustained was enormous.

Normally she wore only her single string of pearls—the very valuable triple rope was in the bank at
Vancouver—a brooch and one good diamond solitaire. But she had brought several other items with her to Montreal, which she wore when Big Bear had her with him at parties and that evening, to conform to Sid’s wish that she should impress his wife, she had put them all on. The most precious was a square emerald that had been valued at two thousand five hundred pounds. In addition to that and the solitaire, he had robbed her of a beautifully-cut jade ring, her diamond wrist watch, and a heavy diamond bracelet. With the pearls and the brooch, she estimated that her meeting with him had cost her the better part of a fifth of her stolen fortune.

It seemed to her that she walked miles before she found a taxi; but fortunately, when she left Sid’s house, she had turned in the right direction. As she entered the hotel she was surprised to see that it was only half past eight. She thanked her gods for that, as Big Bear would not be back from his convention rally before ten o’clock at the earliest. Hours seemed to have elapsed since she had left the hotel, and she had dreaded the possibility of running into him before she could get to her room, because her face must be in a shocking state; far worse, the left shoulder of her dress had been torn right open when Sid ripped her brooch from it, and that would have been far from easy to explain.