The Strange Story of Linda Lee

by Dennis Wheatley

  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.

  Next morning she sought the Social Director. He proved to be a charming man and most helpful. Only a quarter of a mile away there was a much smaller hotel, The Fisherman’s Paradise, which remained open all through the year. He telephoned there for her. The only room available was on the ground floor, but she took it, and he had a car take her there without any charge.

  She found The Fisherman’s Paradise unpretentious but comfortable, and much more within her means. Even so, she knew that she could not afford to stay there for long. She must make for a city and somehow earn some money. But at least she could afford a week or so to recover from the frightful shock of finding herself again so badly off, and decide which city to go to.

  There was nothing to do, but the scenery was beautiful and, although it snowed now and then, she went every morning for long walks along tracks through the forest.

  It was now becoming dark quite early and, as she found it wearisome constantly to have to lie about herself when mingling with the other guests, instead of spending the long evenings in the lounge she stayed for most of the time in her room and amused hereslf by starting to write a novel.

  The saying that everyone has one good story in him is true enough, so it was natural that Linda’s plot should be based in the main on her own experiences, with certain imaginary alterations. She made her heroine a factory girl in a northern town, with whom one of the directors of the firm fell in love. He was married, but she duly became his mistress and, as he often had to go overseas on business, he took her with him to all sorts of exciting places. Like Rowley, he had a couple of heart attacks but promised to see that she was well provided for in his will. Then he died unexpectedly, and it transpired that he had left everything to his wife. But his wife was away from home at the time, and the girl knew that he kept several thousand pounds’ worth of bearer bonds in his safe; so she took his keys, got into his house at night and stole them. All sorts of adventures were to follow and eventually the girl was caught; but, at the last moment, it was found that her late lover’s solicitor, who was the wife’s brother, had deliberately suppressed a last will, in which the bearer bonds had been left to the girl.

  It was on the third morning of her stay at The Fisherman’s Paradise that she returned from a long walk, during which she had been thinking out the details of the second chapter of her romance, and found two men waiting for her in the warm little lounge. The taller produced a pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket, showed it to her and said:

  ‘Mary Watson, alias Lucille Harrison, alias Linda Chatterton, alias Linda Lee, we want a word with you.’

  Chapter 13

  Ordeal

  Linda stood rooted to the spot. The muscles of her throat tightened, her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, her big eyes were wide with apprehension and her hands began to tremble.

  The man jerked his head in the direction of the manager’s office. ‘Mr. Philson has placed his room at our disposal. We’d best go in there to say what has to be said.’

  Still tongue-tied, Linda turned and led the way into the room. They followed and the shorter, younger man, who had a face like a friendly bulldog, closed the door behind them. His senior spoke again:

  ‘You’ll not deny that you are Linda Lee?’

  From the string of aliases he had rattled off in the hall it was obvious to Linda that they knew all about her, so she shook her head. Then she found her voice and asked, ‘How … how did you manage to trace me?’

  The tall man shrugged. ‘With an organisation like Interpol it wasn’t difficult. In London you gave a cheque on your bank to Canadian Air Lines. Scotland Yard asked us to keep a look-out for you in this country and sent a list of the jewels you had stolen. The man your brother tried to flog the emerald ring to reported it; then your brother put us on to Mr. Orson. Incidentally, we have pulled your brother in for being in possession of stolen goods. We saw Mr. Orson at the Ritz-Carlton and he wasn’t any too helpful. But when it was pointed out to him that unless he talked he was liable to get involved in a nasty scandal, he told us that he’d picked you up in Vancouver and that you had then been staying at the Hotel Astley. The woman there said you had sent her a cheque on the Bank of Montreal in that city. From them we learned that you’d lodged the jewels in their safe deposit. Seeing that you would have to have funds, it seemed a good bet that you had headed back there. We checked with the railway people and learned that a woman answering to your description had taken a ticket to Vancouver but got off the train at Banff. The rest was easy. And now we are taking you into custody, pending the arrival of an extradition warrant from England.’

  Linda gave an apology for a smile. ‘I see. Well, I suppose it was too much to hope that I could get away for good. I left nearly all my things in Montreal, so I’ve got only an overnight case here. It won’t take me long to pack.’

  The young, bulldog-faced detective gave her an admiring glance, grinned and said, ‘Take your time, Miss. We’ll catch a drink in the bar.’

  As Linda walked down the passage to her room at the back of the hotel, her thoughts were chaotic. She had reached the end of the road. For a week or so she would probably be held in Canada, then be flown back to England with a policewoman who had been sent to fetch her. In London she would have to suffer the disgrace and misery of a trial. She had no defence. Not a leg to stand on. Not a friend to turn to. It would come out that she had been Rowley’s mistress and, as he had been so much older than herself, she could expect little sympathy from the jury—particularly from any women who were on it. They would regard her as a gold-digging whore who had sold her young body for a lazy life of ease and plenty, then unscrupulously robbed her benefactor’s legitimate heir.

  By the time she had shut the door of her room and was packing her small case, she was feeling intensely angry with herself. What a fool she had been to imagine that she could escape for more than a few months from the long arm of the law. To have stolen the jewels had been a weak and cowardly thing to do. She should have had the courage to face hardship for a while. All the odds were against it lasting for long. Even if she had failed to find out where Eric had gone, he would have sought her out when he learned of Rowley’s death, rescued her from poverty and, most probably, married her. In the very worst event of fate preventing their coming together again, with her face and figure she need not have feared being condemned for long to a miserable, cheese-paring existence. Some other man would have come into her life whom she might not have loved but found very attractive, as she had Big Bear. Nothing would have induced her to become a professional prostitute; but she had already been the mistress of three men, none of whom she had found repulsive. Even with Rowley she had enjoyed the sexual act by shutting her eyes and thinking of Eric. And this had become such a fixation with her that she had done the same with Big Bear and could do it again if she let other likeable men make love to her. In time she would have found one whom she liked enough to marry.

  But it was too late to think of that now. Calamity had come upon her so suddenly after that terrible night when Rowley had died that her mind had then been incapable of assessing her situation calmly. She had been overwhelmed with the thought of facing immediate poverty. Inspired by the idea that she might escape from it by stealing the jewels, she had given way to that stupid impulse. Now she must face the penalty.

  As she automatically packed her few things in the case, the full horror of the future she must face was borne in upon her. She visualised herself in prison: the coarse garments, the colourless surroundings, the
limited baths without scent and only skimpy towels on which to dry oneself, the enforced work upon dreary tasks, the grim washrooms and cell-like lavatories, the carpetless corridors, the hard beds and rough sheets, the unappetising food, not a cocktail or a glass of wine, the lack of privacy, for companions only women who were vicious and depraved, the terrible monotony for month after month, perhaps for years.

  She could not bear it. She would rather die. As she stared out of the window, she saw that it was snowing again. But no matter. There lay freedom, or at least a chance of it. Next moment her mind was made up. The younger of the two plain-clothes men had said that she need not hurry, and barely five minutes had elapsed since she had left them. She would cheat them yet. Running to the door, she locked it. When their patience wore thin and they came for her, they would have to break it down. That would give her several minutes’ extra start. Having just returned from a walk, she still had on her fur coat and was wearing the fur toque, a woollen muffler and wool-lined boots which she had bought in Montreal against the approaching winter. Grabbing her case, she crossed to the window and forced it open. A blast of cold air struck her in the face, causing her to catch her breath. With her free hand, she snatched her handbag from the nearby dressing table, then flung one long leg over the window-sill. The ground was less than five feet below it. One swift wriggle and she was sitting on the sill. Letting her case drop, she jumped after it, stumbled, fell to her knees, then hastily picked herself up. Again seizing her case, she set off at a run.

  The snow was only about an inch deep, so did not impede her progress, and the fact that it was snowing increased her hope of getting away before they could catch her. The drifting flakes were large and she was soon powdered with them, so she hoped that in a quarter of an hour at most they would cover her tracks. Heedless of direction, she plunged in among the pine trees.

  The ground sloped up, but not very steeply. She ran until she was breathless, and reached the top of the rise. The trees were so dense that, as she lurched down the far side of the slope, she could not see more than thirty or forty feet ahead of her. Another ten minutes and she came to the bottom of a valley. Along it ran a stream. For a moment she halted in consternation. It was too broad for her to jump, and she dared not turn back. She would have to wade across.

  To have got her wool-lined boots wet would have been fatal, for in that low temperature they would have frozen on her feet. Sitting down, she took them and her stockings off and tied them round her neck. By then she had got her breath back and nerved herself to make the crossing.

  Fortunately the stream was only a few inches deep and about ten feet wide, but the water was icy. When she was half-way over, a memory came back to her from a book she had once read. In it an escaper had waded some distance down just such a stream to cause the bloodhounds used by his pursuers to lose the scent of his track. She had been counting on the falling snow to cover her footprints, but in so short a time it might not. Turning, she waded down the stream.

  The water was well above her ankles. The pain in her feet became excruciating and an awful chill ran up from them all through her body; but she staggered on until she could bear it not a moment longer. Then, sobbing with agony, she crawled up the opposite bank.

  For a few minutes she sat there, weeping almost hysterically, then she pulled herself together, dried her aching feet on her woollen muffler and put on her stockings and boots. She had managed to cling on to her case, but that had left her only the hand from the wrist of which hung her bag to hold up her coat, so splashes had made its skirt sodden. As best she could, she wrung it out, while stamping her feet to restore their circulation. When she set off again, up another slope, she felt that the stream had been a blessing in disguise, as she was now confident that she had thrown off the men who must by this time be coming after her.

  At a steady walk she trudged up the slope through the same monotonous forest of Canadian pines. They averaged only about twenty feet in height, and she recalled Big Bear’s having told her that they never grew much taller, owing to the poverty of the soil. Often they were so close together that she could not walk through them in a straight line and had to make small detours. Enough snow had not yet fallen to load the branches down, but sufficient to powder them with white crystals, making them a lovely sight, particularly when she came into a small clearing from which there was a vista, as by then it had stopped snowing.

  After a while she came to a large lake, so had to decide whether to turn left or right along the bank. So far, her mind had been so fully occupied with escaping and watching her step so that she should not trip on protruding roots or small boulders hidden under the thin crust of snow, that she had given no thought to the direction in which she was heading. Now from the position of the sun she judged that she had been going roughly north. To turn left would carry her deeper into the Rockies and so further from even scattered habitations. For her to find shelter was imperative, so she turned right and, where the edge of the lake curved away, she came upon a track which led through a valley to the east.

  She followed the track for the better part of an hour until she came to a bridge across a deep ravine, at the bottom of which ran a narrow, rushing river. The bridge was partially broken and some of the remaining tree-trunks still spanning the chasm looked rotten; so she did not dare attempt to cross it.

  Turning aside, she walked along the cliff until at last she came to a place where it was low enough for her to get down to a narrow strip of beach. The river was still foaming over partly-concealed rocks, and she could not judge its depth, but it was not much more than five feet across. For several minutes she hesitated. So far she had not encountered a single person or come upon any building, and she felt that only by continuing to move eastward was there any chance of her doing so. Summoning all her resolution, she threw her case over, bent her knees, then sprang forward and landed sprawling, but softly, beside her case on the opposite bank.

  Her next intent was to get back to the track, but in attempting to do so she made a grave error. Instead of again following the course of the river, since it had made a considerable bend she took what she thought would be a short cut. It brought her to another, smaller lake and, by the time she had made her way round it, she had lost her sense of direction. On and on she trudged through the silent, snow-bound forest, up a steep slope and down the far side; but there was still no sign of the track or any human habitation.

  Linda was strong and healthy, her small case contained nothing heavy so did not prove a burden, and the going was not difficult. Spurred on by determination to escape, she had covered many miles since leaving the hotel, with only a few, brief halts. But now the sun had gone behind a mountain and dusk was falling, so even her courage was beginning to fail her.

  It started to snow again, softly but persistently, drifting down to sprinkle her toque, shoulders and coat. It chilled her cheeks and now and then she had to brush it from her long eyelashes. Dusk merged into darkness overhead, but the snow-covered ground enabled her to continue to see her way between the slender tree-trunks.

  So far the denseness of the forest had protected her from any wind there was. But soon the drifting snow began to fall faster and at a sharper angle. The wind got up and made a weird whistling. It came in fierce gusts, whirling the snow about, driving it from the branches of the trees and bending their slender tops under its pressure. Visibility ahead was reduced to a few yards and, in near despair, she realised that she had been caught in a blizzard.

  Still she pressed on, but she was now tired. Before making her break for freedom she had already walked several miles that morning. The calves of her long legs were aching and the little case seemed to have become much heavier. She had missed her lunch, so was hungry. Visions of a roaring log fire and big bowls of hot soup began to haunt her. The undulating slopes of pines seemed never-ending. Several times, as the only alternative to proceeding up steep gradients which she feared led up to mountains, she had had to change her direction. She recalled
hearing it said that people lost in the Australian bush sometimes walked round and round in circles.

  At last, overcome with fatigue, she tripped and fell. The carpet of snow was thicker now, so she did not hurt herself. But, as she struggled to her feet, she brought herself to face the awful fact that she could go no further and was utterly lost in this vast wilderness of snow-decked trees.

  Gazing desperately round the limited distance she could see, she realised that no one spot was better than another in which to pass the night—that was if she could live through it. Many travellers who had lost their way and had to sleep in the snow had, she knew, never woken up again.

  Sitting down with her back to the tree nearest where she, had fallen, she undid her case. Now at last she could bless the Canadian liquor laws. In order to be able to have a drink in her bedroom when she felt like one, she had bought a pint flagon of rum, with which to spike Coca-Colas. While hurriedly packing she had thrust it into her case, together with part of a slab of chocolate and the remains of a packet of biscuits.

  The flask was three parts full. Avidly she took a long pull at the contents. The neat spirit made her gasp, but sent a lovely glow through her chilled body. She was terribly tempted to eat all the chocolate and biscuits, but forced herself to put by half of them against the morning. After another drink from the flask she made her preparations for the night, using every item in the case which might help to keep her from freezing.

  Opening her coat and, taking off her skirt, she drew on her spare pair of knickers. By the time she got her skirt on again, her teeth were chattering and tears seeping from her eyes. One pair of stockings she wrapped round her neck and another pair round her calves. Her silk nightdress she wound round her face, then turned up the collar of her fur. Using the soft-topped case for a pillow, she clasped her gloved hands round her body under her coat, turned on her side and settled down.