by Mel Bradshaw
I went through all the other mutilated pictures. In all of them it was a woman’s face that was shredded or cut out, usually from a scene set in the Ward. These women were poor in dress, but dignified, not dragged down by their social situation. Although in the Christ Church design it was her own face Nora had given such a woman, I didn’t think it was her face that had been the intruder’s target. There were plenty more self-portraits left intact, including ones that showed her impoverished. Nora had tended to use the same faces repeatedly, not just her own but Koch’s as well. I thought I also recognized Ernestine Lopez depicted in a few sketches and canvases as a gypsy woman. It therefore seemed possible that every missing female face belonged to the same human subject.
Sometimes Nora drew or painted the same scene several times, varying only details of composition or colour. It occurred to me that if I could find one overlooked intact version of a scene the intruder had defaced I would get an idea of what the missing woman looked like. I looked for art in corners of the studio the intruder mightn’t have thought to search. I looked under the bed, where there was nothing. While I was on my hands and knees, I looked under the mattress as well. There I found what appeared to be a sketchbook.
When I opened it, I found the first third indeed full of sketches, the second third blank, and the last third used for some sort of journal. There was no sign the intruder had discovered this book. Among the sketches figured several of a woman in the same poses as the women whose faces had been hacked away from the scattered loose pictures. She appeared stockier and older than Nora, with wavy hair of a colour neither dark nor blonde. The most distinctive feature of her face was a break in the middle of her left eyebrow. There appeared to be a short, diagonal scar where the hair had not grown back.
I was hoping the journal portion of the book would tell me who this woman was or why Nora had drawn and painted her so often, but when I flipped pages to get to the back of the book I was disappointed to see only sales records — names, addresses, prices, notes of changes to their portraits requested by clients, notes on whether these were made or refused.
I turned my attention to the handwriting itself. Nora wrote on a slight back-slant. She made her letters small and with very few loops, but she spaced them out well as they marched across the page from narrow margin to narrow margin. The writing at times looked hurried, but was never indecipherable. I doubt if there’s much more to graphology than to spiritualism or psychoanalysis, but Nora Britton’s hand gave me the impression of an independent and slightly reserved individual.
In the journal, I read that she had painted the portraits of various university chancellors, businessmen, and diplomats. She had sold canvases for as much as five hundred dollars each, including most recently — a week before her death — a cityscape and a nude to Sir Joseph Deane.
I looked carefully through the rest of the loft. Wood and paper had been left ready for lighting in the stove. I took all of the fuel out and examined it in case Nora had left any documents there, either for safekeeping or for destruction. There were none. I tested floor boards to see if any were loose and concealed a hidden compartment. None was; none did. I checked the scattered books as well for papers stored between their pages and likewise the pockets and seams of the clothes from the overturned wardrobe. I inspected the food that had been tipped onto the floor when the intruder upset the dry sink. There was a loaf of brown bread, stale now, of the same sort as Nora had used to make her last sandwich. There were unopened tins of a variety of foods — fish, vegetables, soup, fruit in syrup. Also three fresh but bruised apples. To none of these could I attach any significance.
I took the sketchbook when I went back downstairs. There I found Carl Moretti sorting military medals.
“There were over four hundred thousand of these issued to Canadians.” He held a silver disc suspended from its blue, black, white, and orange ribbon. “Practically worthless. And yet men will come in and expect me to give them as much as twenty dollars for one.”
I recognized the British War Medal, which every Canadian that had served overseas or in a theatre of war was given.
“Now this one was given to just over seventy thousand Canadians. It’s the 1914–1915 Star.” Moretti produced from his right trouser pocket a bronze medal in the shape of a four-pointed star with crossed swords superimposed. The ribbon was red, white, and blue. “This one is my own, but I’m willing to let you have it for $150.”
“I have one with my own name on it, thanks, Mr. Moretti.” This medal, like the other, was for service rather than for any act of heroism. In the case of the star, service in a theatre of war before December 31, 1915. “Did you lose your leg in the first two years of the war?”
“I didn’t lose it,” said Moretti. “The German war took it. Here’s that picture I mentioned.”
On a wall crowded with cheap coloured prints hung a pastel original of three soccer players in identical striped jerseys, dark shorts, high socks, and cleated boots. Their legs were powerfully muscled. Two appeared to be in conversation: these were a more-athletic-than-life Herman Koch and a Carl Moretti with both legs. The third, an unknown, had his head turned to face the viewer. He was clean-shaven and balding with what dark hair remained above his ears slicked back flat to his head. He had a long upper lip and a mole on his left cheek. His coldly staring blue eyes, the compression of his thin lips, his left hand on his hip, his right foot raised and pinning the soccer ball beneath it — all conveyed a determination to seize and hold the initiative in any match. I wondered if in him I was seeing the man that had removed himself from Nora’s mural, as well as removing the woman with the scarred eyebrow.
“You can have it for two hundred,” said Moretti.
“That’s not how the police work,” I said. “I’ll take it along as evidence and give you a receipt. When the picture is no longer needed, it will be returned to you. Who’s this man?”
Moretti squinted at the balding man. “No one I’ve seen play soccer in this city. Or doing anything else for that matter.”
I wrote on a page torn from my notebook, “Received from Mr. Carl Moretti a picture of three soccer players.” I added my name and the date and handed the document over.
“That doesn’t look very official. I’ll have to collect a deposit of fifty dollars.”
“Really?” I opened my eyes a little wider. “I can’t see why you’d be so attached to a picture of you in conversation with Herman Koch.”
“Koch?” Moretti made a face as if an insect had flown into his mouth.
“A little trimmer than when I saw him yesterday, but otherwise Koch to the life.”
“Get it out of here,” said Moretti, adding perversely, “Don’t forget it’s a Nora Britton: I expect top dollar if you decide to keep it.”
Chapter 7
Uneeda Lunch — if you were walking fast down Queen West, you’d overshoot it. It wasn’t my job to enforce municipal bylaws, but I doubt if any narrower a shop would have been legal. A counter seating six ran parallel to the west wall and just far enough from it to leave room for a range, a frig, a sink, a few shelves, and a skinny cook to move between them. I’m told there were two small tables at the very back of the room, but I never got in that far. Harry O’Brian once asked Al why he didn’t replace the counter stools with chairs; the tall detective would have appreciated some support for his back. As if Al would have wanted us to linger with customers waiting out the door. For my part, the stools were fine. They were upholstered and an improvement on my desk chair at City Hall.
On Saturday there was no trouble getting a seat. While waiting for my order, I considered whether the wrecker of Nora’s studio might be Archie Stillwater. Archie had used against Nora threatening language that the rector of Christ Church had found worth reporting. Archie had a record of violence against men and was suspected of violence against a woman. I didn’t know what Archie looked like, but conceivably he was the model for the soccer player I was coming to think of as Baldy.
; When I’d finished my salmon and horseradish sandwich, I poured a little rye into my coffee and speculated some more.
I wanted to see if I could convince myself that Archie Stillwater had killed Nora Britton. I didn’t see him as a poisoner, but I was prepared to keep an open mind. I had already entertained the possibility that Archie had been inside that locked church with Nora until morning. And yet all this waiting for the rector to break in didn’t seem to suit the hot-blooded sailor either. Now I started to work on a new theory.
Suppose Archie had seen the woman he called “Frau Koch” leave the church last Monday evening for a breath of air or an ice cream sundae. The sun would already have set, so he had the cover of darkness. Suppose he’d hustled her around a corner and beaten her savagely, leaving her on the ground nearly dead. Might not Nora then have just managed to drag herself inside the church and bolt the door before falling lifeless at the foot of the scaffold, on the highest level of which she’d left her paints and knapsack? The coroner had barely looked at Nora’s body. He’d hastily concluded that her death had resulted from trauma and assumed that trauma had been caused by a fall from the top of the scaffold to the chancel floor. The possibility that she had been assaulted at ground level had clearly never entered his head.
I carried my three soccer players back to City Hall. The detective office, cramped and noisy on a weekday morning, was depopulated this Saturday afternoon, and I was able to hear myself talk on the telephone. The book had no listing for Stillwater, A. or J., but Stillwater, F. matched the address the rector had given me. A man identifying himself as Fred Stillwater answered and informed me that his son Archie was a crew member on the lake freighter Lemoyne, currently loading over fifteen thousand tons of coal at the port of Sandusky, Ohio. When I asked to speak to Jordan Stillwater, the man told me his father was at the family store until five o’clock. Stillwater Jewellers in Yorkville. Could he have Jordan return my call? I said no thanks. And why, the man asked, did I want to speak with his father anyway? I said I’d let Jordan himself explain after our interview.
I still hadn’t made arrangements to have Nora’s painting supplies picked up from the church. My first thought was to send a constable or two, but I decided to go myself. I phoned the Court Street Police Station, first of the dozen neighbourhood stations that served the city of Toronto. I had the good luck of finding Acting Detective Ned Cruickshank on duty and underemployed. I invited him to join me, which he sounded happy to do.
Fair-haired, rosy-cheeked Ned Cruickshank might still look like a new boy on the force, but I’d worked and chummed with him enough to believe that at the tender age of twenty-four he already deserved promotion to the band of detective sergeants at City Hall and was only being held back by the prejudice of old men.
I gave him the soccer players and Nora’s journal to carry and filled him in on the case as we walked over to Christ Church Grange Park. On what I called the case.
“So properly speaking, it’s not a case at all,” he said in that earnest tone of voice he never seemed able to shake. “The inspector hasn’t assigned you to investigate, and your unauthorized inquiries have turned up no evidence that Miss Britton didn’t die accidentally.”
“Sorry you came?”
“Not at all.”
“You think I need supervision.”
The acting detective got red in the face. I grinned, knowing I’d read him right.
Our knock at the rectory door was answered by Mrs. Hutchinson. I recognized her from her brief interruption of my Friday morning interview with her husband. Seeing her again today, in a proper but close-fitting powder blue cardigan, confirmed my impression that she was as much as two decades younger than her husband. Her chestnut hair was just starting to go grey. Her two most characteristic facial expressions appeared to be impersonal cheerfulness and thoughtful responsibility.
She said the rector was at the radio station, but that she could let us into the church. She would just tell the ladies of the knitting circle assembled in her living room to carry on without her for a few minutes. With colder weather coming, they were making scarves to distribute to the poorer children of the parish.
Standing inside the sanctuary, I took her name — Myrtle — and showed her the picture I’d got from Moretti.
“Nora’s work,” she said immediately. “I haven’t seen it before, but it’s her all over. Beautiful faces, so clear and shining. She made all of us look better than we are — I mean, better than we appear. I’d have loved for her to do my portrait. Such a shame she’s gone.”
“Is this Archie Stillwater?” I asked, pointing to Baldy.
“No, his name is Lou Sweet. Not a member of this church. He helped build the scaffold, I believe. Nora had a good deal of trouble with him and tried to bring him round by giving him work.”
“What sort of trouble, Mrs. Hutchinson?” I asked.
“Mainly on account of his wife, I believe. Nora discovered her one day selling shoelaces in the Ward and asked to draw her. Nora told me this woman, Rose, had just the look that expressed the soul of the neighbourhood. Peculiar when you consider Rose grew up in Belgium.”
I showed Myrtle Hutchinson the sketch in Nora’s journal of the woman I believed had been effaced from all the portraits lying about the Elizabeth Street studio.
“Yes, that’s Rose. She had what Nora described as a tragic face, sublime somehow. Our Lady of the Ward. Nora put her in the mural design so we would have her image before us every time we worshipped here. But I suppose no husband wants his wife used as the symbol of a slum. Lou didn’t want the notoriety for her or for himself. For one thing, he didn’t want to be labelled a bad provider. He was always out of work for one reason or another and until Nora hired him was thought unemployable.”
“Who by?”
“Everyone — including himself, I think. There might have been more to his dislike of publicity; I don’t know the details.”
“Where can I find him?”
“I wouldn’t know. The rector might, or at least have an address for Mr. Pan. Lou worked under his direction. Albert Pan he called himself. I believe he came from Hong Kong.”
I sent Ned up to the chancel to see what he made of Mr. Pan’s scaffold while I took the opportunity to ask the rector’s wife a few more questions.
“Mrs. Hutchinson, did you ever give Nora Britton anything to eat or drink when she came to the church? Or did you ever pass on to her food or drink on behalf of any of the parishioners?”
“Certainly. Last Monday I baked four dozen hermit cookies. Do you know them? They’re mostly brown sugar and dates — and spices. People are always dropping in. Naturally I gave Nora a few to keep her going through the night.”
“Did you give her a sandwich too?”
“No, she said she’d made one for herself.”
“What about coffee? She had a half-full Thermos with her in the church.”
“No, she must have brought that with her from home as well.”
“How did Miss Britton strike you when you saw her last Monday?” I asked. “Did she seem in good or poor health? Exhausted? Energetic?”
“Hale and hearty. She told me she’d taken Sunday and Monday off and had quite caught up on her sleep.”
“On Monday evening, did you give her anything beside the hermit cookies to eat or drink?”
“No, I didn’t. Are you asking if I poisoned her?”
“Did you?”
Myrtle Hutchinson compressed her lips, brushed a wisp of hair behind her right ear and looked at the floor. Her cheeks were colouring. She was plainly fighting to keep her temper.
“Forgive me, Mr. Shenstone. I’ve never met a detective before, and I don’t know what to expect or what to say. I imagine you’ll tell me to just answer your questions and not waste your time by taking offence.”
“If you think of a sweeter way of saying that, I’ll have it printed on a card to hand out to everyone I interview.”
Myrtle laughed despite herself. “If I t
old you I was fond of Nora, whatever her personal morals — that I was protective of her and would never wish her harm — would you believe me?”
“What about her personal morals?”
“Oh, I thought that was supposed to be my motive for disliking her, the clergyman’s wife condemning the adulteress.”
“Adultery? Who with?”
“I see I’ve put my foot in it. I wouldn’t tell you if I knew with whom, but the truth is I don’t.”
I took a deep breath and tried to keep my disbelief from showing in my face. I didn’t see Myrtle Hutchinson as one of those careless talkers that let secrets just slip out. I doubted she put her foot in much she wanted to step around.
“What exactly made you suspect her?” I asked.
“I merely saw her passionately kissing a man sitting behind the wheel of an open car. Her back was to me; I couldn’t see his face at all. I was going to ask her to eat supper with us, but when I saw that kiss I turned and went back in the house. So I never got a look at the man.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“The Wednesday before last, ten days ago, at about five o’clock. I remember because Wednesday evenings our daughter and her son come over. Viola’s husband died at Passchendaele. Our grandson is having to grow up without a father. I thought of inviting Nora because she liked Johnnie, took an interest in his drawing. A day later, I asked her innocently what kind of car her husband drives. She said Herman didn’t have a car. And she saw right through me. She said she and her husband had a non-exclusive marriage; each of them reserved the right to have affairs with other people. That was something new for me. Not adultery, of course — but the frankness about it. New for Toronto too, I’d think, however they do it in Hollywood or Paris or New York. I confess, I was speechless.”
