by Mel Bradshaw
“What do you mean by ‘kind to a fault’?”
“Turning the other cheek. There was a man that said terrible things about her, and she gave him work. Work building the structure she fell from.”
“Rest easy on that score,” I said. “The scaffold wasn’t sabotaged. The scaffold didn’t kill her.”
“I hate that word. Scaffold. It makes it sound as if Nora were hanged.”
I gave Effie a moment. She was handling the interview well, and it didn’t take long for her irritation to subside.
“Did she mention anyone else that might have wished her harm?” I asked.
“She never said a word against Herman, but for our parents he’s the source of all harm.”
“Do they think he had anything to do with her fall?”
“Not directly. But in their mind he corrupted her, persuaded her to accept a marriage without fidelity, alienated her from her family, sponged on her, and expected her to continue to support him even when he set up a separate establishment. And, to top it all, they believe he had her remains cremated just to spite them — and cremated in haste to deny them the chance to see their daughter one last time.”
“Was it Nora’s wish to be cremated?”
“She told me she thought it was cleaner and tidier than burial. Father and Mother are against it. Something to do with believing in the physical resurrection of the body. Nora, on the other hand, called burial a waste of God’s good earth. She told me in her sweet, quiet voice — full of love and compassion — that she feared our parents were letting themselves in for disappointment. No golden harvest would result from planting corpses. For myself, I can’t see that it matters; when I’m dead, the decision will be out of my hands. Nora acknowledged that too. The fact that there are no crematoria in this province made her all the more doubtful that her wishes would be respected — but she did have wishes.”
“So would you say that, in having Nora cremated, her husband was simply carrying out her instructions?”
“And that his haste in doing so was to prevent Dad and Mum from interfering — yes, I would say so.”
Koch’s mural design came to mind. What he had depicted was a body rising from a sarcophagus, the physical resurrection Nora had denied. Might he, strange as it might seem, share Nora’s parents’ objections to cremation? I briefly entertained the possibility that he had burned Nora’s remains against his own convictions and only to fulfill her request. But I reckoned it more likely that the rising from the tomb in the mural was no more than an artistic stratagem, a pattern drawn from Koch’s memory of other religious paintings with no reference to his own beliefs. In any event, Koch’s haste in arranging the cremation was convenient if he had any reason to keep a post-mortem from being done.
“Miss Britton, did your sister have a will?”
“She did. But she didn’t want our parents to know during her lifetime. I haven’t told them yet.”
“Let’s talk about it before they get home. First, why the secrecy?”
“Because she was leaving Herman two-thirds of her money. They wanted him disinherited entirely.”
“And the remaining third?”
“Comes to me. They wouldn’t have minded that.”
“Do you know much money she had?”
“I haven’t been told yet what she had in the bank. She lived as frugally as someone that doesn’t cook for herself can. At the same time, she had lots of commissions and — in Sir Joseph Deane — a wealthy patron. She told me she hoped that by the time she died my share would be enough for me to buy a house.”
“Miss Britton, when did your sister and her husband start living apart?”
“Before the first mural competition. She told me when she came home for Christmas — the Christmas before last.”
“After the separation, how much did Nora and Herman see of each other?”
Effie Britton moved her hands very little when she talked, but now she raised her right hand thoughtfully in front of her mouth. So far, she had appeared quite frank and direct. Now I wondered if she was trying to decide whether to censor herself.
“Nora confided in me a certain amount, Mr. Shenstone, but she didn’t tell me everything. She never mentioned seeing him.”
“She disliked cooking. Would Herman ever have brought her food?”
Effie let her hand fall back in her lap and smiled for the first time — a large, hearty smile that showed two even rows of teeth. “What a cockeyed sounding idea! I can’t imagine it, and I certainly never heard about anything of the kind.”
I flashed her a grin back. “Nora was allowed to execute her winning mural design, whereas Herman was denied the chance to carry out his. Is it your impression that he was jealous of her success?”
“If he was, I got no hint of it from her. Nora didn’t make any secret of her view that Herman’s being snubbed like that was horribly unfair. She believed in her own work, but she went so far as to say that Herman’s design for the church was superior to her own. I argued with her about that. It was a wonderful surprise when she won the second mural competition, but I was never in the least doubt that she deserved to win.”
“You’ve told me your parents view of Herman Koch. What do you think of him?”
“Herman didn’t corrupt Nora.” A pause here filled in by a shake of the head. “I’ve more respect for my sister’s strength of character than that. She subscribed to the mores of Greenwich Village just as freely and deliberately as Herman. He’s no Svengali. What’s more, as Nora saw and as Mum and Dad can never see, he’s one of the finest painters in the country.”
“Are you saying that your parents have no appreciation of art?”
“They haven’t much, and in Herman’s case their judgement is biased. They never disowned Nora or prevented her coming home for a visit, but they regarded her as damaged, morally crippled as I’m physically crippled. By the way, you’ve done well in twenty minutes’ conversation not to refer once to the way I hobble around.”
“I’m afraid, Miss Britton, that in my neighbourhood crutches are not such a rarity — although young women without the use of a leg are thankfully in the minority.”
“I’m like the lame boy of Hamelin that was unable to follow the Pied Piper.” Effie shrugged and continued mildly. “I think our parents would have liked to have Nora live with them here as I do. Not the best situation for adult children to my mind — oh, common enough, but still not ideal. I manage pretty well. I could live on my own and one day may do so, but I suppose I’ve been letting them look after me to console them for the waywardness of their first-born. They blame Herman for the damage to Nora, and so can’t see his artistic talent. In my case, they believe the only blameworthy party is the poliomyelitis virus. Between you and me, I suspect my withered leg was made more useless by the medical treatment I received, which involved extended periods of immobilizing the limb to rest it. The suspicion is that muscles that were not paralyzed before atrophied for want of use, but talk of that would distress Mother and Father to no purpose.”
“Your parents are at church?”
“Yes.”
“Do you not go?”
“Often I do. But this is the first Sunday since Nora’s death. I would have cried buckets and not, I’m afraid, found any consolation in the service. I meant to keep to myself and my very particular grief, but you’re helping me through a difficult hour.”
“Did Sir Joseph Deane know you’d be home when he called?”
“He stayed away from morning service himself and took a chance I’d do the same. Of course, it would have been worse for him facing that … scaffold at the front of Christ Church and sitting in a congregation that still includes Nora’s detractors. People that persist in regarding her as a Kraut-lover unfit to memorialize their war dead.”
A clock on the mantel warned me that Mr. and Mrs. Britton would soon be returning. There was a line of questioning I wanted to cover before they did. “You say, Miss Britton, that Nora subscribed freely to th
e mores of Greenwich Village. Did she have a lover?”
Effie also checked the clock before answering. “Possibly. She didn’t tell me yes or no. Or who.”
“Might it have been Sir Joseph Deane?”
Effie Britton’s jaw dropped. Pink spread over her pale face. She tried to speak, but no words came out. I waited, suppressing my impatience. Eventually she broke the silence.
“Now I know what runs through a policeman’s mind in the big city,” she said. “Sir Joseph? The idea seems so — so out of kilter. But practically speaking, it’s impossible. Nora told me she would never go to bed with a married man unless his wife knew and approved, or at least gave her permission. I believe her: that was her code. Enough — my parents are back.”
I turned in my seat to see a woman and man, apparently in their fifties, coming slowly up the front walk. Mr. Britton was balding with a fringe of fair hair the colour of Effie’s. He carried a black top hat in his left hand and wore a black morning coat, black waistcoat, and black trousers. Dark-haired like Nora, Mrs. Britton held his free arm as she walked. She wore a black fall overcoat open over her long, dropped-waist black dress. Effie and I rose to greet them, and Effie made the introductions in somewhat formal terms. George Britton and I exchanged first names as well, and I heard him call his wife Alice. Understandably preoccupied, the couple did not know what to make of me.
Alice offered to make tea. I could see she was exhausted, though.
“I won’t stay long,” I promised. “Perhaps we could all sit down for a moment.”
The women and I did so. George Britton took his wife’s coat and his hat to a closet somewhere. When he came back, he stood by the mantelpiece and wiped the lenses of his wireframed spectacles on his handkerchief. His eyes were red, and his mouth drooped, but the deep lines in his face suggested grief of one kind or another was nothing new. At the same time, he had a solid build and an erect posture. I could easily imagine him wielding authority in his dry goods shop.
“What brings you here?” Alice Britton asked me.
“Mr. Shenstone is a detective, Mum, from Toronto,” Effie explained, not for the first time.
“I’m making inquiries concerning your daughter Nora’s death,” I said. “I understand that this is a difficult time, Mrs. Britton. I’m sorry for the intrusion.”
“Yes. Well …” Alice Britton unpinned her black hat and set it and the attached veil on the chesterfield between us. I saw that there was a lot of grey in her black hair and heavy bags under her eyes.
“Sir Joseph Deane phoned me this morning and asked me to make Mr. Shenstone welcome,” Effie added.
“You are welcome,” George Britton remarked absently.
“Thank you, sir. Miss Britton has given me most of what I need, so I won’t take much of your time.”
I inquired first about Nora’s medical history, specifically about the conditions Professor Linacre had identified as likely to cause dizziness. Alice and George exchanged a helpless look. Effie said that nothing of the kind had been identified while Nora had been living at home. Moreover, when she started work at Christ Church on a platform high above the chancel floor, she had assured her family that her balance was excellent.
Next, I asked Nora’s parents whether they knew of anyone that might want to hurt their elder daughter.
“That rat Koch!” George Britton spat out. He rolled back his shoulders, as if to ease the tension that thoughts of his son-in-law had put them under. “Are you a churchman, officer — er — Paul?”
My head shake didn’t appear to add to his misery.
“There are those in the Church of England that have accepted cremation, but more — including Alice and me — that have not. Setting such differences aside, though, for us not to be granted so much as a glimpse of Nora before …”
George Britton, heartbreak in his face, stared out his front window. What he saw was for dead certain not the street, but the crematorium flames.
“Dad, Mr. Shenstone and I have been over all that,” Effie soothed. “He means anyone else.”
“I don’t understand.” Alice Britton sat up straighter, her fatigue set aside. “You’re not saying our daughter was murdered?”
“Alice, that’s a dreadful thought,” George Britton cautioned. “The situation is distressing enough without that.”
“It is a dreadful thought,” I said, “but it has to be explored — the sooner the better.” I was grateful to have for the first time Nora’s parents’ full attention.
“She didn’t tell us anything,” Alice burst out. “Well, not much.” Nora’s mother smoothed her black skirt over her knees while composing her thoughts. “Daughters today are so independent. And then Nora lived in the city, and we had no way of knowing what went on there, except what we read in the newspaper about automobile accidents and crime. Nora was one of the family when she came home for a visit. She helped out at our church bazaar, raising money for us by selling people sketches of themselves. We loved having her here, but she made it clear her life in Toronto was not a subject for discussion.”
I asked the three Brittons — as I had Sir Joe — whether Nora had had any close friend in the city, someone familiar with her daily life. None of them admitted knowing of such a person.
“We were told Nora’s death was accidental,” George Britton said. “We gather she was alone in the church when she fell. How could murder come into it?”
“I’m trying to find out what Nora might have had to eat in the hours before her death,” I said.
“You’re suggesting she was poisoned.” George made his words an accusation. “That beggars belief.”
“I gather she didn’t like to cook,” I bludgeoned on. “Would any of you have any idea where she took her meals last Monday?”
George Britton turned his back and looked as if he might stalk out of the room. His wife was quicker to come to terms with the unthinkable.
“George, if she was murdered, we have to think of poison. But where could she have eaten it?”
Nora’s father rejoined the conversation reluctantly. “How the deuce would I know?”
“The question is impossible,” said Effie. “I doubt you’d find anyone in the whole of Toronto with eating habits less regular. Sometimes she made sandwiches in her studio. Sometimes she ate at Eaton’s cafeteria. Sometimes she ate at Chinese restaurants.”
“One in particular?”
“No, lots of different ones.”
“Chinese?” said George Britton. “I had no idea.”
“And then,” Effie raced on, “she often ate at the homes of friends or of members of Christ Church — and church members packed her picnic lunches to eat while she was working on the mural.”
I said I understood and asked if any of the three of them had any idea where, of all the possibilities, Nora might have eaten last Monday. None of them did. Nora followed no set rotation and hadn’t been in touch with any of her family in Aurora for over a week.
“Might she have eaten fish?” I asked at last.
“That, no,” said Alice Britton.
“Out of the question,” George Britton added.
“My sister shunned fish and seafood of all kinds,” said Effie. “She’d never have eaten it voluntarily.”
“Eating fish made her sick?” I suggested.
“No, she didn’t have an allergy or anything like that,” said Effie.
“She just tried a lot of different kinds and didn’t like any of them,” Alice put in. “Ten years ago, she gave up trying and swore she’d never eat anything with a shell or fins again.”
“Whatever my daughter ate last Monday,” George concluded, “you can bet your bottom dollar it wasn’t fish.”
Unless, I thought, she ate it as the unsuspected ingredient of a chocolate cookie. I didn’t see how the inclusion of that ingredient in baked goods could be innocent. I didn’t know which fish were fatal to eat, but I was sure that there must be at least one and that Nora had eaten it.
�
�Why do you ask, Mr. Shenstone?” Effie wanted to know.
“I’ll tell you as soon as I can,” I said. “Meanwhile, I’m asking you not to mention that I was here today or what we talked of.”
I was leaving the Brittons in suspense, but I couldn’t risk the killer’s getting wind of what the police now knew. What we — what I — now knew was that there was without doubt a killer. All weekend, I’d been acting without instructions on my own initiative. Tomorrow morning I’d be in a position to have Inspector Sanderson open an official murder investigation.
I felt bad knowing that someone had deliberately taken Nora’s life, but at the same time eased in spirit knowing — rather than guessing and wondering and never being sure. I didn’t go into this with the Brittons.
I let them think my evident relief was all gratitude for Effie’s assurance on behalf of the family that I could count on them to keep mum.
Chapter 12
As I swung Sir Joe’s machine around the block and back onto Yonge Street, my mind went back to what Effie had said about Nora’s code. She wouldn’t take up with a married man without his wife’s permission. This was a new one on me: another artsy variant on the marriage game. Effie had had time to get used to the idea, but the arrival of her parents had left me with a lot of thoughts half-formed. What I was really missing at this point was a fellow detective to bat hypotheses around with.
Effie implied that Lady Deane would not have given Joe and Nora the green light. Of course, Effie might be mistaken or lying, but what about Myrtle Hutchinson? Suppose she were the permissive wife.
“It’s maybe a long shot,” I imagined myself saying to Harry O’Brian, “but suppose Myrtle made up the story of seeing Nora kiss a man in a light-coloured roadster in order to cast suspicion on Joe Deane and away from her husband. Just because she allowed Eric to make love to Nora didn’t mean she wanted the affair known. Hutchinson’s a priest, after all, not an artist. Exposure as an adulterer would cost him his position, and Myrtle hers.”
