Winner's Loss

by Mel Bradshaw

  “Think he could have brought her the poisoned cookies?” Harry asked.

  “Where could he have got them?”

  “If you’ve no better use for me tomorrow, I could see if I can establish any link between him and Ernestine.”

  “Let’s decide in the morning. At least we know where to find Lou. He couldn’t make bail today and is remanded in custody pending his trial.”

  After Harry left, I apologized to Nora for having got no nearer to finding her killer. There was no kindly ghost to forgive me. Drained and depressed, I took myself to the King Edward Hotel and treated myself to a steak dinner that, food and tip, cleaned my wallet out but for the last three shinplasters. I put these together with two dimes and a nickel from my pocket and bought myself a ride home in a dollar taxi.

  Chapter 17

  Tuesday morning I ate a bowl of corn flakes, recharged my flask and my wallet from home stores, and found a complimentary reference to myself in my morning paper. It was the Dispatch, which I picked up at the car stop to pass the time on my ride down Queen Street to the office.

  I checked first for any article by Ruth. There wasn’t one. Looking for something else to read, I flipped past the Dispatch’s usual rant about which races made the best immigrants and allowed this headline to snag my eye: “Firing squad painting sold to New York gallery for $2,000.” I didn’t recognize the byline, but I did the name of the artist. Oscar Craig was quoted as saying the work’s actual title was Dawn Muster. “I was angry last Friday evening when a perceptive friend said he thought it depicted a firing squad, but on reflection I appreciated his direct approach.” Craig went on to tell the journalist about the actual execution that had inspired him. The boy they had had to kill — yes, Craig had been the corporal placed in charge of the unhappy squad — had been caught near Boulogne wearing a nurse’s uniform. The “compassionate” sister that gave him her spare kit did him no favours.

  I sympathized. During the war, while not all deserters were shot, they stood little chance of clemency if caught in disguise.

  In short order, however, a sign I saw out the streetcar window drove the young soldier’s fate from my mind. That sign was for Panzer’s Automotive Repair and Repainting. I got down at the next stop, Bathurst Street. Panzer’s shop wasn’t open yet, but a fiftyish man with stubbly cheeks and uncombed white hair came and unlocked the door for me when I knocked. He knew Whisper Green. He’d painted a Model T roadster in the colour when it first came out a year ago. He couldn’t describe the man — did I think he had the memory of an elephant? — but he might recognize a photo if I had one to show him. I told him not yet.

  All in all not a bad start to the day. When I got to City Hall at ten past eight, I bounded up the pink front steps whistling “Blue Skies.”

  In the detective office, I found Ned Cruickshank seated at my desk.

  “I’ve just been going over your case notes, Paul,” he said by way of greeting. “Do we know if Fred Stillwater has a green roadster?”

  “Stillwater? You think he might have been Nora’s lover?”

  “He lied to you about where his father was on the day of Nora Britton’s death. He said Jordan Stillwater was in Montreal when we’re pretty sure he was in Kansas.”

  “True. I thought he was just embarrassed by the nature of his father’s surgery.”

  “All the same, I wonder if he might also have been hiding the extent of his involvement with Miss Britton. Even if he disapproved of her being given the mural commission, he might have found her an attractive woman.”

  “From what I’ve seen, she was one.”

  “Married, but nevertheless …”

  However dogged Ned was as a detective, and despite his clean-cut good looks, he had still to find or be found by his first girlfriend. Anything to do with sex had the power to make him blush.

  “Married but available?” I volunteered. “Well, if you like we could explore that angle.”

  I could hear the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. My eye had caught on Ned’s photograph of Herman Koch. Easily recognizable with his widow’s peak and dressed in his perpetual corduroy suit and knit tie, Nora’s husband stood face-on to the camera in front of a wall full of paintings. So far Ned’s photo was the same as the ones he’d given me for my own use and to distribute to Rudy and Harry. But Ned’s photo showed another person as well. Beside Herman and towering over him stood Oscar Craig. Oscar and no mistake with his wide neck, dark eyebrows and moustache, and curling dark hair.

  “Ned, what’s this?”

  “A mistake — nothing serious.”

  “Go on.”

  “The picture was taken at the opening of last year’s Group of Seven exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto. It was the best photo of Herman Koch I could find for our purposes, so I asked the paper that ran it to print four copies from the negative. The first one came out like this. Once it was done, I asked if they could print just the portion showing Koch so as to avoid confusion. That’s how you and the others got the pictures you got. I thought if I had to show the photo, I’d just cut this other gentleman out of my copy or hold my hand over his likeness.”

  “I know him, Ned.” I shoved my paper in front of the acting detective. “That’s his painting being written up; he’s the artist being quoted. I was talking to him just last Friday. He said he hadn’t seen Koch for years.”

  “Did he know Miss Britton?”

  “Barely, to hear him tell it.” I was remembering Ruth Stone’s assertion that Oscar Craig knew every female in Toronto. Ridiculous, but maybe not if restricted to women artists and art lovers. Nora, for example. Ernestine Lopez.

  “But you don’t believe him,” Ned put in.

  I don’t know what expression on my face led Ned to say this. What it felt like on the inside was a certain amount of mental furniture being moved around into new positions.

  “On Friday night,” I said, “he talked as if Herman likely killed Nora. He sounded plausible to me at the time. He drives a Model T roadster, black now and dented but perhaps looking different thirteen days ago when Myrtle saw Nora kissing her lover.”

  Ned was listening to me and at the same time studying the newspaper article, including the part that came after I’d stopped reading. It featured Oscar’s life story. Ned gave me the highlights.

  “Art lessons in New York before the war — served 1916–18 on the Western Front — unable to make a living as an artist when peace came — enlisted in the French Foreign Legion — saw action in the Rif War, whatever that is — stationed briefly in French Indochina — returned to Canada in 1925 at the end of his five-year term of service.”

  “The Rif War,” I said, “was fought in Morocco between the Berbers and the Spanish, later helped by the French.” I thought back to the innocent desert sketches in Oscar’s classroom. “From what I’ve heard,” I went on, “a ruthless, take-no-prisoners business. Anything strike you about his deployment to Asia?”

  “A good place to meet pufferfish?”

  “None better.”

  I was starting to think I’d been too glib in sorting the tough guys and the poisoners into two mutually exclusive classes — the scrappers and the schemers. Might not Oscar the painter/soldier be just the man to have a foot in each camp?

  “Want to interview him?”

  “At his home, this evening. Not at the school where he works.”

  “You think he could be dangerous.”

  “I have seen something of his rough side. Besides, there are a few things to check into before we talk to him.”

  I asked Ned to get three more copies of the Oscar photo and bring them here on the double. He was to get a picture of a Model T roadster as well. He was back soon after the other team members got in. I asked Harry to take his copy of Oscar out to the Central Prison chapel to see if it lit any light of recognition in Ernestine’s eyes. Ned went to show Oscar to Mr. Panzer. Rudy surprisingly agreed to show both Oscar and Herman to the menagerie owner in Whitby if I could get a police ve
hicle to take him. I passed the buck to Inspector Sanderson, who promised to do what he could. In less than half an hour, a traffic patrol officer arrived to take the Englishman off on the back of his Harley-Davidson. That left me to see if Myrtle Hutchinson recognized either Oscar or the shape of his car.

  When I came down the front steps of City Hall, my state of mind was very different from when I’d earlier climbed them. Different, not worse. I couldn’t have explained it at the time because the good thing now was not conscious cheerfulness but rather absorption in the job I was born for — detective work. Did it bother me to think Oscar might have killed Nora? Yes, it had to. And when I was next at leisure it would bother me a lot. Oscar had exaggerated in calling me a friend, but we’d been increasingly friendly acquaintances. Right now I didn’t have time to feel disappointed. The task was all that mattered.

  My business with Myrtle was soon done. She didn’t recognize Craig’s photo, although she saw nothing in it that ruled out his being Nora’s lover. The shape of the car I showed her elicited a more positive response. She couldn’t be sure, but the Model T roadster “looked right” — in shape if not in colour.

  Although I hadn’t thought that far when I set out from headquarters, showing the photos as well in Leavitt’s Polar Treat Ice Cream Parlour scarcely counted as a stroke of genius. Simon Leavitt in his white jacket and a brisk-looking younger man with curly fair hair were preparing for the opening at ten a.m. The shop owner saw me at the glass door and unlocked it for me. He introduced his son Michael, a medical student, who treated me to a firm handshake and a steady, memorizing sort of look. His fine features likely made him more conquests among the coeds than he had time for.

  I explained my errand and laid the photo of Oscar Craig on Leavitt’s counter. He didn’t look at it.

  “You said, Mr. Leavitt, that during August and September Nora Britton sometimes came in for one of your fresh fruit sundaes. Did she ever come with this man?”

  “I don’t notice who anybody comes in with,” he said.

  “Some things have changed since Friday, sir. There is now an official investigation under way — an investigation into the murder of someone you called ‘a sweet woman.’”

  Leavitt met my expectant gaze without comment.

  “That’s a murder not twenty yards from your front door,” I said. “You’re a responsible citizen with a strong sense of justice. Think. Do you really want to leave this crime unpunished?”

  Michael Leavitt, who had been setting up tables, came over to look at the photo we were talking about.

  “I saw him in here almost two weeks ago, holding hands with a woman. Was that Nora Britton, Dad?”

  “I didn’t see,” his father answered uncomfortably.

  “Describe the woman you saw,” I asked Michael.

  “Mid-thirties, I’d say. Dark, straight hair with a centre part. Clear complexion, maybe a bit pale.”

  “Nose?”

  “Straight, with a rather pronounced philtrum —”

  “Nose ditch, right, doc?”

  “— connecting to the cupid’s bow upper lip.”

  “Full lips?” I asked.

  Michael nodded. “Hair pulled back and done up in a knot of some kind — would that be her?”

  “You bet.”

  “The fella had a car he parked across the street, a pretty unusual green colour — three whopping scoops of vanilla plus a half-teaspoon of pistachio.” The serious young doctor-to-be cracked a smile. “I remember thinking the days when every Model T was black are finally over.”

  “This would have been October 5?” I asked.

  “Round about then.”

  “Did either of you see him any other time?”

  “I didn’t. Come on, Dad. Tell him what you know. You don’t want murderers walking in here.”

  Simon Leavitt looked at his son and then at me. “I served the two of them maybe four or five times,” he said. “They sometimes ate from the same bowl.”

  That sharing seemed to upset Leavitt to a degree I couldn’t understand. I hazarded a guess.

  “You saw them acting intimate in other ways.”

  Again Michael helped out by giving his father a nudge.

  “One time he stroked her leg under the table,” said Simon. “She didn’t slap his hand away. She was a fine person, but children come in here. If it had happened again, I’d have had to speak to them. Did he kill her, mister?”

  “You’re helping me find out, Mr. Leavitt.”

  In retrospect I realized I should have pressed him harder at our first meeting. I’d been too influenced by Eric Hutchinson’s assurance that Nora had no lover. If I’d got descriptions last Friday of the men Nora ate ice cream with, I might have found Oscar without chasing paint colours. On the other hand, I might not. I suspected the city held more big, dark-haired men like Oscar than it did Whisper Green roadsters. Oscar must have thought the same or he wouldn’t have bothered repainting his car black.

  My next stop was Dalton Linacre’s lab in the bowels of the University of Toronto Mining Building. I wanted him to go back to those cookie crumbs and see if in addition to chocolate they might contain traces of chili peppers. I asked also what progress Professor Keller had made analyzing Nora’s vomit for traces of tetrodotoxin. Linacre said he’d inquire, but didn’t hold out hope of any news on that score before the end of the week.

  At the Department of Public Works and Highways I looked up Oscar’s car registration to find out his address. It turned out he rented quarters a few blocks east of mine. I took the Queen car out to have a look. Whereas my building had three storeys of apartments running back from a narrow frontage, Oscar’s consisted of two residential floors above a row of shops. Bay windows and tricky brickwork in the upper façade suggested construction had been well-funded. Fresh paint on the window trim showed the landlord’s interest in keeping up appearances and rents.

  I puzzled over whether to show Oscar’s picture around the neighbourhood in the hope of learning something of his movements, but concluded such inquiries weren’t worth the risk of Oscar’s finding out and being put on his guard. For the same reason, I decided we wouldn’t stake out his building just yet. I bought a sardine sandwich on whole wheat and took it back to the office.

  Riding the streetcar in, I had to remind myself that Nora’s lover was not necessarily her killer. Perhaps Oscar had murdered Nora out of jealousy when he found out she was returning to Herman. Or perhaps Herman had poisoned her because he suspected she was not in fact breaking with the other man in her life. The kiss Myrtle had seen on October 5, after Nora’s promise to Herman to return to him, might have made anyone suspect that Nora’s extramarital affair was by no means over. Could Herman have found out about that kiss or about equally intimate recent dealings between Nora and Oscar? If so, Herman’s sense of betrayal might have snuffed out whatever was left of his bohemian renunciation of sexual jealousy.

  In the course of Tuesday afternoon members of the team returned to headquarters with their reports. Ned and Harry’s were anti-climactic.

  Yes, in the summer of 1926 Mr. Panzer had painted Oscar’s car Whisper Green. Panzer had predicted the owner would be back within the year to have the car restored to its original black, but this hadn’t happened. Ned had asked around other neighbourhood paint shops to no avail and had concluded that Oscar had done this repainting job himself.

  And yes, Ernestine had shared a flat with Oscar soon after his return to Toronto. She thought she remembered that in the course of a boozy conversation about the perfect crime she had mentioned to him combining chili and chocolate to disguise the taste of poison. Once again she denied categorically that she had ever told Herman. Harry had his doubts: he believed that Ernestine was sweet on Herman and would say anything to protect him from suspicion. While at the prison chapel, Harry had visited Herman’s studio as well. Koch was taking veronal to help overcome his incipient cocaine habit and was consequently drowsy, but less irritable than I had found him the
day before. Harry asked the painter if he knew that Nora had been having an affair with Oscar Craig. Herman said not — adding that, if Craig had been Nora’s lover, Herman was sure she had broken with him before her death.

  Anti-climactic also was the phone call from Professor Linacre confirming that the cookie crumbs contained traces of capsicum as well as chocolate.

  The big news I was waiting for would come from Rudy Crate. Assuming he survived his chilly motorcycle ride, he would tell us whether Herman or Oscar or neither had acquired, in whole or in part, Templeton’s pufferfish. I passed the hours from lunch to dinnertime writing up case notes, attending to other neglected paperwork, and from time to time walking out to the front door of City Hall to see if I could spot Rudy’s approach.

  Meanwhile I could think of no more assignments for my teammates. Acting Detective Ned Cruickshank went back to his regular base, Station Number One — stipulating that someone phone him there as soon as Rudy came in. Detective Sergeant Harry O’Brian sat at his desk and reluctantly returned to his work on the Chief Constable’s Annual Report. Whenever I glanced over in his direction, Harry seemed to be consulting his watch, which made me check mine as well.

  Three fifteen. Herman or Oscar?

  Four twenty-five. Oscar or Herman?

  However hard I tried to concentrate on other work, my mind kept circling back to this one question. I wondered if Nora would have told Rose Mertens that a “friend” had given her the chocolate-chili cookies if they’d come from Herman. On the other hand, if companionate marriage flourished in Greenwich Village, the artistic set might see friendly marriage as nothing peculiar.

  Four fifty-four …

  “Ants in your pants, Shenstone?” Parsons at the desk next to mine was holding out a pack of Player’s Navy Cut in my direction. “Try a cigarette, good for the nerves.”

  I looked into my neighbour’s untroubled, wrinkled face. He was retiring in January, but after forty-six years of police service was already taking it easy.