by Mel Bradshaw
Myrtle was quiet again a moment, remembering her shock.
What was new for me, listening to the rector’s wife, was the possibility that Nora as well as her hubby had been taking advantage of the non-exclusivity of their marriage. Something new perhaps since Greenwich Village days when only Herman appeared to be playing the field. Nora — the Nora I’d built up in my mind from images and hearsay — became a fuller woman for me, less of a plaster saint. And, yes, I was a little jealous. More to the point, I now had another potential suspect to investigate. Who could have been at the receiving end of that passionate kiss?
“Did she say anything else?” I asked.
“That she didn’t expect me to approve, but that she’d try to be more discreet. I haven’t told the rector about this, and I hope you won’t either. I’m afraid it would change the way he thinks of her.”
“You asked Nora what kind of car her husband drives. What kind of car did you see?”
“Open, as I said — a roadster. I didn’t catch the make.”
“What colour was it, Mrs. Hutchinson?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Was it light or dark?”
“Light.”
“Ivory? Tan? Pearl grey? The colour of your sweater?”
“I told you I didn’t notice the colour. I didn’t. Now I’d best be getting back to the knitting circle. Please close the door when you leave: it locks itself.”
“Do you know if anyone else gave Miss Britton anything to eat or drink on Monday?”
“No, I don’t.”
“No one left anything of the kind with you to give her?”
“No.”
“To your knowledge, did any member of the Stillwater family come anywhere near Nora or the church or the rectory that day?”
“Not at all. I believe my husband was right to tell you what various generations of Stillwaters said about Nora, but to my knowledge none of them came anywhere near her or her kit last Monday.”
“Do you believe Nora Britton was murdered?”
“I don’t know. When her body was found, I accepted that her death was an accident. Despite her claim that she was well-rested, after a few hours of work she could have got lightheaded. I wouldn’t have climbed up on a scaffold like that myself. Now? Well, now the possibility of murder has been raised, I think it’s just as well that someone like you is investigating.”
“Someone like me,” I said, tasting the oddity of the expression. It was as if she were reluctant to say the police or a detective. “Someone like me usually finds in an investigation that small details have large consequences. I’d like you to think about the colour of that car and tell me if it comes back to you.”
“All right.”
I thanked Myrtle Hutchinson and told her she could go. Watching her walk neither slowly nor quickly towards the north door, I wondered how much of what she had told me had been the truth. Her voice had been calm, light, unemphatic, even when she’d been angry with me. By her own admission, she kept secrets from her husband. I wondered what she was keeping from me. And why she had been so keen to plant the idea, all the while pretending it had just slipped out, that Nora Britton had a lover.
When I approached the scaffold, Ned Cruickshank was already climbing down the ladders with cans of paint and thinner dangling by their wire handles from his wrists.
“I may have found the poison, Paul,” he said. “Green paint — something arsenite. I’ve heard of kids in a green-painted bedroom wasting away.”
I told Ned that because of stories like that, Paris green was now only used as a pesticide, not a paint.
“Maybe she had old paints. Don’t you think something like that could be what made her dizzy?”
“Let’s see the cans. What you’ve got there looks new. And there’s no poison warning label.”
“This can is closed, but not sealed,” Ned persisted. “Paris green could have been added to the harmless green paint powder Miss Britton bought. It might look the same.”
“Let me sniff.” I took the can from Ned and pried off the lid with my pocket knife.
Ned opened his mouth to warn me off, but changed his mind and just ran his tongue nervously over his lips as I stuck my nose in the can.
“No garlic smell,” I said. “I don’t believe there’s any arsenic compound in there. And, even if there were, the poison wouldn’t pose the same inhalation risk in a large space like this church as it would in a cozy children’s bedroom.”
Ned was ready to move on. “These cans were all I could carry in one trip. I better go up and get the rest of the painting supplies.”
“I’ll come along.” I followed Ned up the first of the two ladders leading to the platform where she had been working. “Odd, isn’t it,” I said, “that green was the only colour she’d used before she died? She had a long way to go.”
“There are touches of brown too,” said Ned.
“Where?”
He pointed to one dark, drop-shaped patch two feet above the level of the first platform. It didn’t appear to bear any relation to the charcoal sketch that covered the prepared white wall. In fact, it looked to me more like a spatter than like an intentional application of paint.
“Another up here,” Ned called from the platform above me.
I climbed up and looked at a bigger spatter.
“Did you find any cans of brown paint, Ned?”
“No. On closer inspection, it doesn’t even look like paint.”
I had to agree. I put my nose close to the mark. I wasn’t sure if it had an odour, but something about it — maybe just the colour — reminded me of Nora’s knapsack. I figured whatever had soiled the knapsack had soiled the wall as well. Finding no more spatters on the wall, I climbed down to the floor of the chancel and crawled under the scaffold at a point directly under the marks on the wall. The dark brown wooden floor in this underlit recess of Christ Church didn’t make the stain easy to see, but I could feel a crust, like a dried puddle. There was no chance that a spill from Nora’s Thermos of coffee had created the spatters above or the pool below. Coffee is too thin. Nor could this substance be her blood: the rector had seen no wounds or signs of bleeding anywhere on her body. Although I didn’t take my pulse, I’m sure it picked up a few beats. I used my knife to scrape some of the deposit from the floorboards into a clean handkerchief and backed out from under the bamboo scaffold.
“What do you think it is, Paul?”
“Professor Linacre will say for sure, but I’m betting it’s Nora Britton’s vomit. Her death may still have been an accident, but she must have been exposed to something very nasty. Taking what’s on her knapsack together with what’s on the wall and the floor, we’re dealing with a lot of puke.”
“Are we going to Linacre’s lab now?”
My watch told me it was not yet four. Three hours too early to get Linacre’s report on Nora’s meal.
“How about you go there and take this.” I handed Ned the folded handkerchief containing the scrapings from the chancel floor. “Tell the professor we suspect it’s the same stuff that’s on the knapsack. After you’ve talked to him, if you’re still keen, there is something else you could do.”
“Say the word.”
“You’ve had a look at the scaffold. Anything strike you about it?”
“It’s a new one on me. It looks flimsy, but feels solid. Pretty ingenious, I’d say.”
“Anything odd from a safety point of view?”
“The railing along the outside of the top platform seems low. That’s what struck me. I’d have to go over the thing in detail to make sure there was nothing else.”
“I was struck by the same thing,” I said. “Now you heard Myrtle Hutchinson say two men worked on that scaffold, Albert Pan and Lou Sweet. You also heard her say that Sweet had a history of ill will against Nora. It looks as if he ransacked her studio on Elizabeth Street last night, cutting all likenesses of himself and his wife Rose from the pictures he found there. What I’d like you
to do is track down Pan and Sweet.”
“To find out why that rail is low?”
“Bingo. We don’t know what Pan thought of Nora, so try to find that out too. As for Sweet, the rector’s wife thinks Nora managed to smooth things over with him, but his vandalism last night suggests otherwise. See if he had a strong enough motive to kill her. And, if so, how he might have done so.”
“The low railing apart?” said Ned.
“By itself that would have been too hit and miss. What opportunity might he have had to give her whatever made her throw up?”
“Where and when do I report back?”
“Do as much as you can or feel like,” I said. “It is just about Saturday night after all. Write down what you find out and leave notes on my desk at City Hall before you go home.”
“What will you be doing, Paul?”
“Suspicions about foul play arose from some loose talk by members of a family called Stillwater. It’s about time I paid them a visit.”
Chapter 8
When I was growing up, Yorkville still had the character of the village it had been before its annexation by Toronto. Now this residential suburb was being drawn into the ever-widening whirlpool of the city. According to the papers, the new public library branch was setting records for loans, including to borrowers living far outside its immediate neighbourhood. The new Mount Sinai Hospital had settled in on Yorkville Avenue, and corner lots on Bay Street were selling to commercial interests for upwards of twenty thousand dollars.
Despite the large number of new businesses, Stillwater Jewellers was not hard to find. I stopped across the street to admire a storefront entirely of glass, including a glass door. With no protective grillwork in evidence anywhere, the façade seemed a cheeky challenge to those coveting the valuable merchandise inside. Although it was still an hour till sunset, the electric sign outside was already lit, and all four of the electroliers suspended from the tin ceiling had been turned on to create dazzling reflections off the polished stones. Through the glass I saw that a stout, well-dressed gentleman with a black moustache had the store to himself. He stood behind the counter arranging gems in the display case. Even at a distance of fifteen to twenty yards, I could see that he was a generation too young to be Jordan Stillwater, the retired pharmacist. I had a remarkably clear view of him, from his pomaded hair to his glittering cufflinks. There was little pedestrian or vehicle traffic at this hour. What shops there were — and these were interspersed with private dwellings — had for the most part closed early for Saturday.
I was about to cross the street when a black Ford approached from my right. It was a four-door touring model with the canvas top up. I waited for it to pass, but it stopped in front of a closed lingerie shop next door to Stillwater’s. The driver, a man whose turned-up collar and pulled-down hat hid most of his face, stayed in the car with the motor running. A woman got out of the back seat on my side of the car, her face mostly concealed by her cloche hat and fur collar. Someone also got out from the front right passenger seat. I couldn’t see much of him at first, but as soon as the two car doors closed, the driver pulled ahead and stopped again in front of Stillwater’s without killing the motor. Then I got a look at the man on the sidewalk. He was wearing a hat and suit, no overcoat. He took a nervous look around and patted his right side jacket pocket, which sagged and bulged. A few words were exchanged with the woman, who took his arm. He shook her hand off, but she put it right back with some sharp rebuke. I could hear her voice but not the words. This time he let it stay. The two headed for the door to the jewellery shop.
As soon as they were inside, I approached the Ford and spoke to the driver.
“Get out of here now. Just drive away.”
Two-days’ stubble decorated the man’s lean jaw. He took a quick look at me and my badge, then fixed his eyes on the road ahead.
“What law am I breaking?” A toothpick bobbed in the corner of his mouth when he spoke.
“None — I’m trying to keep it that way. Scram or I’ll handcuff you to the outside of this tin Lizzie and neither one of you will be able to move.”
The driver released the handbrake.
“Don’t come back,” I said.
The car pulled away. The couple had entered the jewellery shop and were making like fiancés, getting the man behind the counter to show them rings. I quickly checked that the Ford was still driving straight down Yorkville Avenue. When I looked back, the husband-to-be was holding an automatic pistol on the jeweller while his future bride scooped the diamond rings off the counter into her handbag.
Events were moving faster than I’d anticipated. I moved to the edge of the window to be less conspicuous. I didn’t like leaving a citizen at the wrong end of a gun, particularly a gun in the hand of a robber so inexperienced-looking. But the jeweller was holding his hands calmly in the air and appeared to be avoiding any movement that would startle or provoke the gunman. My entry might be just such a movement and increase the risk of bloodshed. With any luck, the robbers would soon be leaving. I could make my move then without endangering anyone but myself.
The woman closed her bag and turned. Seeing no getaway car, she got scared. Then she scared me by grabbing the gunman’s right arm. He managed not to clench his finger on the trigger, but when he turned the sight of the empty curb spooked him. Leaving the woman, he ran to the door and out onto the sidewalk where I felled him with my best rugby tackle. Supine on the concrete, he was still holding his firearm.
“Throw the iron away,” I said.
He tried instead to get it pointed at some piece of me. A shot was fired — but not by him. From inside the shop. I couldn’t yet afford to look in that direction. Sitting astride my man, I punched him in the face. That loosened his grip, and I was able to take possession of the Colt Hammerless .38.
The woman stumbled into the street clutching her right hand, from which blood was dripping.
“God, Lou,” she wailed, “why did you leave me behind?”
“Can it, Iva. Where’s that husband of yours?”
Lou? I took a closer look at the man I’d just socked and saw a long upper lip, a mole on his left cheek. When I pulled off his hat, I was less than astonished to see he was bald in the centre of his head with dark hair slicked back over his ears to either side. I hadn’t had leisure previously to make an identification, but even under more relaxed circumstances I might not have twigged right away that this pathetic creature was the heroic soccer player Nora Britton had portrayed. Lou’s blue eyes were watery and self-pitying rather than coldly focused.
I pocketed his gun and put my handcuffs on him. Having already parted with my own handkerchief, I searched Lou for his. I found it none too clean, so suggested Iva let me have hers to tie around her hand. The bullet had gone right through. I told her I had to take possession of her handbag anyway. The thin square of white lawn I found inside didn’t do much to slow the bleeding. Having just been abandoned by two men, however, she gave me a look of gratitude for the attention.
“They’re bound to have a better bandage inside,” I said, hustling them both into the shop.
The jeweller held a pistol in his hand and was pointing it our way.
“You can put that down, sir,” I said. “I’m a police officer.”
“Anyone can say that.” The jeweller’s voice was tight. The lavish lighting now had another surface to reflect from, the slick of nervous perspiration on his well-fed face.
“Anyone can — but I have the man that robbed you in cuffs. May I approach and show you my badge?”
I felt Iva slipping backwards from my side towards the door. I reached back and pulled her forward. Luckily she was to my right, so I was dragging her by the unhurt hand.
“Never mind the badge,” the jeweller said in a more reasonable tone. He plainly didn’t want the three of us crowding in on him. He set down his revolver — a Smith & Wesson Safety Hammerless, from what I could see — on the counter before him.
Freed from the
threat of being shot a second time, Iva sobbed in relief.
I told Lou to go sit with his back against the counter where I could see him, and he complied. He raised his linked hands to his mouth to feel his teeth — presumably to see if I’d loosened any. Since I’d put the cuffs on him, he hadn’t uttered a peep. There was one straight-backed chair on the customers’ side of the counter. I put it facing me two yards from Lou and installed Iva there.
“Mr. Stillwater?” I said to the shopkeeper.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to use your phone. But first this woman has a wound that needs dressing.”
“Serves her right. Don’t waste your sympathy.”
“I’m sorry you were held up,” I replied. “But the person in greatest need here is the woman you shot. Now do you have a first-aid kit or do you want her to go on bleeding on your fancy tile floor?”
Stillwater put his gun in one drawer and from another took a roll of gauze, which he shoved across the counter in my direction. I traded it for Iva’s purse.
“See if all your gems are in there,” I said.
“Your name and rank?”
“Detective Sergeant Paul Shenstone. Check with City Hall.” I gave Stillwater the number of the detective office. “And pass me the phone when you’re done.”
I wound most of the gauze over the handkerchief and tied it. I told Iva to hold her hand up above her head.
“Cripes, that hurts,” she sobbed. She had big eyes in a narrow face, and big teeth now biting into her lower lip. She was trying to be brave and not doing too bad a job.
“Stay tough,” I said. “It’s hot in here, and I don’t want you to faint. I’m going to unbutton your coat.”
“I can do it.” She did it with her left hand.
“What about your hat?”
“I’ll keep it on.”
I guessed the pigeon grey felt wrapping around her face gave her some sense of privacy.
“Mr. Shenstone,” Stillwater called to me. “Deputy Inspector Crate vouches for you. He wants a word.”