by Lewis Orde
‘Juan has returned to Argentina to work in our hotels,’ Señora Menendez replied flatly.
The ambassador arrived fifteen minutes later to find Roland still holding Katherine. ‘I trust your vacation was agreeable.’
‘Thank you, sir, it was just what I needed. Now I’m ready to take care of Katherine myself.’
‘Have you arranged for a nurse yet?’
‘No, sir. I’ll get onto it right away. Perhaps Nurse Blackwood would be so kind as to offer me her services.’
‘My agency refers me to clients,’ the nurse said primly.
‘Fine. I’ll contact your agency.’
‘You’re not taking Katherine right now, are you?’ There was a tremor of fear in Señora Menendez’s voice.
‘No. That would be unfair to her, and to you. I’ll make the necessary arrangements first. Would you be amenable to keeping Katherine here until I’m ready?’
‘Of course. It will be our pleasure.’
With affected gentleness, Roland kissed his daughter on the forehead and laid her back in the crib. As he let go she started to cry, to Roland’s delight. ‘She misses me already. Come on,’ he said to Simon, who hadn’t spoken a word since entering the house, ‘drive me home and I’ll get on with what I’ve got to do.’
That evening, Roland reserved a table at Eldridge’s to celebrate both his return to London and his reunion with his daughter. The Aronsons, the Goldsteins and Sally were his guests; as an afterthought he also invited Michael Adler. On this night Roland didn’t have time to be lost in memories of the wedding party he had held there. Too many other matters occupied his mind, and he wasn’t above asking his friends for advice about hiring a nurse and housekeeper. All three women – Sally, Nadine and Sara Goldstein – were quick to offer suggestions. ‘Fine,’ Roland laughed. ‘You’re all appointed to a special committee to sort everything out for me.’ Then he turned to Michael Adler and asked how he was faring at the Adler’s store on Regent Street.
‘It’s a battle,’ Michael answered bluntly, ‘between my father and everyone else.’
‘In what way?’
‘He’s alienating our suppliers by demanding ridiculous deals, and at the same time he’s upsetting our buyers because they think he’s overriding their responsibilities.’
‘More of what he did to us?’ Simon cut in.
‘Not quite so underhanded. He’s just determined to show everyone that he can run the stores as profitably as my grandfather did.’
‘Your grandfather was interested in more than profit,’ Simon pointed out. ‘His reputation came first – and once that was established the profit followed.’
‘I know, but my father doesn’t understand that. Or maybe he doesn’t want to understand it. The way I see it, he was kept under my grandfather’s thumb for so long that now all he wants is to show what he can do. He feels the stores can only be judged by the profit they make, and the only way he knows how to make a profit is by shaving suppliers’ prices. We’ve already lost one big supplier, and customers are complaining that we no longer stock their favorite products. So we’re losing customers as well.’
‘Can’t anyone make him see sense?’ Roland asked.
Michael shook his head. ‘Apparently not. He’s convinced that we’re more important than suppliers. If one supplier drops out, he claims, another will take its place.’
‘I get the picture – megalomania. Anything I can do to help?’ Roland wondered why he had made the offer. Not for Albert’s sake, that was for certain.
‘Sure, buy us out,’ Michael answered to laughter from Roland and Simon.
As dinner broke up and the guests prepared to go home, Roland pulled Alf Goldstein aside. ‘Do you want a job?’
‘Me?’ Goldstein seemed surprised by the question. He had been very quiet all through the dinner, feeling out of his depth surrounded by a banker, a journalist and people who were worth more than he could ever hope to be. This abrupt proposition set him back even further. ‘I’ve got one.’
‘I want you to work for me. I need a full-time driver . . . chauffeur, personal assistant.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m never going to get behind the steering wheel of a car again, that’s why. Can you understand that?’
Goldstein nodded. ‘I guess I can. Let me think about it for a while.’
*
Roland split the next week between working in the office and searching for a nurse and housekeeper. He hired the housekeeper first, an elderly Scottish widow named Elsie Partridge who was looking for a change from her current position in a home with four young children. ‘One, even two, I can handle, Mr Eagles,’ she told Roland during the interview. ‘Four’s a wee bit much.’
Roland laughed and assured her that he had no intention of adding to his own family in the immediate future.
He hired a nurse the following day, an attractive, well-educated young woman named Janet Taylor, the daughter of a naval officer who was killed during the war. The additions to his household caused Roland to rearrange the apartment. He transferred his business paraphernalia to his bedroom, making room for the housekeeper, while the nurse installed herself in the third bedroom. Finally, with more than a touch of sadness for the parting the Menendez family would certainly feel with their grandchild, Roland telephoned them to say he was prepared to move Katherine home with him.
Roland and Janet Taylor traveled in Alf Goldstein’s taxi to Wilton Crescent the following morning. Despite Roland’s persistent ringing of the bell, the front door remained closed. His feelings of sympathy quickly turned to confusion as he walked from the house to the embassy, with Janet Taylor following behind. He got no further than the front steps of the embassy when he was stopped by two men in military uniform.
‘I demand to speak to Ambassador Menendez!’ Roland snapped at the two soldiers who stood in front of him.
Behind the soldiers, the embassy door opened. Menendez appeared on the top step. ‘What is it you want?’
‘What do I want? I want my daughter! I arranged to collect her this morning and I can’t get into your home.’
Menendez shook his head; the bushy eyebrows drew together in a determined line. ‘Nor will you ever be allowed into my home again.’
‘What the devil do you mean?’
‘My granddaughter will remain with us. A man such as yourself is totally unfit to care for a child. When she was in the hospital, lying in an incubator, what did you do? Did you stay beside her, as any responsible father would do? No! You took off, left her in our care. And that is where she is staying!’
The ambassador felt a surge of relief as he stared down at Roland. Finally, he could stop the charade that had been forced on him since his daughter’s death. How could he have felt sympathy for Roland in those black days? Felt pity for the man who had caused them? But no more! The ambassador’s pain at losing Catarina had been heightened by the pretense of drawing close to Roland until he could find a way to steal the daughter of the man who had stolen his own daughter. And Roland had played right into his hands, asking Menendez and his wife to care for Katherine while he went away. Catarina was dead because she had loved this man. If Menendez was denied his daughter, then this man would be denied his own. Even his wife could see it now. She had been soft, begged him to allow Catarina to marry this half-Jewish adventurer. But now her heart was as hard, her resolve as firm, as his own.
‘We’ll see about that!’ Roland tried to push his way past the soldiers. They shoved him back, down the steps to the sidewalk where the nurse waited, shocked by the unexpected drama.
‘Mr Eagles, I would advise you not to try to force entry into my home. I am sure the police would not look kindly upon such an action.’
‘You mean the way they looked unkindly on Juan?’ Roland fired back, unable to resist retaliating with anything that might wound the ambassador.
A frozen smile was etched on Menendez’s face. ‘It would be a different matter completely. In this country my fa
mily enjoys diplomatic immunity – you do not.’ He swung around and walked back into the embassy, slammed the door shut. Roland grabbed Janet by the arm and hustled her back to Goldstein’s waiting taxi.
‘Take me to St Swithins’ Lane, Aronson Freres!’ Anger boiled through Roland’s veins. He had been robbed of Catarina and he’d be damned if he would let Menendez rob him of Katherine as well . . .
*
‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Simon Aronson wanted to know when Roland burst into his office; the nurse remained outside in Goldstein’s taxi. Roland explained the situation and Simon sighed. ‘Now it all becomes too clear why none of us was ever invited while you were away. They were planning this all the time. They comforted you with the photographs, put your mind at ease, wanting you to stay away for as long as possible. At the same time they kept us at a distance in case we should suspect anything.’
‘Never mind all that! What can I do to get Katherine back?’
‘Legally? I think a lawsuit would be a waste of time. Menendez might just take Katherine out of the country.’
‘Not without this he won’t,’ Roland waved his daughter’s birth certificate.
‘Perhaps that’s the reason he hasn’t done so already, although I doubt it. I would imagine it would be difficult for him to just pack up and leave as he pleases. He is serving a post, remember. Now he’s counting on winning any court case you might choose to bring against him. And, to be quite honest, your case has been gravely jeopardized by your going away.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Simon! You’re the one who suggested I go away!’
‘I know. For your own sake I wanted you to take a break. But whoever thought something like this would happen? The Menendezes fooled us with their show of sympathy for you.’
‘Can we use the Mercury to bring pressure in some way?’
‘No, I don’t think that would be wise at this stage.’ Simon stood up and started to walk around the office. ‘In this situation, the old adage seems to apply—’
‘What old adage?’
‘Possession being nine-tenths of the law. At the moment, Ambassador Menendez is in the right because he has Katherine. If you, however, should reverse that situation, he would be forced to sue you—’
‘For what – kidnapping?’
‘Roland, you can’t be charged with kidnapping your own child when there is no court order that stipulates the child should be in the charge of another party. He could only sue you as an unfit father on the basis that the child’s well-being would be better served if she were in his care.’
‘He’d bring up my going away for more than two months.’
‘Most certainly he would, otherwise his legal representation would be worthless. But you, on the other hand, would have Katherine, and you could counter that by demonstrating that she’s in a proper, loving home. You have a housekeeper and nurse already. Your defense will hinge on showing how much you love your daughter, and how much you are willing to sacrifice to bring her up properly.’
*
Over the next two weeks Goldstein and three fellow cab drivers hired by Roland took turns keeping Wilton Crescent under observation. Cruising black cabs were so common in that section of London that there was little chance of the family’s suspicions being aroused.
Ten days passed before any of the drivers saw the gray-haired nurse bring a baby carriage out of the embassy home. She wheeled it a short distance down the road, then back again, never going more than a hundred yards. The brief outings became more frequent until, by the fourteenth day, Nurse Blackwood was taking Katherine out three or four times daily.
Goldstein reported all this information back to Roland and Simon. ‘They’re obviously worried about your taking Katherine by force,’ Simon concluded. ‘Otherwise what kind of nurse would let a young baby stay inside for ten days without fresh air?’ he paused briefly, only to answer his own question. ‘I’ll tell you – a nurse who has been instructed by her employer that she is to do so. Now, either this woman is very conscientious and has told Menendez that she’ll quit if she isn’t allowed to properly care for Katherine – or else the ambassador is feeling more confident that you won’t fight for your daughter. Either way, he’s now allowed these very short walks, always within sight of the embassy. I believe it’s time to use the Mercury.’ Simon said the last sentence almost regretfully; he was about to harm the integrity of his newspaper by inserting a deliberately false story. But there was no other way . . .
*
As a matter of procedure, the Argentinian embassy received copies of every British newspaper. The ambassador read only the Times, leaving his subordinates to scan through lesser publications for anything of interest to the Argentinian government.
It was the military attaché who brought to the ambassador’s attention an item so small that it was almost lost in the Mercury’s gossip column. ‘The Eagle Flies’ . . . ran the bold-type headline. A ten-line story told of Roland deciding to sell his business interests in England and leaving for the United States. A brief quote blamed the decision on the tragedy he had suffered, the need to get away and start again where the memories were not so poignant. His daughter, Katherine, would be left in the custody of her grandparents.
Menendez studied the story carefully, pleased that his son-in-law had yielded the battle, and satisfied in a vengeful way that after all the headline-grabbing Roland had achieved he was now relegated to such a minor spot in the newspaper. But Menendez had to be certain. He placed a call to Roland’s flat in Regent’s Park. The telephone rang, then a woman’s clipped voice informed him that the number was no longer in service. Menendez smiled and made another call, to the factory in Wembley. There he was told that Mr Eagles was no longer with the company; he had left the country and gone to America, and could anyone else help? The ambassador didn’t even bother answering before he hung up. Clutching the copy of the Mercury like a trophy, he left the embassy to show the story to his wife.
‘The child is ours and rightfully so! This alone, running away again because he lacks the strength of character to accept responsibility, shows exactly what kind of man he is. May he never find peace for what he did to Catarina.’
Señora Menendez read the short story, then went into the nursery. Katherine slept peacefully, her tiny fist close to her mouth, thumb planted firmly between her lips. ‘You will grow up in Argentina,’ Maria Menendez whispered. ‘You will bring your grandfather and me joy as Catarina should have brought us joy.’
*
Janet Taylor hung up the receiver and dusted her hands symbolically. ‘And that,’ she said, ‘takes care of that.’
‘Are you sure it was Menendez?’ Roland asked the nurse who had been answering the telephone all day, giving the same impersonation of a GPO operator.
‘Either him or one of his staff. The voice had a definite accent. None of the other calls sounded anything like it.’
Roland didn’t care about other calls. Those people close to him knew enough not to call the apartment, just as they knew that if they tried to reach him at the factory they would be told by the switchboard operator that he was no longer there. Anyone else who called didn’t matter; if their business was important enough they would try to reach him again after they learned he was still in London.
‘Did you ever expect to be carrying on like this when I hired you?’ he asked Janet.
The young nurse shook her head, smiling. ‘No. But did you ever expect to ask me to behave this way? Or is everything always so hectic around you?’ When she had accepted the job Janet had been uncertain what to expect from her employer – all she knew was that she would be working for a man whose private life had become a source of great public interest. None of the positions she had held before could have prepared her for this, though, and she found she was actually enjoying the excitement. She was a nurse because she loved children, but there was nothing in the job description that stipulated she couldn’t have fun as well. And this was fun, the thrill of conspiracy
and adventure.
The front door opened and Elsie Partridge entered, carrying two loaded shopping bags. ‘We’re all set now, Mr Eagles. Enough food to last a fortnight.’
‘Good. I appreciate how you’re both pitching in like this. Being stuck here isn’t going to be much fun but we can’t take a chance on the ambassador finding out that the apartment is still occupied.’ Roland had even drawn the building’s management into the conspiracy, instructing them to give the same story should anyone call about his whereabouts. With almost all bases covered, Roland knew that the only way the ambassador could learn the truth was if he contacted airlines or immigration officials, who would have no record of his having left the country. But Roland didn’t think Menendez would check that closely. He and his wife would want to believe that Roland had left; it would fit in with their view of him.
‘Don’t you go worrying about Nurse Taylor and me,’ the housekeeper said as she sorted through the shopping. ‘We’re not about to let any blasted foreigner bring up a British child.’
Roland couldn’t help smiling as Janet nodded her vigorous assent to the patriotic motive. Both women had taken sides. They were as committed as he was.
*
Katharine’s outings in the baby carriage lengthened the moment Ambassador Menendez confirmed to his own satisfaction that Roland had really left the country. Within a day, Queenie Blackwood was parading the baby carriage around Hyde Park with the other nannies, enjoying her role as the center of attention because of the controversy which surrounded her charge.
The nurse’s movements were reported back to Roland by Alf Goldstein who, with his posse of fellow cab drivers, continued to keep the Menendez’s home under surveillance. Roland let four days slip by to ensure that the nurse’s walks to the park were regular. Then he decided to act, knowing that in doing so he would catapult himself back onto the front pages of Britain’s newspapers. The final chapter – he hoped – of his doomed romance with Catarina. The final triumphant chapter . . .