by Lewis Orde
At ten o’clock in the morning, Goldstein picked up Roland and Janet Taylor to take them to Hyde Park. Elsie Partridge stayed in the apartment, giving it a final inspection before the arrival of its tiny new occupant.
‘The nurse usually takes the baby out at eleven o’clock, spends an hour or so in the park if the weather’s decent, then returns home around one,’ Goldstein reported.
Roland looked out the cab window. The only clouds to be seen were high, streaky tufts of cirrus, and he felt confident the nurse wouldn’t change her habits today.
‘What if we get stopped by the police?’ Janet asked. ‘The woman is certain to scream blue murder. I know I would.’
‘We’ll worry about that when it happens.’ Roland patted her hand reassuringly. He was excited, nervous, emotions he hadn’t felt since going to London Airport to rescue Catarina from her brother and banishment to Spain. History was repeating itself a generation later, yet only a few months had passed.
Goldstein stopped the taxi near the park entrance which Queenie Blackwood used. Nannies pushing baby carriages seemed to be everywhere, dressed primly in dark gray or navy blue uniforms, an entire tribe of them caring for the children of the privileged classes. ‘Here she comes, bang on time,’ the cab driver murmured.
On the other side of the street, waiting for the light to change, stood Nurse Blackwood. Even from twenty yards away Roland could see her stern features, the no-nonsense approach she took to her job. The Menendez family had hired the stereotypical British nanny, a woman who ruled not by love but by fear. Roland was grateful he had looked for someone as warm and loving as Janet Taylor. Katherine would respond far better to the younger woman’s care.
Traffic stopped as the light changed. Like a sentry marching, Nurse Blackwood stepped into the road, back rigid, the baby carriage pushed at arm’s length, looking neither left nor right. She pressed down on the handle to lift the front wheels as she reached the curb, then continued toward the park entrance. Roland opened the taxi door and stepped out, helped Janet down, and together they walked toward a spot that would intercept Nurse Blackwood just inside the entrance.
The gray-haired nurse looked up as Roland and Janet approached. The precise step faltered as she recognized the tall man with the round face and piercing blue eyes. She stopped and stared, unable to believe it was Roland. He was in America . . . that was what Ambassador Menendez and his wife had told her; that was the reason she was being allowed to take Katherine as far as the park.
Before Nurse Blackwood could recover her composure Roland was at her side, his hand gripping the baby carriage. ‘What are you doing?’ the nurse demanded. ‘What do you want? Get away before I call the police!’
Roland didn’t say a word as he reached into the baby carriage and lifted out his daughter. Katherine began to cry as Roland passed her quickly to Janet, like a hand off in a football game. Janet clutched the baby to her chest and ran toward Goldstein’s cab.
Nurse Blackwood’s angry scream pierced the air. She let go of the baby carriage and tried to run after the younger woman, but Roland blocked her way, holding her arms with just enough force to stop her. ‘You can tell the ambassador that I am prepared to meet him in court.’ He jogged over to the cab which was already rolling forward, jumped in and ordered Goldstein to put his foot down. When he looked back, he saw Nurse Blackwood with her arms raised in the air as she screamed for help. People ran toward her. One, dressed in a navy blue uniform, was blowing frantically on a whistle.
‘May I?’ Roland held out his hands for the baby.
Janet passed Katherine across, watching Roland carefully. The adventure was over. Now she had a job to do, and she intended to do it well, even if it meant taming the overenthusiastic affection of the father.
‘Don’t hold her quite so tightly, Mr Eagles.’
‘Sorry.’ Roland eased his grip. ‘Is this all right?’
Janet smiled. ‘That’s better. Rock her gently and she’ll stop crying. Even a baby knows when it’s loved.’
Sitting back, Roland moved his arms from side to side, grinning hugely when Katherine’s cries gradually changed to satisfied gurgles He forgot all about Nurse Blackwood and the hell Ambassador Menendez would create. He could think only of his daughter – a part of him, and a part of Catarina.
Goldstein shattered the bliss when he turned the cab into Roland’s street. ‘You’ve got visitors . . . didn’t waste any time, did they?’
Roland looked ahead and passed Katherine back to Janet as he recognized the two black Wolseley sedans parked in the street. There was no need to question why they were there.
‘Mr Eagles?’ An inspector stepped in front of Roland as he got out of the cab. ‘We’d appreciate it if you’d come with us to the station, sir, to answer some questions.’
‘About what?’
‘About the abduction of the granddaughter of Ambassador Nicanor Menendez, sir.’ The inspector peered into the cab. ‘The young lady and the driver as well. We’ll have someone at the station take proper care of the baby until it’s returned to the Menendez family.’
‘Not so fast, inspector.’ Roland was enjoying the confrontation. After the excitement of the successful abduction this was the icing on the cake. Another opportunity to deflate Menendez and the establishment which he felt had been set against him from the moment he met Catarina. He reached into his jacket pocket. ‘This, inspector, is the birth certificate for Katherine Elizabeth Eagles, the child in the taxi. You will notice, where it reads father, that the name is mine. As is the address. There has never been any legal ruling that I am not to have charge of my own daughter, therefore there cannot be any question of my having taken the child from her temporary guardians. Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me, I have to attend to my daughter.’
Roland returned to the taxi, helped Janet out and escorted her into the building. He left behind a perplexed police inspector who had been ordered to recover the infant and arrest the abductors, but who now found that he had no legal grounds to do either.
*
Ambassador Menendez’s fury was like none he’d ever known. First he’d been tricked, now he’d been robbed. The story in the Mercury had been a skillfully plotted ruse, supported by liars who had answered his telephone calls; because he’d fallen for it his granddaughter had been taken from him. All he had left was Roland’s brazen challenge to meet in a court of law.
Well, damn it, that was just what they would do. He would pick up the gauntlet and pass it to the finest lawyers his money could buy. The welfare of the child no longer concerned the ambassador – his priority was personal vengeance. He would do anything, pay any price, to ensure that Roland Eagles did not keep his daughter. Menendez would use the courts to wrench the child away, and demonstrate to the entire world that his son-in-law was nothing more than a cheap, conniving, irresponsible scoundrel.
Menendez filed suit that Roland Eagles was unfit to be a father and that Katherine Eagles should be brought up in the care of her maternal grandparents, people of great wealth and influence who would ensure that the child was raised in the finest possible surroundings.
After hearing his lawyers express the utmost confidence in his case, the ambassador sat back, smugly satisfied. Let the playboy wriggle out of that.
*
Simon Aronson represented Roland in court. Regardless of his earlier advice to Roland that possession in this instance was nine-tenths of the law, Simon was still worried. There would be some very tricky moments, especially when the ambassador’s counsel tried to smear Roland’s character to show how unfit he was to care for the child.
Simon briefed Roland carefully. There would be enormous sympathy for both parties – one had lost a daughter, the other a wife, and now they were struggling over the child who was the sole link to the dead woman. Additionally, the case would, for all intents and purposes, be tried on two levels: in the court itself, and in the entire nation – if not the world – through saturation press coverage. No matter how hard
the judge tried to remain impartial he would have to be affected to some degree by the public opinion the case would generate.
Custody of Katherine would be decided, Simon told Roland, by whichever side demonstrated it could care best for the child . . .
‘Is it true that you introduced your late wife, before you were married, to the sport of horse racing, Mr Eagles?’ Menendez’s counsel asked when Roland took the witness stand. ‘You taught her how to gamble on horses?’
‘I took her once. After that she wanted to go.’
‘But you introduced her to horse racing. I believe you like to gamble.’
‘I enjoy testing my skill.’
‘I see. You even tested your skill – quite heavily, I am given to understand – on board the Queen Mary when you went away for more than two months shortly after your wife died. Is that true?’ The lawyer, a thin ferret-faced man with a bristling red moustache, spun around to fix Roland with an accusing glare.
Damn . . . how in God’s name had they found that out? Menendez must have really paid them to dig up some dirt! ‘At the time I was trying to find a way to cushion myself against my wife’s death.’
‘But you went away all the same. Gambled heavily. Did you feel no responsibility at all toward your daughter who was lying in an incubator in Middlesex Hospital?’
‘I felt every responsibility for her. That was why I asked my in-laws, Ambassador Menendez and his wife, to care for Katherine until I had recovered from the tragedy.’
‘Are you implying that Ambassador Menendez and his wife had no tragedy from which to recover? That they could care for Katherine because they did not feel as grief-stricken as you were?’
‘Of course they were grief-stricken!’ Roland snapped back. ‘But they had each other. I had only Catarina.’
The lawyer allowed himself a slight smile. He had rocked the witness’s composure . . . Now to shake it further, and let Roland show what kind of a man he really was. ‘I would suggest, Mr Eagles, that you were only concerned with yourself at the time, certainly not with your daughter. After all, your late wife was obviously pregnant when you married her – simple arithmetic can deduce that – and you looked upon the child not, I would further suggest, as your daughter but as a hindrance which had forced you into marriage.’
Roland gripped the rail of the witness box and forced himself to say nothing in response to this distortion of the truth. He knew that if he opened his mouth now he would scream.
‘And did you not manipulate a prestigious London newspaper, the Mercury – of which, incidentally, your learned counsel is part owner—’
Simon, who had been listening to the questioning with growing dismay, leaped to his feet to object. The judge upheld him, instructing Menendez’s lawyer to stick with relevant facts.
‘Did you not manipulate a prestigious London newspaper, the Mercury, so that Ambassador Menendez would believe you had left this country, sold your business interests?’
‘I did. I deliberately fed the newspaper false information so that Ambassador Menendez would allow my daughter to be placed in a position where I would be better able to rescue her.’ Roland knew he was lying under oath but he refused to implicate anyone else. The press would probably crucify him for the planted story but he could take it. He could take anything as long as he kept custody of his daughter.
‘Rescue her? What an unusual choice of words.’ Menendez’s counsel sat down, pleased with himself. Roland left the witness stand in a black rage. His eyes flashed across the packed press box, then to the public gallery; it was jammed with both the curious and the concerned. The familiar faces of his friends were there but he avoided eye contact. The anger he felt was not for them.
Simon tried the same discrediting tactics on Ambassador Menendez. He accused the diplomat of trickery, of encouraging Roland to go away so that he could steal the infant. He dragged out the entire story of the elopement, accused Menendez of being primarily interested in revenge because his wishes regarding Catarina had been thwarted. Then Simon brought up the character of the ambassador’s son and the drunk driving incident which had resulted in Menendez sending him back to Argentina. What kind of family environment was that for a child to grow up in? Simon demanded. The opposing counsel objected immediately. Juan wouldn’t be responsible for raising the child; an uncle’s disquieting habits were of no concern to the court. The judge upheld the objection.
When Simon sat down he felt utterly dejected. The complacent smile he saw on Ambassador Menendez’s face was there for a good reason. ‘We are losing it,’ he told Roland during a recess. Even the popular press – with the exception of the Mercury – was siding with the ambassador, coloring coverage of the case by rehashing Menendez’s old claims about Roland being nothing more than a fortune-hunting playboy.
‘Then do something before we lose it completely!’ Roland urged him.
‘I have an idea, and I think it’s the only chance we have left. I am going to propose a motion that the only way to judge this case is not by character assassination but by inspecting the home where you will bring up Katherine . . . if you win the right to her custody.’
‘I don’t like your if.’
‘Neither do I.’
Despite objections from Menendez’s counsel, Simon’s motion was approved. The following morning the scene moved to Regent’s Park. Hundreds of curiosity seekers gathered outside while the judge and everyone connected with the case entered. Instructing Roland to stay back, Simon introduced Janet Taylor and Elsie Partridge to the judge, who allowed the two women to show him around the apartment. In the nursery, Katherine was lying in her crib, eyes wide open, totally unfazed by the procession of strange faces that peered down at her. The judge stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the park, took in the fine view for several seconds. He toured the rest of the apartment, inspected the well-stocked linen closet, the two sparkling bathrooms, the kitchen; he even tasted the lamb stew the housekeeper was preparing and declared it to be delicious. Then he returned to court, stating that he would give his judgment after the luncheon recess.
‘How do we stand?’ Roland asked Simon nervously as they waited for the court to reconvene.
‘Look at them’ – Simon nodded to the Menendez family and their counsel – ‘and then you tell me how we stand.’
Roland gazed across the courtroom. The satisfied smile that Menendez had worn all through the trial was no longer evident, but had been replaced by an expression of anxiety.
A hush settled over the court as the judge took his seat.
‘In biblical days, when King Solomon was asked to pass judgment on a matter that bears an astonishing similarity to this case, he suggested cutting the disputed baby in two and each of the women claiming to be the real mother would receive half. King Solomon’s reasoning was that the real mother would rather see her child given away than killed. I believe the wise monarch of the Israelites would face a more difficult task if he were in this court today.’
Roland closed his eyes and wished the judge would get on with it instead of playing to the gallery.
‘Ambassador Menendez and his wife have suffered the tragic loss of their only daughter following a well-publicized elopement, and now they only want the opportunity to bring up their daughter’s child. A splendid ambition, one we must all applaud and have sympathy for . . .’
Roland clenched his fists and felt his stomach wrench into a tight, painful knot. Simon’s gamble had not paid off after all!
‘But the father, despite aspersions which have been quite liberally cast against his character, has also suffered a loss, perhaps even greater because it was his wife of only a few months who died. By his own admission, the father is a gambler. There is nothing wrong with that as long as gambling is not the overriding passion in his life. And again, by his own admission, he lied to a newspaper because he thought such a lie would help him to regain his daughter. Again, that is nothing terribly wrong. If every man who lied to the press was held accountable,
our prisons would be overflowing.’
The judge paused long enough to allow the expected ripple of laughter to fade away. ‘Most important to us is that the father is a successful businessman who lives in a style of comfort not enjoyed by many men of his age; certainly not by those young men who have carved their own way in the world as he has. He is also, as seems quite obvious to me, a very doting father who will spare nothing for his daughter’s sake . . .’
Roland didn’t need to hear any more. When he looked across the court the ambassador’s face was set in a grim mask. Maria Menendez had her face buried in her hands and was sobbing quietly. Roland turned away, not wanting to gloat in this moment of triumph. He had won, that was all that mattered; triumph had swept aside all personal animosity. He looked back to the bench just in time to hear the judge say: ‘To take Katherine away from her father and place her in the care of her grandparents who would, in all probability, bring her up in Argentina, would be compounding the tragedy Mr Eagles has suffered. This court therefore rules that Roland Eagles shall retain custody of his child.’
The court was in an uproar. Roland grasped Simon’s hand, hugged him. He looked at the public gallery, held his hands above his head, like a victorious boxer. He felt like a champion. A king. And why shouldn’t he?
Outside the court, standing with Simon, Roland waited for the ambassador to emerge. In victory, Roland wished to be magnanimous. Now that Katherine was legally his he had no desire to continue the war. If the Menendez family wanted to see their granddaughter, he would happily extend them that privilege.
‘Sir . . .’ Roland began when Menendez came out.
The ambassador brushed past, staring ahead, refusing to acknowledge him. Maria Menendez followed suit, her eyes red from crying. Roland turned to gaze after them, even now managing to feel a degree of sympathy.