“So all that business about a stolen child and Nora’s blackouts was nonsense,” Logan said.
“Yes. She told lies the way the rest of us discuss the weather. Her aim — Packer’s aim, too — was to get somebody to knock me off.”
“The glorious old days,” Monteith said, drifting about and topping up glasses from a bottle of scotch. Had it been a seltzer bottle, he might have sprayed the room. “I was a medical student. Reg was getting started in journalism, doing a column for the Gazette. Both of us worked three nights a week at the Top Hat Club doing comedy sketches on a little stage above the bar. Satirical stuff on local politics. Reg was also a calypso singer — did you know that, Nora? He played the guitar and wore a top hat and sang little verses about the news of the day. Lord Reggie, he called himself.”
The telephone rang. Monteith answered and carried on his conversation, looking directly at Nora and Tony as if he was speaking to them and the phone was some sort of hearing aid. “Yes, they’re here. All seems peaceful. No need for you to stay any longer. By all means, bring her in. See you soon.” He put down the receiver. “They’ve been to see the lions in Trafalgar Square.”
Nora said sharply, “Have you brought the child with you?”
“The better to persuade Reg he should pay. As he promised years ago.” Monteith opened one of the doors. It led into a bathroom. “Talk to each other,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
“I don’t get this,” Logan said. “You told me he was here to have you put away. That he and Reg were in it together.”
She opened her handbag and took out a pistol. She handed it to Logan. He accepted it unwillingly. “What’s this?”
“The gun from Reg’s desk. I told you about it.”
“You said it was missing. What the hell is going on, Nora?”
“You promised to help me.”
“I can’t if you won’t level.”
“Monteith has to be got rid of. And you’re the man. You won’t regret it, Tony, I promise you. Things can be lovely between you and me once he’s out of the way. Reg won’t mind, he’s hardly ever around.”
“The way he didn’t mind about Whittaker?”
The bathroom door opened. Monteith stepped into the room, saw the gun in Logan’s hand, and did a reaction loaded with enough astonishment to reach the back of the second balcony. “Who’s that intended for?”
“Now,” Nora commanded. “Do it now.”
Logan understood almost everything in a flash. Thinking he had gone after Nora in the street, it was she who had selected him. It explained the provocative walk and the eyes focusing on working men. She was searching for the kind of hero who would swallow her story and do this killing for her. She knew a working-class man would make the ideal patsy — his reaction would be to come racing to the aid of the princess in danger. He looked at the doctor and began to say, “Have you any idea what she—”
Nora came to him fast, grabbed his arm and raised it, pointing the gun at Monteith. Logan resisted and was surprised at the woman’s strength. Her fist was closing on his gun hand, exerting pressure on the trigger finger. He managed to turn his arm enough so that the gun was no longer aimed at Monteith. “Let go,” he said. “Let go of the gun!” It went off. Nora sank to the floor.
“Crazy,” was all Logan could say. “She must be crazy.”
Monteith knelt beside her, examined her. “And dead.” He got to his feet. “You aren’t wrong about her. If she couldn’t have me killed, she was ready to settle for herself.”
The door from the corridor opened and two people came into the room. “This is my wife, Mindy,” he said. He got between her and the child and the body on the floor. “Better go into the bedroom,” he told his wife, “there’s been an accident.”
Logan caught only a glimpse of the little girl as she was ushered through, but it was enough to see that she was one of the most beautiful of mixed-race children, pale hair drawn back in braids from an exotic African race.
When the police had been and gone, taking the body of Nora Packer with them, Logan said, “So now we have an orphan asleep in the other room.”
“She doesn’t know Nora was her mother,” Mindy said. “We’ve told her she’s adopted. She doesn’t fully understand what it means, except that she was chosen because we love her.”
“Whittaker wasn’t the father,” Logan said. “I’m still confused.”
“Nora went with a lot of men,” Monteith explained. “The father was another athlete, a friend of the marathon runner. When she realized she was pregnant, Nora told Reg she was going to have a baby with the wrong color skin. Reg had never been too bothered by her exploits as long as there was no publicity. So they arranged for her to come to Montreal, have the child at my clinic, and leave it with me.”
“So all that business about a stolen child and Nora’s blackouts was nonsense,” Logan said.
“Yes. She told lies the way the rest of us discuss the weather. Her aim — Packer’s aim, too — was to get somebody to knock me off.”
“Why?”
“Because I wrote Reg a letter and told him that unless he paid me the money he promised, I was going to introduce Nora’s interesting daughter into London society. It was only a threat, we would never have done it.”
“What was the money he promised?”
“Fifty grand for me to expand my clinic. Doctors are supposed to have all the money in the world, but I’ve never raked it in.”
“He treats people who can’t pay,” Mindy said, frowning at her husband under magnificent eyebrows and putting an arm across his shoulders. “Schmuck.”
“When Nora was in trouble, he promised me the money. After I’d taken care of it, he forgot. I’ve been writing him letters for three years.”
Logan discovered a new bruise on his hand. It must have been made by the trigger guard as Nora tried to control the gun. “According to the police, Whittaker’s suicide was real. His injury meant he couldn’t run, and he was hooked on morphine. Poor bastard. Nora tried to make it sound as if Reg had killed him. Why do that?”
“To earn more sympathy? Who could say with Nora? The event took place, so she used it.”
In the morning, Logan showed up late at the building site. “Thanks for coming around,” Colman said.
“I was in a terrible hassle last night,” Logan said. He took his friend through the story. At the end, he said, “I’ll have to attend the inquest since I held the gun that killed her. But Monteith’s testimony puts me in the clear.”
“What about Reg Packer?” Colman asked. “What happens to him?”
“Nothing. We’ll never know whether killing Monteith was only Nora’s idea or whether he was in on the plan.”
Around three in the afternoon, when the men were sorting good brick from damaged brick in the front yard, a convertible rolled to a stop outside and refused to start up again. A girl with crew-cut red hair and leopard eyes got out, raised the hood, and looked inside at the engine without much comprehension. When she turned and faced the men behind the low stone wall, Ernie Colman spoke without being spoken to. “Sorry, lady,” he said, “we only fix buildings.”
“Amen,” Logan murmured. He was wondering if a trip to New York with Valerie Land might change his luck.
1944 Diary
by Jean Darling[5]