The Strange Story of Linda Lee (33 page)

Her dishevelled hair had fallen over her sweating face. Shaking it back, she picked up the matches, lit three one after the other and pushed them under folds in the curtains. Within a minute three flames shot up, surrounded by wisps of smoke. Two minutes later three small fires were spreading rapidly. The dry wood of the cheap old furniture caught, then the bed and bedding beneath it. There came a loud crackling, sparks flew, clouds of smoke billowed out.

Satisfied now that no-one could force the door without getting badly burned, Linda ran back to the window, leaned out as far as she dared, and shouted, ‘Fire! Help! Fire!’ at the top of her voice.

But still no-one in the distant street took any notice. The blaze behind her began to roar. She heard a furious knocking on the door and someone shouting ‘Open up! Open up!’ But she could not now, even if she had wanted to. The door itself was on fire and smoke must be pouring under it into the passage.

Pulling in her head for a moment, she saw that the room was full of smoke. Had she not known the direction in which the door lay, she could have found it now only by the flames that licked about it. The smoke made her eyes smart and caught her in the throat. She was seized by a bout of violent coughing. Quickly she thrust her head out again to gasp in the cold, fresh air.

It relieved her only temporarily. The room was now so full of smoke that it was billowing past her out of the window. There was still no sign down in the street that anyone had noticed the conflagration. A few more
minutes and she could no longer see the lights there. The smoke pouring from the window had become so dense that it blotted everything out.

For some minutes she had felt the heat increasing behind her. Although she leaned out as far as she could, it was beginning to scorch her legs and backside. Panic again seized her. She had feared for her life before and had sought this desperate means of escape. Now it seemed she was to lose it for certain. She had trapped herself and would be burnt to death. There was no way out except by throwing herself from the window. But she was up on the fourth floor of the building, and had long since decided that to jump was certain to prove fatal. She would land in the builder’s yard, a heap of mangled flesh and broken bones. Coughing racked her until she thought her lungs would be torn to pieces. Still leaning as far as he dared out of the window, she began to lose consciousness.

Her last thought was that she had failed, and failed miserably. She had counted on the fire brigade arriving on the scene, running up a tall ladder and rescuing her. But if they came now, it would be too late. Either Lottie’s people would smash down the burning door, put out the fire and drag her out, then inflict some ghastly death upon her, or she would be roasted alive. Then she fainted.

When Linda came to, she was lying on her back and her first sensation was one of movement. An electric bell clanged loudly somewhere above her head. She then realised that she was in an ambulance. The lower part of her back and her legs hurt. The fire and the desperate peril she had been in returned to her. As she opened her eyes, she saw that a man in a white coat was sitting beside her. Seeing that she had come out of her faint, he smiled and said:

‘You was born lucky, sister, else you’d been barbecued by this. If you’d fallen back inside that room when you passed out, the smoke were so dense the firemen who went up the ladder wouldn’t have seen you. The wood in them old houses burns like tinder. Time they got you down, the whole top floor were a ragin’ furnace.’

With the full return of consciousness the pain in her lower limbs increased. In a low voice she asked, ‘Am I badly burned?’

He grinned. ‘Your pants had caught, so the feller that brought you down had to give you a good spankin’ to put the flames out. But not to worry. You’ll be all right agin in a while.’

Soon afterwards the ambulance stopped and Linda
was carried into a hospital. In the casualty receiving room she was asked her name, which she gave as Irma Jameson, then she was wheeled to the operating theatre and transferred to a table. A young doctor examined her, a nurse smeared her bottom and calves with a thick, yellow ointment that relieved the pain, a second nurse helped to bandage her, the doctor gave her a shot in the arm and, as she was wheeled away to a lift, she lost consciousness.

Early the following morning she was awoken by a nurse gently shaking her shoulder. She was lying on her stomach and, when she made to turn over, she found that she could not, because a broad bandage had been wound round her middle and the ends tucked in on either side of the bed. The nurse undid it for her, then she saw that she had been lying under a cradle. Screens round the bed told her that she was in a public ward. A doctor and an elderly Sister were standing at the foot of the bed. While the nurse took Linda’s temperature, the doctor felt her pulse. The result was apparently satisfactory, as the doctor said:

‘O.K. It will do her no harm to move her. Re-dress her burns and we’ll get her downstairs.’

As the nurse began to undo the bandages Linda was suddenly seized with panic. She had often heard that hospitals were so crowded that patients were sent home as soon as they were fit to be moved. The thought of again falling into Lottie’s hands terrified her, and she gasped:

‘Where are you going to send me?’

The doctor shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But we have had special instructions about you. You’re not to be allowed to talk to any reporters and are to be collected by a private ambulance.’

‘I won’t go!’ Linda cried. ‘I won’t! I won’t! I’m not going back to that house. I demand police protection.’

‘Quiet, dear, please,’ urged the Sister softly. ‘You will disturb the other patients.’

‘I don’t care. I was kidnapped. I’m not going back. Nothing will induce me to. Get the police. Please! Please!’ Linda’s eyes were wild, and her fury had turned to pleading.

The Sister and the doctor exchanged glances. He nodded. The Sister signed to the nurse and the two women simultaneously flung themselves on Linda, pressing a towel over her mouth and holding her down. Meanwhile the doctor had picked up a syringe from a trolley at the foot of the bed and was filling it. A moment later Linda felt the slight prick of the needle. Almost at once the strength seeped from her limbs and soon afterwards she became unconscious.

When her brain started to function again, she was still in bed, but lying on her side. On opening her eyes she saw that she was no longer in a ward, but in a private room and, instead of the plain, cotton nightdress into which they had put her in the hospital, she was wearing a pretty one of pink chiffon. Her legs and bottom itched but no longer pained her. Sitting up, she looked round and found to her surprise that the room was not only comfortably furnished, but a vase of a dozen big chrysanthemums stood on a table near the window. On another table, beside an armchair, there were a row of neatly laid out magazines and a pile of paperbacks. Pushing back the bedclothes, she ran to the window and looked out. She was in a room on the first floor. Below lay a pleasant garden, but it was enclosed by a ten-foot-high wall.

Profoundly puzzled, she got back into bed. The place
to which she had been brought had nothing remotely suggesting any connection with a brothel. And surely the very last thing that hideous hag Lottie would have done would be to have her removed to a luxurious private sanatorium? Yet who else could possibly be responsible? And the sinister fact remained that the ten-foot-high wall clearly indicated that the place was some sort of prison.

On the bedside table there were two thermos flasks. She found one contained iced milk and the other barley water. Preferring the former, she poured herself a long drink and as she did so noticed that behind the place where the thermos had stood there was a bellpush. Impatient to learn the best or worst about her new situation, she pressed it.

Two minutes later the door opened, and a nurse came into the room. She was thin-faced and had a hard mouth, but she smiled and said, ‘So you are awake. How’re you feeling?’

‘Not too bad, thank you,’ Linda replied. ‘The places where I was burnt are itching and I’ve got a slight headache. But otherwise I’m all right.’

The nurse nodded. ‘The headache is the result of the injection you were given. It will soon wear off. So will the itching in a day or two. The places will peel, of course, but you were only scorched. You have a very healthy skin and in a fortnight or so there will be no trace of it ever having been damaged.’

‘Well, that’s a mercy,’ Linda smiled. ‘And now please where am I, and why was I sent here?’

‘You are a few miles outside Chicago. But more than that I cannot tell you. The staff here are strictly forbidden to discuss with the patients any matter other than their ailments. Now, as it is well on in the
afternoon, I expect you must be hungry.’ The nurse produced a menu from her apron pocket and handed it to Linda. ‘There is always someone on duty in the kitchen, so anything you care to choose from that can be brought up to you in about half an hour’s time.’

The last meal Linda had eaten had been her dinner with Marco, well over forty hours earlier, and, as she ran her eyes down the list, she suddenly realised that she felt very hungry indeed. From an excellent choice she decided on omelette Portuguese, stewed turkey and chocolate soufflé.

‘And to drink?’ asked the nurse. ‘I don’t advise spirits, but you can have any wine or soft drink that you like.’

‘Champagne?’ hazarded Linda.

‘Certainly. We are giving Pol Roger Non-Vintage at the moment.’

‘Splendid!’ Linda laughed. ‘As long as I am not expected to pay the bill. I have no money with me.’

‘Oh, no. That’s all taken care of. Now I’ll go and order your dinner.’

‘Thank you. But there is one other thing. Before I have it I’d like a bath.’

The nurse shook her head. ‘No. Tomorrow perhaps. It wouldn’t do for you to sit in a bath yet. But I’ll take you to the bathroom, and you can wash yourself, provided you don’t wet your bandages.’ As she spoke she opened a wardrobe, took out a prettily-frilled, silk dressing gown and held it out for Linda.

In the bathroom Linda found everything she could want neatly laid out. Her hair had been screwed up into a bun on the top of her head. After washing her face and as much of her body as she could, she gave her
hair a good brushing, then did it more becomingly. Not long after she was back in bed, her early dinner was wheeled in on a trolley by the nurse, each course being kept hot in a thermos container. It was an excellent meal. Linda enjoyed every morsel of it, and washed it down with two glasses of champagne; but all the while her mind was troubled. What could all this cosseting of her be leading up to? There must be a catch in it somewhere—a price to pay, and perhaps one that she would find hateful. That she was being prepared for something, she felt certain, but what? What? What?

When she had finished her meal the nurse came in again, wheeled out the trolley, then wheeled in another containing bandages, bottles and enamel basins. Having re-dressed and re-bandaged Linda’s burns, she went to the wardrobe and produced an expensive bed-jacket. As she put it round Linda’s shoulders, she said:

‘You needn’t wear this now, if you find it too warm; but you’ll need it later. I telephoned while you were in the bathroom, to say that you are sufficiently recovered to receive a visitor, and in about an hour a gentleman will be coming to see you.’

Linda sat up with a jerk. Her brown eyes blazing, she cried, ‘Then this
is
a brothel! But a really expensive one.’

‘A brothel!’ the nurse repeated, staring at her in surprise. ‘Certainly not. Whatever gave you such an extraordinary idea?’

‘I escaped from one last night,’ Linda burst out. ‘Surely you know that? Then the people who ran it had me drugged in the hospital and brought here. They must have. Who else could have? I don’t know a soul in Chicago.’

The nurse shook her head. ‘You must be imagining
things. I know nothing about you. Perhaps this is delayed shock. When I was told that you had been in a fire I expected you to show symptoms of shock; but you are a very strong young woman physically and—it seemed to me—mentally, so …’

‘I’m not suffering from shock,’ Linda cut her short. ‘I tell you I was drugged and sold into a brothel. Then, at the hospital, I was drugged again and kidnapped. If any man tries to touch me, I’ll kill him, just as I …’ She suddenly faltered, fearing to admit that she had killed Bimbo.

Taking advantage of her pause, the nurse said sharply, ‘You may be telling the truth. But it is none of my business. I’ve already told you that the staff here are forbidden to discuss the patients’ private affairs with them.’ Then she walked out of the room.

Linda was breathing heavily. Again her mind was in a turmoil. Her recent terrible experiences, and the lack of any possible explanation about how she came to be where she was, other than that old Lottie had arranged for her to be sent there, led her to conclude that there could be only one reason why a man was coming to see her.

Immediately the thought of trying to escape sprang into her mind. But could she possibly get out of the house without someone seeing and preventing her? There was the window, and it was only about twelve feet up from the garden. She could hang from the sill and let herself drop, but she would probably break an ankle. Anyhow, she would never be able to get over the ten-foot wall. And she would have on only a dressing gown. Any attempt to get away from the place was stymied by the wall and the fact that she was in her night clothes.

Her headache was gone. The soothing ointment with which her burns had been dressed had reduced their irritation to a degree that made it almost imperceptible. The good dinner and champagne had restored her strength and courage. If need be, she would again fight off any man who attempted to take her by force. Her glance fell on the empty pint champagne bottle. The nurse had left it on her bedside table. Used as a club, it would make a formidable weapon.

In spite of her renewed resolution the hour that followed was one of the most trying that Linda had ever endured. Greatly as she dreaded the coming of this unknown man, with half her mind she was eager for his arrival; for, through him, she hoped to learn the answer to the mystery that surrounded her transfer from a third-rate brothel to this luxurious prison.