Salt is Leaving

by J. B. Priestley

  ‘Peggy Pearson – yes,’ he told her. ‘One of our usherettes—’

  ‘I’d like to speak to her—’

  ‘So would I,’ he said wearily. ‘She was supposed to be here, putting on her uniform, at one o’clock. It’s now nearly quarter to three and she isn’t here. No message, of course. This happens all the time. You’d think these girls would enjoy wearing an attractive uniform in a picture theatre. The work’s not hard. We do everything we can for them. I’m referring to the company now, which owns eleven picture theatres like this one, all in the Midlands. We’re already employing over thirty coloured girls. Why? Simply because these Peggy Pearsons are here today and gone tomorrow. They don’t even tell you they’re dissatisfied—’

  ‘Could you give me her home address, please?’ said Maggie, tired of this long grumble.

  ‘I could, of course. But if it’s anything to do with her work here—’

  ‘It hasn’t. Purely a private matter. And rather urgent.’

  He opened a filing cabinet. ‘It’s 45 Olton Street.’

  ‘Thank you. Do you happen to know where Olton Street is?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea. I came here from Coventry only a few weeks ago. And – between ourselves – I’m hoping to be transferred to our Wolverhampton theatre any time now. 45 Olton Street,’ he repeated as he opened the door to show her out. ‘And if you find Peggy Pearson at home, you can tell her from me that if she reports for duty at one o’clock tomorrow, I’ll forget about today and won’t ask her for a doctor’s certificate. Between ourselves, of course.’

  Feeling rather reckless now, Maggie took a taxi to Olton Street, and then told the man to wait. A woman who looked as if she had been both drinking and crying answered her knock.

  ‘I’m not buying anything,’ she told Maggie, looking her over suspiciously. ‘And I don’t want that caper about what washing powder I use or what magazines I read.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. Are you Mrs Pearson? Well, I want to talk to your daughter Peggy—’

  ‘I might have known. What’s she been doing?’

  ‘Mrs Pearson, I don’t know her. But she wrote a letter to my father. And she may be able to tell me something I badly need to know. It’s all quite private and personal.’

  ‘You’d better come in.’ And Mrs Pearson led the way into a room that looked like a corner of a secondhand furniture store. It had a horrid smell. And Maggie could only sit about three feet – if that – away from Mrs Pearson, who was not really old, probably only in her forties, but looked hopelessly crumpled, stained, defeated. Trying to find her father, she arrived at this woman, this room, this street, together representing the first step in her search; and she felt half frightened, half depressed.

  ‘Mrs Pearson, I’m Maggie Culworth,’ she heard herself saying. ‘I work for my father who has a bookshop in Hemton. Without telling anybody where he was going, he left the shop at lunchtime on Monday. Afterwards I learnt at the bus station that he took a bus to Birkden. This morning a letter came for him, written by your daughter.’ Then she checked herself. ‘But I ought to be talking to her – not to you.’

  ‘Well, you can’t. She isn’t here. While I was out last night, visit­ing my friend Mrs Muston, her ladyship comes back from the Lyceum, packs her suitcase and goes off to Birmingham. I know that because she left a note on the kitchen table telling me she’d gone to Birmingham. That’s all – not another word. I don’t know where she is, who she’s with, what she’s doing – me, her own mother.’

  ‘Oh – how maddening!’ But Maggie was thinking about herself, not about the deprived and insulted mother.

  Mrs Pearson must have sensed this. ‘I don’t know what sort of a father you’ve got, but I know my own daughter. And if you’re thinking she’s gone off with a man his age – nearer sixty than fifty, I’ll bet – you can think again—’

  ‘But I never—’ Maggie gasped.

  ‘She can be silly about boys,’ Mrs Pearson cut in sharply, ‘like most of ’em now. But she wouldn’t look twice at a man old enough to be your father—’

  ‘Oh – do stop it. You’re just wasting time and temper. Of course she didn’t go off with him. I’d never dream of suggesting such a thing. Besides, as I told you, she wrote him this letter.’ She fumbled around in her bag. ‘Here it is. You can read it.’

  Mrs Pearson not only read it but read it aloud, very slowly, giving it an ominous air that made Maggie want to snatch the letter away. ‘Dr Salt came here to ask me about Noreen and from what he said I think I was wrong what I told you about her. And now there is trouble so look out but I am in a hurry to write this so cant explain.’ She waited a moment before handing back the letter, stared hard at Maggie, then said, still using an ominous tone: ‘Well, you can see what that means.’

  ‘No I can’t,’ Maggie told her impatiently. ‘If I could I wouldn’t be here. Do you know what it means?’

  ‘I know this. She went off to Birmingham – she has friends there and then there’s my sister – to get away from this trouble she mentions. I don’t say she was right – she ought to have waited and then asked me what she ought to do – but it all begins to make sense.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t to me. Who’s Noreen, and where does she come into it?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Oh – really!’ Maggie could have slapped her. ‘Of course I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, your father does, doesn’t he? Peggy wrote that letter to him. She says she told him something about Noreen. It’s there in the letter, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is, Mrs Pearson.’ Maggie was making a great effort to control herself. ‘But, you see, I’m looking for my father. And if your daughter’s gone away, then I’ll talk to this Noreen.’

  ‘You can’t. She’s been missing for the last three weeks.’

  ‘Oh – no!’ It was a cry of dismay, not a contradiction. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, she had a room here. She walked out one night and never came back. Dr Salt knows all about it. He was Noreen’s doctor. Ours as well.’

  ‘Then I’ll go and see Dr Salt.’ Maggie got up, glad to be going. ‘And if somebody tells me he’s missing, I’ll start screaming. Do you know where I can find him?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I used to see him at the surgery, but he’s finished down there. He’s leaving Birkden.’ Clearly Mrs Pearson enjoyed making these announcements.

  Maggie muttered something about finding him in the telephone book, then hurried out, hoping she had done with Mrs Pearson for ever.

  3

  The man who opened the door was smallish but rather bulky and was probably about forty-five. He was wearing an old corduroy jacket over a dark blue sports shirt. He had that fine dusty sort of hair, but darker and bristling eyebrows. Behind him a gramophone was making a tremendous sound, so that she had to shout and felt foolish. ‘Good afternoon. Are you Dr Salt?’

  He nodded. ‘No longer in practice, though.’

  ‘I don’t want to consult you as a doctor,’ she shouted. ‘It’s about Peggy Pearson and somebody called Noreen.’

  He nodded again, and then, instead of replying, he opened the door properly and waved her in. As soon as he had closed the door behind her, he hurried past her to turn off the gramophone.

  ‘Scherzo of the Bruckner Seventh Symphony – Klemperer and the Philharmonia,’ he said solemnly. ‘But do sit down. This isn’t a bad chair.’ He removed a pile of books from it. ‘There you are. I’m about to move on and I’m trying to decide which books and records to keep. Tricky business. Going to take me longer than I thought.’ He removed two record cases from a large armchair, sat down, and began lighting a pipe. ‘Now then. What about Peggy Pearson and Noreen? Or, first, what about you?’

  ‘I’m Maggie Culworth. I don’t live here but in Hemton—’

  ‘Bookshop – High Street?’

  ‘Oh – you know it. I’m so glad. Yes, that’s my father’s shop, and I work there.’

&n
bsp; ‘Been in a few times. Downstairs chiefly – secondhand department. Talked to your father – and I seem to remember a comfortable middle-aged woman—’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Chapman.’ Maggie was still feeling glad. After the Lyceum and Mrs Pearson, this seemed so sensible and cosy. ‘Probably you’ve never seen me because I’m often working in the little office at the back. But, anyhow, you’ve met my father, and it’s because of him I’m here, Dr Salt.’ She explained carefully what her father had done on Monday, and then went on: ‘As you’ve met him, perhaps you can understand why we’re so mystified and worried. He’s always so cautious, so conscientious, so reliable—’

  ‘He would be – yes,’ said Dr Salt. ‘Not the kind of man to go off and leave you all worrying about him.’

  ‘That’s just it. Well, then this letter came for him this morning. And as you’re mentioned in it, I don’t see why you shouldn’t read it.’ He seemed to take in the letter almost at a glance; he was obviously an exceptionally quick reader. Then he looked at her, nodded and handed back the letter. ‘I ought to tell you,’ she said hurriedly, ‘that I tried to find Peggy Pearson at the Lyceum cinema, but she wasn’t there. Then I went to see her mother, who told me that Peggy rushed off to Birmingham last night—’

  ‘Away from the trouble she mentions in the letter?’

  ‘That’s what her mother seems to think. But she’s a muddled sort of woman, and she wasn’t in last night and so didn’t hear what Peggy had to say. Dr Salt, does any of this make any sense to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Most of it.’

  ‘Thank goodness! Can you tell me?’

  ‘Certainly. But I can’t tell you how your father comes to be involved. So we’ll leave that for the moment. I saw Peggy Pearson yesterday afternoon at the Lyceum to ask her some questions about a friend of hers, Noreen Wilks, who used to be one of my patients. Peggy believed that Noreen had gone to the South of France with her boy friend. I told her I didn’t believe this. On the morning of September 12th I signed her application form for a passport. That evening she went out at the usual time and never came back. Now just after I had left Peggy, I think she was threatened by an unpleasant young man, who afterwards paid me a visit here. I also think she ran into the office a few yards away, and there she hastily wrote that letter to your father. He probably saw her on Monday afternoon, and she told him she thought Noreen had gone abroad.’

  ‘And now she’s telling him that you didn’t think so,’ said Maggie hastily, if only to prove she wasn’t a complete fool.

  ‘And something else equally important. Read the second sentence.’

  ‘And now there is trouble so look out but I am in a hurry to write this so cant explain.’ Maggie looked at him. ‘The unpleasant young man?’

  ‘I think so. You realize, of course, Miss Culworth, that Noreen Wilks is the central figure here—’

  ‘She isn’t to me,’ Maggie told him bluntly. ‘I don’t care about Noreen Wilks, only about my father. That’s natural, isn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly. But it may not be good enough.’ He gave her a sharp, bright look. It was rather startling, because most of the time he looked so lazy and sleepy. An odd man. She couldn’t decide if she liked him or disliked him. ‘It’s possible,’ he went on, without any hardening of tone, ‘you may have to take an interest in Noreen Wilks.’

  ‘You think my father came here to ask about her?’

  ‘He may have had other things to do, but we know he did that. And now he seems to be missing. And we might say that Peggy Pearson is missing too. And I know that Noreen has been missing for the last three weeks. Too many people missing – don’t you think, Miss Culworth?’

  ‘I do. I also think you’d better call me Maggie.’

  ‘Certainly, Maggie.’

  ‘Now, could you please explain about this Noreen Wilks?’

  ‘Shortly,’ he said, getting up. ‘But first, can you drink China tea – very good China tea – without milk and sugar?’

  ‘I can and I often do. So if you’re offering me some – I’d love it.’

  He picked his way through the muddle, but turned before he reached the door leading to the kitchen. ‘While you’re waiting, Maggie, I wonder if you’d mind looking round to see if you can find – first, the autobiography of John Cowper Powys; biggish and, I think, brown binding – and, secondly, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, played by the Boston, two records in an album?’

  Maggie didn’t know where to begin, there was such a muddle of books and records all round the room. It was a maddening room if only because before this Salt-made earthquake it must have been both comfortable and charming. Above the white shelves, now cleared of books, were some coloured lithographs and a few bold foreign posters. The curtains at each end had been chosen by somebody who had an eye for colour and design. There were several Chinese pots, yellow, apple-green, dark red, along the tops of the shelves. There were glimpses of good rugs, though now rucked and dusty, between the piles of books and records. It was all a dreadful mess now, of course, but she felt she could have loved this room before Dr Salt began to think of leaving it, when everything was in its place. She was also ready to bet almost anything that some woman had helped him to furnish and decorate it. She found the Mahler album, but gave the Powys up as a bad job. And when he came back with the tea tray, she told him so. ‘It must have been staring you in the face,’ she added.

  ‘That’s what happens,’ he told her. ‘Once you don’t see something, you keep on not seeing it.’ He handed her a rather large but delicate cup, without a saucer. ‘It happens all too often in my profession. We miss what is staring us in the face.’

  ‘Thank you for this tea,’ said Maggie after a silent interval. ‘It’s delicious.’ Then, after some hesitation: ‘I’ve been telling myself what a charming room this must have been before you began pulling yourself out of it. And I couldn’t help feeling that a woman must have had a hand in it originally.’

  ‘My wife. She died three years ago. Leukaemia.’

  Deciding in a flash not to say she was sorry or make any apology, Maggie said: ‘It was a good marriage, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. We were very happy. Perhaps we used up our ration. Do you like Birkden, Maggie?’

  ‘I hardly know it. But I don’t find it interesting. It’s the wrong size, neither one thing nor the other. I spent five years in London. Then I came back to Hemton, which is small and sensible and still attractive in spots. I can take Hemton, I can take London, but not a town like this, too big and yet not big enough. And as you’re leaving it, I imagine you don’t care for it much.’

  ‘I don’t – no. It was all right when there were two of us. But now, having got rid of my practice, I’d like to get out as soon as I can. Go a long way, if possible. But I’m not going until I know what happened to Noreen Wilks.’ He said this very quietly, in his usual rather sleepy tone, but Maggie knew at once that he meant exactly what he said.

  ‘Tell me about her. Was she somebody – rather special for you, Dr Salt?’

  ‘As a person – not at all. She was rather prettier than most – but I’ve had dozens just like her in and out of my surgery. Thoughtless – silly – though not vicious in any way. But she was important to me as a patient because she was suffering from a type of kidney disease I’m particularly interested in. Hoped to specialize in it once. Might still have a try. I’d hit on a treatment that was keeping her going nicely. If she missed it for a couple of weeks, she’d soon run into a screaming hypertension and after that she’d be fighting for her life. She knew this. I’d given her a thorough fright about it.’ He explained then, as he had done to Superintendent Hurst, how he had made Noreen promise to see a doctor, showing him the brief report on her case that she always carried in her bag, wherever she might be. ‘I don’t think she went abroad,’ he concluded. ‘And any English doctor would have got in touch with me – or Dr Baldwin, who now has my practice. He’s heard nothing, and neither have I. And she’s been missing no
w for three weeks.’

  ‘So – what do you think?’

  ‘I could be wrong,’ he said slowly. ‘But I think she’s dead.’ He kept silent for a few moments. ‘Have some more tea, Maggie.’

  ‘Thank you.’ While he was filling her cup, she said hesitantly: ‘Dr Salt – I suppose I’ve no right to say this – but I can’t help feeling that you haven’t told me all you know.’

  ‘Yes, I have. All I know. The rest is so much guessing – some of it pretty wild. And, of course, your father doesn’t come into it. He’s quite new in the picture—’

  ‘Yes, but there’s the unpleasant young man who seems to have frightened Peggy Pearson and who came to see you, you said. Where does he come in? What did he want? Or am I being too curious?’

  ‘I might think so, Maggie, if it weren’t for one thing. Your father’s somehow involved in this.’

  ‘I know.’ She blinked hard. ‘Though I can’t imagine how or why. But I’m sure now he is.’

  He nodded, then drank some tea and lit his pipe again, using what seemed to be an outsize gas lighter. He smoked and said nothing for what must have been about a minute, while Maggie controlled her impatience.

  Finally: ‘Who do you have at home with you?’

  ‘My mother. And I’m not going to tell her any of this. My brother, Alan, who’s several years older than me, not married, and lectures on physics at the University – Hemtonshire, I mean, of course.’

  ‘Ah – clever chap?’

  ‘Very clever in some ways. Idiotic in others. Hasn’t really quite grown up. But I’ll tell him everything, of course. He might be a great help.’

  ‘Would you like to leave it to him?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ She was indignant. ‘Besides, I can spare more time.’

  He waited a moment. ‘Because your father’s somehow involved in this Noreen Wilks business, it doesn’t follow that you ought to be— No, listen to me, Maggie. You still have a choice. Either go home now and try to forget about Noreen – and me. Or – help me to find out what happened to her – in the hope you might discover where your father is and what he’s doing. I believe, though I can’t prove it, that there’s a definite connection. And I could do with some help, from both you and your brother.’