Salt is Leaving

by J. B. Priestley

  ‘I’m not blaming anybody, Mr Aricson. I’m merely asking one question. What became of Noreen Wilks?’

  ‘I don’t know. And to tell you the truth, I don’t care. Whatever arrangements Sir Arnold made – probably for her to clear out immediately – he didn’t bring me in. I admit that’s unusual – it’s part of my job to attend to things for him – but I can’t help it, that’s how it was. And I’m ready to swear any sort of oath you want that I know no more than you do about Noreen Wilks.’

  Dr Salt waited a moment. ‘All right. I believe you. Do you believe him, Maggie?’

  ‘I don’t want to – but I’m afraid I do.’

  ‘Quite so. There you are, Mr Aricson. We don’t want to believe you, but we’re afraid we do.’

  ‘I’m glad I could satisfy you. Well—’ And he made one of those preparing-to-rise movements that so often lift callers out of their chairs.

  ‘Please – if you don’t mind – just another question or two. Now I don’t see Donnington asking our friend Donald Dews to fake his Book—’

  ‘No, Dr Salt. I did that.’

  ‘I thought you did. But why?’

  ‘I’d had my orders to discourage you—’

  ‘I know that. But I still ask why.’

  ‘Oh – come off it, man.’ Aricson’s patience had suddenly vanished. ‘I’ve explained what happened that night. Then the boy’s suicide was wrapped up and put away. So the last thing Sir Arnold wants is somebody like you going to the police and then round the town – asking questions. And, of course, I agree with him. No questions – no scandal.’

  ‘You’ve missed my point,’ said Dr Salt, not taking the same impatient tone but suggesting an inexhaustible store of patience. ‘I know that you and Donnington are afraid of scandal – though I’m neither a reporter nor a policeman. But what is this scandal you’re afraid of?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I’ve told you all I know.’

  ‘You mean – I should ask Donnington—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t listen to you. He wouldn’t even admit his son had died from anything but an accident. He’d threaten you with an action for slander.’

  ‘Maggie, we ought to go,’ said Dr Salt, almost rolling out of his chair. He was a very untidy getter-up and sitter-down, though not really fat. ‘Mr Aricson, thank you for seeing us. I can’t pretend to know what you’re talking about.’ He motioned Maggie to go ahead of him towards the door and then spoke over his shoulder. ‘You seem to be protecting yourselves against a scandal that isn’t there. I mustn’t let something out, although there isn’t anything. You’re helping Donnington to keep the lid firmly down on nothing.’ They were now crossing the hall. ‘There can’t be anything wrong, but it mustn’t get out. Well, I’ll try to accept all that – though it may take some doing – if you’ll just ask Donnington, on my behalf, one simple question.’ He turned and looked hard at Aricson. ‘Just this. Where is Noreen Wilks? Goodnight.’

  2

  They were back in Dr Salt’s flat, back in the muddle of books and records again, drinking his very good China tea. He had offered to run her straight home from Aricson’s; he thought she was tired, and she was; but it was only just after ten, her mother would still be up, and she hated the thought of answering a lot of questions – and with no mention of Noreen Wilks – before either having a night’s rest or talking to Alan. So while Dr Salt was making the tea, she had telephoned home, to say that she might be late, and had found her mother more angry than fretful. She had been to the police and though they had not been rude exactly, they had refused to take her seriously. If husbands who had been away for only two and a half days were to be considered officially ‘missing’, police stations would soon be like lunatic asylums. And she could not persuade them that Edward Culworth was quite different from the sort of men they had in mind. And what did Maggie think she was doing? To which Maggie replied that she was only in Birkden for her father’s sake and was doing the best she could. And she wasn’t quite sure what Alan was doing; and that, at least, was no lie.

  ‘Do you think I’m right,’ she asked Dr Salt over the teacups, ‘to keep this Noreen Wilks thing from my mother?’

  ‘Yes, Maggie. If your mother had been the kind of woman you could tell anything and everything, you wouldn’t be asking that question. It answers itself.’

  ‘All right, then. But mind you,’ she went on, rather defiantly, ‘I’m positive there wasn’t anything – y’know, sexual – between him and Noreen Wilks.’

  ‘I’m not positive, but I’m inclined to agree with you. I don’t really know your father—’

  ‘He’s a very conscientious, hard-working, modest, shy bookseller—’

  ‘Quite so. And Noreen was young, even for her age. No, it’s something else. Perhaps he knew her parents – or one of them. By the way, did he come into Birkden fairly often?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Once or twice a month, perhaps. He didn’t like Birkden. I think he came here specially on Monday to ask about Noreen Wilks. But what made you suspect he went to that Fabrics Club?’

  ‘The behaviour of the barman and Dews when I so carefully mentioned you Culworths. The barman went blank on it. Dews, who vastly overrates himself as a smart liar, thought he could be cheeky with it. Really – and ought they to? I mean, is there something wrong with him?’ Dr Salt quoted, almost capturing Dews’s impudent manner and tone. ‘Bouncing it – for a giggle with the barman after we’d gone.’

  ‘What a good memory you have! I couldn’t have recalled exactly what he said – and how he said it.’

  ‘Unless I keep my wits about me, Maggie, I’ll be wasting valuable time. It’s my belief your father went to the Fabrics Club some time on Monday, after he’d talked to Peggy Pearson at the Lyceum. What happened after that, of course, I don’t know. This explains something that had been puzzling me before you arrived, this afternoon. I couldn’t understand how these Fabrics people – in or out of the Club – could be on the alert so quickly. The answer is – I didn’t start it yesterday morning. Your father started it on Monday. Then something happened—’

  ‘To my father?’ Maggie cried apprehensively.

  ‘Involving your father – yes. Nothing terrible – don’t worry.’

  ‘How do you know it isn’t?’

  ‘Because somebody like Dews wouldn’t dare to cover it up. He’d be terrified. But he knows something we don’t know about your father.’

  ‘My mother said she went to the police tonight, and they just wouldn’t take her seriously.’

  ‘She can’t expect them to. You and she know this isn’t like your father, but they don’t. However, I’ll be talking to Superintendent Hurst tomorrow, and he’s not going to laugh me off.’

  ‘The shop’s closed tomorrow afternoon, anyhow. Can I come and see you? I must know what’s happening – and I’m certain now my father’s mixed up in this Noreen Wilks business. I won’t be a nuisance. And perhaps there’s something I could do.’ She gave him a long, appealing look.

  ‘Have another cup of tea? Good. Yes,’ he said as he took her cup, ‘I’ll be glad to see you. I may be badly in need of a witness soon. Things may hot up. It may be one man against a town. And, anyhow, I’m not naturally a hermit, a solitary, and I can feel lonely. I’ll expect you about half past two, Maggie.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She said this both for the tea he was offering her again and for the invitation. ‘I don’t really like talking about Noreen Wilks. I can’t help disliking her – because of my father – and also somehow she gives me the creeps. But did you really believe Mr Thing – Aricson – when he said he didn’t know what had happened to her?’

  ‘Yes. He really doesn’t know. I’m sure of that. But there’s something else. I could just catch a flicker of it. He doesn’t want to know. I’ll swear to that, Maggie. He’s a type who naturally wants to know – to be in on everything – but not this time. He’s closed his mind and put a padlock on it. But that doesn’t mean I can go ahead and f
ind out what happened to Noreen. One way or another he’ll try to stop me.’

  Maggie finished her second cup and put it on the tray. ‘I know why that girl gives me the creeps. You talk about her as if she were dead.’

  He nodded. ‘I think she is.’

  She suddenly felt she wanted to be at home and in her bed. ‘Perhaps I could go now. Or do you think I ought to ring up Alan at that woman’s?’

  ‘I’m against that, Maggie. Give him a chance.’

  ‘A chance? What – to fall in love with a woman like that?’

  ‘He might do worse.’

  ‘Who with? A call girl?’

  ‘She’s not as tough as she pretends to be,’ said Dr Salt. ‘I’m prepared to bet she’s here because some man treated her badly elsewhere – probably in London.’

  ‘Does that mean she has to behave like a tart and a – a procuress?’ Had she given herself away by flaring up like that? Did Dr Salt’s quick look mean anything?

  Apparently not. ‘It might do your brother no harm to make a fool of himself. Besides, she might be useful to us.’

  ‘Oh – rubbish! I wouldn’t trust her a yard. I must go, Dr Salt. All of a sudden I’m feeling really exhausted. Too much has happened today. And I don’t enjoy it – as I believe half the time you do.’

  If he had started arguing, she felt she would have screamed. But he didn’t; and though he looked quite amiable, he never said a word, not even when, about halfway home, she began crying in a small, miserable, idiotic way, and a few words of comfort would have been welcome; he just drove in silence, a cold pipe in his mouth, probably thinking and thinking about the wretched Noreen Wilks.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dr Salt’s Thursday Morning

  1

  Dr Salt breakfasted off a large cup of coffee and a small slice of brown toast, which he covered with butter and honey. When he had done it was nearly nine o’clock. He lit a pipe and went outside to take a look at the morning, which even in Birkden was autumnal, beautiful, melancholy. A young man called Gooch, who lived on the second floor but was often away, taking orders for electrical fittings, joined him outside the front door. ‘’Morning, Dr Salt. When are you leaving us?’

  ‘Soon. Early part of next week, perhaps. I’ve one or two things to clear up.’

  ‘Disposed of your flat?’

  ‘Yes. A couple waiting to move in as soon as my stuff has gone.’

  ‘Nice people?’ asked Gooch hopefully.

  ‘Not nice, not nasty. Dummies. No, that’s not fair,’ Dr Salt added with some haste. ‘Only met them twice. They may be all right.’

  ‘Glad to be leaving Birkden, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, after seven years I’ve had enough of it. Though I don’t suppose it’s any worse than twenty or thirty other towns about the same size.’

  ‘That’s what I tell Joan – my wife – but she can’t wait to get out of it. Always on at me. You know how women are.’

  ‘Biologically – yes. Otherwise, I don’t. Unless I really know them, of course.’

  ‘You don’t think they’re all alike?’ Gooch sounded astonished.

  ‘Certainly not. It’s the men who think women are all alike who are really all alike.’

  ‘You surprise me, Doctor. But I must go and earn a few pennies. ’Bye now.’

  Dr Salt sent several puffs of smoke after the hurrying Gooch, and then went indoors to telephone his acquaintance, Sergeant Broadbent, at police headquarters. ‘Two things, please, Sergeant. I believe Superintendent Hurst is coming to see me here about five o’clock today. Could you confirm that, please? The other thing is this. Could you possibly find out for me if an ambulance called at the Fabrics Club some time on Monday evening? And if it did, then where did it go? I’d like you to call me here as soon as you conveniently can – Birkden 52317. You’ve got all that? Thank you very much, Sergeant Broadbent.’

  He cleared and then washed up his breakfast crockery and cutlery, slowly, absent-mindedly, but quite efficiently. He picked up several bills, took them to his desk at the far end of the sitting room, made out the cheques they asked for and addressed the necessary envelopes. Then he stared at the room’s muddle of books and records and decided he could do nothing about it, not this morning. The telephone rang – and it was Sergeant Broadbent.

  ‘The Super’ll come round about five this afternoon, Dr Salt. And I’ve given him your address. I didn’t tell him about your ambulance inquiry. But, anyhow, it’s negative. No ambulance was called for the Fabrics Club or anywhere near it on Monday evening. That’s certain. Does it surprise you?’

  ‘No. In the morning nothing surprises me. But now and then, late in the evening, I’m occasionally surprised.’

  ‘You’re a bit of a one, aren’t you, Dr Salt?’

  ‘No. But many thanks, Sergeant Broadbent.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. But perhaps you’d like to tell me now what that inquiry was in aid of – eh?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be interested. It was just a vague idea. But thank you, again.’

  After putting down the receiver, Dr Salt made no other movement for a minute or two. He was trying to remember the name of the other doctor, junior to Dr Bennett, that Dews had mentioned. Then he recalled it – Lemmert. Hastily he looked for it in the tele­phone book, and was much relieved to find it there. He didn’t want to talk to Dr Lemmert in the factory clinic, under the same roof as Aricson and Sir Arnold Donnington. With equal haste he dialled the number he had found in the book.

  ‘This is Dr Salt,’ he told the girl at the other end. ‘I want to see Dr Lemmert. It’s rather urgent but it won’t take long, and I can be with him in five or ten minutes.’

  After a short delay, the girl said Dr Lemmert ought to be leaving almost immediately but that if Dr Salt, who mustn’t keep him long, went round at once, Dr Lemmert would see him. The girl’s tone suggested that Dr Salt should consider himself a very, very lucky man. He saw her as a soulful brunette whose large dark eyes would never lose a chance of dwelling upon her wonderful Dr Lemmert. And he was quite right; she was.

  Dr Salt had never seen Dr Lemmert before, and after one quick look he decided that it would be all right if he never saw him again. Dr Lemmert was a tall, thin, youngish man with a long nose and not much forehead or breadth to his head. Most youngish doctors were either hearty and almost back-slapping or were inclined to be pompous. Dr Lemmert was high in the pompous class. Dr Salt decided at once on a brutal attack.

  ‘After they sent for you at the Fabrics Club on Monday night,’ he said, staring hard, ‘what did you do with your patient?’

  ‘I beg your pardon—’

  ‘You said your time was precious – and now you’re wasting it – mine too,’ Dr Salt continued, severely. ‘His name’s Culworth. He’s a bookseller in Hemton. I’m a family friend. His daughter’s coming to see me this afternoon. That’s why I’m here. Now then, Dr Lemmert, what about him?’

  Dr Lemmert’s pomposity, together with his recent adoption by United Fabrics, glasses of sherry with old Dr Bennett, and perhaps the devotion of dark-eyes in the next room, left him wide open to this frontal attack. If Dr Salt had cleared his throat, looked apologetic and asked a timid question or two, Dr Lemmert would have had time to make up his mind and then tell his visitor not to talk nonsense but go away. Caught off guard, he hesitated, and this was fatal to any chance of a complete denial.

  ‘Well?’ And Dr Salt was still staring hard.

  ‘He met with an accident not far from the Fabrics Club, in the grounds of that large empty house—’

  ‘The old Worsley place?’

  ‘Yes. Some concussion. I didn’t like his heart. And as soon as he was conscious, he was obviously under great emotional stress. Complete rest – sedation of course—’ And Dr Lemmert’s voice, already down to a murmur, faded away.

  ‘But no ambulance?’

  ‘It saved time to make use of one of the company’s vans—’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Dr Salt. ‘It s
aved something, but not time. Where did you take him?’

  ‘Where he has been having the best possible care—’

  ‘I didn’t think he was tied up in a cellar. But I want to know where he is.’

  Dr Lemmert had now recovered from the original assault. ‘He’s under proper medical care, Dr Salt. The company have accepted financial responsibility, even though he had no right to be wandering about those grounds. He’s my patient, not yours, and I see no reason why I should tell you where he is – especially as he’s made considerable progress during the last two days. And now, if you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘Just a minute, Lemmert. I won’t press you to tell me where he is. I can soon find out. And when I do, his daughter will be with me. But if there’s any hanky-panky – and I can tell it a mile off – you and the nursing home will be in a hell of a pickle. You didn’t send for an ambulance. You haven’t tried to notify anybody. You’ve now refused information demanded on behalf of his family. So if you or the matron give him one unnecessary shot of anything, to keep him dopey and quiet, you’re over your heads in trouble. I’ll do you this favour, Dr Lemmert. I’ll find him myself – so you can tell Aricson or Donnington it wasn’t your fault. But try any funny work from now on – and you’ll wish you’d never heard of United Anglo-Belgian Fabrics. Good morning.’

  He went out so quickly that he bumped into the soulful brunette, just behind the door. She gave him a look of utter disgust, this man who had been bullying wonderful Dr Lemmert. ‘Goodbye, dear!’ he called cheerfully.

  2

  Back in his car he did not drive off at once but filled and lit a pipe while deciding he ought to pay another visit to 45 Olton Street and Mrs Pearson. Moving cautiously along the wretched length of Olton Street, which a number of very young children were trying to use as a playground, he thought, not for the first time, that a people who accepted their Olton Streets, generation after generation, without throwing a few bricks when £3,000,000 were spent on two houses in Downing Street, probably deserved what they got. Mrs Pearson, though not dressed to receive company, was glad to see him.